On Harrow Hill

“No. Just look in on the chickens. I think they have enough food and water, but it’s worth checking. And please be careful.”

“Right.” He kissed the top of her head, nodded to Gerry, and returned to his car.

The route to the Gurney property out in the western hills went through the center of Walnut Crossing. It was hard to tell whether the sad condition of the upstate economy was more accurately reflected in the vacant storefronts or in those occupied by the shabby businesses that had survived—selling discount cigarettes, secondhand clothing, used furniture, lottery tickets, and junk food. The only enterprises that seemed on a solid enough footing to keep up appearances were the hospital and the funeral parlor.

Fifteen minutes later, Gurney was parked in front of his barn. The grass was in need of mowing—a reminder of how difficult he found it to balance the domestic and detective sides of his life. He decided to deal with the grass while it was on his mind. Then, as he was about to get the mower out of the barn, he was struck by the aggressive ugliness of the bloody statement on the door. The urge to do something about that first pushed the mowing plan aside.

He figured the simplest remedy would be a quick sanding and repainting of the defaced area. Barstow had already taken photographs and surface scrapings for analysis, so there was no evidence-preservation issue, and he had the materials on hand in his workshop in the barn.

Half an hour later, the job was done. His painting could have been neater, but at least the creepy message had been covered. He checked his watch. It was nearly six o’clock. He hadn’t bothered to eat anything at Aspern’s lunchtime meeting, and he was hungry, but he decided to inspect the barn area before it fell into the shade of the tall cherry trees.

He walked a gradually expanding spiral route around the structure, just as he’d done at countless other crime scenes. He found nothing of interest until he came to the tread marks Barstow had made impressions of that morning.

The fact that the combination of the two tread patterns and the distance between them might identify the make and model of the car had Gurney itchy for a status report. Although he was pretty sure that Barstow would notify him promptly if anything useful turned up, he called her anyway. He reached her voicemail and left a message.

Then he drove up through the low pasture to the house, intent on getting something to eat—and making sure the chickens had enough food and water.

He discovered they had plenty of both. He took a few minutes to clean off their perches, air out the coop, and put down a few handfuls of fresh straw before going into the house. After getting a pot of water boiling and adding some pasta, he took a shower and put on fresh jeans and a polo shirt. He returned to the kitchen, drained the pasta, added some butter and leftover asparagus, and carried a bowl of it to the café table outside the French doors.

The slanting rays of the early-evening sun were pleasantly warm on his back. The grass between the patio and the chicken coop was a brilliant green. The yellow strings that Madeleine had used to lay out her plan for a shed alongside the coop were swaying in a gentle breeze. Barn swallows were swooping overhead in pursuit of insects. Chipmunks were gathering seeds from under the finch feeders. The harshness of the day was fading into the background.

His sense of peace was ended by a panicky call from Morgan.

“Another episode of that damn Karl Kasak show is scheduled for ten o’clock tonight. There’s a preview segment on the RAM website now. I’m trying to reach Harmon Gossett to see if we can get it killed. We’ve got to do something about this before it buries us.”

“Good luck with Gossett.”

“Right. I’ve got another call I need to take. Talk to you later.”

After finishing his dinner and making himself a cup of coffee, Gurney went into the den, opened his laptop, and went to the RAM website. In the “Streaming Previews” section he found Crimes Beyond Reason and clicked on the current date.

After a two-minute commercial, Kasak appeared in front of the Gothic iron gate of a cemetery. He spoke in a tense, hushed tone.

“I’m here among the dead of Larchfield, New York—an appropriately chilling location for my meeting with Clinton and Delbert Mars, self-styled zombie hunters, drawn here by the terrifying events of the past week. You may think of zombies as creatures found only in horror movies. I asked the Mars brothers if that’s true. What they told me may shock you.”

The screen was filled with a close-up of two overweight, bearded men, side by side in front of a marble mausoleum. They spoke alternately, one sentence each, like twins accustomed to finishing each other’s thoughts.

“The idea that the walking dead are creatures of fiction is just about the biggest lie the government wants us to swallow.”

“Like telling us that UFOs are weather balloons.”

“Truth is, the walking dead are real as you and me.”