“I’ll go in when you go in.”
“Up to you.” He returned to the Dollhouse website and pasted its address into Google Maps. He noted the location of a nearby gas station and copied its address to the message area of a blank email. Then he called Hardwick.
The man picked up on the first ring. “Before you say anything, tell me if you understood my reference to the Baryshansky situation.”
“I think so.”
“Good. Important to keep that in mind. So. How soon can I give you your special gift?”
“Depends on when and how far you’re willing to travel.”
“Anywhere, anytime. Sooner the better.”
“I plan to get together tomorrow with that young lady I’ve been wanting to meet. Maybe we can cross paths in the same neighborhood.”
“Absolutely.”
“I have some address information. I’ll email it to you.”
“I’ll watch for it.”
Gurney went back into his email program and brought up the one he’d begun with the Lake George gas station location in it. Under the station address he typed in the notation, “Here at 9:00 AM.” He addressed the email to Hardwick and sent it.
Madeleine was standing with her arms clutching her body in the frigid air.
He nodded toward the lodge. “Let’s go inside and defrost ourselves by the fire.”
She followed him to the Hearth Room. Once in front of the crackling blaze she slowly unfolded her arms.
Standing beside her, the radiant heat of the fire seeping into his body, Gurney closed his eyes and let his world contract to the warm orange glow on his eyelids and the tingling of his skin as the deep chill dissipated.
The feeling of peace was broken by the rough edge of Austen Steckle’s voice.
“Glad to see you folks finally decided to come in out of the cold. Nasty day, nastier night on the way.” Dressed in a dark plaid shirt and khaki pants, he was standing in the center of the broad archway. “Did you hear the wolves?”
“No,” said Gurney. “When?”
“Little while ago. Up in the woods in back of the lodge. Horrible sound.”
“How often do you see them?”
“Never. Makes it worse. Just hearing them. Monsters creeping around in the forest!”
Steckle’s comment created an uncomfortable silence, broken by Madeleine. “You said something about nastier weather tonight?”
“The edge of a storm coming through. Windy as hell, temperature dropping. But that’s just a taste of what’s around the corner. Weather here jerks you around like a dog killing a rat. Tonight’ll be rotten, tomorrow morning’ll be sunny, can you believe it? Then, later tomorrow, all hell breaks loose—the big one, coming down from the north.”
Madeleine’s eyes widened. “The big one?”
“Arctic air mass. Zero-visibility blizzard. A definite road-closer.”
Gurney suspected these weather warnings were being employed to encourage their departure. But if Steckle was acting under pressure from Fenton to get them away from Wolf Lake, then perhaps a promised departure could be used as a lever to open another door.
Gurney nodded thoughtfully. “Probably be a good idea for us to get out of here before that storm hits. Otherwise we may never get to Vermont.”
Steckle nodded in immediate agreement.
“Problem is,” said Gurney, “there’s one more person I need to talk to before we can leave.”
“Who’s that?”
“Peyton Gall.”
“Why the hell would you want to talk to him?”
“Ethan’s will, and therefore Ethan’s death, directly benefits two individuals—Peyton Gall and Richard Hammond, whose bequest Fenton was happy to tell me about. But since Peyton’s share is as big as Richard’s, he’d have as big a motive. Maybe bigger, since—”
Steckle interrupted. “Yeah, I see how that might look from a distance. But that’s miles from reality. You obviously don’t know Peyton.”
“That’s a hole I’m trying to fill.”
“Let me fill it for you, before you get stuck in the blizzard of the century for nothing.” Steckle joined Gurney and Madeleine in front of the fire. “See, here’s the problem with Peyton. It’s pretty simple. If Hammond wasn’t the brains behind the four deaths—murders, suicides, whatever you want to call them—then somebody else was. But the idea that it could be Peyton is just absurd.”
“Why is that?”
Steckle’s voice dropped to a harsh whisper. “Because Peyton Gall is a lunatic drug addict whose priorities are limited to coke, pussy, more coke, and more pussy.” He glanced at Madeleine. “Excuse my crude language, Mrs. Gurney, but I gotta call a spade a spade. We’re talking about a brain-damaged junkie whose social circle consists of the whores he brings in from wherever. Russia, Thailand, Vegas, crack houses in Newburgh—he’s gotten to the point where it don’t make any difference.”
Gurney could see a sheen of sweat on Steckle’s shaved head. “As the last surviving member of the Gall family, this lunatic is your new boss?”
“Hah! I have no illusions about my future here. I never had a contract. It was all based on mutual trust with Ethan and shared business goals. You know what it’s based on now? Nothing. Be amazed if I’m here in another three months at the rate that fucker is disintegrating.”
“I was told he’d straightened out recently, at least for a while.”
“True, but little periods of being straight have happened before, and they always end the same way—with him wilder and worse than ever.”
“You’re telling me he’s not only too crazy to have masterminded a complicated crime, he’s barely able to function?”
“You got it.”
“Then my interview with him will be very brief.”
Steckle’s frustration was palpable. “He won’t want to talk to you.”
“I’m hoping you can help me there. Ethically, I can’t walk away until I sit down with him and form my own opinion of his capabilities. If what you say about him is true, it shouldn’t take long. Tell him I just need fifteen or twenty minutes of his time.”
“What if he refuses?”
“He might be persuaded to speak to me if he knows I’ll be hanging around until he does—that I’ll be keeping an eye on him, maybe taking a close look at his forms of amusement.”
Steckle took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. “Fine. Have it your way. I’ll pass your request along to him.”
“Be great if I could see him tomorrow—before ‘the big one’ snows us in.”
“I’ll give it a try.” He flashed a mechanical smile and left the room.
Madeleine was studying Gurney’s puzzled expression. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking that running an Adirondack lodge is a strange job for a man who hates Adirondack weather.”
BACK UPSTAIRS IN THE SUITE GURNEY FELT LIKE HE WAS STUCK IN an area where the signals of two radio stations overlapped. The competing signals were arising from his roles as detective and husband, and the static was growing louder. He couldn’t deny that he felt a certain natural attraction to the baffling aspects of the case. He also felt an acute need to be more supportive of Madeleine, especially now; but he wasn’t at all sure what action would best provide that support. It occurred to him, not for the first time, that he was more comfortable dealing with murder than with marriage. In the grip of uncertainty, he decided to leave his further involvement in the case up to her.
“If you want me to walk away from this Hammond business, I will. We could leave in the morning, meet up with Hardwick and Angela at Lake George as promised, then go on to Vermont.”
“What about Peyton Gall?”
“Hardwick can follow up on that—or not. That’s up to him. All I promised Jane was that I’d drop by Wolf Lake for a day or two and take a look. Well, I’ve taken a look.”