On Harrow Hill

Smith responded with the same earthbound calmness with which he seemed to address everything. “Considering where I came from, only thing that impresses me is the fact that I’m still alive.”

A quarter of an hour later, Gurney was sitting in his car down the block from the Free and Sober facility, going over what John Smith had told him and deciding on his next move.

He checked his phone and found two messages that came in while he was meeting with Smith. The first was from Madeleine, letting him know that their dinner that evening with the Winklers and Gerry Mirkle would be at 7:00 p.m. The second was from Morgan, asking if he’d checked out Silas Gant’s comments yet.

Though he had little appetite for it, Gurney went back to Morgan’s original email and clicked on a link to a news site that had aggregated a series of tweets posted by Gant beginning at 1:05 a.m. that day.

“The house of a self-proclaimed WITCH connected to BILLY TATE has burst into flames. FLAMES OF HELL?”

“Servants of the DEVIL will blame my followers for the attack on that depraved house. Shame on those LIARS!”

“They spread their LIES—while SATAN, in the body of BILLY TATE, is sharpening his knife. WANTS BLOOD!”

“The LYING MEDIA want to SILENCE AND DISARM us. Stand with us now! We will PREVAIL!!”

There were five more in the same fiery tone, all with the core message that any implication that the Church of the Patriarchs had broken any law or fomented violence was not only a lie but a diabolical plot against the righteous. Whatever happened at that den of witches resulted from the ungodly activities of its residents.

Morgan’s email included a link to a call-in interview Gant had given that morning to RAM-Talk, a program that thrived on outrage. He was wondering whether it would be worth listening to when his phone rang.

The screen said it was Slovak.

“Gurney here.”

“Thanks for picking up.” He sounded excited.

“What’s up?”

“We found the orange Jeep!”

“On Harrow Hill?”

“On Aspern’s side of it. About two-thirds of a mile from his house. In a thicket of pines. You were right about the helicopter problem. The Jeep would have been invisible from the air.”

“Anything of interest in it?”

“Yes, sir! A bloodstained scalpel under the driver’s seat. A bloodstained rag on the floor. Bloodstains on the top of the seat back—where Tate’s hoodie would have rested against it.”

“Any obvious prints?”

“Bloody ones on the steering wheel and the parking-brake handle. The steering wheel ones are smeared, but the ones on the brake handle look good.”

“Sounds like you struck gold, Brad.”

Actually, it seemed like a little too much gold, but he didn’t want to say so. “Is Barstow’s team there?”

“I’m going to call them right now. Wanted to fill you in ASAP.”

“I appreciate that. Have you told Morgan?”

“Yes, sir, but he was on his way to see his wife. He’d gotten a call from the hospice people. I was hoping maybe you could come instead.”

“I can, but I’m at least an hour away.”

“No problem. We’ll be here a lot longer than that. Best way in is through the trail in back of the Mason house. When you get there, call me. I’ll send one of the guys down to get you.”

“Have you notified Aspern?”

“I can’t. I mean, the chief has a standing order that all contacts with the mayor go through him personally.”

“This is different, Brad. This has nothing to do with Aspern’s official role as mayor. This involves a suspect’s vehicle on his property and our need to treat it as a crime scene. The evidence you observed connects it to at least one murder site, making it an extension of that scene. Since it’s on his land, Aspern should be notified. But if he happens to appear at your location, he needs to be kept outside the boundaries you establish, just like any other unauthorized person. You have absolute control of that area.”

The excitement had gone out of Slovak’s voice. “Okay . . . if you think that’s best.”

Once again, Gurney found himself regretting his involvement. If he hadn’t agreed to Morgan’s request for assistance in the first place, the man probably would have been forced to turn the case over the Bureau of Criminal Investigation—with all the state manpower and technical resources to handle it.

Instead, he felt an increasing weight of personal responsibility—combined with an unnerving sense that each new discovery in the case brought with it far more questions than answers.

39

An hour later Gurney was sitting in the Outback next to the trailhead behind the Mason house. After letting Slovak know he was there, he decided to use the time to take another look around the property and, if it was open, the barn where he’d found Linda Mason’s body.

The first thing he noticed was that the acre or so of lawn surrounding the house had been mowed recently—probably that very day, judging from the uniform look of it, and probably by Greg Mason. It would be consistent with his fixation on ­orderliness—a trait likely to grow stronger when faced with the emotional chaos of murder.