“If that’s possible, sir. It would be very helpful.”
Muller nodded slowly. He stepped back, making a vague gesture with his hand.
Gurney stepped into the dark center hall of a well-preserved nineteenth-century home with wide floorboards and abundant original woodwork. The music he’d dimly heard before entering he now heard more identifiably. It was, strangely out of season, “Adeste Fideles,” and it seemed to be coming from the basement. There was another sound as well, a kind of low, rhythmic buzzing, also coming from somewhere below them. To Gurney’s left, a double doorway opened into a formal dining room with a massive fireplace. In front of him, the broad hallway extended to the rear of the house, where there was a glass-paneled door to what appeared to be an endless lawn. On the side of the hallway, a wide staircase with an elaborate balustrade led to the second floor. To his right was an old-fashioned parlor furnished with overstuffed couches and armchairs and antique tables and sideboards over which hung Winslow-style seascapes. Gurney’s impression was that the inside of the house was better cared for than the outside. Muller smiled vacuously, as though waiting to be told what to do next.
“Lovely house,” said Gurney pleasantly. “Looks very comfortable. Perhaps we could sit for a moment and talk?”
Again the tape delay. “All right.”
When he didn’t move, Gurney gestured inquiringly toward the parlor.
“Of course,” said Muller, blinking as though he were just waking up. “What did you say your name was?” Without waiting for an answer, he led the way to a pair of armchairs that faced each other in front of the fireplace. “So,” he said casually when they were both seated, “what’s this all about?”
The tone of the question was, like everything else about Carl Muller, roughly twenty degrees off center. Unless the man had some organic tendency toward confusion-unlikely in the rigorous profession of marine engineering-the explanation had to be some form of medication, perhaps understandable in the aftermath of his wife’s disappearing with a murderer.
Maybe because of the position of the heating vents, Gurney noted that the strains of “Adeste Fideles” and the faint rising and falling buzz were more audible in this room than in the hall. He was tempted to ask about it but thought it better to stay focused on what he really wanted to know.
“You’re a detective,” said Muller-a statement, not a question.
Gurney smiled. “I won’t keep you long, sir. There are just a few things I need to ask you.”
“Carl.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Carl.” He was gazing into the fireplace, speaking as though the ashy remnants of the last fire had jogged his memory. “My name is Carl.”
“Okay, Carl. First question,” said Gurney. “Before the day she disappeared, did Mrs. Muller have any contact with Hector Flores that you were aware of?”
“Kiki,” he said-another revelation from the ashes.
Gurney repeated his question, changing the name.
“She would have, wouldn’t she? Under the circumstances?”
“The circumstances being…?”
Muller’s eyes closed and opened, too lethargic a process to be described as a blink. “Her therapy sessions.”
“Therapy sessions? With whom?”
Muller looked at Gurney for the first time since they’d entered the room, blinking more quickly now. “Dr. Ashton.”
“The doctor has an office in his home? Next door?”
“Yes.”
“How long had she been seeing him?”
“Six months. A year. Less? More? I don’t remember.”
“When was her last session?”
“Tuesday. They were always on Tuesday.”
For a moment Gurney was bewildered. “You mean the Tuesday before she disappeared?”
“That’s right, Tuesday.”
“And you’re assuming that Mrs. Muller-Kiki-would have had contact with Flores when she went to Ashton’s office?”
Muller didn’t answer. His gaze had returned to the fireplace.
“Did she ever talk about him?”
“Who?”
“Hector Flores?”
“He wasn’t the sort of person we’d discuss.”
“What sort of person was he?”
Muller uttered a humorless little laugh and shook his head. “That would be obvious, wouldn’t it?”
“Obvious?”
“From his name,” said Muller with sudden, intense disdain. He was still staring into the fireplace.
“A Spanish name?”
“They’re all the same, you know. So bloody obvious. Our country is being stabbed in the back.”
“By Mexicans?”
“Mexicans are just the tip of the knife.”
“That’s the kind of person Hector was?”
“Have you ever been to those countries?”
“Latin countries?”
“Countries with hot climates.”
“Can’t say that I have, Carl.”
“Filthy places, every one of them. Mexico, Nicaragua, Colombia, Brazil, Puerto Rico-every one of them, filthy!”
“Like Hector?”
“Filthy!”
Muller glared at the ash-covered iron grate as though it were displaying infuriating images of that filth.
Gurney sat silently for a minute, waiting for the storm to subside. He watched the man’s shoulders slowly relaxing, his grip on the arms of the chair loosening, his eyes closing.
“Carl?”
“Yes?” Muller’s eyes reopened. His expression had become shockingly bland.
Gurney spoke softly. “Did you ever have evidence that anything inappropriate might be going on between your wife and Hector Flores?”
Muller looked perplexed. “What did you say your name was?”
“My name? Dave. Dave Gurney.”
“Dave? What a remarkable coincidence! Did you know that was my middle name?”
“No, Carl, I didn’t.”
“Carl David Muller.” He stared into the middle distance. “ ‘Carl David,’ my mother used to say, ‘Carl David Muller, you go straight to your room. Carl David Muller, you better behave or Santa may lose your Christmas list. You mind what I say, Carl David.’ ”
He stood up from his chair, straightened his back, and chanted the words in the voice of a woman-“Carl David Muller”-as though the name and voice had the power to break down the wall to another world. Then he walked out of the room.
Gurney heard the front door opening.
He found Muller holding it ajar.
“It was nice of you to drop by,” said Muller blandly. “You have to leave now. Sometimes I forget. I’m not supposed to let people into the house.”
“Thank you, Carl, I appreciate your time.” Taken aback by what looked like some form of psychotic decompensation, Gurney was inclined to comply with Muller’s request in order to avoid creating any additional stress, then make some calls from his car and wait for help to arrive.
By the time he was halfway to his car, he had second thoughts. It might be better to keep an eye on the man. He returned to the front door, hoping he wouldn’t have a problem persuading Muller to admit him a second time, but the door wasn’t fully closed. He knocked on it, anyway. There was no response. He eased it open and looked inside. Muller wasn’t there, but a door in the hallway that Gurney was sure had been shut before was now ajar. Stepping into the center hall, he called out as mildly and pleasantly as he could, “Mr. Muller? Carl? It’s Dave. You there, Carl?”
No answer. But one thing was certain. The buzzing sound-more of a metallic whooshing sound, now that he could hear it more clearly-and the “Adeste Fideles” Christmas hymn were coming from someplace behind that barely open hall door. He went to it, nudged it wide open with his toe. Dimly lit stairs led down to the basement.
Cautiously, Gurney started down. After a few steps, he called out again, “Mr. Muller? Are you down there?”
A boy-soprano choir began to reprise the hymn in English: “O come, all ye faithful / Joyful and triumphant / O come ye, O come ye to Bethlehem.”
The stairs were enclosed on both sides all the way down, so only a small slice of the basement was visible to Gurney as he gradually descended the steps. The part he could see seemed to be “finished” with the traditional vinyl tiles and pine paneling of millions of other American basements. For a brief moment, the commonness of it was oddly reassuring. That feeling disappeared when he stepped out of the stairwell and turned to the source of the light.