On Harrow Hill

Morgan began manipulating an app on his phone. A burnished wood panel in the conference room wall slid open, revealing a large monitor. After a few more swipes and taps on his phone, the big screen came to life, showing a nighttime image of a white church facade, illuminated by a streetlamp at the edge of what Gurney recognized as the village square. The steeple of the church was framed by a black sky.

Gurney’s attention was attracted by a shadowy figure on the sharply pitched roof next to the base of the steeple. The camera began to zoom in slowly. The shadowy figure—in black pants and a gray hooded sweatshirt—moved closer to the edge of the roof and became illuminated by the streetlamps below.

Slovak leaned toward Gurney. “That’s Billy Tate.”

Gurney could see that Tate was holding a can of something in one hand and grasping the corner of the steeple with the other.

Three flashes lit up the sky in rapid succession, followed by a long rumble of thunder.

Tate began moving the can in a curving motion along the side of the steeple.

Two blue-white flashes lit the sky, more brightly this time, followed by louder thunder.

A still-brighter flash created an eerie silhouette of the steeple and the hooded figure next to it. The flash was followed almost immediately by the crashing of thunder, and a few seconds later by another flash and another crash.

Slovak pointed at the screen. “It’s coming now . . . right after this next wind gust.”

Bits of debris, leaves, and dust were roiled up into the air and whirled past the front of the church. Tate stepped in closer to the steeple, bracing his body against it.

“Watch,” said Slovak excitedly. “Here it comes . . .”

A blinding lightning bolt blasted Tate away from the steeple and over the edge of the roof. With a fast downward sweep, the camera followed the body’s fall to the ground.

Gurney flinched, not just at the sight of the impact but at a sound embedded in his memory—as vivid at that moment as the day he heard it, while he was still a probationary officer in the NYPD. An addict had jumped from a sixth-floor apartment window and struck the pavement less than ten feet from where Gurney was standing. The stomach-turning sound of the body hitting the ground had stayed with him for three decades.

While the camera remained on Tate’s inert form, two uniformed officers rushed into the scene, followed by Slovak, followed by Morgan—both in civilian clothes. Slovak knelt next to the body and went through an extended check for vitals. One of the uniformed officers initiated CPR, shouting at the same time for a defibrillator. Slovak could be seen taking out his phone.

Morgan fast-forwarded the video to a later point where a man in chinos and a loose cardigan entered the area with a small leather bag. He squatted by the body and applied a stethoscope to the chest and carotid artery. Because of the position of the camera it was difficult for Gurney to be sure, but the man seemed to be palpating the neck area, then checking the eyes. After a while, he stood up and spoke to Slovak and Morgan and a third officer, all of whom had been closely observing the examination.

Morgan stopped the video and turned to Gurney. “The guy you just saw examining Tate is Dr. Fallow.”

After another fast-forwarding, the video showed a rolling stretcher being guided toward the body. Gurney recognized the man pushing it as Peale. There was some discussion between him and the doctor, after which Peale, Morgan, Slovak, and one of the uniformed officers lifted the body onto the stretcher. With Peale leading the way, Morgan rolled the stretcher out of the frame.

At that point he stopped the video again.

“Any questions?”

“From the point at which the video begins, until the body is removed, how much time elapses?” asked Gurney. “With the fast-forwarding, I couldn’t tell.”

“There’s an embedded time code, which I disabled for this viewing, since it’s a bit of a distraction. The total time from start to finish is a little less than an hour. The first twenty minutes or so is devoted to Tate on the roof. What I showed you starts at the end of that portion. The full version includes the defibrillation efforts, the arrival of the EMTs in an ambulance, along with two police cars from Bastenburg.”

“How did Tate get up on the roof?”

“There’s an interior ladder that goes up into the steeple, and a door in the back of the steeple that opens onto the roof.”

Gurney turned to Slovak. “Is graffiti the reason Tate was up there?”

“Reason doesn’t mean much when you’re talking about Billy Tate.”

“Tate hated Angus, and the pastor of St. Giles is Angus’s sister,” said Morgan. “So, it could have been a way of lashing out at him.”

Barstow was frowning. “There’s something I’d like to see again. Could you take the video back to the point just before the final lightning bolt?”

Morgan did as she asked.

“There!” she said, peering intently at the screen. “On the side of the steeple, about waist-high where Tate is standing. Can you enlarge that area?”