On Harrow Hill

After Morgan ended the call, Gurney moved from his firm desk chair to the overstuffed armchair by the den window with the broadest view of the high pasture. The sun had set, and the red and orange hues in the clouds were shifting to shades of purple. He put his feet up on the ottoman, put the open computer in his lap, silenced his phone, and let his eyes drift shut—telling himself that a restorative ten-minute nap was just what he needed before going to the RAM program archive to see Kronck’s comments on the case. It had been a very long day.

A strange ringing impinged on his sleep, bringing with it the image of the alarm clock that was atop the bureau next to his bed when he was in high school—and the instant feeling of gloom that sound always brought with it. He opened his eyes and found himself still in the armchair in the now darkened den. It took another few seconds of reorientation to identify the ringing as the sound of his landline phone. He switched on the floor lamp next to the chair, made his way across the room to his desk, and picked up the phone.

“Gurney here.”

“Christ, I’ve left three messages at your cell number. Where have you been?” Morgan’s voice was a spring on the verge of snapping.

“What’s the matter?”

“Selena Cursen’s house was attacked. She and that girl who lives with her are in the hospital, may or may not make it.”

“Who did it?”

“That’s what we’re trying to find out. Of course, everyone’s out working the dragnet on Harrow Hill. If I call them in for this Cursen thing, that operation collapses, which we can’t let happen. How soon can you get here?”

Gurney looked at the time. It was 11:20—meaning his ten-minute nap had lasted for two and a half hours.

“I can be at the Cursen place by twelve thirty.”

“Ignore the speed limit.”

36

The last section of the dirt road that led to the opening in Selena Cursen’s iron fence had been taped off. Five official vehicles were parked outside the tape at haphazard angles—Kyra Barstow’s crime-scene van, two Larchfield patrol cars, a red-and-white Chevy Suburban with a sheriff’s department logo and the words FIRE INVESTIGATION UNIT across the back, and a utility van with a Larchfield Police logo on the side. Next to the van was a Toyota Camry.

Gurney figured the utility van had transported the generator he could hear humming in the background, as well as the halogen lights that were set up in the cleared area around the half-charred house. Despite having worked under those superbright lights countless times in his career, he’d never gotten used to the feeling of dislocation they created by turning night into day. Now their stark glare was giving the scene a surreal aspect. He guessed the Camry by the utility van belonged to the crime-scene photographer, whom he spotted heading into the house.

The desk sergeant from headquarters was leaning against the fender of one of the cruisers. He picked up a clipboard from the hood and stood up straighter as Gurney approached. He checked his watch and made a note on the crime-scene log.

“Hell of a thing,” he said, gesturing toward the destruction. “Betcha people will say she brought it on herself.”

“How?”

“All that witchery shit. Not a popular thing around here.”

“Do you know if she’d received any threats?”

“I couldn’t say. Some folks might have suggested she move on. Wouldn’t be surprising, what with the Satanism and all that. Stirred up bad feelings.”

Gurney was pretty sure those feelings were shared by the sergeant. A uniform was no antidote to the belief that unpopular victims—especially those who happened to be unconventional women—were responsible for the crimes committed against them.

His urge to dig a little deeper into the sergeant’s attitude was interrupted by Barstow, calling out to him.

He called back to her over the hum of the generator. “You want me to suit up?”

“Just shoe covers. Back of my van, if you don’t have your own.”

He went to her van, took a pair of disposable booties from an open box, and slipped them on. He passed through the opening in the fence and headed toward Barstow through an expanse of knee-high grass that was starting to go to seed for want of mowing.

“So far we’ve found hundreds of these,” she said, holding up a brass shell casing.

Gurney took a close look at it. “Seven point sixty-two, full metal jacket?”

She nodded appreciatively. “Fits most of the Kalashnikov-style assault rifles.”

“When you said hundreds, did you mean a lot? Or literally hundreds?”

“Literally. Over three hundred so far. And still counting.”

“So what happened here?”

“Hard to tell in all this grass, but my estimate from the tread marks in the dirt on the entry road is that five motorcycles came through the opening in the fence, then circled the house, firing into it. From the way some of the grass is matted down, I’d say they circled it at least three or four times. The wood siding’s like Swiss cheese. Those full metal jackets ripped right through the walls, blasted everything inside the house to pieces.”