“Wasn’t Ethan a bit older than the other three?”
“A few years. He could have been there as a counselor.”
“Ask Peyton. He ought to know.”
“I’ll give it a try, but I wouldn’t put much faith in anything Peyton says. In the meantime, Blumberg gave me contact information for Scott’s mother. If she’ll talk to me, maybe I can find out if I’m on the right track.”
“Good luck with that, Davey boy. I have a feeling you’ll need it.”
CHAPTER 38
During his phone conversations with Blumberg and Hardwick, Gurney had been pacing back and forth in the bathroom. With the door closed and his voice low, he’d felt safe from the audio bugs in the outer room. He figured it would also be a good place from which to call Kimberly Fallon.
But first he wanted to go and check on Madeleine.
In the light of the bedside lamp he could see that she was sleeping, but not peacefully. There were tiny movements at the corners of her mouth and eyes. Some of her exhalations were accompanied by small, plaintive sounds. He was tempted to wake her, but then he decided that even restless sleep might do her more good than no sleep at all.
He went back to the bathroom to call Kimberly Fallon.
He was surprised when the phone was answered by a live female voice.
“Tashi delek.”
“My name is Dave Gurney. I’m trying to reach Kimberly Fallon.”
“This is Kimberly.”
“I’m sorry, Kimberly, I didn’t understand what you said when you picked up.”
“Tashi delek. Peace and good fortune. It’s a Tibetan greeting.”
“I see. Well, I wish you the same.”
“Thank you.”
There was something odd in her tone, an off-center quality he associated with potheads.
“Kimberly, I’m a detective. I’m calling about your son, Scott.”
There was silence.
“I’m calling about what happened at Camp Brightwater the summer he disappeared. I was wondering if you’d be willing to help me by answering some questions.”
More silence.
“Kimberly?”
“I have to see you.”
“Sorry?”
“I can’t talk about Scott unless I can see you.”
“Are you saying that you want me to come to your home?”
“I just want to see your eyes.”
“My eyes?”
“Your eyes are the windows of your soul. Do you have Skype?”
IT TOOK GURNEY ONLY A FEW MINUTES TO GET HIS NOTEBOOK COMPUTER from his duffle bag, move a pile of towels off a low table in the bathroom, set the computer on it, open the Skype program, and position himself in front of the screen’s built-in camera.
At Kimberly Fallon’s request he’d given her his Skype address. She wanted to place the video call from her end. So he got everything ready and waited.
When he was thinking it wasn’t going to happen after all, the call came through.
On his computer screen he saw a slim woman in her late forties or early fifties with a druggy smile and large blue eyes. Her hair was dark brown with streaks of coppery red. Her white peasant blouse and a string of large colored-glass beads around her neck gave her a retro-hippy look. There was an oversized painting covering most of the wall behind her, a swirl of green leaves against a cerulean sky.
With her head inclined slightly to the side, she appeared to be studying his face.
“You have amazing eyes,” she said.
Having no idea how to respond, he thought it best to say nothing.
“There’s a lot of sadness in your soul.”
Her own eyes had the half-inward look of someone viewing the world through the lens of some secret knowledge, perhaps psychedelically inspired.
“Why do you want to know about Scott?”
It was an obvious question for which he should have prepared a careful answer, but he’d had no time for that. “I think . . . what happened that summer . . . may have had some delayed effects. There’ve been some suspicious deaths . . . of people who I believe may have been at Brightwater thirteen years ago, at the same time as Scott. There may be a connection between what’s happening now and what happened back then. I realize I’m bringing up painful memories. I’m sorry about that.”
She had so little reaction he wondered if she was hearing him.
“Kimberly?”
“There’s nothing to be sorry about.”
Despite the oddness of her comment, he pressed on. “Moe Blumberg told me that after Scott disappeared you kept coming back to Brightwater to look for him. Is that right?”
She nodded almost imperceptibly. “That was foolish of me.”
“Were you able to find any trace of him at all?”
“Of course not.”
“Why do you put it that way?”
“I was looking in the wrong place. He’d already crossed over.”
“You mean you came to the conclusion that . . . that your son was no longer alive?”
“No, that wasn’t it. Life never ends. Scott had simply crossed over to a place of peace and happiness.”
Something in her tone prompted his next question. “A happier place than Brightwater?”
Her smile faded. “Brightwater was nothing but torment. Scott hated every minute of it.”
“Why did you send him there?”
“That was his father’s idea. The sports, having to deal with the roughness and toughness of it—that was supposed to make him a real man. Scott was no good at sports. How does being beaten up and laughed at and called filthy names make you a man? I could have killed him.”
“Scott’s father?”
“I wanted to kill him. But he left. You know why he left? Because I kept going back to Brightwater to look for Scott. He couldn’t stand that. He knew it was all his fault.”
“The boys at camp who bullied Scott—was he afraid of anyone in particular?”
She nodded slowly. “The ones with animal names.”
“Spider, Lion, Wolf, and Weasel?”
“That’s right.”
“Did he know any of their real names?”
She shook her head. “He wasn’t sure. They wore black hoods over their faces.”
“Did he have any guesses?”
“He only told me one name, once, in a phone call home. It was an ugly name. But I can’t remember it now. I stay as far away as I can from all that darkness. My spiritual advisor says that we have to put the darkness behind and move toward the light.”
“I understand, Kimberly. But please try to remember. It could make a huge difference.”
With a reluctant sigh she raised her face toward a light somewhere above her. In its glare the copper highlights in her hair shimmered like little flames. “I think it began with a P . . . or maybe a B.”
She turned her hands up to the light, as though hoping that a fuller answer might alight on her palms. Gurney, impatient, was about to prompt her with the names of the four dead men, when she announced her recollection in a voice suddenly hard with hatred.
“Balzac.”
CHAPTER 39
After concluding his video conversation with Kimberly Fallon, Gurney checked his phone and discovered voicemail messages from Jack Hardwick and Jane Hammond.
The moment he saw Jane’s name he felt a stab of chagrin at what he guessed was the reason for her call.
“Dave? Madeleine? Is everything all right? I was under the impression you were coming here for dinner. Give us a call, okay?”