John Verdon - Let the Devil Sleep

He looked at his dashboard clock. It was a minute past four. The mist had stopped, at least temporarily. He pulled back onto the gravel-and-dirt lane and headed up the mountain.

When he got to the little parking area by their side door, he saw that the light was on in the upstairs room that Madeleine sometimes used for her knitting and crocheting. She’d gone back to using it only in the last month or two. It had been the site of a threatening intrusion into the house during the course of the Perry investigation the previous September-the investigation that ended with Gurney being shot.

The thought of it brought his hand to the numb spot on his forearm, checking automatically for any change in feeling-a habit that the busyness of the past week had derailed. It would be nice to keep it derailed. He got out of the car and went into the house.

Madeleine wasn’t knitting after all. He could hear her playing her guitar.

“I’m home!” he called out.

“I’ll be down soon,” came the voice from the second floor.

He listened as she played through a few more bars of something pleasantly melodic, ending in a loud resolving chord.

After a few seconds of silence she called down to him, “Listen to number three on the machine.”

Jesus. Not another disturbing message. He’d had more than his fill for the day. He hoped this one would be innocuous. He went into the den to the old landline phone, pressed the button to get to number three, and listened.

“I hope I’m reaching the right Detective Gurney. I’m really sorry if I’ve got the wrong one. The Detective Gurney I’m looking for has been fucking a whore by the name of Kim Corazon. He’s a pathetic, disgusting old fool who’s at least twice the whore’s age. If you’re the wrong Detective Gurney, maybe you could pass along a question to the right one. Ask him if he knows that his son is fucking the same whore. Like father, like son. Maybe Rudy Getz could turn it into a RAM reality show-Gurney Family Gang Bang. Have a nice day, Detective.”

It was the voice of Robby Meese, all pretense of smoothness stripped away, the vocal equivalent of a serrated knife.

As he was replaying the message, Madeleine appeared at the den door, her expression unreadable. “Do you know who that is?” she asked.

“Kim’s ex.”

She nodded grimly, as though the idea had already occurred to her. “He seems to know there’s some sort of relationship between Kim and Kyle. How would he know that?”

“Maybe he saw them together.”

“Where?”

“Maybe in Syracuse?”

“How would he know Kyle was your son?”

“If he’s the one who bugged her apartment, he’d know a lot.”

She folded her arms tightly. “Do you think he might have followed them back here?”

“Possibly.”

“So he could also have followed them yesterday to Kyle’s apartment?”

“Tailing someone in city traffic isn’t as simple as it sounds, especially for someone not used to driving in Manhattan. It’s too easy to get separated with all the stoplights.”

“He sounds motivated.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, he sounds like he really hates you.”

They were finishing an early dinner of salmon, peas, and rice, with a sweet-pepper sauce. They’d been discussing the meeting that Madeleine would be attending that evening at the clinic for further exploration of the recent suicide and the procedures in place for identifying danger signals in the clients. She was noticeably edgy and preoccupied.

“With that horrible phone message and everything else going on today, I forgot to tell you that the insurance adjuster was here.”

“He was here to examine the barn?”

“And ask questions.”

“Like Kramden?”

“He covered the same ground. List of contents, who did what when, details of any other insurance policies we have, et cetera.”

“I assume you gave him copies of the same stuff we gave Kramden?”

“Her.”

“Sorry?”

“It was a woman. She wanted sales receipts for the bicycle and the kayaks.” In Madeleine’s voice there was sadness and anger. “You have any idea where they are?”

He shook his head.

She paused. “I asked her how soon we could demolish it.”

“The part of the barn that’s still standing?”

“She said the company would let us know.”

“No hint of when?”

“No. They need written permission from the arson squad before they can okay anything.” Her hands had closed into fists. “I can’t stand looking at it.”

He gave her a long look. “Are you mad at me?”

“I’m mad at the evil bastard who destroyed our barn. I’m mad at the creep who left that disgusting message on our phone.”

Her anger created a silence between them, which lasted until she left for the clinic. In the interim he thought of things he might say, then reasons not to say them.

After watching her car head down the pasture path, Gurney carried their used dishes to the sink, squirted a bit of detergent on them, and turned on the hot water.

The cell phone in his pocket rang.

ID said G. B. BULLARD.

“Mr. Gurney?”

“I’m here.”

“I wanted to fill you in on something, since it concerns a point you raised earlier today.”

“Yes?”

“The matter of the tire tracks…?”

“Yes?”

“I wanted you to know that we did find a set of tread marks, where you suggested they might be, at the auto-body shop.”

“Indicating a car was parked in a space that the shop owner says was unoccupied?”

“Essentially that’s correct-although he isn’t absolutely sure about it.”

“And the dirt strip at the end of Ruth Blum’s driveway?”

“Inconclusive.”

“Meaning not enough soil surface to be certain one way or the other, but no positive evidence of any vehicle entering or leaving?”

“Correct.”

Gurney was getting curious about the purpose of her call. It was not common practice for an investigating officer to give a progress report outside the immediate chain of command, much less to someone outside the department.

“But there’s a little twist,” she went on. “I’d like your opinion. Our door-to-doors turned up two eyewitness reports of a Humvee in the area late yesterday afternoon. One witness insisted it was the original military model, not the later GM version. They both saw it passing back and forth two or three times along the stretch of road that includes the Blum residence.”

“You’re thinking someone was scouting out the area?”

“Possibly, but like I said, there’s a twist. According to the tire tracks, the vehicle that was parked last night at the body shop was not a Humvee.” She paused. “Any thoughts on that?”

Two scenarios came to mind. “The killer might have a helper. Or…” Gurney hesitated, working his way through his second option, weighing its plausibility.

“Or what?” prompted Bullard.

“Well, let’s say I’m right about the Facebook message-that it was posted by the killer, not the victim. The message refers to some kind of military vehicle. So maybe the purpose of the message was to plant the Humvee idea. And maybe driving one up and down that road was designed to get it noticed, get it reported, make us sure it was the killer’s vehicle.”

“Why go to all that trouble if he was going to park a different car where it wouldn’t be noticed anyway?”

“Maybe the Humvee idea is supposed to lead us somewhere.”

Maybe it’s supposed to lead us to Max Clinter? But why?

Bullard remained silent so long that Gurney was about to ask if she was still there.