The phone, still in his hand, rang. He checked the ID: REYNOLDS GALLERY. He glanced at Madeleine. Nothing in her expression suggested a clairvoyant insight into the identity of the caller.
“This is Dave.”
“I want to go to bed. Let’s talk.”
After an awkward silence, Gurney replied, “You first.”
She uttered a soft, intimate laugh-really more purring than laughing. “I mean I want to go to bed early, go to sleep, and in case you were going to call later to talk about tomorrow, it would be better to talk now.”
“Good idea.”
Again the velvety laugh. “So what I’m thinking is very simple. I can’t tell you what to say to Jykynstyl, because I don’t know what he’ll ask you. So you must be yourself. The wise homicide detective. The quiet man who has seen everything. The man on the side of the angels who wrestles with the devil and always wins.”
“Not always.”
“Well, you’re human, right? Being human is important. This makes you real, not some fake hero, you see? So all you need to do is be yourself. You are a more impressive man than you think, David Gurney.”
He hesitated. “Is that it?”
This time the laugh was more musical, more amused. “That’s it for you. Now for me. Did you ever read our contract, the one you signed for the show last year?”
“I suppose I did at the time. Not recently.”
“It says that the Reynolds Gallery is entitled to a forty percent commission on displayed works, thirty percent on cataloged works, and twenty percent on all future works created for customers introduced to the artist through the gallery. Does this sound familiar?”
“Vaguely.”
“Vaguely. Okay. But is it all right, or do you have any problem with it now, going forward?”
“It’s fine.”
“Good. Because we’ll have a very good time working together. I can feel it, can’t you?”
Madeleine, inscrutable, seemed fixated on the ornamental border of her slowly growing scarf. Stitch after stitch after stitch. Click. Click. Click.
Chapter 41
It was a glorious morning, a calendar picture of autumn. The sky was a thrilling blue without a hint of a cloud. Madeleine was already out on one of her bike rides through the winding river valley that extended for nearly twenty miles to both the east and west sides of Walnut Crossing.
“A perfect day,” she’d said before she left, managing to suggest by her tone that his decision to spend a day like this in the city talking about big money for ugly art made him as crazy as Jykynstyl. Or maybe he’d reached that conclusion himself and was blaming it on her.
He was sitting at the breakfast table by the French doors, gazing out over the pasture at the barn, a startling crimson in the limpid morning light. He took the first energizing sip of his coffee, then picked up his phone and called Sheridan Kline’s twenty-four-hour number.
It was answered by a dour, colorless voice-which brought to Gurney’s mind a vivid recollection of the man who owned it.
“Stimmel. District Attorney’s Office.”
“This is Dave Gurney.” He paused, knowing that Stimmel would remember him from the Mellery case and being not at all surprised when the man didn’t acknowledge it. Stimmel had the warmth and loquacity, as well as the thick physiognomy, of a frog.
“Yes?”
“I need to talk to Kline ASAP.”
“That so?”
“Matter of life or death.”
“Whose?”
“His.”
The dour tone hardened. “What does that mean?”
“You’re familiar with the Perry case?” Gurney took the ensuing silence for a yes. “It’s about to explode into a media circus, maybe the biggest mass-murder case in the history of the state. Thought Sheridan might want a heads-up.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You asked me that already, and I told you.”
“Give me the facts, wiseass, and I’ll pass them along.”
“No time to go through it all twice. I need to talk to him right now, even if you have to drag his ass off the can. Tell him this one’s going to make the Mellery murder look like a misdemeanor.”
“This better not be bullshit.”
Gurney figured that was Stimmel’s way of saying, Good-bye, we’ll get back to you. He laid down his phone, picked up his coffee, and took another sip. Still nice and warm. He looked out at the asparagus ferns leaning away from a gentle westerly breeze. The fertilizer questions-if, when, how much-that had filled his mind less than a week ago now seemed infinitely postponable. He hoped he hadn’t overstated the situation to Stimmel.
Two minutes later Kline was on the phone, excited as a fly on fresh manure. “What is this? What media explosion?”
“Long story. You have time to talk?”
“How about you give me the one-sentence summary?”
“Imagine a news story that starts like this: ‘Police and DA clueless as serial murderer abducts Mapleshade girls.’ ”
“Didn’t we go through this yesterday?”
“New information.”
“Where are you right now?”
“Home, but I’m heading into the city in an hour.”
“This is real? Not some wild-ass theorizing?”
“Real enough.”
There was a pause. “How secure is your phone?”
“I have no idea.”
“You can take the thruway to the city, right?”
“I guess so.”
“So you could stop at my office en route?”
“I could.”
“Can you leave now?”
“Maybe in ten minutes.”
“Meet me at my office at nine-thirty. Gurney?”
“Yes?”
“This goddamn better be real.”
“Sheridan?”
“What?”
“If I were you, I’d pray for it not to be.”
Ten minutes later Gurney was on the road, heading east into the sun. His first stop was Abelard’s for a container of coffee to substitute for the nearly full cup he’d left on the kitchen table in his rush to get out.
He sat for a while in the gravelly little patch in front that passed for a parking area, reclined his seat about a third of the way, and tried to relax his mind by concentrating on nothing but the flavor of the coffee. It wasn’t a technique that worked particularly well for him, and he wondered why he kept trying it. It did have the effect of changing what was on his mind, but not necessarily to anything less worrisome. In this case it moved his focus from the dysfunctional mess of the investigation to the dysfunctional mess of his relationship with Kyle-and the growing pressure he felt to call him.
It was ludicrous, really. All he had to do was stop procrastinating and make the call. He knew very well that procrastination was nothing but a short-term escape that creates a long-term problem-that it just occupies more and more storage space in the brain, creating more and more discomfort. Intellectually, there was no argument. Intellectually, he knew that most of the misery in his life arose from the avoidance of discomfort.
He had Kyle’s new number on his speed dial. Christ! Just do it!
He took out his phone, called the number, got voice maiclass="underline" “Hi, this is Kyle. I can’t pick up right now. Please leave a message.”
“Hi, Kyle, it’s Dad. Thought I’d call, get your impressions of Columbia. The apartment share working out okay?” He hesitated, almost asked about Kate, Kyle’s ex-wife, thought better of it. “Nothing urgent, just wondering how you’re doing. Give me a call whenever you can. Talk to you soon.” He pushed the “end call” button.
A curious experience. A bit tangled, like the rest of Gurney’s emotional life. He was relieved that he’d finally called. He was also relieved, to be honest about it, that he’d gotten his son’s voice mail instead of his son. But maybe now he could stop thinking about it, at least for a while. He took a couple more swallows of his coffee, checked the time-8:52 A.M.-and got back on the county road.