“Up at the end of the road. I’m Dave Gurney.”
“I’m Chloe. This is Jake. You live here, like, all the time?”
He laughed. “Yes, all the time.”
“It’s so absolutely gorgeous now, like a perfect spring, and the air, my God, but I can’t imagine what these mountains are like in February. You have a big plow or something?”
“Pretty big. Winters can be interesting.”
“Wow. I can imagine.”
The friendlier she was sounding, the less friendly Jake was looking. Gurney decided it would be best to get to the point.
“I have a question—about early traffic on this road. Did either of you happen to be awake before dawn this morning?”
They glanced at each other. “Both of us, actually,” she said, a little warily now.
Gurney took out his wallet and showed them his Larchfield PD credentials. “I’m working with the police department, and we need to know if there were any cars using this road between four and six this morning.”
Jake spoke up. “Is there some kind of problem here?” He had worry in his eyes and pique in his voice, as though he were suspecting the cabin’s rental agent of concealing something.
“Nothing that should concern you. We just need to know if anyone drove up or down the road before dawn today.”
They looked at each other again.
Jake nodded reluctantly. “There was one car. We saw it leaving.”
“You were out here in front of the cabin?”
“Out by our car. By the road.”
“What time was this?”
“Had to be around four thirty.”
“Had to be?”
“We were meeting an instructor down on the Willowemoc Creek at five.”
“Fly fishing?”
He nodded.
“Jake fell in the creek,” said Chloe with a wicked grin.
“So,” said Gurney, “you saw a car at four thirty this morning. Do you remember make, model, color, style, anything specific?”
“It was super quiet,” said Chloe.
“I’m pretty sure it was a BMW,” said Jake. “Looked like a 5 Series.”
“Did you notice the color?”
“It was too dark out to be sure. I’d guess black or dark blue?”
Gurney knew that the precise color would not have been clearly discernible in the moonlight. He just wanted to be sure the man wasn’t “remembering” more than what would have been visible. He couldn’t count the number of investigations that had gone awry because witnesses “recalled” details that never existed.
In this case, Jake was passing the credibility test.
“Do you remember seeing the license plate?”
He shook his head. “Now that you mention it, I think maybe the bulb was out.”
“Okay. Anything else you noticed?”
He started shaking his head again, then stopped. “Oh yeah, like Chloe said, it was quiet.”
“Quiet?”
“Like zero engine noise. Could’ve been a hybrid.”
Back up at the house, Gurney went into the den and checked his phone. He found messages from Madeleine, Morgan, and Hardwick. He listened first to the one from Madeleine.
“Hi. It’s me. Obviously, I had to cancel the Winkler dinner for tonight. But when I mentioned it later to Gerry, she told me that she knows the Winklers, too. So, we’re thinking about doing the dinner at her house tomorrow night. Is that okay? Talk to you soon.”
Social occasions held an obvious attraction for Madeleine. The more the better, the sooner the better. They had the opposite effect on Gurney. His initial reaction to proposed get-togethers was invariably negative, although he usually ended up agreeing to attend events that were important to Madeleine. This one seemed to fall into that category.
Like a child accepting an unappealing vegetable, he called, got her voicemail, and left his message of agreement. He reminded himself that these things occasionally turned out to be more pleasant than he’d anticipated—although his past experiences with the Winklers made that outcome seem unlikely.
Morgan’s message was, as usual, agitated.
“On RAM News just now there was a video of your barn, showing that damn Dark Angel thing. They refused to give us the video files, so Gossett is getting a court order. You still think it’s Tate making the videos and sending them to RAM? No chance it could be one of our own people? God, I hope not. That Rory Kronck idiot was going on about it being the Larchfield Slasher’s direct challenge to you. The son of a bitch is turning you and Tate into comic-book characters! I hope to God the dragnet moving over Harrow Hill comes up with something. Tate, if we’re lucky. Give me a call.”
After making a mental note to check the RAM archive for the Kronck segment, Gurney listened to the third message, the one from Hardwick.
“Last time we talked, you said you might want to enlist my services. We getting any closer to that? My hardware is cleaned, oiled, and ready for deployment. Been almost a year since I shot anybody. Speaking of which, I looked a little deeper into the Silas Gant situation. Word is that the Patriarchs are the protection and possible extortion arm of his operation, a source of fear to his enemies, and backup for business and political allies who need to show strength. Odd little factoid: the top Patriarch’s name is Otis Strane, which I’m told was Lorinda Russell’s maiden name. The plot thickens, Sherlock. Give me a call when you decide who needs to catch a bullet in the balls. One last thing. Check out Gant’s Twitter account. He’s stirring the shit like crazy.”
Gurney was tempted to see what new poison Gant might be selling to his followers, but that quiet BMW Jake and Chloe saw at four thirty in the morning was occupying a more urgent spot in his mind. He decided to try Barstow again.
This time, she picked up the call on the first ring.
“David, great, I was just reaching for the phone to call you.”
“Good news?”
“I got the tread and axle-matching results. They narrow the vehicle down to a single make and model group.”
“BMW?”
“Yes.” She sounded surprised.
“A 5 Series?”
“Yes. Any of the 5 Series sedans, starting with the 2018 model year. How come you knew that before I did?”
“Intuition.”
“Like hell.”
“Once in a while, we get lucky. A couple from the city happened to be in the right place at the right time.”
“This means . . . what? That Tate traded in his orange Jeep for a seventy-grand Beemer?”
“Unlikely.”
“So what on earth is going on?”
“Good question.”
“Those sneaker impressions in the soft soil by your barn? They matched the impressions we found in the floor dust in the mortuary. And the blood on your barn door matched Linda Mason’s DNA, as expected.”
“So, some things are what they seem.”
“Some,” she said.
After hanging up, he placed a call to the central number for Larchfield police headquarters, expecting to reach the desk sergeant. Instead, Morgan answered.
“Dave? You got my message? Did you see that Rory Kronck thing?”
“I’ll take a look at it. But first, do you happen to know the model and year of Aspern’s BMW?”
“Why would you want to know that?” There was an instant edge on his voice.
“Just curious.”
“It’s a 530e, 2019.”
“Does that ‘e’ have a particular meaning?”
“The ‘e’ models are hybrids.” Morgan hesitated, his concern coming across loud and clear. “You sound like this is more than casual curiosity. What’s going on?”