Morgan’s answer struck Gurney as a truthful evasion of the issue.
If Peale noted the equivocation, he didn’t react to it. Looking excited at the prospect of the video, he gave Morgan his ID and password.
Morgan phoned the information to Ronan Ives, then he and Gurney headed back to headquarters. After asking Gurney to wait in the conference room, Morgan went to his office to get the agreement formalizing Gurney’s temporary role in the department.
Sitting at the conference room table reminded Gurney that he’d turned off his phone to avoid any distraction during the earlier meeting. Now he turned it back on and checked his voicemail. He found three new messages.
The first was from Madeleine.
“Hi. Just a reminder that the Winklers are coming for dinner at six. Love you.”
The second was from Jack Hardwick.
“Larchfield? Why the fuck do you want to know about Larchfield? Rich lizards living next door to other rich lizards. Medieval fiefdom, lorded over by Angus the Scottish Scumbag. Classy veneer over rotten wood. You want to know more, buy me a coffee tomorrow morning at Abelard’s. Eight sharp. Call if you can’t make it.”
The third was another from Madeleine.
“Hi, again. Could you pick up some flowers for the table? Maybe tulips from Snook’s Nursery? See you later.”
A moment later Morgan appeared with some papers tucked under his arm and a mug of coffee in each hand. He placed one in front of Gurney, took the seat across from him, and laid the papers in the middle of the table.
“You won’t find any surprises there,” said Morgan. “I just spelled out what we talked about yesterday afternoon. The terms of your involvement. One copy for you, two copies for the department. Before you leave today, we’ll take your photo, laminate it into an official ID.” Morgan was sounding breezy, but his tic was working overtime.
“So long as we understand that I’ll be taking my own path. I’ll keep you and your people informed. But I need to follow my instincts.”
“Wouldn’t want it any other way. I’ll send out a memo to the department, so there’s no confusion about your authority.”
Morgan’s phone rang. He took the call. After listening for half a minute, he said, “Got it. Thank you.” He put the phone down on the table.
“That was Ives at forensics. He accessed the last seven days of Peale’s camera data and downloaded it to our internal system. He coded the segments separately, so we can go directly to the night in question. You want to see it now?”
15
Once Morgan had located the downloaded video segments in the system, he proceeded to the one tagged with the date of Tate’s disappearance from the mortuary and tapped the PLAY icon.
A sound, nearly inaudible at first, took the form of a muffled groan, and the screen came to life with a shot of the embalming room. Gurney assumed that it was this sound that had activated the camera, as well as one of the room’s lighting circuits. As the groan was repeated, building in intensity to a kind of teeth-clenched roar, the camera’s field of view moved to the right, toward the cadaver storage unit. Seemingly responding to a series of dull thumps from the unit, the panning motion was followed by a slow zoom in, until the side of the unit nearly filled the frame. The time code in the corner of the screen was changing from 9:03 p.m. to 9:04 p.m.
The next sounds were more frantic—a combination of growling shouts, grunts, and dull scraping sounds. Gurney pictured, with a twinge of claustrophobia, the scratches and fingernail residues Kyra Barstow had found on the inside of the casket lid.
Pounding continued intermittently for the next quarter of an hour. Then, a different sound—the straining, tearing, and snapping of wood fibers. The time-code display read 9:29 p.m.
What he heard next brought to mind the image of someone stumbling and bumping into something inside the storage unit, followed by a cry of pain and another silence. Soon a new series of thumps and knocks began, louder and more immediate than the earlier ones, suggesting that Tate was moving around and testing the solidity of the walls that surrounded him.
At 9:44 p.m. Gurney heard the distinctive metallic clunk of an exit lever. The door of the unit swung open.
The camera position offered only a side view of the unit, and its occupant only became visible when he finally staggered into the room. His hooded sweatshirt appeared blood-soaked.
The motion-sensitive camera followed him as he moved unsteadily toward the embalming table. He leaned forward, grasping the edge of it. His breathing sounded labored and raspy.
Gradually he straightened himself and began to make his way around the room. The bloody hood concealed his face and allowed only animal sounds of pain and rage to emerge. He might as well not have been human at all. Thinking of this feral creature as “Billy” seemed incongruous.
When he reached the doorway to the equipment room, he hesitated, then went inside. Soon there was the sound of a window being opened. Gurney wondered whether his purpose was to get more air or a clearer view of his surroundings. Where am I? would have to have been one of the top questions in his mind.
A minute later he came back into the main room—at an angle that provided a passing glimpse of the damaged side of his face.
“Holy Christ,” muttered Morgan.
Even shadowed as it was by the sweatshirt’s hood, the vertical gouge down through red and black charred flesh was so appalling that it was a relief when he turned away in the direction of the cabinet on the wall next to the doorway.
The cabinet appeared to interest him. He remained there for some time before making an effort to open it. Discovering that the glass door was locked, he smashed it with his elbow, which triggered another yowl of pain. He reached through the shattered opening, removed two handfuls of shiny implements, and stuffed them into the pockets of his sweatshirt.
He pulled a phone out of one of those pockets. For a while he just stood there, as if trying to make up his mind about something. Then his fingers moved as if he were sending someone a text message. He started to put the phone back in his pocket, then stopped and sent what appeared to be a second message. The time code on the video indicated that it was 10:01 p.m.
He started moving in the direction of the hallway that led to the back door, then stopped and faced a section of the wall next to the smashed cabinet. He remained in that position, rocking almost imperceptibly from side to side, for several minutes. Then he took one of the shiny instruments out of his pocket and stepped closer to the wall. He scratched a looping figure eight design into the white paint, added a vertical slash, and put the instrument back in his pocket. He stepped back, as if to admire what he’d done, then turned and walked with new determination into the dark hallway. Moments later there was the sound of a door being opened, a few seconds of silence, and the sound of it being firmly closed.
The time-code display read 10:19 p.m.
Five minutes later, in the absence of any further sounds or movements to activate it, the camera stopped operating.
The screen in the conference room went blank.
The untouched coffee in Gurney’s mug was cold.
Morgan’s expression conveyed a sense of overload.
Gurney provided a low-key counterpoint. “Interesting video. Intense, but no surprises. Entirely consistent with Kyra’s evidence narrative.”
“She did describe it like it happened,” said Morgan, as if the consistency were reassuring.
“And the time code tells us when it happened,” said Gurney, “which gives us a reliable window for tracing Tate’s movements.”
Morgan picked up his coffee mug, took a sip, made a disgusted face, and put it down. His gaze fell on the papers in the middle of the table. “You should take a look at your contract. And sign it. As soon as you do, you’ll be covered.”