The Viper

This new way of understanding the case excited Gurney, but it raised a big question. Why would destroying the image of Slade in the mind of Emma Martin be that important? Why would a therapist’s opinion of her client matter to anyone else? Under what conceivable circumstances would changing that opinion be worth killing for?

Then, quite suddenly, he realized he’d gotten it all wrong, and the simple truth came to him like a flash of sunlight.

71

HOW COULD HE HAVE MISSED IT? IT HAD BEEN STARING him in the face from the beginning. Maybe that was the problem. It was too obvious.

On the drive from the campsite hill back to the lodge, he went over the details of the case once again—to be sure that his solution could explain everything, from Lenny’s beheading to Sonny’s shooting to the repeated assaults on his own sanity and security. By the time he turned into the lodge driveway, he was 90 percent sure all the pieces of the puzzle were in place. He realized, however, that understanding what had happened was different from being able to prove it. And it didn’t provide a roadmap for what to do next.

He parked next to Valdez’s pickup, checked the time—4:05 p.m.—and went into the lodge. There was a fire blazing in the front room fireplace and the scent of cherrywood smoke in the air. Hearing a vacuum upstairs, he went to the kitchen to make coffee. While it was brewing, he returned to the front room, settled down in one of the armchairs by the fire, and tried to figure out the best path forward.

The first decision facing him was with whom to share his new understanding of the case. As he weighed the options, he found himself once again sorely missing Hardwick’s aggressive input. It was easy to be seduced by one’s own ego-driven preferences when no one was there to point out their weaknesses.

At least he knew better than to visit Stryker and, without proof, present a narrative that undermined her greatest prosecutorial success. Same applied to the Rexton PD and the State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation, both of which had a stake in the status quo.

There were other interested parties who had a right to know the truth—Howard Manx at the insurance company, Kyra Barstow, Adrienne Lerman, Emma Martin, and Ian Valdez. They also had a right to see the proof. But there was a catch. To get the proof, he’d need to tell the story.

“Lost in your thoughts?”

He looked up and saw Valdez in the doorway. He hadn’t heard him coming downstairs, hadn’t even noticed when the vacuum had been turned off. Lost, indeed.

“Good way of putting it.”

“Something you want to talk about?”

He made a quick, if not altogether comfortable, decision.

“Something I need to talk about. And you need to hear.”

His expression as impassive as ever, Valdez sat in the armchair facing Gurney.

Beset with misgivings, Gurney nevertheless pressed forward. “I think I understand what this case has been about from the beginning.”

Valdez watched him intently. “From the murder of Lenny Lerman?”

“Starting at least a month before that. It all began when Lerman discovered he was about to die from brain cancer. He had no money, no life insurance, no relationship with a son whose respect he was desperate for, and no time left to gain that respect. He had reached the lowest point of a sad life. In the midst of his depression, something occurred to him—a way that he might still win that son’s respect, even perhaps his love. But he wouldn’t be able to do it alone. He’d need help—a special favor, the kind of favor a certain distant relative might be willing to provide. The relative was a much-feared man, but desperation emboldened Lenny, and he approached him. The relative agreed to do what Lenny asked, perhaps in part because Lenny was part of the family, however distant, but more importantly, because he saw a way to use the situation to destroy the reputation of someone he hated—Ziko Slade.”

Valdez’s unblinking gaze grew more intense.

Gurney went on. “The man agreed to help Lenny on the condition that Lenny would pretend he knew something terrible about Slade and was planning to extort a fortune from him. He told Lenny to start keeping a diary, and he told him what to write in it. He told him what to say to his boss and to his son and daughter. He told him how to handle three phone calls to Slade and how to describe them in his diary. He told him to come here to Slade’s property the day before Thanksgiving, a day he knew that Slade would be occupied in the kitchen, preparing the following day’s dinner. He had an associate meet Lenny here, knock him unconscious, drag him to a secluded spot, behead him, cut off his fingers, partially bury him, and plant all the pieces of evidence that later led to Slade’s conviction.”

Valdez was sitting rigidly upright in his chair. “This relative of Lenny’s, instead of doing whatever favor he’d promised, had him killed as part of his own plot against Ziko. Is that what you’re telling me?”

“Not exactly. In fact, Lenny’s murder wasn’t really a murder at all.”