Gurney noted that Carl was hit, as the incident report indicated, at exactly 10:20. The first responder arrived at 10:28—a local uniform in a Long Falls police cruiser. Within the next couple of minutes, two more arrived, followed shortly by a trooper cruiser. At 10:42, an EMT unit arrived in a large ambulance. Parking directly in front of the main activity at the scene, blocking the security camera’s field of view, it rendered the remainder of the video useless to Gurney. Even the first unmarked car—presumably bringing Klemper—was obscured when it stopped on the far side of the ambulance.
After skimming through the rest of the video, sampling bits here and there and finding no important additional data, Gurney sat back in his desk chair to consider what he’d seen.
In addition to the unfortunate position of the ambulance, there was another problem with the material. Despite the high resolution of the camera, its formidable zoom lens, and its auto-framing capabilities, the sheer camera-to-subject distance resulted in a visual product with definite limitations. Although he’d understood what he saw happening, he knew that some of that understanding had been supplied by what he’d been told. He’d long ago accepted a major counterintuitive cognitive principle: We don’t think what we think because we see what we see. We see what we see because we think what we think. Preconceptions can easily override optical data—even make us see things that aren’t there.
What he wanted was stronger optical data—to make sure his preconceptions weren’t leading him in the wrong direction. Ideally, he’d submit the digital file to a sophisticated computer lab for maximum enhancement, but part of the price of retirement was lack of free access to that kind of resource. It occurred to him that Esti might have a back door into the NYSP lab that would enable her to get the job done without an ID or tracking number that could come back to bite her, but he wasn’t comfortable with nudging her into that position. At least, not until less risky options had been exhausted.
He picked up his phone and called Kyle—an avid storehouse of information on all things related to computers, the more complex the better. He was invited to leave a message, and he did. “Hi, son. I have a digital technology problem. Official support channels aren’t available to deal with it. Here’s the thing. I have a hi-def video file that might be more revealing if we could apply a digital zoom effect without diluting its sharpness. That’s kind of a contradiction, but I think there’s enhancement software with certain algorithms that have a way of addressing that issue … so maybe you could point me in the right direction? Thanks, son. I’m sure whatever you can tell me will be a lot more than I already know.”
After ending the call, he decided to go back to the beginning of the video and view it again. But then he happened to notice the current time, displayed in the upper corner of his laptop screen. It was 5:48 p.m. Even if Madeleine had taken the longest of her usual trails through the woods—the one over the top of Carlson’s Ridge—she should have returned by now.
It was dinnertime, and she never … Oh, Christ! Of course!
He felt like an idiot. This was the day she was supposed to leave for her stay at the Winklers’. Too much was happening too damn fast. It was as though his brain couldn’t contain another speck of information, and every time something new got jammed in, it shoved something out the other side. It was kind of scary to think about. What else might he have forgotten?
That’s when he remembered that on his way in he’d seen her car parked by the house.
If she’s at the Winklers’, why the hell is her car still here?
Baffled, with a fast-growing feeling of unease, he called her cell number.
He was surprised a few seconds later to hear her phone ringing in the kitchen. Had she not gone to the Winklers’ after all? Was she somewhere around the house? He called out to her, but there was no answer. He went out from the den to the kitchen. Following the sound of the ring, he found her phone on the sideboard next to the stove. That was truly odd. As far as he knew, she never left the house without it. Perplexed, he gazed out the window, hoping that he might see her heading up through the pasture toward the house.
There was no sign or her. Just her car. Which meant she had to be somewhere in the general vicinity—unless she’d gone somewhere with a friend who’d picked her up. Or unless, God forbid, she’d had an accident and was taken away in an ambulance.
He strained to recall anything she might have said that would …
Just then a breeze caught the asparagus ferns, stirring them briefly apart, and something bright flashed at the corner of his eye.
Something pink, he thought.
Then the ferns settled back together, and he wondered whether he’d seen anything at all.
Curiosity drove him outside to check.
As soon as he reached the far side of the asparagus bed his question was answered—with a larger one. Madeleine was sitting on the grass in one of her pink T-shirts. Next to her on the ground were a few pieces of bluestone placed over what appeared to be freshly loosened earth. On the far side of the stones, a shovel, recently used, lay on the grass. With her right hand, Madeleine was gently patting down the dark earth around the edges of the stones.
At first she said nothing.
“Maddie?”
She looked up at him with her mouth in a tight, sad little line.
“What is it? What’s the matter?”
“Horace.”
“Horace?”
“One of those terrible creatures killed him.”
“Our rooster?”
She nodded.
“What sort of terrible creature?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I guess what Bruce said the other night when he was here. A weasel? A possum? I don’t know. He warned us. I should have listened.” She bit her lower lip.
“When did it happen?”
“This afternoon. When I got home, I let them out of the barn for some air. It was such a nice day. I had some cracked corn, which they love, so they followed me up to the house. They were right out here. Running around. Pecking in the grass. I went into the house for … something, I don’t even know what. I just …” She stopped for a moment, shaking her head. “He was only four months old. He was just learning to crow. He looked so proud. Poor little Horace. Bruce warned us … he warned us … about what could happen.”
“You buried him?”
“Yes.” She reached over and smoothed the soil by the stones. “I couldn’t let his little body just lie there.” She sniffled, cleared her throat. “He was probably trying to protect the hens from the weasel. Don’t you think?”
Gurney had no idea what to think. “I guess so.”
After patting down the soil a few more times, she got up from the grass and they went into the house. The sun had already started to slide down behind the western ridge. The slope of the opposite hill was bathed in that ruddy-gold light that only ever lasted a minute or two.
It was a strange evening. After they had a brief, quiet dinner of leftovers, Madeleine settled into one of the armchairs by the big empty fireplace at the far end of the long room, abstractedly holding one of her perennial knitting projects in her lap.
Gurney asked if she’d like him to turn on the floor lamp behind her chair. She shook her head almost imperceptibly. As he was about to ask if she had a revised timetable for going to the Winklers’ farm, she asked about his meeting that morning with Malcolm Claret.
That morning?
So much had intervened, his trip to the Bronx felt like something that had happened a week ago. He was having a hard time focusing on it, fitting it into his grasp of the day. He began with the first aspect of it that came to mind.