The Viper

He wasn’t sure what he’d learned—perhaps only that Emma Martin was a lot more confident than he was about Ian Valdez’s sainthood.

68

AS HE WAS SITTING AT THE DINING ROOM TABLE, PONDERING his phone call with Emma, a wave of anxiety swept through him. He went to the window that provided a view of the forest area where he’d seen—or thought he’d seen—the flashes of light. He waited for several minutes and saw nothing peculiar, but his anxiety continued to grow.

He retrieved his holstered Glock from the upstairs bedroom, strapped it on, then loaded the spare magazine and slipped it into his pocket. In the face of an unknown enemy, it provided only a dubious sense of security, but something was better than nothing.

The downstairs windows had no blinds or curtains, creating a feeling of exposure that made him uncomfortable. He searched the closets for a solution, found some tablecloths, and hung them over the windows in the front room and the dining room, affixing them to the wall above each window with duct tape he found in a kitchen utility drawer.

Looking around at the covered windows brought back a childhood memory of creating an imaginary fort from a card table draped with a blanket and crawling into it and sitting there in the sheltered semidarkness, entering a world of adventure in which the fort became a cave or a teepee or a boat and he was far from home, free to embark on whatever adventure occurred to him. Under that table, under that blanket, in that fort or boat, there was no fear, no arguing parents, only freedom and the future.

A shrill whistle of wind in the chimney brought him back to the present. And the present brought with it a renewed awareness of the precariousness of his position, a sense of loneliness, and the thought of Hardwick on life support.

He got his phone and called the hospital.

No change. Condition critical. Vital signs unstable. The nurse’s tone was terse and suspicious. Understandably so, since the patient was responsible for two shooting deaths.

Gurney went from room to room, upstairs and downstairs, checking the window locks and door locks. He started a blaze in the fireplace and tried to relax. He went to the kitchen and made a pot of coffee. He wondered when Ian would return. More critically, he wondered how much faith he should be putting in Emma’s opinion of the enigmatic young man.

His thoughts were interrupted by his phone. The screen said it was A. Lerman.

“Hello, Adrienne, I was just—”

She cut him off, the words spilling out. “They’ve exhumed Dad’s body! For another autopsy! How can they do that without my permission? They didn’t even let me know—until now—and it’s already been done! What on earth is happening?”

“When you say that ‘they’ exhumed Lenny’s body, who do you mean?”

“The pathologist, the one at Slade’s trial. It was someone in his office who called me. As a courtesy, she said, as though I had no say in the matter, as though he wasn’t my father. And of course it was already done, all after the fact! They sent people out to the cemetery and dug up his grave and the pathologist did an autopsy. The woman who called me sounded pleasant, but it was that awful kind of pleasantness that doesn’t mean a thing. Do you know anything about this?”

“In criminal cases a county medical examiner has the right to issue a disinterment order and conduct an autopsy—or a second autopsy—without the consent of any third party. This can occur if new evidence arises, or if there’s a well-founded belief that the autopsy will lead to the discovery of evidence sufficient to alter the disposition of the case.”

“Does this mean they’ve discovered something new about Dad’s death?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised. Remember I told you I was studying the GPS logs of trips he made in the last weeks of his life? Well, it appears that some of those trips may have been to medical offices. In fact, I shared that information with Dr. Loeffler as a matter of course, but I feel blindsided by his proceeding without telling either of us. Did the person you spoke to at Loeffler’s office give you any information on the results of the autopsy?”

“No. Nothing. I asked, and she said that the information was being provided to the district attorney’s office, and I should check with them. But I have a feeling no one is going to tell me anything!”

“Dealing with these people can be infuriating. But I’ll find out whatever I can, Adrienne, and I’ll get back to you.”

Gurney had no illusions that having prodded Loeffler to perform the autopsy would make him privy to its results. So, some form of subterfuge would be necessary.

He hid his caller ID and placed a call to Loeffler’s office.

It was answered by a cool female voice. “Medical examiner’s office. May I help you?”

Gurney spoke like a man on an important mission. “This is Jim Holland at the North Country Star. We’re about to go to press with a story, and we’d like to get Dr. Loeffler’s comment on one of the key facts we’re including.”

She hesitated. “Your name again?”