“I don’t think we should let Panikos escape. And if we stop, that’s what will happen.”
Whatever remaining desire she might have had to argue the point seemed to melt away. Perhaps it was the granite in Gurney’s voice. Or the determination in his eyes. The message was clear. He wasn’t about to hand anything over to anyone.
Not while the killer was still within reach.
Not while the red BMW was still within sight.
After they took a break to check and respond to texts and voice mail, Gurney put on a third pot of coffee and opened the double doors to let in the balmy August air. As usual, he was surprised by the fragrances of warm earth, grass, wildflowers. It was as if he were incapable of remembering what nature smelled like.
When they were all resettled at the big table, Esti’s gaze met Gurney’s. “You’re the one who seems sure about how we should proceed. You have some specific steps in mind?”
“First we need to decide on the content of our message to Panikos. Then the channel of communication, the identity of the target we want him to zero in on, timing, necessary preparation, and—”
“Slow down, please, one thing at a time. The content of the message? You mean telling him we know something about this secret he’s protecting?”
“Right. And that we’re about to reveal it at some specific time.”
“And the channel? You mean how we actually get this message to him?”
“You said it yourself this morning. Criminal Conflict. Brian Bork. I’d bet that Panikos saw Bork’s interview with Lex, and he probably also saw Bork’s interview with Jack after the Cooperstown fires.”
Esti made a face. “I know I mentioned Bork—but now when I think about it, I can’t imagine our psycho assassin sitting around watching TV.”
“He may have a search engine alert set for certain names—Spalter, Gurikos, Bincher—so if there’s a promotion for an upcoming news program or anything else related to the case in the media, he’d be aware of it.”
She responded with an uneasy little nod.
There was a glint of excitement in Hardwick’s eyes. “I have an open invite from Asshole Bork to provide updates on the case. So I can plant whatever message we want.”
Esti turned toward Gurney. “Which brings us to the part of what you said that I don’t like the sound of. ‘The target.’ What did you mean by that?”
Hardwick interrupted. “Simple, babe. He wants to sic the wee Peter on us.”
She blinked. “Dave? That’s what you meant?”
“Only if we’re confident that we can maintain control of the situation—and that he’d be falling into our trap, not us into his.”
Her expression was a picture of worry.
“But,” Gurney added quickly, “I’m not really making ‘us’ the target.”
She stared at him. “Who, then?”
He smiled. “Me.”
Hardwick shook his head. “It would make more sense for me to be the target. I was the one who appeared on Criminal Conflict. He’ll see me as enemy number one.”
“More like an enemy of the state police, if I recall your rant.”
Hardwick ignored the criticism and leaned forward, raising a forefinger to emphasize what he was about to say. “You know, there’s another angle here. I’ve been thinking about the shots that cut my power and phone lines. In addition to the possible warning—‘see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil’—there might have been a second purpose. Something more practical.” He paused, making sure he had their full attention.
Gurney had a feeling he knew what was coming.
“That Bolo guy you talked to claimed that Panikos visited the Axton Avenue apartment building almost a week before he whacked Carl. The question is, Why? Well, one reason occurred to me. An obsessive-compulsive hit man might want to zero in his rifle scope ahead of time—at the actual location. What do you think?”
Gurney nodded admiringly. He liked being reassured from time to time that beneath Hardwick’s irritating shell there lurked a solid, insightful detective.
Esti frowned. “What’s that got to do with the shots at your house?”
“If he could put my power lines in the crosshairs of his infrared scope and cut them cleanly, he’d know he could put a bullet between my eyes at that same range any time I stepped onto my front porch.”
Esti looked like she was trying not to appear shaken. “On-site practice? Preparation? You think that was the purpose of those shots from the hill?”
It was clear from the speculative excitement in Hardwick’s eyes that that’s exactly what he thought.
Then Esti said something.
And Hardwick answered her.
Then she said something else.
And he responded to that as well.
But none of their words registered in Gurney’s consciousness—not a single syllable after Esti’s use of the phrase “those shots from the hill.”
Because his mind had made a leap from Hardwick’s property to his own. And all he could think about now was what one possible shot from Barrow Hill might have done.
Twenty minutes later, his freshly soiled garden shovel propped in the corner, Gurney stood at the utility sink in the mudroom. He was gazing down in tense concentration at the roughly washed carcass of the rooster he’d just unearthed from its stone-covered grave. On the muddy drain board next to the sink lay one of Madeleine’s silk scarves, now dirty and bloodstained, which she’d used to wrap Horace’s body.
Esti and Hardwick, having received no answers to their repeated questions, stood at the doorway, watching with growing concern. Gurney, holding his breath intermittently to avoid the rotten odor, bent over the dead bird, studying as closely as he could the damage that had ended its life. When he was satisfied that his informal postmortem had told him as much as it was going to, he straightened up and turned around, explaining.
“Madeleine had four chickens. One was a rooster. She named him Horace.” He felt a little stab of sadness at saying the name. “When she found him out on the grass the other day, she thought a weasel had gotten him and bitten his head off. Someone told us weasels will do that.” He felt his lips growing stiff with anger as he spoke. “She was right, in a way. It was a weasel with a sniper rifle.”
At first, Esti’s expression showed only bafflement. Then the significance of Gurney’s comment struck her. “Oh, dear Jesus!”
“Fuck!” said Hardwick.
“I don’t know whether this was about sighting-in his scope for future reference or just sending me a back-off message,” said Gurney. “But whichever it was, I’m apparently on the little bastard’s mind.”
Chapter 51. The Plan
The dead rooster, the apparent method of its execution, and the possible motives behind it had further darkened the mood of the meeting.
Even Hardwick seemed subdued, standing now at the open French doors, gazing across the western field at Barrow Hill. He glanced back at Gurney, who was at the table with Esti. “You figure the shot came from that spot you pointed out before, at the top of the trail?”
“That’d be my guess.”
“The position of things—house, hill, woods, trails—is kind of similar to the situation at my place. Only difference is that he hit my house at night, your rooster in the daylight.”
“Right.”
“Can you think of any reason for that?”
Gurney shrugged. “Only the obvious one. Night’s the most dramatic time to cut a power line. But if you want to shoot one of our chickens, you need to do it in the daytime. They’re locked up in the barn at night.”
As Hardwick appeared to be mulling this over, a silence fell—broken by Esti.