John Verdon - Think of a Number

“What do you mean?”

“There are no specifics. No mention of what Mellery actually did or who was hurt. Why so vague? No names, dates, places, no concrete references to anything. Peculiar, isn’t it?”

“The numbers six fifty-eight and nineteen were pretty specific.”

“But they didn’t mean anything to Mellery, other than the fact that he’d thought of them. And that had to be a trick.”

“If it was, I haven’t been able to figure it out.”

“Ah, but you will. You’re very good at connecting the dots.” She yawned. “No one’s better at it than you.” There was no detectable irony in her voice.

He lay there in the dark next to her, relaxing ever so briefly in the comfort of her praise. Then his mind began combing restlessly through the killer’s notes, reviewing their language in the light of her observation.

“They were specific enough to scare the shit out of Mellery,” he said.

She sighed sleepily. “Or unspecific enough.”

“Meaning what?”

“I don’t know. Maybe there was no specific event to be specific about.”

“But if Mellery didn’t do anything, why was he killed?”

She made a little sound in her throat that was the equivalent of a shrug. “I don’t know. I just know there’s something wrong with those notes. Time to go back to sleep.”

He awoke at dawn feeling better than he had for weeks, maybe months. It might be an exaggeration to say that his explanation of the boot mystery meant that the first domino had fallen, but that was the way it felt as he drove across the county, eastward into the rising sun, on his way to the B &B on Filchers Brook Road in Peony.

It occurred to him that interviewing “the fags” without clearing it with Kline’s office or with BCI might be stretching the rules. But what the hell-if someone wanted to slap his wrist later, he’d survive. Besides, he had a feeling that things were starting to go his way. “There is a tide in the affairs of men…”

With less than a mile to go to the Filchers Brook intersection, his phone rang. It was Ellen Rackoff.

“District Attorney Kline got some news he wanted you to know about. He said to tell you that Sergeant Wigg from the BCI lab did an enhancement of the tape Mark Mellery made of the phone call he got from the killer. Are you familiar with the call?”

“Yes,” said Gurney, recalling the disguised voice and Mellery thinking of the number nineteen, then finding that number in the letter the killer had left in his mailbox.

“Sergeant Wigg’s report says that the sound-wave analysis shows that the background traffic noises on the tape were prerecorded.”

“Say that again?”

“According to Wigg, the tape contains two generations of sounds. The caller’s voice and the background sound of a motor, which she says was definitely an automobile engine, were first generation. That is, they were live sounds at the time of the call transmission. But the other background sounds, primarily of passing traffic, were second generation. That is, they were being played on a tape machine during the live call. Are you there, Detective?”

“Yes, yes, I was just… trying to make some sense out of that.”

“Would you like me to repeat it?”

“No, I heard you. It’s… very interesting.”

“District Attorney Kline thought you might think so. He’d like you to give him a call when you figure out what it means.”

“I’ll be sure to do that.”

He turned up Filchers Brook Road and a mile later spotted a sign on his left proclaiming the manicured property behind it to be the laurels. The sign was a graceful oval plaque, with the lettering in a delicate calligraphy. A little past the sign, there was an arched trellis set in a row of high mountain laurels. A narrow driveway passed through the trellis. Although the blossoms had been gone for months, as Gurney drove through the opening, some trick of the mind conjured up a flowery scent, and a further leap brought to mind King Duncan’s comment on Macbeth’s estate, where that night he would be murdered: “This castle hath a pleasant seat…”

Beyond the trellis there was a small parking area of gravel raked as cleanly as a Zen garden. A path of the same pristine gravel led from the parking area to the front door of a spotless, cedar-shingled Cape. In place of a doorbell, there was an antique iron knocker. As Gurney reached for it, the door opened to reveal a small man with alert, assessing eyes. Everything about him looked freshly laundered, from his lime polo shirt to his pink skin to the hair a shade too blond for his middle-aged face.

“Ahh!” he said with the edgy satisfaction of a man whose pizza order, twenty minutes late, has finally arrived.

“Mr. Plumstone?”

“No, I’m not Mr. Plumstone,” said the small man. “I’m Bruce Wellstone. The apparent harmony between the names is purely coincidental.”

“I see,” said Gurney, baffled.

“And you, I assume, are the policeman?”

“Special Investigator Gurney, district attorney’s office. Who told you I was coming?”

“The policeman on the phone. I have absolutely no memory for names. But why are we standing in the doorway? Do come in.”

Gurney followed him through a short hallway into a sitting room furnished with fussy Victoriana. Wondering who the policeman on the phone might have been put a quizzical look in his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” said Wellstone, evidently misinterpreting Gurney’s expression. “I’m not familiar with the procedure in cases like this. Would you prefer to go directly to Emerald Cottage?”

“Excuse me?”

“Emerald Cottage.”

“What emerald cottage?”

“The scene of the crime.”

“What crime?”

“Didn’t they tell you anything?”

“About what?”

“About why you’re here.”

“Mr. Wellstone, I don’t mean to be rude, but perhaps you should start at the beginning and tell me what you’re talking about.”

“This is exasperating! I told everything to the sergeant on the phone. In fact, I told him everything twice, since he didn’t seem to grasp what I was saying.”

“I see your frustration, sir, but perhaps you could tell me what you told him?”

“That my ruby slippers were stolen. Do you have any idea what they’re worth?”

“Your ruby slippers?”

“My God, they didn’t tell you a blessed thing, did they?” Wellstone began taking deep breaths as though he might be trying to ward off some kind of fit. Then he closed his eyes. When he reopened them, he seemed reconciled to the ineptitude of the police and spoke to Gurney in the voice of an elementary-school teacher.

“My ruby slippers, which are worth a great deal of money, were stolen from Emerald Cottage. Although I have no proof, I have no doubt they were stolen by the last guest who occupied it.”

“This Emerald Cottage is part of this establishment?”

“Of course it is. The entire property is called ‘The Laurels,’ for obvious reasons. There are three buildings-the main house in which we stand, plus two cottages: Emerald Cottage and Honeybee Cottage. The decor of Emerald Cottage is based on The Wizard of Oz -the greatest film ever made.” A glint in his eyes seemed to dare Gurney to disagree. “The focal point of the decor was a remarkable reproduction pair of Dorothy’s magic slippers. I discovered this morning that they were missing.”

“And you reported this to…?”

“To you people, obviously, because here you are.”

“You called the Peony police department?”

“Well, I certainly didn’t call the Chicago police department.”