John Verdon - Think of a Number

“Any coffee on the way, you think?”

“No idea. But I hope so,” said Hardwick, sniffling loudly to keep his nose from running. He turned to Gurney. “I won’t keep you much longer. I just want you to show me the notes you told me were in the den-and make sure they’re all there.”

Inside the beautiful old chestnut-floored house, all was quiet. More than ever, the place smelled of money.

Apicturesque fire was burning in the stone-and-brick fireplace, and the air in the room was sweetened by grace notes of cherry smoke. A pale but composed Caddy Mellery was sharing the sofa with a well-tailored man in his early seventies.

As Gurney and Hardwick entered, the man rose from his place on the sofa with an ease surprising for his age. “Good afternoon, gentlemen,” he said. The words had a courtly, vaguely southern intonation. “I’m Carl Smale, an old friend of Caddy’s.”

“I’m Senior Investigator Hardwick, and this is Dave Gurney, a friend of Mrs. Mellery’s late husband.”

“Ah, yes, Mark’s friend. Caddy was telling me.”

“We’re sorry to bother you,” said Hardwick, glancing around the room as he spoke. His eyes settled on the small Sheraton desk set against the wall opposite the fireplace. “We need access to some papers, possibly related to the crime, which we have reason to believe may be located in that desk. Mrs. Mellery, I’m sorry to be bothering you with questions like this, but do you mind if I take a look?”

She closed her eyes. It was unclear whether she’d understood the question.

Smale reseated himself on the couch next to her, placing his hand on her forearm. “I’m sure Caddy has no objection to that.”

Hardwick hesitated. “Are you… speaking as Mrs. Mellery’s representative?”

Smale’s reaction was nearly invisible-a slight wrinkling of the nose, like a sensitive woman’s response to a rude word at a dinner party.

The widow opened her eyes and spoke through a sad smile. “I’m sure you can appreciate that this is a difficult time. I’m relying on Carl completely. Whatever he says is wiser than anything I would say.”

Hardwick persisted. “Mr. Smale is your attorney?”

She turned toward Smale with a benevolence Gurney suspected was fueled by Valium and said, “He’s been my attorney, my representative in sickness and in health, in good times and bad, for over thirty years. My God, Carl, isn’t that frightening?”

Smale mirrored her nostalgic smile, then spoke to Hardwick with a new crispness in his tone. “Feel free to examine this room for whatever materials may be related to your investigation. We’d naturally appreciate receiving a list of any materials you wish to remove.”

The pointed reference to “this room” did not escape Gurney. Smale was not granting the police a blanket exemption from a search warrant. Apparently it hadn’t escaped Hardwick, either, judging from the hard look he gave the dapper little man on the sofa.

“All evidence we take possession of is fully inventoried.” Hardwick’s tone conveyed the unspoken part of the message as well: “We don’t give you a list of things we wish to take. We give you a list of things we have actually taken.”

Smale, who obviously had the ability to hear unspoken communication, smiled. He turned to Gurney and asked in his languorous drawl, “Tell me, are you the Dave Gurney?”

“I’m the only one my parents had.”

“Well, well, well. A detective of legend! A pleasure to meet you.”

Gurney, who inevitably found this sort of recognition uncomfortable, said nothing.

The silence was broken by Caddy Mellery. “I must apologize, but I have a blinding headache and must lie down.”

“I sympathize,” said Hardwick. “But I do need your help with a few details.”

Smale regarded his client with concern. “Couldn’t it wait for an hour or two? Mrs. Mellery is in obvious pain.”

“My questions will only take two or three minutes. Believe me, I’d rather not intrude, but a delay could create problems.”

“Caddy?”

“It’s fine, Carl. Now or later makes no difference.” She closed her eyes. “I’m listening.”

“I’m sorry to make you think about these things,” said Hardwick. “Do you mind if I sit here?” He pointed to the wing chair nearest Caddy’s end of the sofa.

“Go right ahead.” Her eyes were still shut.

He perched on the edge of the cushion. Questioning the recently bereaved was uncomfortable for any cop. Hardwick, though, looked like he wasn’t terribly bothered by the task.

“I want to go over something you told me this morning to make sure I’ve got it right. You said the phone rang a little after one A.M.-that you and your husband were asleep at the time?”

“Yes.”

“And you knew the time because…?”

“I looked at the clock. I wondered who would be calling us at that hour.”

“And your husband answered it?”

“Yes.”

“What did he say?”

“He said hello, hello, hello-three or four times. Then he hung up.”

“Did he tell you if the caller said anything at all?”

“No.”

“And a few minutes later, you heard an animal screaming in the woods?”

“Screeching.”

“Screeching?”

“Yes.”

“What distinction do you make between ‘screeching’ and ‘screaming’?”

“Screaming-” She stopped and bit hard on her lower lip.

“Mrs. Mellery?”

“Will there be much more of this?” asked Smale.

“I just need to know what she heard.”

“Screaming is more human. Screaming is what I did when I…” She blinked as if to force a speck out of her eye, then continued. “This was some kind of animal. But not in the woods. It sounded close to the house.”

“How long did this screaming- screeching -go on?”

“A minute or two, I’m not sure. It stopped after Mark went downstairs.”

“Did he say what he was going to do?”

“He said he was going to see what it was. That’s all. He just-” She stopped speaking and began taking slow, deep breaths.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Mellery. This won’t take much longer.”

“He just wanted to see what it was, that’s all.”

“Did you hear anything else?”

She put her hand over her mouth, holding her cheeks and jaw in an apparent effort to keep control of herself. Red and white splotches appeared under her fingernails from the tightness of her grip.

When she spoke, the words were muffled by her hand.

“I was half asleep, but I did hear something, something like a clap-as though someone had clapped their hands together. That’s all.” She continued holding on to her face as though the pressure were her sole comfort.

“Thank you,” said Hardwick, rising from the wing chair. “We’ll keep our intrusions to a minimum. For now, all I need to do is go through that desk.”

Caddy Mellery raised her head and opened her eyes. Her hand fell to her lap, leaving livid finger marks on her cheeks. “Detective,” she said in a frail but determined voice, “you may take anything relevant, but please respect our privacy. The press is irresponsible. My husband’s legacy is of supreme importance.”

“Get bogged down in this poetry and we’ll be chasing ourselves up our own asses for the next year,” said Hardwick. He articulated the word poetry as though it were the messiest sort of mire.

The messages from the killer were arrayed on a large table in the middle of the institute’s boardroom, occupied by the BCI team as their on-site location for the intensive start-up phase of the investigation.