amounts of cash, and he was handling occasional grocery shopping and other errands with great efficiency. His English had become grammatically flawless, although it was still heavily accented, and his manner was charming. He frequently answered my phone, took cogent messages, even provided me with subtle shadings of information about the tone or mood of certain callers. (In retrospect this seems bizarre-that I would be relying in this way on a man who had not long before been looking for a job spreading mulch-but the arrangement worked well, without a single problem I was aware of, for almost two years.) Things began to change in the fall of 2008, when Jillian Perry came into my life. Flores soon became moody and reclusive, always finding reasons to be away from the house when Jillian was present. The changes became more disturbing in early 2009, when we announced our wedding plans. He disappeared for several days. When he returned, he claimed to have discovered terrible things about Jillian and that I would be risking my life by marrying her, but he refused to provide details. He said that he couldn’t tell me anything more without revealing the source of his information, which he couldn’t do. He begged me to reconsider my decision to marry. When it became clear that I was not going to reconsider anything without knowing exactly what he was talking about, and that I would not tolerate unsupported accusations, he seemed to accept the situation, although he continued to avoid Jillian. In retrospect, of course, I should have fired him at these indications of his instability, but with the arrogance of my profession, I assumed that I would be able to discover the nature of the problem and solve it. I saw myself conducting a grand experiment in education, never fully accepting the fact that I was dealing with a dangerously complex personality and that everything might spin out of control. I must also admit that he had made mylife easier and more convenient in so many ways that I was reluctant to let him go. I cannot overemphasize the degree to which his intelligence, rapid self-education, and range of talents had impressed me-all of which now sounds delusional in the light of what has happened. My final encounter with Hector Flores occurred the morning of the wedding. Jillian, who was well aware that Hector despised her, was obsessed with getting him to accept the reality of our marriage, and she prevailed upon me to make one last effort to persuade him to attend the ceremony. I went to the cottage that morning, found him sitting like a block of stone at the table. I went through the motions of extending one more invitation, which he refused. He was dressed entirely in black- black T-shirt, black jeans, black belt, black shoes. Perhaps that should have meant something to me. That was the last I saw of him.
At that point in the transcript, Hardwick had inserted a handwritten marginal notation: “Upon submission and review of the above written statement by Scott Ashton, it was supplemented by the following questions and answers.”
J.H.:
Do I understand correctly that you knew little or nothing about this man’s background?
S.A.:
That’s correct.
J.H.:
He provided virtually no information about himself?
S.A.:
Correct.
J.H.:
Yet you came to trust him enough to let him live on your property, have access to your home, answer your phone?
S.A.:
I’m aware that it sounds idiotic, but I regarded his refusal to talk about his past as a form of honesty. I mean, if he’d wanted to conceal something, it would have been more persuasive to construct a fictitious past. But he didn’t do that. In an upside-down way, that impressed me. So yes, I trusted him even though he refused to discuss his past.
Gurney read the entire statement a second time, more slowly, and then a third time. He found the narrative as extraordinary for what was left out as for what was put in. Among the missing elements was a singular lack of fury. And a striking absence of the visceral horror that on the day prior to making this statement had sent the man reeling out of the cottage seconds after he’d entered it, screaming and collapsing.
Was the change simply the result of medication? A psychiatrist would have easy access to appropriate sedatives. Or was it something more than that? Impossible to tell from just words on paper. It would be interesting to meet the man, look into his eyes, hear his voice.
At least the portion of the statement referring to the unfurnished state of the cottage and Flores’s insistence on keeping it that way answered part of the mystery of its bareness in the evidence report-part, but not all. It didn’t explain why there were no clothes or shoes or bathroom items. It didn’t explain what had happened to the computer. Or why, if he removed all his personal items, Flores had chosen to leave behind a pair of boots.
Gurney’s gaze wandered over the piles of documents arrayed in front of him. He remembered earlier seeing two incident reports, not just the one he would have expected, covering the murder, and wondering why. He reached across the table, extracted the second from under the first.
It had been generated by the Tambury Village PD in response to a call received at 4:15 P.M. on May 17, 2009- exactly one week after the murder. Complainant was listed as Dr. Scott Ashton of 42 Badger Lane, Tambury, New York. The report was filed by Sergeant Keith Garbelly. It was noted that a copy had been forwarded to the Bureau of Criminal Investigation at State Police Regional Headquarters, to the attention of Senior Investigator J. Hardwick. Gurney assumed that it was a copy of that copy he was now reading.
Complainant was sitting at patio table on south side of residence, facing main lawn area, with cup of tea on table. His habit in good weather. Heard single gunshot, simultaneously witnessed teacup shatter. Ran into house through back (patio) door, called Tambury PD. When I arrived on scene (with backup following) complainant appeared tense, anxious. Initial interview conductedin living room. Complainant could not pinpoint source of gunshot, guessed “long range, from that general direction” (gestured out the rear window toward wooded hillside at least 300 yards away). Complainant had no additional understanding of the event, other than “possibly connected to the murder of my wife.” Claimed no actual knowledge of what the connection might be. Speculated that Hector Flores might want to kill him, too, but could provide no reason or motive.
A copy of a BCI investigatory follow-up form was clipped to the initial incident report, indicating that a quick handoff of the matter had occurred, consistent with BCI’s primary responsibility for the case. The follow-up form had three short entries and one long one, all initialed “JH.”
Search of Ashton property, woods, hills: negative. Area interviews: negative.
Reconstruction of cup shows impact point at exact top-to-bottom, left-to-right center. Lends support to the hypothesis that cup, not Ashton, may have been shooter’s target.
Bullet fragments recovered from patio area too small for conclusive ballistics. Best guess: small to med caliber high-powered rifle, equipped with sophisticated scope, in the hands of an experienced shooter.
Weapon estimate and cup-as-target conclusion shared with Scott Ashton to ascertain whether he knew anyone with that kind of equipment and shooting skills. Subject appeared troubled. When pressed, he named two people with similar rifle and scope: himself and Jillian’s father, Dr. Withrow Perry. Perry, he said, liked to go on exotic hunting trips and was an expert marksman. Ashton claimed to have purchased his own rifle (high-end Weatherby.257) at Perry’s suggestion. When I asked to see it, he discovered that it was missing from the wooden case in which he kept it locked in his den closet. He could not date the last time he had seen the gun but said that it might have been two or three months earlier. Asked whether Hector Flores knew of its existence andlocation, he replied that Flores had accompanied him to Kingston the day he purchased it and that Flores had built the oak box in which it was stored.
Gurney turned the form over, looked for a backup sheet, riffled through the pile from which it came, but could find no follow-up entry on the interview that must have been conducted subsequently with Withrow Perry. Or maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it had fallen into the crack that sometimes swallowed critical issues during the transfer of a case from one CIO to another-in this case from the wild-swinging Hardwick to the clumsy Blatt. It wouldn’t be hard to imagine that happening.
It was time for a second cup of coffee.
