The Viper

Hardwick was vulgar and combative, but he was also smart and fearless. He and Gurney shared a special connection, formed as the result of a macabre coincidence. When Gurney was still with the NYPD and Hardwick with the NYSP, they were both involved in the investigation of the infamous Peter Piggert murder case. On the same day, in jurisdictions a hundred miles apart, they each found half of Mrs. Piggert’s body.

Gurney pulled into a roadside gas station and convenience store. He parked next to a battered pickup truck and placed the call. After four rings, it was answered by a female voice with a Puerto Rican accent.

“Dave?”

“Esti?” Esti Moreno was Hardwick’s live-in girlfriend. She was also a New York State Trooper in what was still very much a man’s world, which said a lot about her toughness and determination.

“Who else?” she said in a tone of teasing reprimand. “I saw your name on Jack’s phone screen, so I picked it up. He’s outside. We have groundhogs. Jack hates groundhogs. You want to talk to him?”

“I wanted to ask him if he knows anything about a murder case involving Ziko Slade.”

“The tennis player?”

“Years ago, yes.”

“I had such a crush on him!”

“On Ziko Slade?”

“I was such a tennis fanatic back then, and he was incredible. So graceful. He made it look so easy. Like he was born for it. Such a beautiful boy. The girls, the women, the gay men at the court where I played—we were all in love with him.”

“He’s not a boy anymore.”

“Sad but true. There were stories about crazy things—wait, hold on, Jack just came in.”

He heard the phone switching hands, then Hardwick’s rough voice.

“I’m blowing up goddamn groundhog burrows. Little bastards are undermining the house. The fuck do you want, Gurney?”

“Whatever you know or can find out about Ziko Slade and Leonard Lerman.”

He uttered a snorting little laugh. “According to my TV, Lerman is dead and headless, and Slade’s doing thirty-to-life in an upstate shitcan.”

“I’ve been asked to look into the situation. I just met with Slade, but I’m not sure who the hell is living in his body.”

“I had the impression the case was a slam-dunk.”

“You know who the prosecutor was?”

“Not a clue.”

“Cam Stryker. The murder took place in Rexton Township, other end of the same county as Harrow Hill, so the same district attorney.”

“Does she know you’re screwing around with her case?”

“Not unless she’s keeping tabs on the visitor log at Attica.”

“This poking around you’re up to—what’s the endgame?”

“The person who asked me to look into it is sure the case was flawed and that the verdict should be reversed.”

“Suppose you come up with something that turns Stryker’s golden victory to shit. Result number one is you turn Stryker into a lifelong enemy. Where’s the fucking advantage in that?”

“I haven’t given much thought to the personal implications. All I want to know at this point is whether the case against Slade was as solid as it looks. Facts—that’s all I want. Especially ones that didn’t make it into the trial record. I figured with your upstate law-enforcement contacts you might be able to unearth something.”

“You getting paid for this?”

“No payment has been mentioned.”

“Davey-boy, you must be out of your goddamn mind. Besides, I can’t focus on this in the middle of my groundhog situation. One fucking battle at a time. I’ll be in touch.”

As usual, Hardwick disconnected first.

Gurney gave little thought to Cam Stryker’s potential reaction to his investigation. There was another matter of greater interest on his mind: Exactly how strong was the supposedly unassailable physical evidence? Marcus Thorne took a few potshots at it during the trial, but wasn’t willing to subject it to rigorous questioning—perhaps because he knew that the answers would make the defense position even weaker. In Gurney’s mind, however, the actual strength of the physical evidence remained an issue worth looking at more closely. The question was how.

Gurney purchased an overpriced bottle of water from the convenience store, then set out again for home—with the evidence issue very much on his mind.

His thoughts on the subject, however, were interrupted from time to time by glimpses in his rearview mirror of a dark nondescript car on the otherwise traffic-free country road. He first noticed it shortly before his stop. When the car reappeared, trailing him at the same distance, mile after mile, he paid closer attention.

His rational mind told him there was nothing to be concerned about. The car behind him now might not be the same car from before—and even if it was, there could be any number of innocent explanations. But an uneasy feeling persisted, and when he was about twenty miles from Walnut Crossing, he pulled off the road into a gravelly turnaround area used by the county snowplows in the winter.