The Viper

She paused, then spoke in a dramatic newscaster’s voice. “Good evening! We open tonight’s edition of Controversial Perspectives with a bombshell interview with former NYPD detective, Dave Gurney. Gurney has declared war not only on the official version of the Slade murder case, but on DA Cam Stryker herself, who in our last interview described him as a ‘wanted’ man. So, let’s get right to it! Detective Gurney, welcome to Controversial Perspectives.”

“Thank you.”

“You’ve made it clear you have no faith in the DA’s investigation of Lenny Lerman’s murder, so you’ve been conducting your own. What have you discovered?”

“So far, four key facts. One, Lerman had inoperable brain cancer with less than a month to live, which opens the case to other interpretations. Two, his diary entries, accepted at face value by the DA, may have been intentionally deceptive. Three, the DA seems hell-bent on blaming the prison death of Ziko Slade on suicide, even though the people closest to him insist he was murdered. Four, the original Lerman investigation team screwed up repeatedly. They missed the significance of Lerman’s decapitation; they used his unreliable diary to give Slade a motive for murder; and they’ve closed their eyes to events that point to a cover-up—such as repeated attempts to stop my own investigation.”

“Wow! That’s quite an indictment of law enforcement! But I have to ask—why would they hang on to a theory that’s as weak as you say it is?”

“Ineptitude. Ambition. Desperation.”

“Desperation?”

“A desperate fear of their mistakes being exposed. Mistakes make lousy rungs on the promotion ladder.”

“Okay, Detective Gurney, one final question. How close do you think you are to identifying the criminal mastermind behind it all?”

“Very close. But ‘criminal mastermind’ is not the right description.”

“Give me a better one.”

“A pathetic homicidal psycho who’s about to be taken down.”

GURNEY KEPT REASSURING himself that what he’d said was purely a tactical assault, designed to provoke the perp into a selfidentifying reaction. But he didn’t entirely believe it. There was too much adrenaline in the experience, too great an illusion of power.

Still, it was a defendable approach. Similar approaches in other investigations had paid off. The feelings that went along with it were arguably the natural accompaniments of any aggressive initiative. He resolved to stop thinking about it.

He went to the kitchen and made himself some coffee. Striving for a sense of normalcy, he brought his cup to the dining room table and took down the tablecloth drapes covering the windows. The late morning sun was high enough in the sky to brighten the room, eliminating the need for interior lights and the fishbowl feeling that came with them.

He was just about to take his first sip of coffee when his sense of normalcy was ended by a glimpse of movement in the woods beyond the clearing. He put down his cup and sat very still, peering out into the hemlocks. Again, a slight movement, little more than a shadow a bit darker than the shadows around it, appearing and disappearing.

He slowly pushed himself back from the table, went to the front room, and put on his jacket, but not his gloves. He could handle the Glock better without them. He knew from his previous visit that at the rear of the kitchen there was a short hallway that led to a pantry and a back door—which seemed a safer exit than the more exposed front door. He walked quickly into the woods behind the tool shed and made his way toward the general area where he had spotted the possible intruder.

The forest was cold and silent. The dark mass of evergreen branches blocked the sun that had brightened the clearing, and the ice underfoot made walking tricky. Stopping every few yards to listen, he realized he was getting close to the scene of Lenny Lerman’s murder.

Soon he caught sight of the giant pine that served as a forest landmark for Lerman’s temporary grave.

Holding the Glock in a ready-to-fire grip, he moved slowly forward.

As he got closer to the gravesite, he noticed some odd little protrusions on its icy surface.

Moving still closer, gooseflesh crept up his back at the dawning recognition of what he was looking at.

Ten fingers, sticking up out of the ground like frozen claws.

69

BACK IN THE LODGE, GURNEY RETREATED TO HIS BEDROOM with his Glock, phone, and laptop. Under normal circumstances, he’d call Rexton PD or the nearest state police barracks, report what he’d found, and lead the responders to the site, but these circumstances were far from normal. Announcing his location to law enforcement could result in his being detained immediately at the request of Cam Stryker. With police involvement off the table, his next option would have been to call Jack Hardwick, but just the thought of that now brought a rush of guilt and fear.