Muller didn’t answer. His gaze had returned to the fireplace.
“Did she ever talk about him?”
“Who?”
“Hector Flores?”
“He wasn’t the sort of person we’d discuss.”
“What sort of person was he?”
Muller uttered a humorless little laugh and shook his head. “That would be obvious, wouldn’t it?”
“Obvious?”
“From his name,” said Muller with sudden, intense disdain. He was still staring into the fireplace.
“A Spanish name?”
“They’re all the same, you know. So bloody obvious. Our country is being stabbed in the back.”
“By Mexicans?”
“Mexicans are just the tip of the knife.”
“That’s the kind of person Hector was?”
“Have you ever been to those countries?”
“Latin countries?”
“Countries with hot climates.”
“Can’t say that I have, Carl.”
“Filthy places, every one of them. Mexico, Nicaragua, Colombia, Brazil, Puerto Rico-every one of them, filthy!”
“Like Hector?”
“Filthy!”
Muller glared at the ash-covered iron grate as though it were displaying infuriating images of that filth.
Gurney sat silently for a minute, waiting for the storm to subside. He watched the man’s shoulders slowly relaxing, his grip on the arms of the chair loosening, his eyes closing.
“Carl?”
“Yes?” Muller’s eyes reopened. His expression had become shockingly bland.
Gurney spoke softly. “Did you ever have evidence that anything inappropriate might be going on between your wife and Hector Flores?”
Muller looked perplexed. “What did you say your name was?”
“My name? Dave. Dave Gurney.”
“Dave? What a remarkable coincidence! Did you know that was my middle name?”
“No, Carl, I didn’t.”
“Carl David Muller.” He stared into the middle distance. “ ‘Carl David,’ my mother used to say, ‘Carl David Muller, you go straight to your room. Carl David Muller, you better behave or Santa may lose your Christmas list. You mind what I say, Carl David.’ ”
He stood up from his chair, straightened his back, and chanted the words in the voice of a woman-“Carl David Muller”-as though the name and voice had the power to break down the wall to another world. Then he walked out of the room.
Gurney heard the front door opening.
He found Muller holding it ajar.
“It was nice of you to drop by,” said Muller blandly. “You have to leave now. Sometimes I forget. I’m not supposed to let people into the house.”
“Thank you, Carl, I appreciate your time.” Taken aback by what looked like some form of psychotic decompensation, Gurney was inclined to comply with Muller’s request in order to avoid creating any additional stress, then make some calls from his car and wait for help to arrive.
By the time he was halfway to his car, he had second thoughts. It might be better to keep an eye on the man. He returned to the front door, hoping he wouldn’t have a problem persuading Muller to admit him a second time, but the door wasn’t fully closed. He knocked on it, anyway. There was no response. He eased it open and looked inside. Muller wasn’t there, but a door in the hallway that Gurney was sure had been shut before was now ajar. Stepping into the center hall, he called out as mildly and pleasantly as he could, “Mr. Muller? Carl? It’s Dave. You there, Carl?”
No answer. But one thing was certain. The buzzing sound-more of a metallic whooshing sound, now that he could hear it more clearly-and the “Adeste Fideles” Christmas hymn were coming from someplace behind that barely open hall door. He went to it, nudged it wide open with his toe. Dimly lit stairs led down to the basement.
Cautiously, Gurney started down. After a few steps, he called out again, “Mr. Muller? Are you down there?”
A boy-soprano choir began to reprise the hymn in English: “O come, all ye faithful / Joyful and triumphant / O come ye, O come ye to Bethlehem.”
The stairs were enclosed on both sides all the way down, so only a small slice of the basement was visible to Gurney as he gradually descended the steps. The part he could see seemed to be “finished” with the traditional vinyl tiles and pine paneling of millions of other American basements. For a brief moment, the commonness of it was oddly reassuring. That feeling disappeared when he stepped out of the stairwell and turned to the source of the light.
In the far corner of the room was a very large Christmas tree, its top bent over against the nine-foot-high ceiling. Its hundreds of tiny lights were the room’s source of illumination. There were colored garlands and foil icicles and scores of glass ornaments in every traditional Christmas shape from simple orbs to handblown glass angels-all hanging from silver hooks. The room was filled with a piney fragrance.
Beside the tree, standing transfixed behind a huge platform the size of two Ping-Pong tables set end to end, was Carl Muller. His hands were on two control levers attached to a black metal box. A model train buzzed around the perimeter of the platform, made figure eights across the middle, climbed and descended gentle grades, roared through mountain tunnels, passed through tiny villages and farms, crossed rivers, traversed forests… around and around… again… again.
Muller’s eyes-glimmering spots in the sagging pallor of his face-glowed with all the colors of the tree lights. He reminded Gurney of a person afflicted with progeria, the weird accelerated-aging disease that makes a child look like an old man.
After a while Gurney went back upstairs. He decided to go on to Scott Ashton’s house and see what the doctor knew about Muller’s condition. The trains and the tree provided reasonable evidence that it was an ongoing situation, not an acute breakdown requiring intervention.
Without setting the lock, he closed the heavy front door behind him with a solid thump. As he started back along the brick path to the lane where his car was parked, an elderly woman was getting out of a vintage Land Rover that was parked directly behind his Outback.
She opened the rear door, spoke a few stern, clipped words, and out stepped a very large dog, an Airedale.
The woman, like her imposing dog, had something about her that was both patrician and wiry. Her complexion was as outdoorsy as Muller’s was sickly. She came toward Gurney with the determined stride of a hiker, leading the dog on a short leash, carrying a walking stick more like a cudgel than a cane. Halfway up the path, she stopped with feet apart, stick planted firmly to one side and the dog on the other, blocking his way.
“I’m Marian Eliot,” she announced-as one might announce, “I am your judge and jury.”
The name was familiar to Gurney. It had appeared on the list of Ashton’s neighbors interviewed by the BCI team.
“Who are you?” she demanded.
“My name is Gurney. Why do you ask?”
She tightened her grip on her long, gnarled stick: scepter and potential weapon. This was a woman accustomed to being answered, not questioned, but it would be a mistake to be bullied by her. It would make it impossible to gain her respect.
Her eyes narrowed. “What are you doing here?”
“I’d be tempted to say it’s none of your business, if your concern for Mr. Muller weren’t so obvious.”
