“Sounds like the man craved admiration.”
“He was dying for it.” Once more, the awful laugh.
“How did the wolves end up here in the attic?”
“That was my first suggestion to Ethan, when I started working here—to get the goddamn creepy things out of the Hearth Room. There’s enough wild shit outdoors; we don’t need to have it in our faces indoors.”
“You don’t sound like much of a nature guy.”
“I’m a numbers guy. Nice, predictable numbers. Nature, in my humble opinion, is a fucking horror story.”
“An Adirondack lodge seems like an odd place for you to be working.”
“You focus on the work, not where you do it.”
Gurney realized that Steckle’s philosophy wasn’t that far from his own way of seeing things. His years in NYPD homicide had repeatedly put him in horrendous places. The thought made him want to change the subject.
“That family crest you mentioned—what was on it?”
“See for yourself.” Steckle turned the cold white beam of his flashlight to the far end of the long room. High on the rough pine wall, hanging in the triangular area outlined by the dark rafters, there was a shield-shaped plaque. It bore a relief carving of a man’s fist, raised in what could have been a symbol of power or defiance or both. Under the carving were three Latin words:
Virtus. Perseverantia. Dominatus.
Calling on his memory of his high school Latin, Gurney pondered the qualities chosen to represent the family’s guiding lights:
Manliness. Determination. Mastery.
He looked at Steckle. “Interesting motto.”
“If you say so.”
“Those ideals don’t impress you?”
“They’re just words.”
“And words don’t mean much?”
“Words don’t mean a goddamn thing.”
The deeply hostile tone of this seemed rooted in a dangerous part of Steckle’s psyche—not an area to be probed when one was alone with the man in a dark attic.
“No matter what anyone tells you, all you got is yourself.” His gaze went back to the Gall family crest, high on the far wall. “Everything else is bullshit.”
“Like Elliman Gall seeking admiration?” suggested Gurney.
Steckle nodded. “Seeking admiration is the stupidest fucking thing a man could do.”
CHAPTER 41
Steckle led Gurney two flights down the dark stairwell to a door that opened into a wide corridor. “This leads out to the reception floor. You’ll have to use the main stairs to get back up to your suite.”
Gurney replied matter-of-factly, “I may check out the attic one more time tonight before I turn in. Set my mind at rest about those footsteps.”
“Didn’t you just do that?”
“Is there a problem with my taking another look?”
Steckle hesitated. “It’s got nothing to do with me. It’s a matter of legal liability.”
“Liability for what?”
“Building code problems. It’s not a public area. Could be weak floorboards. Exposed wires. Bad lighting. You shouldn’t be up there.”
“Don’t worry about it. You’ve told me twice now that it’s not a public area. If I sprain my ankle, it’ll be my problem for breaking the rules, not yours.”
Steckle’s expression soured but he said nothing more. When they reached the reception area, he went into his office and closed the door.
Gurney headed for his car.
A bitter wind was blowing snow sideways under the portico. He sprinted from the lodge to the Outback, got his big Maglite out of the glove box and a second smaller flashlight from the emergency kit, and sprinted back inside.
Upstairs in the suite, he was surprised to find Madeleine sitting on the couch in front of the hearth with a small fire burning. Classical guitar music was playing on her tablet. She was wearing one of the lodge’s oversized white bathrobes and heavy wool socks. Her hair had been neatened a bit. On the low table between the couch and the hearth were two dinner plates covered by aluminum foil.
She gave him an anxious look. “Where were you?”
He didn’t want to unsettle her. “Just having a look around. I’m surprised to see you up. How are you feeling?”
“We forgot about the Hammonds. We were supposed to go there for dinner tonight. Jane came over to see if we were all right. She brought us two plates. She made the fire.”
“Caretaker Jane to the rescue.” As soon as the words were out, he regretted them.
“She went out of her way to be helpful.” Her gaze moved to the two flashlights in his hands. “What are those for?”
“There’s a small crack in the plaster in the bathroom. I want to make sure it’s not being used for another bug.”
Her expression shifted from skeptical to concerned. “Where in the bathroom?”
“The ceiling. A crack by the light fixture.”
Her eyes widened. “Check the whole room. There has to be an explanation.”
He realized she was talking about Colin’s body in the tub. But he knew that no reasonable explanation involving her imagination would be acceptable in her current state of mind.
“Maddie, why don’t we get out of here?”
She said nothing, just stared at him.
He persisted. “If I’d seen a ghost . . . this is the last place I’d want to stay. It can’t be good for you. Why don’t we just go home?”
“That’s not true.”
“What’s not true?”
“That you’d walk away from something like this, if it happened to you.”
He tried again. “You know, it’s possible to be too close to something to see it for what it is—”
She cut him off. “I saw his body here, not at home. The explanation is here.”
He sat down on the couch next to her. He found himself staring at the two foil-covered plates on the coffee table. The guitar music from her tablet was building to another crescendo. His gaze shifted to the dying fire.
“Would you like me to add a couple more logs?”
“No. I’m going back to bed. Do we need to keep the music on?”
“I’ll turn it off. Then I’ll do a quick little check of the attic over the bathroom.”
She pulled the bathrobe more snugly around her and closed her eyes.
ON HIS SECOND VISIT THE ATTIC FELT LESS THREATENING. EVEN now, in the same room with those crouching wolves, his sense of purpose seemed to be warding off any eerie imaginings.
Before coming up to the attic he’d set the more powerful of his two flashlights upright on the flat rim of the tub in the bathroom, it’s beam aimed at the fissure in the ceiling.
Now he switched off the smaller flashlight he’d used to find his way. For several seconds the darkness was absolute. He became aware of the wind gusting against the angled roof above him, straining against the century-old timbers.
Then, as his eyes adjusted, he caught a glimpse of what he’d hoped to see—a thin line of light between two floorboards perhaps twenty feet from where he was standing. He switched his flashlight back on and made his way around the wolves to where he’d spotted that thin line.
The floor was made of wide pine boards, some of which were loose under his feet, especially at the source of the light. Sticking the back of the flashlight in his mouth, he knelt down and pressed his fingernails into the crack between the boards and slowly tilted one of them up from the joists it rested on. When it was tilted enough to grip it, he lifted it out and put it aside. The next one came up with equal ease.