Gurney stole a glance at Madeleine to see how she was reacting to this plea for his involvement, but her expression revealed nothing.
Jane went on. “If you came up to Wolf Lake and met with Richard and asked him the right questions, I bet you could figure out what’s real and what isn’t. That’s what good detectives do, right? And according to Jack, you’re the best. Will you do it?”
He sat back in his chair and studied her expression, the hope enlivening her eyes. He answered with a question of his own: “Who actually runs the lodge?”
“That would be Austen Steckle, the general manager. He’s in charge of everything up there, especially since Ethan’s death, but even before that. Ethan relied on him totally.” She paused. “Austen’s kind of a tough character, but I have to say he’s been very fair to Richard. And he’s gone out of his way to protect him from the media vultures. The minute Fenton went public with his crazy accusations, reporters were besieging the place. Austen brought in private security for the first week, had reporters arrested for trespassing and harassment. Word got around, and they stopped trying to sneak onto the estate.”
“You mentioned that Ethan has a surviving brother? Is he active in the business?”
“Peyton? He’s on the property, but that’s about it. He’s no use to anyone.”
“What’s the problem?”
“Who knows? Even the best family can produce a bad seed.”
Gurney nodded his vague agreement. “You mentioned Peyton is in his late twenties?”
“Twenty-eight or twenty-nine, I think. Around the same age as Austen. But in terms of energy, focus, and smarts, they’re from different planets.”
“Any other siblings?”
“None surviving. Ethan and Peyton were originally the oldest and youngest of five children. The three middle ones were killed along with their father when his private plane went down in a thunderstorm. Their mother had a breakdown that led to her suicide two years later. That happened when Ethan was twenty-one and Peyton was in his mid teens. The tragedy just magnified the differences between them. It didn’t help that Ethan was appointed Peyton’s legal guardian.”
“When you mentioned ‘bad seed’ . . .?”
“Peyton has been a source of endless problems. As a kid it was stealing, lying, bullying. Then it became an endless succession of crazy girlfriends—hookers, to be brutally honest—disgusting behavior, gambling, drugs, you name it.”
“He lives at Wolf Lake?”
“Unfortunately.”
Gurney glanced at Hardwick for his reaction, but the man was flipping through screens on his smartphone.
Jane looked at Gurney pleadingly. “Will you at least come and talk to Richard, maybe have a look around?”
“If he’s opposed to getting outside help, won’t he refuse to see me?”
“Probably, if we ask in advance. But if you’ve already made the trip, he’ll feel compelled to see you.”
“You sound sure of that.”
“It’s part of who he is. When he had his practice in Mill Valley, if someone showed up at his office without an appointment, he could never send them away, no matter how busy he was. If someone was there, he had to meet with them. Let me add, in case you’re getting the wrong idea—it had nothing to do with money, with trying to squeeze in another paying customer. Richard never cared about money, only about people.”
Gurney thought it odd that a man with no interest in money would have chosen to establish his practice in Mill Valley, California, one of the wealthiest communities in America.
Perhaps sensing his skepticism, Jane continued. “Large organizations have approached Richard in the past with lucrative offers—very lucrative offers—if he would work for them exclusively. But he always turned them down.”
“Why?”
“Because Richard has always been devoted to transparency. He would insist on knowing everything about any organization that would want an exclusive right to his research. Not all institutions in the field of psychological research are as independent as they claim to be. No amount of money on earth could persuade Richard to work for any entity whose goals and backing were not 100 percent visible and verifiable. That’s the kind of man he is.” She leaned toward Gurney. “You will help . . . won’t you?”
“We have a timing problem. A short trip we’ve been planning for quite a while.”
She looked wounded. “When?”
“The day after tomorrow. So there’s really nothing I can—”
“How long?”
“How long will we be away? Four or five days. Perhaps sometime after that—”
“But things are happening so fast. Isn’t there any way—?”
“Yes, matter of fact, there is!” interjected Hardwick triumphantly, holding up his phone with the screen turned outward so everyone could see the travel map it displayed. “The purple route line goes from your house all the way to Tall Pines Inn in northeastern Vermont. Between those two points are approximately two hundred miles of Adirondack mountains. I’ve found two ways of going around those mountains and two ways of going through them. One of those ways passes within twenty miles of the Gall Wilderness Preserve. All you have to do is start your vacation a day sooner than you planned and spend the first night at the super-exclusive Wolf Lake Lodge.”
Jane looked from Gurney to Madeleine, her hands clasped like a praying child’s. “You could do that, right? You could stop off there on your way to Vermont, couldn’t you?”
Gurney didn’t know how to respond without knowing what Madeleine was thinking.
His hesitation prompted Jane to address her directly. “You’ll have a beautiful room, and it won’t cost you anything.”
Madeleine’s eyes were still on the map displayed on Hardwick’s phone screen.
After a moment, to Gurney’s surprise, she nodded.
“We can do that.”
CHAPTER 7
After Jane Hammond agreed to meet them the following afternoon at the lodge, she and Hardwick departed.
Madeleine headed for the hallway that led to the bedroom, announcing that she was going to take a shower.
Gurney sensed that she wanted to avoid, at least for the moment, any further discussion of Wolf Lake. He didn’t know what to make of that, but he’d learned over the years that pursuing a subject Madeleine wasn’t ready to talk about led nowhere. Instead, he decided to take a look into the manila envelope Jane Hammond had left for him.
He brought it into the den and sat down at his desk.
In the envelope were two folders, each bearing a handwritten notation: The notation on the top folder said First Reports on the Four Deaths.
Gurney opened it and found the original news items that had appeared on the websites of various local publications. It was odd reading reports written prior to the discovery of all the facts, but he wanted to see how the incidents were initially perceived.
From the Palm Beach Post, October 2:
SUICIDE SUSPECTED IN DEATH OF PALM BEACH MAN.
The body of Christopher Wenzel, age 26, was discovered Monday morning in his condominium overlooking the Intracoastal Waterway. A preliminary autopsy report listed the cause of death as possible suicide, with a fatal loss of blood resulting from deep arterial wounds to the wrists. The body was found by an independent cleaning contractor with access to Mr. Wenzel’s apartment.
Neighbors said that Mr. Wenzel lived alone but had frequent visitors and noisy parties. No information was available on the deceased’s family or employment connections. Building management declined comment.
From the Bergen Record, October 10:
TEANECK MAN FOUND DEAD IN HIS CAR.
The body of Leo Balzac, age 27, manager of the Smokers Happiness tobacco shop on Queen Anne Road, was discovered by a neighbor in the parking garage of their apartment complex on DeGraw Avenue. According to police, the deceased was found in the driver’s seat of his car. Both wrists had been cut. A knife which appeared to have been used to inflict th
e wounds was found on the seat next to the body. A police spokesman said that suicide was consistent with the known facts but postponed further comment pending a full autopsy and toxicology report.
A next-door neighbor described Mr. Balzac as “An energetic young man who always seemed to be in a hurry—not the kind of guy you’d ever figure to kill himself.”
From Newsday, October 26:
FLORAL PARK MAN DEAD, GIRLFRIEND MISSING.
The body of Steven Pardosa was found this past Wednesday in the apartment he occupied in the basement of his parents’ home in Floral Park. The discovery was made by Arnold Pardosa, Steven’s father, who entered the apartment with a spare key after repeated calls to Steven’s cell phone failed to get any response.
A police spokesman characterized the death as a possible suicide, saying only that there were visible wounds to the deceased’s wrists and a knife had been found at the scene. The deceased’s parents disagreed with the suicide suggestion, insisting that such a possibility was “some kind of cover-up.”
Pardosa was 25 years old and had been self-employed for the past year in a landscape maintenance business. Law enforcement officials expressed interest in speaking with the deceased’s girlfriend, Angela Castro, who had recently been living with him but whose current whereabouts are unknown. Ms. Castro has not appeared for the past two days at the salon where she is employed as a hair stylist. The salon manager, Eric, who declined to give his last name, said that no calls had been received from Ms. Castro to explain her absence.”
Before going on to the articles covering the death of Ethan Gall, Gurney jotted down a few facts that caught his attention.
As he’d already mentioned to Hardwick, the similarity of ages was noteworthy. It could, for example, be the basis for some school-related or other social contact.
And then there was all that wrist cutting. Despite its high profile in fiction, and the sky-high number of self-inflicted cutting incidents propelling young people into ERs each year, successful suicides were rarely accomplished that way. Men had a strong preference for shooting or hanging themselves. If just one of those guys had decided to kill himself by cutting his wrists, that would be unusual enough. All of them making that same decision was peculiar in the extreme.
And then there was the matter of economics. It was possible that Christopher Wenzel, the guy with the Palm Beach condo, could afford a trip to a thousand-dollar-a-day mountain resort to get help with his smoking problem. But the manager of a small cigarette discount store? And a lawn-maintenance guy living in his father’s basement? On the face of it, they did not seem like prime candidates for top-shelf therapy at Wolf Lake Lodge.
And finally, there was the little matter of Steven Pardosa’s missing girlfriend. That could mean nothing. Or it could mean everything. In Gurney’s experience, there usually were relevant reasons for people going missing.
After making a few notes, he picked up the most detailed article on Ethan Gall.
From the Albany Times Union, November 3:
HEIR TO THE GALL FORTUNE
FOUND DEAD IN MOUNTAIN CABIN.
A body believed to be that of Ethan Gall has been discovered in an isolated cabin at the Wolf Lake Lodge resort, located within the Gall family’s 6,000-acre wilderness preserve, one of the largest privately owned tracts of land in the Adirondacks.
Pending a final autopsy report, police would say only that the condition of the body made an initial assessment difficult and that suicide could not be ruled out.
The Wolf Lake compound includes the main guest lodge—which dates back to the property’s origins as a classic Adirondack Great Camp—plus three lakeside chalets and several smaller cabins in the surrounding forest, as well as the Gall family’s private residence. These structures were built in the early 1900s by tin-mining baron Dalton Gall, who suffered an unusual death. After having a vivid premonition that he would be attacked by wolves, he was killed by wolves on the lodge property.
Heir to the substantial fortune created by his great-grandfather, Ethan Gall was the founder, president, and chief benefactor of the Gall New Life Foundation—a nonprofit organization dedicated to the education and reform of prisoners for reentry into community life.
The deceased was 34 years old and is survived by his brother Peyton. Lodge manager and family spokesperson Austen Steckle issued the following statement: “This sudden tragedy has created a sense of shock and disbelief here at Wolf Lake. We will have no further comment until we receive an official report from the medical examiner’s office.”
There were also printouts of similar but shorter articles from the Burlington Free Press, the New York Times, and the Washington Post.
Gurney picked up the phone from his desk and entered Hardwick’s number. The man answered immediately. “What’s up, Davey?”
“Couple of things. Austen Steckle was described in a news article as the ‘family spokesperson.’ How many surviving members of the Gall family are there, besides Peyton?”
“Zero.”
“The entire family consists of Peyton?”
“As far as Jane knows. I asked her about that.”
“Okay. Another question. What’s the Gall New Life Foundation all about?”
“Seems legit. Puts parolees through reentry training, education, extensive psych counseling. Actually seems to reduce recidivism. Ethan started it, ran it, put a lot of his own bucks in it.”
Gurney made a note to dig deeper into that. “You mentioned this morning there was something weird about Dalton Gall’s death, and I saw the same thing in one of the newspaper articles. What’s that all about?”
“Who the fuck knows? The story was passed along for a lot of years, maybe got enhanced along the way. Supposedly the old bastard had a dream about getting chewed up and spit out by a pack of wolves, and a few days later that’s pretty much what happened to him. Could be a load of crap.”
“Kind of an interesting coincidence that our four recently deceased folks also had bad dreams before they ended up dead.”
“I agree. But where do you go with that?”
Gurney ignored the question, asked one of his own. “Strike you as odd that a guy who mows lawns for a living would—”
Hardwick finished the thought. “Spring for a grand-a-day stay at an old-fashioned lodge? Beyond odd.”
“And what do you make of all that wrist cutting?”
Hardwick responded with a loud bark of a laugh. “I have no goddamn idea what to make of it. See, Davey, all them unanswered questions are precisely why we need your superior intellect.”
GURNEY HUNG UP THE PHONE AND OPENED THE SECOND FOLDER Jane had left with him. This one was labeled Police Press Briefings, Hammond Statement, General Media Coverage.
The first item was a two-page printout from a media website. Across the top Jane had written, “Sgt. Plant, Bureau of Criminal Investigation, briefing to reporters, November 8.” It consisted of the officer’s introductory statement followed by a Q&A with unidentified reporters.
Gurney decided to skip that one for the moment and go on to the transcript of the next press briefing.
This briefing was several pages longer than the first. There was, however, a link to the video—an option Gurney preferred. The facial expressions and tones of voice captured on video were a lot more revealing than words on paper. He opened his laptop and entered the link.
As he was waiting for the video to appear, Madeleine came into the den, wearing a bathrobe, her hair wet from her shower.
“Have you decided which pair you want to bring?” she asked.
“Excuse me?”
“Your snowshoes.”
He looked over toward the place by the door where he remembered her leaning them that morning—the rawhide-and-wood ones and the plastic ones with the spikes on the bottom. “I guess the spiked ones?”
Her surface smile seemed to be concealing some less-cheerful preoccupation.
“Is something wrong?” he asked.
Her smile
broadened unconvincingly. “I was thinking maybe we could get a light for the birds.”
“A what?”
“You know, for the henhouse. It gets dark so early this time of year.”
“That’s what you were thinking about?”
“I just think it would be nice for them.”
He knew something else was on her mind, and patience would be the best approach. “It’s just a matter of running an electrical line out there, installing a fixture. We can get an electrician to do it, or I can do it myself.”
“It will be nice for them to have some light.” She took the snowshoes and left the room.
He sat there, staring out the window, wondering what it was she wasn’t ready to talk about. His gaze wandered to the trees by the pasture.
The hollow sound of multiple voices and of chairs being moved in a miked room drew his attention to the computer screen. The second police press briefing was about to begin.
The setting was one of those depressing institutional conference rooms that Gurney was all too familiar with from his years in the NYPD. The video perspective, equally familiar, was from a single camera mounted in the back of the room, aimed at the front.
A dozen or so cafeteria-style plastic chairs were occupied half by men and half by women, judging from the backs of their heads. Facing them was a thickly built man at a narrow podium. A blank whiteboard covered the wall behind him.
His body had an egg-shaped stockiness about it. He was wearing the standard uniform of an over-forty detective: dark pants, dull pastel shirt, duller tie, and a gray sport jacket a size too small. Dark hair brushed straight back from a broad creased forehead, along with heavy cheeks and a grim mouth, gave him a startling resemblance to old photos of Jimmy Hoffa.
He checked his watch and opened a loose-leaf binder.
“Okay, folks, let’s get started. I’m Senior Investigator Gilbert Fenton, Bureau of Criminal Investigation. There’ve been some major developments in the past few days relative to Ethan Gall’s death. I’ve got a statement here.” As Fenton paused to turn a page in the binder, one of the reporters spoke up.