The clock on the dashboard read 4:18 p.m. Madeleine’s car was in its regular spot, which reminded him that she’d been on her early shift that day and had likely gotten home around two. He expected she’d be inside reading—perhaps engaged in her Sisyphean assault on War and Peace. He went in through the side door and called out, “I’m home.”
There was no answer.
Passing through the kitchen on his way to the den, he called out again, and again there was no answer. His next thought was that she was out on one of her walks.
In the den he tapped a key on his open laptop to bring it to life. He took the USB drive out of his pocket and stuck it in the appropriate slot. The icon that appeared was titled “02 DEC 2011 08:00AM–11:59AM”—the time window within which the Spalter shooting had occurred. He went to the GET INFO menu and discovered that the little thumb drive had a 64GB capacity, far more than enough to cover the specified hours, even at a high resolution.
He clicked on the drive icon, and a window opened immediately with four video file icons—titled “CAM A (INT),” “CAM B (EAST),” “CAM C (WEST),” and “CAM D (SOUTH).”
Interesting. A four-camera array was an unusual level of video security for a small electronics store in a small city. Gurney figured the array was either an active display for the purpose of selling security cameras—like having a wall of televisions, all on—or, a possibility that had crossed his mind earlier, Hairy Harry and his girlfriend were in a riskier business than consumer electronics.
Since the south-facing camera would have been the one facing the Willow Rest cemetery, that was the file Gurney chose first. When he clicked on the icon, a video window appeared with controls for PLAY, PAUSE, REVERSE, and CLOSE, plus a sliding bar linked to the file time code, for getting to specific points in the video. He clicked on PLAY.
What he saw then was what he’d hoped for. It was almost too good to be true. Not only was the file resolution superb, but the camera that had produced the file evidently included the latest motion-tracking and zoom-to-action technology. And, of course, like most security cameras, it was motion-activated—recording video only when something was happening—and had a real-time indicator at the bottom of the frame.
The motion-activation feature meant that the nominal four-hour period of coverage would occupy far less recorded time in the file, since intervals of inactivity in the camera’s field of view would not be represented. So it was that the first hour of the period had produced less than ten minutes of digital footage—triggered mainly by hardy dog walkers and winter-suited joggers performing their morning rituals on a path that paralleled the low cemetery wall. The scene was brightened by pale winter sunlight and a light, patchy coating of snow.
It wasn’t until a little after nine that the camera responded to activity inside Willow Rest. A panel truck was moving slowly across the frame. It came to a stop in front of what Gurney recognized as the Spalter family plot (or, to use Paulette Purley’s term, “property”). Two men in bulky overalls emerged from the truck, opened its rear doors, and began unloading a number of dark, flat, rectangular objects. These were soon revealed to be folding chairs, which the men set up with evident care in two rows facing an elongated area of dark earth—the open grave intended for Mary Spalter. After making some adjustments in the position of the chairs, one of the men erected a portable podium at the end of the grave, while the other retrieved a large broom from the truck and began sweeping some of the snow away from the grassy space between the chairs and the grave.
As this work was progressing, a small white car pulled into view and stopped behind the truck. Although he couldn’t be sure of the face, impossibly tiny in the video frame, Gurney had a feeling that the woman who got out of the car, bundled in a fur jacket and fur hat, gesturing as though she was giving instructions to the workmen, was Paulette Purley. After some more straightening of the chairs, the men got back in the truck and drove out of the frame.
The woman stood by herself, looking around the plot as if giving everything a final once-over, then got back in her car, drove it past the open grassy area, and parked next to some cold-withered rhododendrons. The video continued for another minute or so before stopping. It restarted at a point twenty-eight minutes later in real time—at 9:54 a.m.—with the arrival of a hearse and a number of other cars.
A man in a black overcoat came from the passenger side of the hearse, and the woman Gurney figured was Paulette Purley reemerged from her car. They met, shook hands, spoke briefly. The man walked back toward the hearse, gesturing as he went. Half a dozen dark-suited men got out of a limo, opened the rear door of the hearse, and slowly removed a casket, which they then carried with practiced smoothness to the open grave and placed on a supporting structure that held it at ground level.
At some signal Gurney did not detect, the mourners began coming out of the other cars parked in a row along the lane behind the hearse. Wrapped in winter coats and hats, they made their way to the two rows of chairs alongside the grave, gradually filling all but two of the sixteen seats. The two left vacant were those on either side of Mary Spalter’s triplet cousins.
The tallish man in the black overcoat, presumably the funeral director, moved to a position behind the seated mourners. The six pallbearers, having made some adjustments to the position of the casket, stood shoulder to shoulder beside him. Paulette Purley stood a few feet off to the side of the last pallbearer.
Gurney’s attention was fixed on the man in the end seat of the first row. The unsuspecting victim-to-be. The clock at the bottom of the video window indicated that the time in Willow Rest was 10:19 a.m. Meaning that at that moment Carl Spalter had just one minute left. One more minute of life as he’d known it.
Gurney’s gaze went back and forth between Carl and the clock, feeling the erosion of time and life with a painful acuteness.
There was just half a minute left, before a .220 Swift bullet—the fastest, most accurate bullet in the world—would pierce the man’s left temple, fragment in his brain, and put an end to whatever future he might have imagined.
In his long NYPD career, Gurney had witnessed countless crimes on security videos—including muggings, beatings, burglaries, homicides—at gas stations, liquor stores, convenience stores, Laundromats, ATMs.
But this one was different.
The human context, with its complex and strained family relationships, was deeper. The emotional context was more vivid. The sedate physical appearance of the scene—the seated participants, the suggestion of a formal group portrait—bore no resemblance to the content of typical security camera footage. And Gurney knew more about the man about to be shot—in just a few more seconds—than he’d known up front about any other on-tape victim.
Then the moment came.
Gurney leaned in toward his computer screen, literally on the edge of his chair.
Carl Spalter rose and turned toward the podium that had been set up at the far end of the open grave. He took a step in that direction, passing in front of Alyssa. Then, just as he began to take another step, he lurched forward in a kind of stumbling collapse that carried him the length of the front row. He hit the ground face-first and lay motionless on the snow-whitened grass between his mother’s casket and his brother’s chair.
Jonah and Alyssa were the first on their feet, followed by two Elder Force ladies from the the second row. The pallbearers came around from behind the chairs. Paulette rushed toward Carl, dropped to her knees, and bent over him. After that it was difficult to sort out what was happening, as more people crowded around the fallen man. During the ensuing minutes, at least three people appeared to have their phones out, making calls.