On Harrow Hill

“The clothes Aspern was wearing are definitely Tate’s,” Slovak said. “We have DNA confirmation from blood and epithelial cells. Next to Aspern’s body we found one of the scalpels Tate stole from Peale’s mortuary—and the bone mallet he used to break the glass. Both of those tools had Tate’s residual fingerprints on them. And when we searched Aspern’s house, we found a container of Linda Mason’s blood in his refrigerator.”

Martin Carmody made a small sound of disgust.

Slovak continued. “We brought in a K9 team to see if we could track Tate—when we still believed he was our killer—but what they ended up finding were pieces of his body buried in the woods near Aspern’s house. The flesh on the face had the burnt gash from the lightning. All the body parts have gone to the ME’s office for final identification and, if we’re lucky, cause-of-death determination.”

Greta Vickerz wrinkled her nose, as though the odor of death had entered the room.

“Then there’s the big one,” said Slovak. “The severed hand we found in a plastic bag in the pocket of the sweatshirt Aspern was wearing has been identified as Tate’s. We believe Aspern was carrying it so he could put Tate’s prints on the conservatory door, and maybe on other surfaces in the house.”

Carmody looked nauseated.

Cam Stryker’s expression revealed nothing. “Has the phone call Lorinda Russell said she made to Aspern been verified?”

Morgan answered. “The carrier shows a call of approximately six minutes from her number to Aspern’s number that afternoon.”

“Do you have Aspern’s phone?”

“Not yet. It wasn’t on his body. We’ve checked his car—actually, all three of his cars—a BMW, a Porsche, and a Mercedes—as well as his golf cart and Tate’s Jeep. We’re still searching his house for it, as well as for anything else that might help us understand his motivation.”

“His motivation—what’s your hypothesis for that?”

Morgan wiped sweat off his forehead. “We haven’t gotten very far with that. Maybe he thought that whoever would inherit Lorinda’s control of the Russell half of Harrow Hill would be easier to deal with. Maybe he killed Angus in the belief that she’d be easier to deal with, then found out she wasn’t.”

“What’s Lorinda’s understanding of the motivation issue? Has she said anything other than what’s in that interview video?”

“We tried to pursue that with her, but she seems to have surprisingly little interest in understanding what happened or why. She said talking about it is a waste of time.”

“Does she have any close relatives?”

“One of the so-called Patriarchs in Silas Gant’s church may be a cousin of hers, but she claims not to know whether he is or isn’t.”

Stryker uttered a one-syllable laugh. “There’s something missing in that woman. What do you make of her?”

Morgan turned up his palms. “She’s a mystery.”

“That’s all you can say?”

He shrugged. “She’s the ultimate closed book.”

“Okay. Moving on. Do you have the Aspern autopsy report yet?”

Morgan looked relieved to be on firmer ground. “We do. There’s nothing unexpected in it. He was struck by two rounds. The one that entered through the lower jaw blew away the brain stem. The one through the sternum exploded the heart and severed the spine. Either one would have been instantly fatal.”

“He was struck by both while he was upright?”

“Yes. They passed through him at essentially the same angle.”

“Lorinda evidently has a steady hand and a fast trigger finger.”

Morgan remained silent.

Stryker laid her pen down. With her elbows on the table she raised her hands, interlocked her fingers, and rested her forehead against them. In a different person it might have looked like a posture of prayer. In Stryker it looked like intense thought.

After a long minute she lowered her hands to the table and cleared her throat. “Okay. I think we can wrap this up. A reasonable conclusion has been reached, based on substantial physical and circumstantial evidence. Chandler Aspern, the Larchfield murderer, was shot and killed in the course of an attack on a potential fourth victim. Et cetera. Chief, I suggest you draft and deliver a confident statement to that effect. End of a complicated mess. End of a media circus. Justice triumphant.”

Morgan sat back in his chair, a smile on his face, and looked down the table at Carmody. “Martin, I’ll be calling on your expertise—to bury this monster once and for all.”

Carmody rubbed his hands together. “It’ll be my pleasure.”

42

Later in his office, alone with Gurney, Morgan’s exhilaration at the case’s sudden ending was giving way to his chronic habit of worry.

“You were awfully quiet in that meeting,” he said.

Gurney shrugged. “I had nothing useful to say—certainly nothing that would have gotten you the resolution you wanted from Stryker any sooner.”

Morgan eyed him uneasily. “Do you have a problem with the resolution?”

“Nothing I can put my finger on.”

“It makes sense.”

“More or less.”