Leaning forward, asking…
Gurney felt the pressure of tears welling.
He pulled in to a rest stop. There was only one other car in the little parking area, and it looked more abandoned than parked. His face felt hot, his hands cold. Not being able to think straight frightened him, made him feel helpless.
Exhaustion was a lens through which he had a tendency to see his life as a failure-a failure made more painful by the professional accolades heaped upon him. Knowing that this was a trick his tired mind played on him made it no less convincing. After all, he had his litany of proofs. As a detective, he’d failed Mark Mellery. As a husband, he’d failed Karen, and now he was failing Madeleine. As a father, he’d failed Danny, and now he was failing Kyle.
His brain had its limits, and after enduring another quarter hour of this laceration, it shut down. He fell into a brief, restorative sleep.
He wasn’t sure how long it lasted, almost certainly less than an hour, but when he woke up, the emotional upheaval had passed and in its place was an uncluttered clarity. He also had a terribly stiff neck, but it seemed a small price to pay.
Perhaps because there was now room for it, a new vision of the Wycherly post-office box mystery began to form in his mind. The two original hypotheses had never seemed entirely satisfactory: namely, that the victims were directed by mistake to send their checks to the wrong box number (unlikely, given the killer’s attention to detail) or that it was the right box but something had gone awry, allowing Dermott to receive and innocently return the checks before the killer could remove them through whatever method he’d devised.
But now Gurney saw a third explanation. Suppose it was the right box and nothing had gone awry. Suppose the purpose of asking for the checks had been something other than to cash them. Suppose the killer had managed to gain access to the box, open the envelopes, look at the checks or make copies of them, and then reseal them in their envelopes and replace them in the box before Dermott got to them.
If this new scenario was closer to the truth-if the killer was in fact using Dermott’s post-office box for his own purposes-it opened a fascinating new avenue.
Madeleine was out. He put his wallet and keys on the breakfast table and picked up the note lying there. It was in Madeleine’s quick, clean handwriting and, as usual, challengingly concise:
What storm?
What fish?
He wanted to go into the den and listen to the five phone messages he assumed she was talking about, but there was something else he wanted to do first, something of greater urgency. The notion that he might be able to write to the killer-to send him a note via Dermott’s mailbox-had given him an overwhelming desire to do so.
He could see that the scenario was shaky, with assumptions resting upon assumptions, but it had great appeal. The chance to
He really should listen to his messages. There could be something urgent, important. He started for the den. But a sentence came to mind-one he didn’t want to forget, a rhyming couplet, the perfect beginning of a statement to the killer. Excitedly, he picked up the pad and pen Madeleine had left on the table and began to write. Fifteen minutes later he put down the pen and read the eight lines written in an elaborate, decorative script.
Satisfied, he wiped the paper clean of fingerprints. It felt odd doing that-shady, evasive-but he brushed the feeling aside, got an envelope, and addressed it to X. Arybdis at Dermott’s box number in Wycherly, Connecticut.
Chapter 41
Gurney just made it down to the mailbox in time to hand the envelope to Rhonda, who filled in for Baxter, the regular mailman, two days a week. By the time he got back up through the pasture to the house, the excitement was already being gnawed at by the remorse that inevitably followed his rare acts of impulse.
He remembered his five messages.
The first was from the gallery in Ithaca.
“David, it’s Sonya. We need to talk about your project. Nothing bad, all good, but we need to talk very, very soon. I’ll be at the gallery until six this evening, or you can call me later at home.”
The second was from Randy Clamm, and he sounded excited.
“Tried you at your cell phone, but it seems to be dead. We found some letters in the Rudden house we’d like you to look at-see if they look familiar. Seems Al was getting some weird little poems in the mail he didn’t want his wife to see. Had them hidden in the bottom of his toolbox. Give me a number, and I’ll fax them. Appreciate it.”
The third was from Jack Hardwick at BCI, his supercilious attitude running amok.
“Hey, Sherlock, word is out that your guy has a couple more notches on his gun. You were probably too busy to give your old buddy a heads-up. I was, for one crazy moment, tempted to think that it was below the dignity of Mr. Sherlock Fucking Gurney to place a call to the humble Jack Hardwick. But of course that’s not the kind of guy you are, right? Shame on me! Just to show you there’s no hard feelings, I’m calling to give you a heads-up on a get- together being planned for tomorrow-a BCI progress report on the Mellery case, including a discussion of how recent events in the Bronx and in Sotherton should affect the direction of the investigation. Captain Rod will be hosting this clusterfuck. DA Kline is being invited, and he in turn will no doubt invite you. I just thought you’d like to know in advance. After all, what are friends for?”
The fourth message was the predicted call from Kline. It was not especially “invitational.” The energy in his voice had curdled into agitation.
“Gurney, what the hell’s the matter with your cell phone? We tried to reach you directly, then through the Sotherton police. They told me you left Sotherton two and a half hours ago. They also told me we are now dealing with murder number three by the same individual. That’s an important fact, wouldn’t you say? Something you should have called me about? We need to talk ASAP. Decisions have to be made, and we need every available piece of information. There’s a meeting at BCI tomorrow noon. That’s a priority. Call me as soon as you get this!”
The final message was from Mike Gowacki.
“Just wanted you to know, we dug a slug out of that hole in the kitchen wall. A.38 like you said. Also, one more little discovery after you left. We were checking the mailbox for any more of them red-ink love notes, and we found a dead fish. In the mailbox. You didn’t mention a dead fish being part of the MO. Let me know if it means anything. I’m no psychologist, but I’d say our perp is a definite wacko. That’s it for now. I’m going home to get some sleep.”
A fish?
He went back out to the kitchen-to the breakfast table, to take another look at Madeleine’s note.
