The Viper

“Three years ago, his drug-addict wife stabbed him with an ice pick. Grazed his heart, puncturing his aorta. He was in intensive care for nine days. Face to face with death. In that position, he saw the wreckage of his life in a new way. The vision changed him.”

“How do you know this?”

“When he was released from the hospital, the vision was still with him. He had clarity about his past but no idea what to do with it. He wanted help to understand who he could be—who he should be. In that state, the universe sometimes intervenes. Connections appear. Someone put him in touch with someone who put him in touch with me.”

“You became his therapist?”

“I don’t use that term. It creates a false impression of what I do.”

Madeleine arrived with a tray holding two cups of tea, a plate of freshly baked scones, a small bowl of jam, spoons, and a butter knife for the jam. She set it on the low coffee table between the facing armchairs and stepped back.

“You’re not joining us?” asked Emma.

“When it comes to murder cases, I’d rather—”

There was a loud thwack against a pane in one of the French doors. Madeleine winced, hurried over to it, peered down at the patio stones, and let out a sigh of relief. “Once in a while a bird flies into the glass. Sometimes the impact is so loud, you expect to find a little body on the ground. But whoever flew into the door just now managed to fly away.” She shivered, began to speak, stopped, and returned to the kitchen end of the room.

After a brief silence, Gurney asked Emma, “Is there a term you prefer to ‘therapist’?”

“There’s no need for any term. I listen. I comment. I take no payment.”

“And your listening sessions with Ziko Slade during the two years between his near-death revelation and the murder of Lerman have convinced you that the change in his character was so great that he couldn’t have done what sworn witnesses and physical evidence convinced twelve jurors that he did?”

“Yes.”

“When was he sentenced?”

“Just a week ago.”

“You’ve spoken to him since then?”

“Most recently this morning.”

“Did he have a competent attorney?”

“Marcus Thorne.”

Gurney was impressed. “Big name. Must have been expensive.”

“Ziko has money.”

“Have you spoken to Thorne about the appeal process?”

“He believes it’s a lost cause.”

“Despite that, you have no doubt about Slade’s innocence?”

“None.”

Gurney took a sip of tea and gave her a long, appraising look. Unshakable certitude regarding a conclusion that seemed at variance with the available facts was not a rare trait. It was fairly common among egomaniacs, the emotionally unstable, and the deeply ignorant. Emma Martin was none of those things.

He cleared his throat. “So . . . what do you want me to do?”

“Discover the facts that prove his innocence.”

“What if the facts prove his guilt?”

She smiled slightly. “Ziko has been betrayed by a legal system more interested in securing a conviction than uncovering the truth. I’m certain that you can find the facts that will exonerate him.” She paused. “I know you’re skeptical of my insight into Ziko’s character. Let me add a more mundane observation. He’s far too intelligent to have committed such a stupid crime.”

“What was stupid about it?”

“According to the prosecutor, he was being blackmailed by Lenny Lerman over some dark secret in his past, and he killed Lerman rather than meet his financial demand.”

Gurney shrugged. “A common enough solution.”

“In general, but not in its details. According to the prosecutor, when Lerman arrived at Ziko’s estate, Ziko knocked him unconscious, dragged his body to a shallow grave he’d already prepared in a pine thicket near the lodge, chopped off his head with an axe and cut off his fingers with a pruning clipper—supposedly to impede identification of the body—covered the body with a scattering of dirt, left his fingerprints on the axe handle, left his DNA on a cigarette butt by the grave, and did every other incriminating thing imaginable. The body, with a few other parts chewed off by scavenging animals, was discovered—”

The clatter of a dropped plate in the sink drew Gurney’s attention to the open kitchen area in time to see Madeleine hurrying from the room.

Emma appeared chagrined. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have been so explicit.”

“Not your fault. The Harrow Hill business has had some lingering effects.”

“Of course. It must have traumatized you both.”

Gurney responded with a small nod. “Please continue.”

She regarded him with some concern before going on. “My point is that Ziko has the financial resources to deal with a blackmail challenge in other ways. He would never have done what the prosecutor says he did.”

“Smart people can do stupid things under pressure.”

“Suppose you planned to kill someone who was coming to visit you. Would you dig a shallow grave out by your chicken coop and bury the body under a couple of inches of dirt where coyotes and vultures were sure to find it? You would not be so foolish, David, and neither would Ziko.”