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.
There was the initial two-part letter from “X. Arybdis” making the uncanny prediction that the number Mellery would think of would be 658 and asking for $289.87 to cover the expense of having located him. There were the three increasingly menacing poems that had subsequently arrived by mail. (The third of these was the one Mellery had placed in a small plastic food-storage bag, he had told Gurney, to preserve any fingerprints.) Also laid out in sequence were Mellery’s returned $289.87 check along with the note from Gregory Dermott indicating that there was no “X. Arybdis” at that address; the poem dictated by the killer on the phone to Mellery’s assistant; a cassette tape of the killer’s phone conversation later that evening with Mellery, during which Mellery mentioned the number nineteen; the letter found in the institute mailbox predicting that Mellery would pick nineteen; and the final poem found on the corpse. It was a remarkable amount of evidentiary material.
“You know anything about the plastic bag?” Hardwick asked. He sounded as unenthusiastic about plastic as he did about poetry.
“By that point Mellery was seriously frightened,” said Gurney. “He told me he was trying to save possible fingerprints.”
Hardwick shook his head. “It’s that
A uniformed cop with a Peony police badge on his hat and a harried expression on his face was standing at the door.
“Yeah?” Hardwick said, daring the visitor to bring him another problem.
“Your tech team needs access. That okay?”
Hardwick nodded, but his attention had returned to the collection of rhyming threats spread out across the table.
“Neat handwriting,” he said, his face wrinkling up in distaste. “What do you think, Dave? You think maybe we got a homicidal nun on our hands?”
Half a minute later, the techs appeared in the boardroom with their evidence bags, a laptop, and a portable bar-code printer to secure and label all the items temporarily displayed on the table. Hardwick requested that photocopies be made of each of the materials before they were sent to the forensics lab in Albany for latent- fingerprint inspection and for handwriting, paper, and ink analysis-with special attention to the note left on the body.
Gurney kept a low profile, observing Hardwick at work in his crime-scene supervisor role. The way a case turned out months, or even years, down the road often depended on how well the guy in charge of the scene did his job in the early hours of the process. In Gurney’s opinion Hardwick was doing a very good job indeed. He watched him go over the photographer’s documentation of his shots and locations to make sure all relevant areas of the property had been covered, including key parts of the perimeter, entries and exits, all the footprints and visible physical evidence (lawn chair, cigarette butts, broken bottle), the body itself in situ, and the blood-drenched snow around it. Hardwick also asked the photographer to arrange for aerial shots of the entire property and its environs- not a normal part of the process, but under the circumstances, particularly the circumstance of a set of footprints that led nowhere, it made sense.
In addition, Hardwick conferred with the pair of younger detectives to verify that the interviews assigned to them earlier had been conducted. He met with the senior evidence tech to review the trace-evidence collection list, then had one of his detectives arrange for a scent-tracking dog to be brought to the scene the following morning-a sign to Gurney that the footprint problem was very much on Hardwick’s mind. Finally he’d examined the crime-scene arrival and departure log maintained by the trooper at the front gate to make sure there had been no inappropriate personnel on site. Having watched Hardwick absorb and evaluate, prioritize and direct, Gurney concluded that the man was still as competent under pressure as he’d been during their former collaboration. Hardwick might be a bristly bastard, but there was no denying he was efficient.
At a quarter past four, Hardwick said to him, “Long day, and you’re not even getting paid. Why don’t you head home to the farm?” Then he did a little double take, as if a thought had ambushed him, and added, “I mean, we’re not paying you. Were you getting paid by the Mellerys? Shit, I bet you were. Famous talent doesn’t come cheap.”
“I don’t have a license. I couldn’t charge if I wanted to. Besides, working as a paid PI is the last thing on earth I’d want to do.”
Hardwick shot him a disbelieving look.
“In fact, right now I think I’ll take your suggestion and call it a day.”
“Think you could drop by regional headquarters around noon tomorrow?”
“What’s the plan?”
“Two things. First, we need a statement-your history with the victim, the piece from long ago and the current piece. You know the drill. Second, I’d like you to sit in on a meeting-an orientation to get everyone on the same page. Preliminary reports on cause of death, witness interviews, blood, prints, murder weapon, et cetera. Initial theories, priorities, next steps. Guy like you could be a big help, get us on the right track, keep us from wasting taxpayer money. Be a crime not to share your big-city genius with us shitkickers. Noon tomorrow. Be good if you could bring your statement along with you.”
The man needed to be a wise-ass. It defined his place in the world: Wise-Ass Hardwick, Major Crimes Unit, Bureau of Criminal Investigation, New York State Police. But Gurney sensed that underneath the bullshit, Hardwick really did want his help with a case that was growing stranger by the hour.
Gurney drove most of the way home oblivious to his surroundings. Not until he had driven up into the high end of the valley past Abelard’s General Store in Dillweed did he become aware the clouds that had gathered earlier in the day were gone, and in their place a remarkable glow from the setting sun was illuminating the western face of the hills. The snowy cornfields that bordered the meandering river were bathed in a pastel so rich that his eyes widened at the sight. Then, with surprising speed, the coral sun descended below the opposing ridge, and the glow was extinguished. Again the leafless trees were black, the snow a vacant white.
As he slowed approaching his turnoff, his attention was drawn to a crow on the shoulder of the road. The crow was standing on something that elevated it a few inches above the level of the pavement. As he came abreast of it, he looked more closely. The crow was standing on a dead possum. Strangely, considering the normal caution of crows, it neither flew away nor showed any sign of disturbance at the passing car. Motionless, it had about it an expectant air-giving the odd tableau the quality of a dream.
Gurney turned onto his road and downshifted for the slow, winding ascent-his mind full of the image of the black bird atop the dead animal in the fading dusk, watchful, waiting.
It was two miles-and five minutes-from the intersection to Gurney’s property. By the time he came to the narrow farm track that led from the barn to the house, the atmosphere had grown grayer and colder. A ghostlike snow devil reeled across the pasture, almost reaching the dark woods before dissolving.
He pulled in closer to the house than usual, turned up his collar against the chill, and hurried to the back door. As soon as he entered the kitchen, he was aware of the uniquely vacant sound that signaled Madeleine’s absence. It was as if she had about her the faint hum of an electric current, an energy that filled a space when it was present and left a palpable void when it was not.
There was something else in the air as well, the emotional residue of that morning, the dark presence of the box from the basement, the box that still sat on the coffee table at the shadowed end of the room, its delicate white ribbon untouched.
After a brief detour to the bathroom off the pantry, he went directly into the den and checked the phone messages. There was just one. The voice was Sonya’s-satiny, cello-like.
He was starting to replay the message when he heard the back door opening and shutting. He pressed the “stop” button on the machine to abort the Sonya replay and called out, “Is that you?”
There was no answer, which annoyed him.
