It was possible that the killer used a different apartment in that building to make the shot and then transferred the weapon to the apartment where it was found, firing a second shot from that location to produce the powder residue. But that scenario was simpler in the saying than it would have been in the doing. It also involved a much-elevated risk of detection, requiring the shooter to carry the cumbersome combination of rifle, tripod, and suppressor through the public spaces of the building. And why bother? There were, after all, several unoccupied apartments from which the shot could have been fired successfully. So why move the weapon at all? Surely not to create an intellectual puzzle. Murderers are rarely that playful. And professional hitters never are.
That thought brought him full circle to the more immediate matter of Klemper. Was Mick the Dick the thuggish, horny clown that his nickname and general manner seemed to suggest? Or might the man be a darker, colder operator altogether?
Gurney hoped their meeting in the mall would provide some answers.
He needed to focus now on the broadest range of possibilities, think them through—angles, objectives. He straightened the yellow pad on his desk and picked up his pen. He tried to force his thoughts into a logical structure by drawing a branching diagram, beginning with four possibilities.
One posited Alyssa as the prime mover behind Carl’s murder and Kay’s conviction.
The second substituted Jonah Spalter for Alyssa.
The third posited an Unknown as Carl’s murderer, with Alyssa and Klemper as opportunistic conspirators in Kay’s conviction.
The fourth posited Kay as guilty.
He added a second level of branching possibilities under each of these.
“Hello?”
Gurney blinked.
“Hello?” It was Madeleine’s voice calling from the opposite side of the house. From the mudroom, it sounded like.
Bringing his pad and pen with him, he went out to the kitchen. “I’m here.”
She was just coming in from the side-door hallway, carrying two plastic supermarket bags. “I left the trunk open. Maybe you could bring in the cracked corn?”
“The what?”
“I read that chickens love cracked corn.”
He sighed, then tried to regard this in the positive light of a momentary diversion from his darker duties. “Bring it in and put it where?”
“The mudroom would be fine.”
He went out to Madeleine’s car, hefted the fifty-pound bag out of the trunk, struggled for a few seconds with the side door of the house, came in, and dropped the bag in the nearest corner of the mudroom—the positive light fading quickly to a weak flicker.
“You bought a lifetime supply?” he asked when he returned to the kitchen.
“It’s the only size they had. Sorry about that. Are you okay?”
“Fine. I guess I’m a little preoccupied—getting ready to go and meet with someone.”
“Oh—that reminds me—before I forget …” Her tone was pleasantly even. “You have an appointment tomorrow morning with Malcolm.”
“Malcolm Claret?”
“That’s right.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I called him before I left the clinic. He said he’d just gotten a cancellation and had an opening tomorrow at eleven.”
“No … What I don’t understand is why.”
“Because I’m afraid for you. We’ve discussed that.”
“No, I mean why you made the appointment for me.”
“Because you hadn’t made it yet, and it’s important.”
“So … you just … decided it was up to you?”
“It had to be up to somebody.”
He turned his palms up in a pose of bewilderment. “I don’t quite get that.”
“What is there to get?”
“I wouldn’t make an appointment for you—not unless you asked me to.”
“Even if you thought it might save my life?”
He hesitated. “Don’t you think that’s a little dramatic?”
She met his gaze and answered softly. “No, I don’t.”
His voice was suddenly filled with exasperation. “You honestly believe an appointment with Malcolm Claret is going to save my life?”
Just as suddenly, her voice was filled with a weary sadness. “If you really don’t want to see him, just cancel the appointment.”
If she’d said that in any other tone, he could imagine himself launching into a grand debate over whose responsibility it was to cancel an appointment she had made, and then he might even segue to the lumber pile she’d ordered for the chicken-house project and how she had a way of starting things that he had to finish and how things always had to happen on her schedule.
But the emotion in her eyes short-circuited all of that.
Besides, it was beginning to dawn on him, strangely, that there might not be any harm in seeing Claret after all.
He was saved from going on with the discussion, however, by the ringing of the phone in his pocket. He pulled it out and checked the ID. “Kyle Gurney” was displayed for a second before the signal was lost. He was tempted to call him back, but figured his son was likely on the move somewhere, passing through a dead spot, and it would make more sense to wait a while.
He checked the clock. It was later than he’d guessed—4:44 p.m.
It was time to leave for the mall. For the crucial meeting for which he hadn’t yet managed to prepare.
Chapter 34. A Gentlemen’s Agreement
The parking lot at Riverside was, as usual, half empty.
In the mostly deserted expanse beside the T.J. Maxx that anchored one end of the mall, an incongruous flock of seagulls stood silently on the tarmac.
Entering the lot, Gurney slowed for a better look. He estimated the number of birds at fifty or sixty. From his perspective in the car, they appeared motionless, all standing in the same orientation, their backs to the setting sun.
As he drove past them to a parking spot closer to the main concourse, he couldn’t help wondering about this increasingly commonplace migration of seagulls to inland malls—drawn, no doubt, by the droppings of fast-food gobblers. Were these transposed birds developing clogged arteries like their benefactors, making them sedentary, infrequent fliers? Food for thought. But not now. The urgency of his mission returned him to reality. He locked his car and walked through the entrance arch, an oddly festive structure with the words RIVERSIDE CENTER curving over the top in colored lights.
The mall was not a large one. There was one main concourse, with minor offshoots. The bright promise of the entry gave way to a rather bleak interior, which appeared to have been designed decades earlier with little refreshment since. Halfway along one side of the concourse, he sat on a bench in front of an Alpine Sports shop with a window display devoted to shiny, body-clinging cycling attire. A salesperson was lounging in the doorway, frowning at the screen of her cell phone.
He checked his watch. It was 5:33.
He waited.
Klemper appeared at 5:45.
The world of law enforcement, like prison, changes the people who spend time in it. It does this by nourishing certain traits: skepticism, calculation, insularity, toughness. Those traits may develop along lines that are benign or malignant, depending on the character of the individual—on the fundamental orientation of his soul. One cop might end up street-smart, loyal to his fellows, and courageous—determined to do a good job in difficult circumstances. Another might end up poisonously cynical, judgmental, and cruel—determined to screw the world that was screwing him. Gurney figured that the look in Mick Klemper’s eyes as he approached the bench put him squarely in the second category.