Hardwick didn’t answer.
Like a sound effect in a ghost movie, a moan came from the empty hearth at the far end of the room. Gurney told himself it was just the wind passing over the chimney.
CHAPTER 43
He found Madeleine in bed, with one of the bedside lamps still on. He looked to see if the tic in her cheek had subsided, but that side of her face was against the pillow.
To ward off his feeling of helplessness, he tried to focus on Hardwick’s theory that Hammond had persuaded Wenzel, Balzac, and Pardosa to come to the lodge. There was some evidence that their financial situations had improved around the time of their visits, but it seemed a leap too far to assume that Hammond was responsible for that.
Thinking about the financial angle brought to mind Angela Castro’s comment at the Dollhouse that Tabitha’s solicitousness might have arisen from her assumption that they were going to buy another doll. It had never made much sense to Gurney, but he’d never pursued it.
He took his phone into the bathroom, where he found the flashlight still upright on the rim of the tub, still illuminating the ceiling. He switched it off and closed the door quietly.
He called Angela’s number.
When she picked up, the first thing he heard was a TV—that same rhythm of voices, laughter, and applause he’d heard in the background of their last phone conversation. He wondered if she ever turned it off.
“Detective Gurney?” Her small voice sounded sleepy.
“Hello, Angela. Sorry if I woke you.”
“Is something wrong?”
“Nothing new. Are you still in the same place?”
“What? Oh, yes, the same place.”
“When we first met, you mentioned that Tabitha might have been thinking we were going to buy a Barbie. Remember that?”
“Sure.”
“Because Stevie had bought you one?”
“I told you that.”
“What I’m wondering is . . . do you know how much he paid for it?”
“How could I forget? It was like ten thousand dollars. Plus tax.”
“For a Barbie doll?”
“An original Barbie doll. From when they first made them. With the original clothes.”
“That’s a lot of money.”
“That’s what I told Stevie. But he said he knew it was something I’d always wanted, so I should have it. He said we could have a lot of nice things.”
“Did he say where the money was coming from?”
“He said that I shouldn’t worry about that, that it was none of my business.”
“Like the phone call he got before he went to Wolf Lake was none of your business?”
“I guess.”
“So he never told you anything at all about the source of the money?”
“No. But he said the Barbie was just the beginning.”
Gurney was stopped by a loud knocking at the suite door. “Angela, I have to go, but I’ll call you again soon.”
As he left the bathroom, the pounding was repeated, more aggressively.
He adjusted the Beretta in his back pocket to make the grip easily reachable and approached the door.
“Who is it?”
“Police!”
He recognized Fenton’s voice and opened the door.
The flat-faced, heavy-shouldered man facing him looked like a worn and wrinkled copy of the Fenton who had visited him less than forty-eight hours earlier. His sport jacket hung open, revealing a shoulder-holstered Glock. He eyed Gurney coldly. “We need to talk.”
“You want to come in?”
“No. You need to come downstairs.”
“Why is that?”
“You come downstairs or I arrest you right here, now, for obstruction.”
“I’ll be with you in a minute.” Leaving Fenton in the doorway, Gurney went back to the alcove. Madeleine was still in bed, but now her eyes were open.
“Maddie, I have to go downstairs—”
“I heard. Be careful.”
He forced a smile. “This shouldn’t take long.”
THEY SAT IN THE FRONT SEATS OF A WEATHERED FJ CRUISER, PARKED under the outer edge of the lodge portico. Its headlights were reaching out into the snowstorm. Its engine was running, and the heater was on.
Gurney figured it was Fenton’s personal vehicle, which meant he was probably off duty.
After a fraught silence during which Fenton stared out at the snow in his headlight beams, he turned to Gurney. “You got your phone on you?”
“Yes.”
“Turn it off. Completely off. Then lay it on the console where I can see it.”
He did as he was asked. In the dim light cast by the illuminated dashboard gauges, he could see Fenton’s jaw muscle tighten.
“I’m confused,” said Fenton, but there was more accusation in his tone than confusion. “We just had a nice conversation the other day. I thought I explained that your involvement here was not helpful. In fact, quite harmful. I thought I’d made that clear.”
He paused, as if searching for the right words. “Your interference is giving the suspect false hopes. Your interference is prolonging the process by fostering the illusion in the suspect’s mind that there’s a way out of his difficulties—a way other than an honest, detailed confession. Fostering this illusion is a destructive thing for you to be doing. Extremely destructive. Perhaps I wasn’t clear on this point in our last conversation. I hope I’m being clear now.”
“Very clear.”
“Good. I’m glad to hear you say that.” He stared out at the snow. “There’s a lot at stake in the outcome of this case. It’s not something to be screwing around with.”
Gurney knew that provoking this man could be dangerous, but it could also be instructive. “The orders you’re getting on how the case should be handled are coming from so high up you figure they must be right? The people who want Hammond to be guilty are so important you figure he must be guilty?”
“Richard Hammond is a homicidal liar. That’s a fact. It’s not a goddamn order from anybody.”
“I heard that he took a polygraph test. And passed it.”
“That means absolutely nothing.”
“It does seem to be a small point in his favor.”
“You don’t know your client very well, do you?” Fenton reached down behind the passenger seat and retrieved an open briefcase. He pulled out some papers that were stapled together and tossed them in Gurney’s lap. “Reading material, to bring you up to speed.”
In the dim dashboard light all he could see was the boldface headline on what appeared to be a copy of a scientific article: “Neuropsychology of Polygraphy: Exploitable Parameters.”
Fenton pointed at it. “Lie-detector tests don’t mean a thing when the subject is an expert on exploiting their weaknesses.”
It struck Gurney that Hammond seemed to be an expert on just about every subject that made him look bad.
Like a trial attorney driving home the final point in his summation, Fenton reached into his briefcase and pulled out a single sheet of paper. “This is a copy of Ethan Gall’s handwritten description of his dream, the same dream every one of the victims started having after being hypnotized by Hammond.” He handed the sheet to Gurney. “Take it home with you. Read it every morning—to remind yourself of the worst client choice you ever made.”
Gurney took it. “Any chance of it being a forgery?”
“Not a snowball’s chance in hell. It’s been analyzed and reanalyzed. Pressure patterns, accelerations and decelerations over certain letter combinations, things no forger could duplicate. Besides, who the hell is this hypothetical forger with access to Gall’s office? Peyton’s generally so fucked up he can barely walk. Hammond himself would just be putting another nail in his own coffin. Ditto his adoring sister. Austen Steckle had his hand in a cast at the time, some carpal tunnel crap. Who else is there who could have access? Barlow Tarr? I doubt that nutcase can even write. The plain fact is that it’s Gall’s own description of his own dream in his own writing. And every disgusting thing in it is consistent with the dreams of the other three victims.”