Hammond flashed a chilly smile. “Are you testing me?”
“I’m curious to see how far your instincts take you.”
“Fair enough. What does Dave Gurney really want? It’s an interesting question.” He glanced at Madeleine, who was watching him intently, before turning back to Gurney.
“This is only the barest of first impressions, but I’d guess that you have one great imperative in your life. You want to understand. You want to connect the dots. Your personality is built around that central desire, a desire you perceive as a need. You claimed earlier that you want to represent the victims, to stand up for Ethan Gall, to achieve justice for him and the others. That may or may not be true, but I can see that you believe it. I can see that you’re being as open and honest with me as you can be. But you also appear to have a great deal on your mind, issues you’re not talking about.”
His gaze moved to Madeleine. “You have a great deal on your mind, too.”
“Oh?” She reflexively crossed her arms.
“You have something on your mind that’s making you uncomfortable. Most of that discomfort comes from keeping it a secret. Your husband knows something is troubling you. He senses that you’re afraid to tell him about it. That adds to his own burden. And you can see how your secret is affecting him, but you don’t see any simple way out of it, and it’s making your situation very painful.”
“You can tell all that . . . how? By the way I eat my blueberry tart?”
Hammond smiled softly. “Actually, by the way you don’t eat it. When Jane first mentioned blueberries, there was a positive flash of anticipation in your eyes, which was quickly overtaken by other thoughts. Your anxiety stole your appetite. You never touched your dessert.”
“Amazing. Who knew that failing to eat a tart could be so revealing?”
Her anger had no visible effect on Hammond, whose gentle smile persisted. “A lot is revealed by the way a husband and wife look at each other, particularly the way one looks at the other when the other isn’t looking back. So much is written on their faces.”
Madeleine returned his smile, but hers was cold. “Do you look in the mirror much?”
“It doesn’t work that way, if I understand what you’re getting at.”
“A man with your insight into facial expressions must gather all sorts of information from his own reflection.”
“I wish that were true. In my case, it’s not.”
“So your psychological dissection skills can only be applied to other people?”
He nodded ruefully. “Sometimes I think of it as my deal with the devil.”
Madeleine fell silent, perhaps surprised by the odd reply.
“What do you mean?” asked Gurney.
“I mean I’ve been given something of value, but there’s a related price.”
“The thing of value being your insight?”
“My insight into others. The price seems to be a lack of insight into myself. Clarity looking outward, blindness looking inward. I can see your motives plainly. Mine are a mystery to me. The better I get at understanding the actions of others, the less I seem able to understand my own. So there are questions whose answers I can only guess at. You wonder why I don’t hire a lawyer, why I don’t sue the police for defamation, why I don’t sue the tabloids and bloggers for libel, why I don’t hire a team of investigators to discredit Gilbert Fenton, why I don’t conduct an aggressive public relations campaign in my own defense. You wonder why the hell don’t I stand up and fight, launch an all-out war, and bury these bastards in their own lies?”
“It’s an excellent question. Is there an answer?”
“Of course there’s an answer. But I don’t know what it is.”
“No idea at all?”
“Oh, I can give you a list of ideas. How about a crushing fear of confrontation in general? Or the fear that greater confrontation would bring some dark moment of my past to light? Or a depressive conviction that struggling will only pull me deeper into the quicksand? Or outright paranoia, like my famous fixation on the imaginary body in the trunk of my car? Maybe I’m afraid of hiring an attorney who I’d never be free of, who’d somehow gain control of my life, that I’d be at his mercy forever. Perhaps it’s a sublimated terror of my mother, who taught me one thing above all else—never dare to deny whatever she was accusing me of at the moment. Accept the punishment being offered, or face one of her uncontrollable rages.”
He let out a sharp, humorless laugh—seemingly at his own speculations. “See what I mean? So many crazy fears to pick and choose from. On the other hand, perhaps I’m motivated by a manic conviction that nothing Fenton says can touch me. Maybe I have a Pollyanna conviction that the truth will prevail and my innocence will speak for itself. Or a foolish pride that tells me not to lower myself to the level of the fools attacking me. Could it be that I crave the satisfaction of seeing Gilbert Fenton’s whole case, his whole world, come crashing down without my having to lift a finger?”
He paused, the tip of his tongue darting across his lips. “Perhaps some of these possibilities have occurred to you. They occur to me every day. But I haven’t a clue which one is driving my decisions. All I know is that I want to proceed the way I’m proceeding.” This was addressed to Madeleine. Now he turned to Gurney. “If you want to seek justice for Ethan and the others, as a matter separate from my defense, that’s your business. I won’t stand in your way. But let me reiterate: you are not my advocate. Understood?”
“Understood.”
No one said anything for a while. The only sound was the faint tick-tick-tick-tick of sleet on the windowpanes.
Then, somewhere out in the forest, the howling began. The same howling that Gurney had heard when their car was stuck in the ditch.
It started with a low wail, like the moaning of wind at an ill-fitting door.
CHAPTER 18
By the time they were getting in their car to head back to the lodge, the howling, distant and mournful, seemed to be coming from every direction—from Cemetery Ridge, from the deep forest in back of Hammond’s chalet—even, it seemed, from the dark expanse of the lake itself.
Then it faded into the wind.
As they drove away from the chalet Gurney’s thoughts went back to Madeleine’s hostile response to Hammond’s observations. He felt some resentment that she had hijacked his conversation with Hammond. Admittedly, her approach had generated some revealing responses. But it might not have. It might have shut him down completely.
“You were pretty aggressive back there.”
“Was I?”
“The expression on your face seemed to be suggesting that Hammond was lying.”
“Only suggesting? I should have been clearer.”
“You’re sure he’s not telling the truth?”
“As sure as you are that he is.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“He has X-ray vision when it comes to other people? But he pays for it with total blindness to his own motives? How convenient! What a perfect way to deflect questions about his decisions. Question: So, Richard, why did you do such and such? Answer: Golly, gee, I don’t know. I’m a genius, but I have no idea why I do anything. Don’t you see that he’s making a fool of you?”
“How?”
“By tossing out all those ‘maybe’ reasons for his not hiring a lawyer—making you believe he doesn’t have a clue which reason is the real one.”
“He didn’t make me believe anything. I told you I have an open mind.”
“Did your open mind notice that he left out the most likely reason of all?”