“Wow! Thanks for coming by, Doctor Lou. You never fail to give us something to think about.”
Kronck swiveled back to the camera. “In just a moment we’ll be getting another startling perspective on this remarkable case. But first, these important messages.”
“Has he lost his mind?”
Madeleine’s voice surprised Gurney. He turned from his computer screen to find her standing in the doorway. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
“Why are you watching this?”
“It’s related to the case I’m working on.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I wish I was.”
She came and stood behind his chair, watching in silence as a commercial pitchman explained the vital importance of a home security system—a necessity at a time when “our borders are crumbling, our police are under attack, and violent criminals are running loose in the land.” Immediate protection was just a phone call away.
“Yuck,” muttered Madeleine.
When the commercial ended, Kronck reappeared, the weight of his tone once again an awkward burden for his weak voice. “The sinister events in Larchfield have captured the attention of Karl Kasak, top investigative reporter on RAM’s Crimes Beyond Reason—the series that explores the weird, the paranormal, and the inexplicable. Karl is on his way to Larchfield as we speak. Here’s his take, recorded earlier this evening, on this developing story.”
A video came on showing a man standing next to an open car door in a parking garage. He had thick black hair brushed back from a low forehead and a gritty look of determination. A safari jacket with the sleeves rolled up created a hands-on, high-energy impression. He began speaking as the camera zoomed in.
“Karl Kasak here. I’m heading to a small rural village in upstate New York—where people claim a dead man is stalking the living—a dead man who is now the prime suspect in three ghastly killings. Can the dead come back to life? Can the dead murder the living? Those are the questions we’ll be asking. Get the shocking answers on the next edition of Crimes Beyond Reason.”
Madeleine seemed nonplussed. “This nonsense—this is your case?”
“Yep.”
“There’s actually a debate over whether the person walking around killing people is dead or alive?”
“Debates raise ratings. Especially absurd ones. Of course, the simple explanation is that the medical examiner was wrong. Nothing bizarre at all, just a major error.”
“I still don’t get it. They said your suspect broke out of a coffin? So it wasn’t just the ME’s error? The mortuary person also screwed up?”
“Apparently.”
“What about heart function, lung function, brain activity, livor mortis, rigor mortis? Wasn’t anyone paying attention to anything?”
“It seems to have been a perfect-storm situation. The subject was hit by lightning, fell off a roof, and evidently suffered temporary cardiac and respiratory arrest. CPR was attempted and discontinued. It was dramatically increasing blood loss, and the subject’s neck and chest bones appeared to be broken. Ditto for the defib efforts. The local doctor, who’s also the county’s part-time ME, claimed that the absence of vitals, the failure of CPR and defib efforts, along with catastrophic traumas to the body, led to a reasonable pronouncement of death.”
“What about the mortuary?”
“The funeral director claims he was just providing temporary storage for the body, pending further decisions. The subject wasn’t stripped, so the presence or absence of livor mortis was never determined. As for rigor, that wouldn’t have been present when the body was brought to him, and it wasn’t noted when the body was transferred to a coffin several hours later. But that may have been attributed to the refrigeration in the storage unit.”
“But this person was actually still alive—in a lightning-induced coma?”
“So it seems. There’s a video documenting his revival and departure from the mortuary. Plus evidence of his presence at other locations later that night.”
“I’ve never heard of an ME making that kind of mistake. Was he impaired?”
“The possibility was raised by the funeral home owner. He told us the ME smelled of alcohol. Made a pretty forceful accusation. Which the ME forcefully denied. There’s no way at this point to establish the truth.”
“It would explain a lot.”
“Maybe, but it wouldn’t make catching our killer any easier. That craziness on RAM News is no help, either. They’ll have the peasants out with pitchforks, hunting for zombies.”
Madeleine’s expression darkened. “That’s not funny. The peasants these days have assault rifles.”
24
Gurney’s attempts to sleep that night were repeatedly interrupted—first by wind in the thicket outside their bedroom windows, then by lashing rain. When he did finally doze off just before dawn, the sounds of the storm stirred up troubled dreams, then morphed into the sound of his alarm.
He showered, dressed, made himself a quick cup of coffee, and was about to leave a note for Madeleine when she came into the kitchen in her pajamas.
“You’re heading back to that awful place?”
“I’m meeting Jack Hardwick first at Abelard’s. He knows some things about Larchfield from his days with the state police.”
She inserted a breakfast-blend coffee pod in the top of the coffee maker and placed her favorite mug at the bottom. “I switched the Winkler dinner to tomorrow evening. Okay?”
“Tomorrow’s fine.”
She peered steadily at the coffee maker as her mug was slowly filled. “You never mentioned the string.”
She waited.
“Oh, yes. The yellow string rectangle off the side of the coop. I was going to ask you about that.”
“I’m building an extension.”
“You are?”
“You’re obviously too busy. I think I learned enough about structure-framing when I was volunteering at Habitat.”
“This extension is for . . . what exactly?”
“Could be for anything. Maybe just more chickens. It’ll be an interesting challenge.”
Gurney glanced up at the old regulator clock on the kitchen wall. He needed to leave if he was going to meet Hardwick on time. He suppressed an itch to ask more questions about the extension, gave Madeleine a hug and a kiss, and headed out to his car.
Abelard’s, once a grungy general store in the tiny village of Dillweed, had over the past few years been gentrified into an artsy cafe through the efforts of a Brooklyn transplant by the name of Marika. The dusty displays of canned vegetables, BBQ-flavored potato chips, and two-liter bottles of off-brand colas had been replaced by imported pastas, freshly baked scones, and a remarkable variety of “artisanal” beverages. It was becoming a favorite breakfast spot for the area’s clique of weekending city hipsters.
When Gurney pulled into the parking area, Hardwick’s 1970 Pontiac GTO was already there. The hulking brutishness of the old muscle car, born half a century ago and in serious need of repainting, contrasted mightily with the sleek BMW and Audi roadsters next to it.
Hardwick was sitting at a small table toward the back of the place. Marika—eye-catching in blue spiked hair, scoop-neck blouse, and skintight shorts—was operating an espresso machine on a side counter. Heading for Hardwick, Gurney passed two tables occupied by slim men with expensive haircuts and neat beards.
It had been nearly a year since he’d seen Hardwick, but the man always looked the same. The compact, muscular body in black tee shirt and jeans; the hard face; the unnerving pale-blue eyes of an Alaskan sled dog. And, of course, the attitude.