John Verdon - Think of a Number

He frequently thought, for example, about the evening after his last visit to the institute. As promised, Mellery had called him at home that night and related the conversation he’d had with Gregory Dermott of GD Security Systems. Dermott had been obliging enough to answer all his questions-the ones Gurney had written out-but the information itself did not amount to much. The man had been renting the box for about a year, ever since he’d moved his consulting business from Hartford to Wycherly; there had never been a problem before, certainly no misaddressed letters or checks; he was the only person with access to the box; the names Arybdis, Charybdis, and Mellery meant nothing to him; he had never heard of the institute. Pressed on the question of whether anyone else in his company could have been using the box in some unauthorized way, Dermott had explained that it was impossible, since there wasn’t anyone else in his company. GD Security Systems and Gregory Dermott were one and the same. He was a security consultant to companies with sensitive databases that required protection against hackers. Nothing he said cast any light on the matter of the misdirected check.

Neither had the Internet background searches Gurney had conducted. The sources concurred on the main points: Gregory Dermott had a science degree from M.I.T., a solid reputation as a computer expert, and a blue-clip client roster. Neither he nor GD Security was linked to any lawsuit, judgment, lien, or bad press, past or present. In short, he was a squeaky-clean presence in a squeaky-clean field. Yet someone had, for some still impenetrable reason, appropriated his post office box number. Gurney kept asking himself the same baffling question: Why demand that a check be sent to someone who would almost certainly return it?

It depressed him to keep thinking about it, to keep walking down that dead-end street as if the tenth time he’d find something there that wasn’t there the ninth time. But it was better than thinking about Danny.

The first measurable snow of the season came the evening of the first Friday in November. From a few flakes drifting here and there at dusk, it increased over the next couple of hours, then tapered off, stopping around midnight.

As Gurney was coming to life over his Saturday-morning coffee, the pale disk of the sun was creeping over a wooded ridge a mile to the east. There had been no wind during the night, and everything outside from the patio to the roof of the barn was coated with at least three inches of snow.

He hadn’t slept well. He’d been trapped for hours in an endless loop of linked worries. Some, dissolving now in the daylight, involved Sonya. He had at the last minute postponed their planned after-hours meeting. The uncertainty of what might happen there-his uncertainty about what he wanted to happen-made him put it off.

He sat, as he had for the past week, with his back turned to the end of the room where the ribbon-tied carton of Danny’s drawings lay on the coffee table. He sipped his coffee and looked out at the blanketed pasture.

The sight of snow always brought to mind the smell of snow. On an impulse he went to the French doors and opened them. The sharp chill in the air touched off a chain of recollected moments-snowbanks shoveled up chest-high along the roads, his hands rosy and aching from packing snowballs, bits of ice stuck in the wool of his jacket cuffs, tree branches arcing down to the ground, Christmas wreaths on doors, empty streets, brightness wherever he looked.

It was a curious thing about the past-how it lay in wait for you, quietly, invisibly, almost as though it weren’t there. You might be tempted to think it was gone, no longer existed. Then, like a pheasant flushed from cover, it would roar up in an explosion of sound, color, motion-shockingly alive.

He wanted to surround himself with the smell of the snow. He pulled his jacket from the peg by the door, slipped it on, and went out. The snow was too deep for the ordinary shoes he was wearing, but he didn’t want to change them now. He walked in the general direction of the pond, closing his eyes, inhaling deeply. He had gone less than a hundred yards when he heard the kitchen door opening and Madeleine’s voice calling to him.

“David, come back!”

He turned and saw her halfway out the door, alarm on her face. He started back.

“What is it?”

“Hurry!” she said. “It’s on the radio-Mark Mellery is dead!”

“What?”

“Mark Mellery-he’s dead, it was just on the radio. He was murdered!” She stepped back inside.

“Jesus,” said Gurney, feeling a constriction in his chest. He ran the last few yards to the house, entering the kitchen without removing his snow-covered shoes. “When did it happen?”

“I don’t know. This morning, last night, I don’t know. They didn’t say.”

He listened. The radio was still on, but the announcer had gone on to another news item, something about a corporate bankruptcy.

“How?”

“They didn’t say. They just said it was an apparent homicide.”

“Any other information?”

“No. Yes. Something about the institute-where it happened. The Mellery Institute for Spiritual Renewal in Peony, New York. They said the police are on the scene.”

“That’s all?”

“I think. How awful!”

He nodded slowly, his mind racing.

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

A rapid mental review of the options eliminated all but one.

“Inform the officer-in-charge of my connection to Mellery. What happens after that is up to him.”

Madeleine took a long breath and seemed to be attempting a brave smile, which fell a good deal short of success.

It was precisely 10:00 A.M. when Gurney called the Peony police station to give them his name, address, phone number, and a brief summary of his involvement with the victim. The officer he spoke to, Sergeant Burkholtz, told him that the information would be passed along to the State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation team that had taken control of the case.

Assuming he might be contacted within twenty-four to forty-eight hours, he was taken aback when the call came in less than ten minutes. The voice was familiar but not instantly placeable, a problem prolonged by the man’s nameless introduction of himself.

“Mr. Gurney, this is the senior investigator at the Peony crime scene. I understand you have some information for us.”

Gurney hesitated. He was about to ask the officer to identify himself-a matter of normal procedure-when the voice’s timbre suddenly generated a recollection of the face and the name that went with it. The Jack Hardwick he remembered from a sensational case they’d worked on together was a loud, obscene, red-faced man with a prematurely white crew cut and pale malamute eyes. He was a relentless banterer, and half an hour with him could seem like half a day-a day you kept wishing would end. But he was also smart, tough, tireless, and politically incorrect with a vengeance.

“Hello, Jack,” said Gurney, hiding his surprise.

“How did you… Fuck! Someone fucking told you! Who told you?”

“You have a memorable voice, Jack.”

“Memorable voice, my ass! It’s been ten fucking years!”

“Nine.” The Peter Possum Piggert arrest had been one of the biggest in Gurney’s career, the one that secured his promotion to the coveted rank of detective first grade, and the date was one he remembered.

“Who told you?”

“Nobody told me.”

“Bullshit!”

Gurney fell silent, recalling Hardwick’s penchant for having the last word and the inane exchanges that would go on indefinitely until he got it.