On Harrow Hill

He went on to the last doorway on the landing, the one to the bathroom. Because of a high doorsill, the water on the floor was nearly an inch deep. Hanging on the wall next to the basin was a framed copy of “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe. He went quickly through the medicine cabinet and the shelving along one of the walls. He found nothing special, but that in itself was contributing to a not easily labeled feeling that had been growing from the moment he’d entered the house, a feeling that had begun the day before when he saw the tears welling in Selena Cursen’s eyes. He made his way down the old-fashioned carpeted staircase and out the front door onto the porch.

Barstow was a few feet away, conferring with one of her techs. When she had sent him off with new instructions, she turned to Gurney and held up another brass casing. “New total—four hundred and one.”

When he didn’t answer, she looked at him more closely. “Is something wrong?”

“I wish the situation were clearer.”

“What do you mean?”

“The stuff in their rooms is pretty ordinary. Nothing I saw suggests that they’re devil-worshipping monsters. More like garden-variety lost kids. I’ve been in the homes of psychopaths, where the signs of evil are pretty obvious. That’s not the case here.”

“Are you saying Tate’s not the murderer that all the evidence says he is?”

“I can’t say anything that definitive. Sometimes the malignancy in someone is so well hidden, it’s a shock to see what they’re capable of. There’ve been mass murderers whose lives looked a lot more peaceful than Billy Tate’s. I guess I was just hoping to find something here that matched the crimes we’re dealing with—some clear assurance that we’re on the right track.”

“A psychological smoking gun?”

“Something like that.”

“Maybe it got destroyed in the fire.”

“Maybe. But the clearest signs of evil here right now are those bullet holes.” He paused, his mouth tightening. “Sons of bitches ride in here like they’re major warriors and put two helpless young women in the hospital. Jesus!”

Barstow was watching him closely, perhaps trying to understand a side of him she hadn’t seen before. “I’m pretty sure we’ll be able to get them. They’re probably stupid enough to hold on to the weapons they used here. And unless they power-­wash their bikes, soil and grass samples will link them to this site.”

Gurney nodded. “It’s a safe bet they were drunk or high.”

She raised her eyebrows in fake surprise. “You don’t think that the idea of firing four hundred rounds into a house, roaring around it like maniacs in the middle of the night, was a sober plan?”

“What I’m thinking is that they may have been actively drinking on their way out here. Throttle in one hand, beer can in the other. Very macho.”

It took her about three seconds to grasp the implication.

“So . . . maybe I should send a couple of our people out along the entry road, have them check the brush along the edges for cans, bottles, whatever the shitheads might have tossed?”

“Sounds like a good idea.”

“Maybe something with prints the system can ID?”

“Even better.”

“Possibly the prints of a Patriarch?”

“Best of all.”

37

By the time Gurney was descending the final hill into the village of Walnut Crossing, the first blush of dawn was visible over the eastern ridge.

When he arrived at his barn fifteen minutes later, there was enough light for him to see that the door would need a second coat of paint to fully obliterate the Dark Angel message. Rather than putting it off, he decided to take care of it. He got his paint and brush from inside the barn and set to work. Applying the second coat was quicker and easier than the first. He washed out the brush in the pond’s cold spring water, put it away with the remaining paint, and headed up to the house.

The morning air was cool and still. He heard the chickens moving around in the coop and went to check on their food and water. He poured more pellets into their feeding device and swept off the ramp that led into the fenced run. Then he went to the asparagus bed and cut a handful of spears to go with the scrambled eggs he was planning to have for breakfast.

Half an hour later, he was sitting at the table by the French doors, finishing a second cup of coffee. The doors were open, and the air drifting in carried a faint scent of lilacs. A flock of purple finches had arrived at the bird feeders that hung from shepherds’ crooks at the edges of the patio.

He was reminded again of the stark contrasts embedded in his life. There was this peace and beauty, Madeleine’s smile, the sweet air itself. And there was the ugliness of his profession. Of course, it wasn’t really his profession that was ugly, it was the viciousness in human nature—the viciousness that made his profession necessary. The goal was balance. Remembering that the peace and beauty were as real as the bullet holes.