you think I’m in any real danger?”

Gurney shrugged. “Most crank letters are just crank letters. The unpleasant message itself is the assault weapon, so to speak. However…”

“These are different?”

“These may be different.”

Mellery’s eyes widened. “I see. You will take another look at them?”

“Yes. And you’ll get started on those lists?”

“It won’t do any good, but yes, I’ll try.”

Chapter 6

For blood that’s as red as a painted rose

In the absence of an invitation to stay for lunch, Mellery had reluctantly departed, driving a meticulously restored powder blue Austin-Healey-a classic open sports car on a perfect driving day to which the man seemed miserably oblivious.

Gurney returned to his Adirondack chair and sat there for a long while, nearly an hour, hoping that the tangle of facts would start to arrange themselves in some kind of order, some sensible concatenation. However, the only thing that became clear to him was that he was hungry. He got up, went into the house, made a sandwich of havarti and roasted peppers, and ate alone. Madeleine seemed to be missing, and he wondered if he’d forgotten some plan she might have told him about. Then, as he was rinsing his plate and gazing idly out the window, he caught sight of her meandering up the field from the orchard, her canvas tote full of apples. She had that look of bright serenity that was so often for her an automatic consequence of being in the open air.

She entered the kitchen and laid the apples down by the sink with a loud, happy sigh. “God, what a day!” she exclaimed. “On a day like this, being indoors a minute longer than you have to be is a sin!”

It wasn’t that he disagreed with her, at least not aesthetically, maybe not at all, but the difficult personal fact for him was that his natural inclinations tilted him inward in a variety of ways, with the result that, left to his own devices, he spent more time in the consideration of action than in action, more time in his head than in the world. This had never been a problem in his profession; in truth, it was the very thing that seemed to make him so good at it.

In any event, he had no immediate desire to go out, nor was it something he felt like talking about, arguing about, or feeling guilty about. He raised a diversionary subject.

“What was your impression of Mark Mellery?”

She answered without looking up from the fruit she was transferring from her bag to the countertop, or even pausing to consider the question.

“Full of himself and scared to death. An egomaniac with an inferiority complex. Afraid the bogeyman is coming to get him. Wants Uncle Dave to protect him. By the way, I wasn’t purposely eavesdropping. His voice carries well. I bet he’s a great public speaker.” She made this sound like a dubious asset.

“What did you think of the number business?”

“Ah,” she said with dramatic affectation. “‘The Case of the Mind-Reading Stalker.’”

He stifled his irritation. “Do you have any idea how it might have been done-how the writer knew what number Mellery would choose?”

“Nope.”

“You don’t seem perplexed by it.”

“But you are.” Again she spoke with her eyes on her apples. The tiny ironic grin, increasingly present these days, tugged at the corner of her mouth.

“You have to admit it’s quite a puzzle,” he insisted.

“I suppose.”

He repeated the key facts with the edginess of a man who cannot understand why he is not being understood. “A person gives you a sealed envelope and tells you to picture a number in your mind. You picture six fifty-eight. He tells you to look in the envelope. You look in the envelope. The note inside says six fifty-eight.”

It was clear that Madeleine was not as impressed as she ought to be. He went on, “That’s a remarkable feat. It would appear to be impossible. Yet it was done. I’d like to figure out how it was done.”

“And I’m sure you will,” she said with a small sigh.

He gazed through the French doors, past the pepper and tomato plants wilted from the season’s first frost. (When was that? He couldn’t remember. Couldn’t seem to focus on the time factor.) Beyond the garden, beyond the pasture, his gaze rested on the red barn. The old McIntosh apple tree was just visible behind the corner of it, its fruit dotted here and there through the mass of foliage like droplets of impressionist paint. Into this tableau there intruded a nagging sense of something he ought to be doing. What was it? Of course! His week-old promise that he would fetch the extension ladder from the barn and pick the high fruit Madeleine couldn’t get to by herself. Such a small thing. So easy for him to do. A half-hour project at most.

As he rose from his chair, buoyed by good intentions, the phone rang. Madeleine picked it up, ostensibly because she was standing next to the table on which it rested, but that was not the real reason. Madeleine often answered the phone regardless of who was closer to it. It had less to do with logistics than with their respective desires for contact with other people. For her, people in general were a plus, a source of positive stimulation (with exceptions such as the predatory Sonya Reynolds). For Gurney, people in general were a minus, a drain on his energy (with exceptions such as the encouraging Sonya Reynolds).

“Hello?” said Madeleine in that pleasantly expectant way she greeted all callers-full of the promise of interest in whatever they might have to say. A second later her tone dropped into a less enthusiastic register.

“Yes, he is. Just a moment.” She waved the handset toward Gurney, laid it on the table, and left the room.

It was Mark Mellery, and his agitation level had risen.

“Davey, thank God you’re there. I just got home. I got another of those damn letters.”

“In today’s mail?”

The answer was yes, as Gurney assumed it would be. But the question had a purpose nonetheless. He had discovered over years of interviewing countless hysterical people-at crime scenes, in emergency rooms, in all sorts of chaotic situations-that the easiest way to calm them was to start by asking simple questions they could answer yes to.

“Does it look like the same handwriting?”

“Yes.”

“And the same red ink?”

“Yes, everything’s the same except the words. Shall I read it to you?”

“Go ahead,” he said. “Read it to me slowly and tell me where the line breaks are.”

The clear questions, clear instructions, and Gurney’s tranquil voice had the predictable effect. Mellery sounded like his feet were getting back on solid ground as he read aloud the peculiar, unsettling verse-with little pauses to indicate the ends of lines:

“I do what I’ve done

not for money or fun

but for debts to be paid,

amends to be made.

For blood that’s as red

as a painted rose.

So every man knows

he reaps what he sows.”

After jotting it down on the pad by the phone, Gurney reread it carefully, trying to get a sense of the writer-the peculiar personality lurking at the intersection of a vengeful intent and the urge to express it in a poem.

Mellery broke the silence. “What are you thinking?”

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