On Harrow Hill

“Holy shit,” muttered Hardwick, staring openmouthed at the screen. “Who the fuck is the crazy motherfucker with the Uzi and the flamethrower?”

Gurney felt sick. He wished he didn’t know the answer.

“Mike Morgan.”

53

Gurney had to think fast. He could imagine the pointed second-guessing and blame-assigning that would go on at various official levels, including the DA’s office, regarding what was intended to be a safe investigatory ploy. But he realized if the drone element were removed from the equation . . . and if Morgan were to bear posthumous responsibility, as he surely should, for what happened . . . then there might still be a way of extracting persuasive evidence of Lorinda’s guilt from the hideous debacle.

He called Larchfield PD and spoke to the night-shift desk sergeant.

“This is Dave Gurney. I’m at the Aspern house on Harrow Hill. I’m calling to report gunfire in the area. My guess is a single automatic weapon with a large magazine. The sound came from the direction of the Russell house. I’m heading over there now through the woods.”

Hardwick meanwhile had retrieved the drone and was packing it in its carrying case, along with its accessories. Gurney told him to make a separate copy of the stored video, in the event that it might someday be needed, then delete the original file along with any related GPS data. “Then get out of here before the troops start swarming the area. I’ll meet them at the Russell place and make sure they come to the right conclusions about what happened there, based on the evidence on the ground.”

Hardwick left without another word.

Gurney brought up an off-road navigation app on his phone, entered the GPS coordinates for the Russell house, and hurried off in the direction it indicated. A few minutes later he called Larchfield PD again. He reported seeing an orange glow in the low clouds ahead, a likely sign of a major fire, and directed that all available fire and rescue equipment be dispatched ASAP.

Ten minutes later, when he emerged onto the back lawn of the Russell mansion, the fire had become a monster. Its shifting red and orange glare shone through all the windows Gurney could see. It sounded like a high wind through a thicket, its crackling like the snapping of branches. Flames were blowing out through an open rear window over a bed of tulips, already withered from the heat.

He ran around to the front of the house. The acrid smoke there carried the odor of gasoline and burnt flesh.

He counted six smoldering bodies splayed out in a loose arc across the marble steps and one on the ground under the charred portico. Near that seventh body there was an Uzi with a large aftermarket magazine. The body was Mike Morgan’s—not that it was easy to tell, since his head and upper body were burned to the point of no longer appearing human. His left hand, however, had escaped the burning gasoline that had descended on him from the geyser his flamethrower had produced in its final vertical position; its stubby fingertips, nails bitten to the quick, were all too recognizable.

With no protective clothing, Gurney was finding the heat from the open doorway of the burning house unbearable, and he retreated to the allée. Further now from the fire’s roar, he could hear the sirens of the slowly approaching emergency vehicles.

Seeing that Morgan’s Tahoe was blocking the gateway to the grounds, Gurney hurried over to move it, only to discover that Morgan had taken the key. No matter, he realized; one of the fire trucks could push it out of the way.

Then another thought occurred to him. Since Morgan was responsible for turning an information-gathering effort into this multiple-homicide apocalypse, it would simplify the investigation to place the initiating text in the hands of the investigators, ensuring that they would understand the preamble to the carnage. He took the anonymous phone out of his pocket—the phone from which the “blackmail” text had been sent to Lorinda—wiped off his fingerprints, and dropped it on the ground near the Tahoe. If anyone misconstrued the text to mean that Morgan had actual blackmail in mind, Gurney was sure he could persuade them otherwise.

The first arrivals were two Larchfield PD cruisers with two uniformed cops in each, followed by Slovak in his Dodge Charger. Leaving their vehicles at the entry gate behind the Tahoe, all five entered the grounds with their weapons drawn.

Gurney stood still, hands open and away from his body, until Slovak recognized him and came running over.

“Jesus, Dave, what the hell’s happening?”

“Looks like there was a shoot-out between Chief Morgan and half a dozen of Gant’s Patriarchs. One of Morgan’s hands is still wrapped around a flamethrower, which probably started the fire. Everyone out here is dead.”

Slovak looked around in wide-eyed amazement, horror, and excitement. “Is there anyone in the house?”