“They’ll do it?” Esti’s tone was sour. “Just like that?”
“Just like that, babe.”
“They really don’t care that it’s all made-up nonsense?”
Hardwick’s grin became positively incandescent. “Not one goddamn bit. Why should they? Bork loves the feeling of crisis the whole thing generates.”
Esti nodded slightly—the gesture conveying more resignation than agreement.
“By the way, Davey,” said Hardwick, “I’d get that dead chicken out of the mudroom sink if I were you. Fucking thing really stinks.”
“Right. I’ll take care of that. But first—I’m glad you reminded me—we’ve got a little add-on for the RAM-TV announcements. An unfortunate auto accident.”
Chapter 52. Florence in Flames
After Hardwick and Esti were gone—after her agile little Mini and his rumbling GTO had turned past the barn and headed down the mountain road—Gurney sat gazing out at the pile of lumber and pondering the henhouse project it represented.
Then his mind proceeded from the henhouse to Horace. He forced himself out of his chair and through the side hallway to the mudroom.
Back in the house a little while later after reburying the rooster, Gurney found that whatever sense of organization and control he’d experienced during the meeting with Hardwick and Esti had evaporated, and he was taken aback by the improvisational sketchiness of what he had boldly been calling a “plan.” Now the whole caroming enterprise felt downright amateurish—driven more by anger, pride, and optimistic assumptions than by facts or real capabilities on the ground.
What they “knew” about Petros Panikos, after all, was little more than a hodgepodge of rumors and anecdotes from sources of widely varying credibility. The uncertain provenance of the data opened the door to an unsettling range of possibilities.
What, he asked himself, was he sure of?
In truth, very little. Very little beyond the implacable nature of the enemy—his proven willingness to do anything to achieve a goal or make a point. If evil was, as one of Gurney’s philosophy professors had once insisted, “intellect in the service of appetite, unrestrained by empathy,” then Peter Pan was evil incarnate.
What else was he sure of?
Well, there could be no doubt about the risk to Esti’s career. She’d put everything at stake to join the crew of what was feeling increasingly like a runaway train.
And there was at least one other undeniable fact. He was again putting himself in the crosshairs of a killer. He was tempted to believe that this occasion was different—that the circumstances demanded it, that their precautions permitted it—but he knew he wouldn’t be able to convince anyone else of that. Certainly not Madeleine. Certainly not Malcolm Claret.
There is nothing in life that matters but love.
That’s what Claret had said as Gurney was leaving his little sun porch office.
As he reflected on the statement now, he realized two things. It was absolutely true. And it was absolutely impossible to keep it in the forefront of his mind. The contradiction struck him as yet another nasty trick played on human beings by human nature.
He was saved from sliding further into a pit of pointless speculation and depression by the ringing of the landline in the den.
The ID screen announced it was Hardwick.
“Yes, Jack?”
“Ten minutes after leaving your house I got a call from my Interpol guy, probably the last one we’re going to get, from the tone of his voice. I’ve been pushing him pretty hard for every damn detail he could find in their old files on the Panikos family. Made a real pain in the ass of myself—which isn’t my true nature—but you wanted more information, and I live to be of service to my betters.”
“A very positive quality. And you found out what?”
“Remember the fire that destroyed the family gift shop in the village of Lykonos? Burned everyone to death, except the adopted firebug? Well, turns out it wasn’t just a gift shop. It had a little annex, a second business, run by the mother.” He paused. “Need I say more?”
“Let me guess. The annex was a flower shop. And the mother’s name was Florence.”
“Florencia, to be precise.”
“She died with the rest of the family, right?”
“Up in flames, one and all. And now little Peter likes riding around in a van with a sign that says FLOWERS BY FLORENCE. Any ideas about that, ace? You figure he just likes thinking about his mom while he’s killing people?”
Gurney didn’t answer right away. For the second time that day, someone’s use of a short phrase—earlier it was Esti’s comment on “those shots from the hill”—sent him off on a mental tangent. This time it was Hardwick’s “up in flames.”
The words brought to mind an old case involving a flaming auto wreck. It was one of the instructive examples he’d used in an academy seminar called “The Investigative Mind-set.” The odd thing was that this was the third time in as many days that something had brought that case to mind. In this instance, hearing “up in flames” seemed a simple enough trigger, but nothing so obvious had occurred on the two previous occasions.
Gurney considered himself as far from superstitious as a man could be, but when something like that—a specific case—kept intruding into his consciousness, he’d learned not to ignore it. The question was, what was he supposed to make of it?
“Hey, you still there, ace?”
“I’m here. Just got caught up thinking about something you said.”
“You thinking like me that our little maniac might have some mommy problems?”
“A lot of serial killers do.”
“That’s a fact. Maternal magic. Anyway, that’s it for now. Just thought you’d want to know about Florencia.”
Hardwick broke the connection, which was fine with Gurney, whose mind had been taken over by the flaming auto wreck case. He recalled that the previous event triggering the same memory had been Esti’s story about the shooting in the alley. Was there some similarity between the incidents? Was it possible that they both related in some way to the Spalter case? He couldn’t see any connection at all. But maybe Esti could.
He called her cell number, got her voice mail, and left a brief message.
Three minutes later, she called him back. “Hi. Something wrong?” Her voice still carried some of the anxiety she’d expressed at their morning meeting.
“Nothing wrong. I may be just wasting your time. But my mind seems to be making some kind of connection between two cases—your alley case and an old NYPD case—and maybe between them and the Spalter case.”
“What kind of connection?”
“I don’t know. Maybe if I told you the NYPD story you’d see something I’m missing.”
“Sure. Why not? I don’t know if I can help, but go ahead.”
Half apologetically, he told her the story.
“The accident scene at first seemed easy enough to explain. A middle-aged man on his way home from work one night was driving down a hill. At the bottom of the hill, the road made a turn. His car, however, proceeded straight ahead through the guardrail, coming to rest nose-down in a ravine. The gas tank exploded. There was an intense fire, but enough remained of the driver to perform an autopsy and conclude that he had suffered a massive coronary. This was listed as the precipitating cause of his loss of control and the subsequent fatal accident. That would have been the end of the story, if it weren’t for the fact that the investigating officer had an uncomfortable feeling about it that wouldn’t go away. He went to the location where the vehicle had been towed, and went over it one more time. That’s when he noticed that the areas of the most severe impact and fire damage inside the car didn’t quite coincide with those outside. At that point, he ordered a complete forensic workup on the vehicle.”