John Verdon - Let the Devil Sleep

Halfway to Walnut Crossing, he passed a billboard for Verizon Cellular, and it reminded him that he’d switched off his phone when he sat down at the kitchen table with Bullard. He switched it back on to check for messages. The screen said there were seven. Before he had a chance to listen to any of them, a new call came in.

Gurney pressed TALK.

The caller was Kyle, and he sounded agitated. “We’ve been trying to reach you for over an hour.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Kim is really freaked out. She’s been trying to get you. She’s already left three messages for you.”

“Is it about Ruth Blum?”

“Mainly that. But also The Orphans of Murder thing last night on TV. She hated how they put it together, what they cut and what they added, especially those two jerks. She’s really upset.”

“Where is she?”

“In the bathroom, crying. Again. Wait, no. I hear the door opening. Hold on.”

Gurney heard Kim asking Kyle who he was talking to, Kyle’s voice saying, “My dad.” Kim sniffling in the background, blowing her nose. The sound of the phone being handed from one to the other. Muffled voices. More nose blowing, throat clearing.

Finally she was speaking to him. “Dave?”

“I’m here.”

“This is a nightmare. I can’t believe it’s happening. I want to go to sleep and wake up again and discover that none of it is real.”

“I hope you’re not blaming yourself for what happened to Ruth.”

“Of course I am!”

“You’re not responsible for-”

Kim interrupted, her voice rising. “She wouldn’t be dead if I hadn’t talked her into doing this stupid program!”

“You’re not responsible for her death, and you’re not responsible for what RAM News did with your interview, or what they put in, or how they-”

“They cut my interview in half and surrounded it with all that pompous nonsense from their so-called experts .” She made the word sound like someone spitting. “Oh, God, I just want to disappear. I want to erase everything. Erase everything that killed Ruthie.”

“A murderer killed her.”

“But it wouldn’t have happened if-”

“Listen to me, Kim. A murderer killed Ruth Blum. A murderer with his own agenda. Probably the same murderer who killed her husband ten years ago.”

She didn’t say anything. He could hear her breathing. Slow, shaky breaths. When she finally spoke, her near hysteria had declined into plain misery. “It’s what Larry Sterne kept telling me-it all turned out to be true. He said RAM would twist everything and make it cheap and ugly and awful. He said they’d be better at using me than I’d be at using them, that all they cared about was getting the largest possible audience, that the price of my project would outweigh its rewards. And he was right. Totally right.”

“What do you want to do?”

“Do? I want to get as far away from RAM as I can. I want out.”

“Have you told Rudy Getz?”

“Yes.” There was something uncertain in her voice.

“Yes… but?”

“I called him this morning-before I got your message about Ruth. I told him how disappointed I was, that the program was nothing like what we’d talked about.”

“And?”

“I told him if that’s the way it was going to be, then I didn’t want to do it.”

“And?”

“He said that he wanted me to meet with him, it wasn’t something we could resolve on the phone, we had to talk about it face-to-face.”

“You agreed to meet with him?”

“Yes.”

“Did you speak to him again, after you found out about Ruth’s murder?”

“Yes. He said that made it even more important for us to get together. He said the murder was a multiplier.”

“A what?”

“A multiplier . He said that it raised the stakes, that we had to talk about it.”

“It raised the stakes?”

“That’s what he said.”

“When are you getting together?”

“At noon on Wednesday. At his place in Ashokan Heights.”

Gurney had the impression she was leaving something out. “And?”

There was a pause. “Oh, God… I hate to ask you this. I feel like such a naïve, helpless little idiot.”

Gurney waited, pretty sure he knew what was coming.

“My vision of what this was going to be like… my assumptions… the way I thought… What I’m trying to say is… my thinking about all of this is obviously not very sound. I need… I need the support, the input of a clearer mind. I have no right to ask you this, but… please…?”

“You want me to come to your Wednesday meeting with Getz?”

“Very much so. Would you? Could you?”

At the sign on Franklin Mountain welcoming him back into Delaware County, Gurney left the afternoon sun behind him and descended into a clouded valley. Weather in the mountains seemed to change hourly.

During the remainder of his drive home, he had to keep switching his wipers on and off. He hated driving in the rain-heavy rain, light rain, drizzle, anything gray and wet. Grayness and wetness tended to fertilize his worries.

He became aware of a soreness in his jaw muscles. He’d been clenching his teeth-a side effect of the tension and anger propelling his thoughts.

PTSD. Post-traumatic stress disorder. Three unnerving words. If Holdenfield was right, if his thinking was damaged…

What was it Kim said she needed from him? The input of a clearer mind than hers? He let out a sharp little laugh. Clarity was not currently his strong point.

The thought of their phone conversation reminded him of the seven messages in his voice mail he hadn’t listened to. He was just turning up the mountain lane to his farmhouse, telling himself he’d listen to the messages as soon as he got there. But, afraid of forgetting again, he decided to pull over and go through them.

The first three were from Kim-increasingly stressed requests for him to call her.

The fourth was from Kim’s mother, Connie Clarke.

“David! What on earth is going on? All this crazy stuff on the news today? About Ruth what’s-her-name getting killed after Kim’s interview? And the talking heads all screaming that the Good Shepherd is back? Jeez! Give me a call, let me know what’s going on. I just got a totally hysterical message from Kim-that she wants to quit, back out of the show, throw it all away. Completely out of control. I don’t understand any of this. I called her back, couldn’t get through, left a message, but I haven’t heard back. I assume that you’re in touch with her? That you know what the hell is happening? I mean, that was the whole idea, right? For Christ’s sake, call me!”

Maybe he would, maybe he wouldn’t. He definitely didn’t feel like spending half an hour on the phone with her, filling her in on all the chaos, all the unanswered questions, just because her daughter wasn’t returning her calls.

The fifth message had no ID beyond WIRELESS CALLER. But there was no mistaking the manic intensity of Max Clinter’s voice.

“Mr. Gurney, so sorry you couldn’t pick up. I was looking forward to some give-and-take. So much has happened since last we talked. The Shepherd would appear to be among us once again. Little Corazon brought him back to life. Heard your name invoked on that vile Orphans thing on TV. Ram-shit. But from what was said, it sounded like you had ideas. Ideas of your own. Maybe not unlike mine. Want to share and share alike? Win or lose, time to choose. The finale isn’t far off now. This time I’ll be ready. Final question: Is David Gurney friend or foe?”

Dave listened to that one three times. He still wasn’t sure whether Clinter was a nutcase or just found it a comfortable role to play. Holdenfield had insisted that he was a mentally disturbed pain in the ass. But Gurney wasn’t quite ready to discount the man who had talked himself into that little room in Buffalo and left five armed mobsters dead on the floor.