guests with contact info and nature of their relationship with the victim and/or Scott Ashton, sketches and aerial photos of the Ashton estate, interior sketches of the cottage with measurements of the front room, biographical data sheets, and, of course, the DVD that Gurney had viewed.
By the time he’d sorted it all into some kind of workable order, it was nearly 7:00 P.M . At first the lateness of the hour surprised him, and then it didn’t. Time always accelerated when his mind was fully engaged, and it seemed to be fully engaged only when, he realized a little ruefully, a puzzle had been placed before him. Madeleine had once told him that his life had narrowed down to one obsessive pursuit: unraveling the mysteries of other people’s deaths. Nothing more, nothing less, nothing else.
He reached for the file folder nearest him on the table. It was the set of scene-of-crime reports created by the evidence techs. The top form described the cottage’s immediate surroundings. The next form recorded their initial visual inventory of the interior. It was striking in its brevity. The cottage contained none of the normal objects and materials that a crime lab would subject to analysis for trace evidence. No furniture beyond the table on which the victim’s head was found, the narrow chair with wooden arms in which the body was propped up, and one similar chair across from it. There were no lounging chairs, couches, beds, blankets, or rugs. Equally strange, there were no clothes in the closet, no clothes or footwear of any kind anywhere in the cottage—with one peculiar exception: a pair of light rubber boots, the kind normally worn over regular shoes. These boots were found in the bedroom next to the window through which the killer had evidently exited. No doubt they were the boots the dog got the scent from to follow the trail.
He turned in his chair toward the French doors and gazed out over the pasture, his eyes alive with speculation. The peculiarities and complications of the case—what Sherlock Holmes would have called “its unique features”—were multiplying, generating like anelectrical current the magnetic field that drew Gurney to problems that would naturally repel most men.
His thoughts were interrupted by the loud squeak of the side door opening—a squeak that for the past year he’d been meaning to eliminate with a drop of oil.
“Madeleine?”
“Yes.” She came into the kitchen with three straining plastic bags from the supermarket in each hand, hefted all six of them up onto the sideboard, and headed back out.
“Can I help?” he said.
There was no answer, just the sound of the side door opening and closing. A minute later the sound was repeated, followed by her return to the kitchen with a second load of bags, which she also placed on the sideboard. Only then did she take off the quirky purple, green, and pink Peruvian hat with the dangling ear flaps that always seemed to add an antic dimension to whatever her underlying mood might be.
He felt the transient tic in his left eyelid, a twitch in the nerve so distinct it had taken several trips to the mirror in recent months to convince him that it wasn’t visible. He wanted to ask where she’d been, apart from the supermarket, but he had the feeling she might have mentioned the rest of her plan to him earlier, and his failure to remember it would not be a good thing. Madeleine equated forgetting, as she equated poor hearing, with lack of interest. Maybe she was right. In twenty-five years in the NYPD, he’d never forgotten to show up for a witness interview, never forgotten a court date, never forgotten what a suspect said or how he sounded, never forgotten a single thing of significance to his job.
Had anything else ever come close in importance to his job? Even made it into the same ballpark? Parents? Wives? Children?
When his mother died, he’d felt almost nothing. No, it was worse than that. Colder and more self-centered than that.
By the time he’d sorted it all into some kind of workable order, it was nearly 7:00 P.M . At first the lateness of the hour surprised him, and then it didn’t. Time always accelerated when his mind was fully engaged, and it seemed to be fully engaged only when, he realized a little ruefully, a puzzle had been placed before him. Madeleine had once told him that his life had narrowed down to one obsessive pursuit: unraveling the mysteries of other people’s deaths. Nothing more, nothing less, nothing else.
He reached for the file folder nearest him on the table. It was the set of scene-of-crime reports created by the evidence techs. The top form described the cottage’s immediate surroundings. The next form recorded their initial visual inventory of the interior. It was striking in its brevity. The cottage contained none of the normal objects and materials that a crime lab would subject to analysis for trace evidence. No furniture beyond the table on which the victim’s head was found, the narrow chair with wooden arms in which the body was propped up, and one similar chair across from it. There were no lounging chairs, couches, beds, blankets, or rugs. Equally strange, there were no clothes in the closet, no clothes or footwear of any kind anywhere in the cottage—with one peculiar exception: a pair of light rubber boots, the kind normally worn over regular shoes. These boots were found in the bedroom next to the window through which the killer had evidently exited. No doubt they were the boots the dog got the scent from to follow the trail.
He turned in his chair toward the French doors and gazed out over the pasture, his eyes alive with speculation. The peculiarities and complications of the case—what Sherlock Holmes would have called “its unique features”—were multiplying, generating like anelectrical current the magnetic field that drew Gurney to problems that would naturally repel most men.
His thoughts were interrupted by the loud squeak of the side door opening—a squeak that for the past year he’d been meaning to eliminate with a drop of oil.
“Madeleine?”
“Yes.” She came into the kitchen with three straining plastic bags from the supermarket in each hand, hefted all six of them up onto the sideboard, and headed back out.
“Can I help?” he said.
There was no answer, just the sound of the side door opening and closing. A minute later the sound was repeated, followed by her return to the kitchen with a second load of bags, which she also placed on the sideboard. Only then did she take off the quirky purple, green, and pink Peruvian hat with the dangling ear flaps that always seemed to add an antic dimension to whatever her underlying mood might be.
He felt the transient tic in his left eyelid, a twitch in the nerve so distinct it had taken several trips to the mirror in recent months to convince him that it wasn’t visible. He wanted to ask where she’d been, apart from the supermarket, but he had the feeling she might have mentioned the rest of her plan to him earlier, and his failure to remember it would not be a good thing. Madeleine equated forgetting, as she equated poor hearing, with lack of interest. Maybe she was right. In twenty-five years in the NYPD, he’d never forgotten to show up for a witness interview, never forgotten a court date, never forgotten what a suspect said or how he sounded, never forgotten a single thing of significance to his job.
Had anything else ever come close in importance to his job? Even made it into the same ballpark? Parents? Wives? Children?
When his mother died, he’d felt almost nothing. No, it was worse than that. Colder and more self-centered than that.
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