John Verdon - Let the Devil Sleep

“Can any of that be expressed in English?”

“I want to find out if anyone in official law enforcement actually has any solid facts, or if the sanctified theory of the Good Shepherd case is as fragile as I think it is.”

“That’s what you’re doing tomorrow with the fish guy?”

“Yes. Agent Trout. At his cabin in the Adirondacks. On Lake Sorrow.”

Just then Kyle and Kim came in the side door, accompanied by a rush of chilly air.

At dawn the next morning, Gurney was back at the table with his first coffee of the day. Sitting by the French doors, he was watching a daddy longlegs dragging a captured earwig along the edge of the stone patio. The earwig was still putting up a fight.

For a moment Gurney was tempted to intervene-until he realized that his impulse was neither kind nor empathetic. It was nothing more than a desire to brush the struggle out of sight.

“What’s the matter?” It was Madeleine’s voice.

He looked up with a start to find her in a pink T-shirt and green madras shorts, fresh from her shower, standing next to him.

“Just observing the horrors of nature,” he said.

She looked out through the glass doors at the eastern sky. “It’s going to be a nice day.”

He nodded without really hearing her. Another thought had absorbed his attention. “Before I went to bed last night, Kyle said something about going back to Manhattan this morning. Do you recall if he mentioned what time he was planning to leave?”

“They left an hour ago.”

“What?”

“They left an hour ago. You were sound asleep. They didn’t want to wake you.”

“They?”

Madeleine gave him a look that seemed to convey her surprise at his surprise. “Kim has to be in the city this afternoon to record something for The Orphans of Murder . Kyle persuaded her to go down early with him, so they could spend the day doing things together. She didn’t appear to need much persuading. In fact, I think the plan is for her to stay over at his apartment tonight. I can’t believe you didn’t see this coming.”

“Maybe I did, but not so fast.”

Madeleine went to the coffeemaker on the sink island and poured herself a cup. “Does it worry you?”

“Unknowns worry me. Surprises worry me.”

She took a sip and returned to the table. “Unfortunately, life is full of them.”

“So I’ve discovered.”

She stood by the table, gazing through the far window toward the widening swath of light above the ridge. “Does Kim worry you?”

“To some extent. I wonder about the Robby Meese thing. I mean, that guy is pretty warped, and she let him move in with her. There’s something wrong with that picture.”

“I agree, but maybe not the way you mean it. A lot of people, mostly women, are attracted to damaged individuals. The more damage, the better. They get involved with criminals, drug addicts. They want to fix somebody. It’s a horrible basis for a relationship, but not that unusual. I see it every day at the clinic. Maybe that’s what was going on with Kim and Robby Meese-until she found the strength and sanity to get him out of her life.”

With his detailed route directions in hand, Gurney left shortly after sunrise for Lake Sorrow. The drive through the Catskill foothills and rolling Schoharie farmlands up into the Adirondacks was a journey into discomfiting memories. Memories of preteen vacations at Brant Lake with his mother at the height of her emotional estrangement from his father. An estrangement that left her needy, anxious, and physically clingy. Even now, close to forty years later, the memories cast an unsettling pall.

As he drove farther north, the pitch of the mountain slopes increased, the valleys narrowed, and the shadows deepened. According to the instructions he’d been given by Trout’s assistant, the last road he’d be taking with any posted identification would be Shutter Spur. From that point on, he’d have to rely on precise odometer readings to make the proper turns in a maze of old logging roads. The forest was part of a vast private landholding in which there were only a few seasonal cabins, no stores, no gas stations, no people, and major gaps in cell service.

The AWD system on Gurney’s Outback was barely adequate to negotiate the terrain. After the fifth turn, which his instructions indicated would take him directly to Trout’s cabin, he found himself instead in a small clearing.

He got out of the car and walked around the perimeter. There were four rough trails leading from the clearing into the forest in various directions, but no way of telling which one he was supposed to take. It was 8:58 A.M.-just two minutes shy of his projected arrival time.

He was sure he’d followed all the instructions accurately and reasonably sure that the punctilious-sounding man on the phone was not likely to have made a mistake. That left a couple of possible explanations, but only one he considered probable.

He returned to his car, got in, opened the side window for a bit of fresh air, reclined the seat as far as it would go, lay back, and closed his eyes. Every so often he checked the time. At nine-fifteen he heard the engine of an approaching vehicle. It stopped not far away.

When the expected knock came, he opened his eyes, yawned, raised his seat, and lowered the window. The man standing there had a lean, hard appearance, with sharp brown eyes and close-cropped black hair.

“You David Gurney?”

“You expecting anyone else?”

“You need to leave your car here and come up in the ATV.” He gestured toward a camouflage-painted Kawasaki Mule.

“You didn’t mention this to me on the phone.”

The man’s eyelids twitched. Maybe he didn’t expect his voice to be so easily recognized. “The direct route isn’t passable at the current time.”

Gurney smiled. He followed the man to the ATV and got into the passenger seat. “You know what I’d be tempted to do if I had a place up here? Every once in a while, I might be tempted play a little game with one of my guests. Make him think he was lost, maybe missed a turn, see if he’d panic-you know, out in the middle of nowhere with no cell coverage. Because if he screwed up on his way in, he wouldn’t be able to find his way out, would he? Always fun to see who panics and who doesn’t in a situation like that. Know what I mean?”

The man’s jaw tightened. “Can’t say that I do.”

“Of course not. How could you? For someone to appreciate what I’m talking about, he’d have to be a real control freak.”

Three minutes later-a jouncy half mile up and down a rocky trail, during which the man’s angry gaze never left the treacherous terrain-they arrived at a chain-link fence with a sliding gate that opened as they approached it.

Inside the fence the trail faded into a broad bed of pine needles. Then, quite suddenly through the trees, the “cabin” appeared in front of them. It was a two-story structure in the modified Swiss-chalet style of some traditional Adirondack camps-rustic log construction with recessed porches, green doors and window trim, and a green shingle roof. The façade was so dark, and the porch in so much shadow, that it wasn’t until the ATV pulled up to the front steps that Gurney saw Agent Trout-or the man he presumed to be Agent Trout-standing proprietarily in the center of the dismal porch, feet planted wide apart. He held a large Doberman on a short black leash. Accidentally or purposely, the arrogant pose and the imposing guard dog made Gurney think of a prison-camp commandant.

“Welcome to Lake Sorrow.” The voice, emotionless and bureaucratic, conveyed no hint of welcome. “I’m Matthew Trout.”