John Verdon - Let the Devil Sleep

Gurney waited quietly for her to continue, which she did, after taking a deep breath. “Of course, there was Roberta, who had tons of money from her father’s plumbing business. She was more intimidating than vulnerable, but he never stopped calling her. And there was Larry, also with scads of money, from his big cosmetic-dentistry practice. But I think Larry saw through Robby, saw how desperate he was for attention, maybe even felt sorry for him. Why are we talking about this? Robby didn’t kill Ruthie or Eric. He’s not capable of it. He’s a creep, but not that kind of creep. So what difference does any of this make?”

Gurney didn’t have an answer, but he was saved from having to admit it by the ringing of his phone on the sideboard. He hoped it would be Lieutenant Bullard with her reactions to the Brewster video. He glanced at the ID screen.

It was Hardwick. “Davey boy, I don’t know if you are aware of this, but you have managed to turn yourself into a giant fart in the elevator.”

“Is someone complaining?”

“Complaining? If tying a class-A felony around your neck and dropping you into the criminal-justice wood chipper is a form of complaining, then yeah, I’d say someone’s complaining.”

“Trout’s actually pursuing the barn thing?”

“BCI arson unit has nominal control, but the FBI regional office is expressing serious interest. They’re offering any help that might be needed to look into your financial life, find out if you might be in any tight situations that would make fire-insurance money attractive-gambling problems, mortgage problems, health problems, girlfriend problems.”

“Son of a bitch,” muttered Gurney. He began pacing around the dining table.

“Fuck did you expect? You threaten to pull the man’s pants down in public, you’re gonna get a reaction.”

“I’m not surprised at the reaction, just at how fast I’m running out of time.”

“Speaking of which, apart from pissing off everyone in the world, are you actually making any progress with your grand exposé of the hidden truth?”

“You say that like I’m searching for something that isn’t there.”

“Didn’t say that. Just wondering if you’re any closer to whatever the hell is there.”

“I won’t know till I get there. Meantime, what do you know about the White Mountain Strangler?”

There was brief silence. “Ancient history, right? Fifteen years ago? New Hampshire?”

“More like twenty years ago. In and around the town of Hanover.”

“Right. It’s sort of coming back now. Five or six women strangled with silk scarves, relatively short time frame. Why?”

“One of the strangler’s victims was the girlfriend of the son of one of the eventual victims of the Good Shepherd. She was a senior at Dartmouth. And it just so happens that the son of another Good Shepherd victim was there at the same time, as a freshman.”

“Huh? Girlfriend of… son of… victim of… senior… freshman…? Who the hell are we talking about?”

“A Dartmouth senior, who happened to be a girlfriend of Larry Sterne, was killed by the strangler while Jimi Brewster was at Dartmouth as a freshman.”

There was another silence. Gurney could almost picture little lights flashing in Hardwick’s mental calculator. Eventually the man cleared his throat. “Am I supposed to find some significance in that? I mean, so fucking what? We’ve got two northeastern families who each lose a family member to a serial shooter in the year 2000. And it so happens that ten years earlier, in 1990, the son of one of those eventual victims was attending a large Ivy League institution when a friend of the son of another eventual victim was murdered by a serial strangler. I’ll admit it has a bizarre ring to it, but I think a lot of simple coincidences can be made to sound bizarre. I just don’t see what it could mean. Are you imagining that Jimi Brewster was the White Mountain Strangler?”

“I have no reason to. But just to get the question out of my mind, can you poke around in your databases-maybe the old CJIS reports, if they can still be accessed-and get the basic facts?”

“Like what?”

“To begin with-more details of the MO, victim profile, open leads, anything that might suggest a connection to Brewster.”

“To begin with?”

“Well, eventually we might want to track down the CIO who ran the case and get into it a little deeper, find out if Brewster’s name ever came up during the investigation.”

This produced the longest silence of all.

“You there, Jack?”

“I’m here. Contemplating what a fucking incredible pain in the ass these little requests of yours are getting to be.”

“I know.”

“Is there any end in sight?”

“Like I said before, it’s obvious that I’m running out of time. So yes, the end is in sight. One way or the other. I have maybe one more day.”

“To do what?”

“To figure it all out. Or get buried under it for good.”

Another silence, not quite as long.

Hardwick sneezed, then blew his nose. “The Good Shepherd case has been around for ten years. You plan to solve it in the next twenty-four hours?”

“I don’t think I have any other options left. By the way, Jimi Brewster told Kim that he had an alibi for the Good Shepherd murders. You happen to know what it was?”

“Hard to forget that one. The Brewster murder was the last next-of-kin notification BCI made in the case. The doctor was shot in Massachusetts, but his son resided here, so we got the notification job-before the FBI took control of what then became an interstate investigation.”

“What made it hard to forget?”

“The fact that Jimi’s alibi sounded more like a motive-at least in the case of his father. Jimi was in county lockup on the dates of the first four attacks because he couldn’t make bail on an LSD-possession charge and his father refused to help-let him sit in a cell for a couple of weeks. Jimi finally got some ex-girlfriend to come up with the bail money, and he was released-seething with anger-about three hours before his father was killed.”

“Was he ever considered a suspect?”

“Not really. The MO on Dr. Brewster was a perfect match with the others. And Jimi couldn’t have copied it, because at that point none of the details had been publicized.”

“So we can forget about Jimi.”

“Seems so. Too bad, in a way. He could have fit nicely into one of those possibilities on that list of yours.”

“What do you mean?”

“That question you had about whether all the Good Shepherd victims were equally important. Well, if there was some way Jimi could have killed them all, his father would have been the one that mattered the most, and the others would have been like some kind of emotional spillover-people who drove his father’s kind of car, which might have made them equally despicable, equally killable in his warped little mind. Duplicate targets. Guilt by association.” He paused. “Oh, fuck that. What am I talking about? That’s all psychobabble.”

When she got home from her clinic meeting, exhausted and indignant, Madeleine seemed to be on her own wavelength. After a few comments about the miseries built into bureaucracies, she headed for bed, War and Peace tucked under her arm.

Shortly after that, Kim said something about wanting to be fresh and rested for the following day’s meeting with Rudy Getz, said good night, and went upstairs.

Then Kyle followed.

When Gurney heard Madeleine click off her reading light, he closed up the woodstove, checked that the doors and windows were locked, washed a few glasses that had been left in the sink, found himself yawning, and decided it was time to go to bed himself.