John Verdon: Let the Devil Sleep

Gurney quietly followed the instructions.

“I have some questions. You must answer them quickly. Do you understand?”

“I understand.”

“If the answer is not quick, I will assume it’s a lie. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Good. First question: Is Clinter coming here?”

“I don’t know.”

“You just told him on the phone not to come.”

“That’s right.”

“Do you expect him to come anyway?”

“He may. I don’t know. He’s not a predictable man.”

“That’s true. You must keep telling me the truth. The truth will keep you alive. You understand?”

“Yes.” Gurney sounded perfectly calm, as he often did in extreme situations. But inside, at that moment, he was full of fear and fury. Fear of the situation he’d walked into and fury at the arrogant miscalculation that had put him there.

He’d assumed that the Good Shepherd would conform to the timing he’d spelled out in his scene with Kim and that the man would show up at the cabin two or three hours before Clinter and Gurney’s supposed midnight meeting. In the welter of facts and twists and what-ifs swirling around in his head, he’d failed to consider the obvious possibility that the Shepherd might show up much earlier than that-maybe a good twelve hours earlier.

What the hell had he been thinking? That the Shepherd was a logical man and the logical time to arrive would be a few hours before midnight. And therefore that’s what would happen, issue resolved, on to the next point? Jesus, how fucking stupid! He told himself he was only human, and humans make mistakes. But that didn’t take the bitter edge off his making such a deadly one.

The throaty, half-vocalized whisper grew louder. “It was your hope to trick me into coming here? To somehow take me by surprise?”

The aptness of the question was unnerving. “Yes.”

“The truth. Good. It keeps you alive. So, now, your phone call to Clinter. You believe what you told him?”

“About the killings?”

“Of course about the killings.”

“Yes, I do.”

For several seconds all Gurney heard was the sound of his questioner’s breathing-followed by a question so softly uttered it was barely louder than the breathing itself. “What other thoughts do you have?”

“My only thought right now is, are you going to shoot me?”

“Of course. But the more truth you tell me, the longer you live. Simple. You understand?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Now tell me all your thoughts about the killings. Your true thoughts.”

“My thoughts are mostly questions.”

“What questions?”

Gurney wondered if the hoarse whisper was a vocal impairment or a way of concealing the Good Shepherd’s real voice. He suspected the latter. The implications of that were interesting, but he had to focus now on the immediate need to stay alive.

“I wonder how many other people you’ve killed, besides the ones we know about. Possibly quite a few. Am I right about that?”

“Of course.”

Gurney was startled by the frankness of the answer and felt a fleeting moment of hope that the man could be engaged in a kind of dialogue-that his pride might drive him to boast of things he’d done. After all, sociopaths did have egos and enjoyed living in the echo chamber of their own narratives of power and ruthlessness. Perhaps he could get the man talking about himself, and thus stretch the window of opportunity for outside intervention.

But then the coin of hope flipped to its opposite side, and Gurney saw the clear implication of the man’s willingness to speak: It carried no risk, because Gurney would soon be dead.

The whisper became a parody of gentleness. “What else do you wonder about?”

“I wonder about Robby Meese and your relationship with him. I wonder how much he did on his own and how much you encouraged him to do. I wonder why you killed him when you did. I wonder if you thought his so-called suicide would be believed.”

“What else?”

“I wonder if you were really trying to put Max Clinter in the frame for Ruth Blum’s murder or if you were just playing a silly game.”

“What else?”

“I wonder if you thought your message on Ruth’s Facebook page would be believed.”

“What else?”

“I wonder about my barn.” Gurney was trying to string out the interchange as long as he could, with as many pauses as he could insert. The longer it lasted, the better-in every way.

“Keep talking, Detective.”

“I wonder about the GPS locators on the cars. I wonder if the one on Kim’s car was your idea or Robby’s. Robby the stalker.”

“What else?”

“Some of the things you’ve done are very clever, and some are very stupid. I wonder if you know which is which.”

“Provocation is pointless, Detective. Have you come to the end of your thoughts?”

“I wonder about the White Mountain Strangler. Such an odd case. Are you familiar with it? It has certain interesting features.”

There was a long silence. Time equaled hope. Time gave Gurney the space to think, perhaps even a chance to get to his gun on the table behind him.

When the Shepherd spoke again, the purr was syrupy. “Any final thoughts?”

“Just one more. How could someone so smart make such a colossal mistake at Lakeside Collision?”

There was a long silence. An alarming silence that could mean anything. Perhaps the Good Shepherd had finally been jarred off balance. Or perhaps his finger was tightening on the trigger. A tremor ran through Gurney’s stomach.

“What are you talking about?”

“You’ll find out soon enough.”

“I want to know now.” There was a new intensity in the whisper, along with the glint of something moving in the shaft of moonlight.

Gurney caught his first glimpse of the barrel of a huge silver-plated pistol, no more than six feet away.

“Now,” the man repeated. “Tell me about Lakeside Collision.”

“You left some identification there.”

“I don’t carry identification.”

“That night you did.”

“Tell me exactly what it was. Tell me right now.”

The way Gurney saw the situation, there was no good answer, no answer likely to save him. There was certainly no way that revealing the tire-track discovery would result in a reprieve. And begging for his life would be worse than useless. There was only one option that offered him even a glimmer of staying alive for as much as another minute: stonewalling, refusing to divulge anything more.

Gurney tried to keep his voice from shaking as he spoke. “You left the solution to the puzzle in the parking lot of Lakeside Collision.”

“I don’t like riddles. You have three seconds to answer my question.”

“One.” He raised his pistol slowly toward Gurney’s face.

“Two.” The barrel glinted in the shaft of moonlight.

“Three.” He pulled the trigger.

Gurney’s reflexive jerk away from the flash and the deafening blast would have sent his chair toppling over backward if it weren’t for the edge of the table. For a minute he couldn’t see anything, and all he could hear was the harsh, ringing echo of the gunshot.

He felt some wetness on the left side of his neck, a slight trickle. He put his hand to the side of his face, felt more wetness on his earlobe. As he moved his fingers higher, he discovered a searing, stinging spot at the very top of the ear-the source of the blood.

“Put your hands back on top of your head. Now.” The whispery voice seemed far away, lost in the reverberation in his ears.

But he did his best to comply.

“You hear me, yes?” said the distant, muffled voice.