On Harrow Hill

“I’m suggesting that the facts speak for themselves. And that your former partner’s attitude toward the facts fails to inspire confidence. I’m fond of facts, and my research into your background tells me that you share this fondness.”

Gurney said nothing.

“You’re giving me that laconic cop stare. You’re wondering what my point is, right?”

“I’m sure you’ll get to it.”

“It’s simple enough. Morgan was never the choice of the village board for police chief. He was Angus’s choice. But with Angus gone, things will be different. Changes will be made. I guarantee it. The position of police chief will finally be filled the way it should have been—on the basis of experience, ability, integrity, not behind-the-scenes entanglements. A great opportunity for the right person. Something to think about, eh?”

Aspern smiled the beneficent smile of a man with the power to bestow great gifts—while his small dark eyes communicated the depth of self-interest welded to the beneficence.

If he was searching Gurney’s face for a sign of gratitude or even of mild interest in what amounted to the offer of a plum job, it wasn’t there to be seen. “What’s on your mind, Detective?”

“Questions.”

“Ask them.”

“I’m thinking about Angus Russell’s apparent ease in making his enemies disappear. Did you ever wonder if you were on that list?”

“I’m sure I was. I took certain precautions. I’m not without resources. I acquired some information, the publication of which would have created a significant inconvenience for Angus. I informed him of the facts I had gathered and of the instructions I had given to an unnamed law firm—to provide those facts to the media and law enforcement agencies in the event of my untimely death by any other than natural causes. It seems to have been effective.”

Gurney considered the implications of that before asking his next question.

“What can you tell me about Lorinda Russell?”

Aspern uttered a harsh laugh. “Wet-dream queen of Larchfield by day, vampire bat by night. You want details, ask Morgan.”

Gurney was about to pursue that further when his phone vibrated in his pocket. He took it out and glanced at the screen. It was Morgan. He decided to take the call.

“Gurney here.”

The tension in the man’s voice sounded more like excitement than his normal anxiety. “The carrier just provided us with copies of Tate’s last two texts. The one he sent to Selena Cursen was mainly to let her know that he was alive and that she should keep it to herself. The other one—the one that went to Chandler Aspern—was more interesting.”

“What does it say?”

“It’s pretty slangy. But basically it reads like a proposal for some sort of cooperative arrangement. If that’s what it is, it changes everything.”

“I’m on my way.”

Gurney ended the call and got to his feet. “Sorry. Something’s come up.” As he was leaving the office, he stopped and looked back at Aspern. “Regarding Billy Tate, apart from the time he threatened you, did he have any other contact with you?”

“No.”

“He never accosted you on the street, at home, in your office?”

“Never.”

“No phone calls, texts, emails?”

“Nothing at all. Why?”

“Just covering all the bases. Like I said, the more I know, the better. I’ll be in touch.”

The beneficent smile had long since disappeared from Aspern’s face, but the self-interest radiating from those coal-dark eyes was as strong as ever.

30

When Gurney arrived at the doorway of Morgan’s office, he found him pacing, his phone to his ear. He entered and took a seat on one of the two leather couches. The subject of the call was unclear from what Gurney could hear. It consisted mainly of Morgan’s terse responses—yes, no, absolutely, absolutely not.

When the call ended, Morgan glared at the phone as if it were the source of all the pressure in his life. “That was Cam Stryker. County DA. Silas Gant is pressuring her to bundle everything that’s been happening here into one big hate-crime conspiracy and take personal charge of it.”

“Gant is saying the Russell, Kane, and Mason homicides were hate crimes?”

“He’s pointing to the defacing of St. Giles and the three churches over in Bastenburg with those sideways figure eight symbols—calls them ‘battle flags of the armies of hell’—and he claims that the killings were part of that, and it all adds up to an orchestrated attack on religion. Therefore, a vast hate-crime conspiracy.”

“Did Stryker tell him he needed mental-health counseling?”

Morgan looked pained. “I doubt it. Last election was a close one for her. She can’t afford to alienate anyone, especially not someone like Gant.”

“What exactly is her position on this vast-conspiracy nonsense?”