On Harrow Hill

Although much smaller than the conference room, Gurney noted that the walls and furnishings were of the same lustrous mahogany. In addition to a substantial desk and several bookcases, there was a round table with six chairs encircling it. Morgan was standing behind one of them. Brad Slovak and Kyra Barstow were seated across from each other.

“Join us,” said Morgan, gesturing to one of the empty chairs. “We need to review the case status before I meet with the village board. I’ve asked Brad and Kyra to update us. You want coffee?”

“Just had some.” Gurney took a seat at the table.

“Okay. Brad, you’re up.”

Slovak stretched his thick neck from side to side, then ran both hands back over his bristly scalp. “First the simple stuff. Stakeout guys in the woods keeping an eye on the Cursen place reported no activity last night, then one car arriving this morning. Plate check made the registration in the name of Harold Stern. There’s a Harold Stern in an Albany law firm. Garbel, Stern, Harshman, and Black. Could be she anticipates a problem, wants some on-site advice.”

“Too bad,” said Morgan. “Any responses to our APB?”

“Zilch. Some requests for clarification, but no leads. Opposite of the deluge of calls triggered by that RAM News thing last night, with the leaked video. People are spotting Tate everywhere, at opposite ends of the county at the same time. You know what I think is gonna happen? Crazy teenagers dripping red paint on their hoodies and trying to scare the shit out of people. Somebody’s likely to get shot, the way Gant’s stirring things up.”

“That’s all we need,” muttered Morgan. “Anything from the local door-to-doors?”

“Nothing new.”

He turned to Kyra. “Any forensic results?”

“Fingerprints at both the Kane and Mason homicides have been ID’d as Billy Tate’s. Sneaker prints on the dusty floor of the Mason barn match the sneaker prints at the mortuary and the image of the sneaker soles in the video of Tate on the stretcher in front of the church. The message on the wall of Linda Mason’s house was written in her own blood type, DNA confirmation to come. The blood appears to have been applied with a narrow, disposable sponge brush. We didn’t find any similar brushes in the house or barn, so it’s likely Tate came prepared.”

Morgan looked across the table at Gurney. “What do you make of that?”

“An interesting combination of lunacy and logic.”

Morgan nodded uneasily. “Is that it, Kyra?”

“For now.”

“Dave, you have any questions?”

“I do.” He turned to Slovak. “When computer forensics got into Mary Kane’s phone, what did they look for?”

“Phone and text messages, sent and received. That was the point, right?”

“It might be worth checking to see if she used the phone as a recorder.”

“Recording her calls?”

“I’ve been thinking about that nocturnal birding club that texted her.”

“The owl club?”

“Right. You said one of the texts referred to a website where she could listen to birdcalls. I thought if she was interested in that sort of thing, it could be the reason why she had the phone out on the porch with her in the middle of the night—to record the calls, hoots, whatever, of owls. I doubt she was expecting an urgent call at two in the morning.”

Slovak blinked in puzzlement. “You want to know if she recorded any owl hoots?”

“If she had her phone out there to record those sounds, and if that function was on when she was killed, something useful may have been recorded. It’s a long shot, but easy enough to check.”

“Will do.”

Morgan cast a nervous glance at his watch. “Thanks, all. Let me know the instant anything significant comes up.”

Realizing they’d been dismissed, Slovak and Barstow left the office.

Morgan put on a grim smile. “Now we face the village board. Expect the worst. It consists of Ron Fallow, Danforth Peale, Chandler Aspern, Hilda Russell, Harmon Gossett, Martin Carmody, and Gifford Styles. Gossett is the village attorney, sharp as a razor, with the warmth and charm of a corpse; Carmody is the retired CEO of a PR agency; Styles is an old-money idiot Angus installed on the board to give himself an extra vote. You ready for this?”

“I was told this morning that a couple of individuals who had business conflicts with Angus conveniently disappeared off the face of the earth. Is that true?”

Morgan shook his head. “The way you’re saying it makes it sound terrible. There was never even the slightest evidence of Angus’s involvement in anything . . . anything like the way you’re making it sound. There wasn’t a speck of proof that those so-called ‘disappearances’ were anything other than voluntary—and unrelated to Angus.”

“But you are aware of these incidents.”

“Yes, but not with the meaning you’re implying.”

“You didn’t think they were worth mentioning to me?”

“To be totally honest, no. I mean, what’s the relevance of a pair of wild allegations from years ago? What connection could they have to this homicidal rampage by Billy Tate?”

“I have no idea. But it’s the kind of thing I like to think about.”