The Viper

HOLDENFIELD’S COMMENTS KEPT GURNEY AWAKE INTO the wee hours of the following morning, not because they surprised him, but because they reinforced what he was already inclined to believe. He decided to make a return trip to Garville later that day for a closer look at Bruno Lanka’s store and the man in Tess Larson’s sketch.

He finally fell asleep in the gray light of dawn, only to wake up an hour later with a dull headache and a stiff neck. He eased himself out of bed, swallowed a couple of ibuprofens, and took a long, soothing shower. By the time he’d shaved, dressed, and made his way out to the kitchen, the headache had faded. Madeleine, waiting for the coffee machine to warm up, appeared to be her energetic morning self.

“I don’t start at the clinic until ten,” she announced cheerily, “so we’ll have plenty of time to install the shed door.”

With his focus on the Garville excursion, he’d forgotten about the door, but he chose not to mention either of those facts.

After breakfast, while Madeleine dealt with the dishes, he strapped on his Glock and went down to the barn for the mounting screws, the power driver, and the shims and clamps that would hold the door in place while the hinge flanges were attached to the opening. He brought the necessary materials up to the shed, where Madeleine was waiting, her work gloves on.

Half an hour later, the job was completed. The door’s position in the opening required no hinge-shimming or other adjustments, confirming that the abutting surfaces were plumb and level. It gave him a simple sense of closure that the murkier work of homicide investigations rarely did.

Gerry Mirkle picked Madeleine up at nine thirty, and Gurney departed for his two-hour drive to Garville at nine forty-five, aiming to arrive just before Lanka’s store opened. Most of the trip was on the interstate where, despite the speed limit being sixty-five, it seemed that everyone had set their cruise control at seventy.

The passing landscape was made up of rolling hills, farm fields, and patches of evergreen woods on slopes too steep for cultivation. This pastoral expanse gave way to a flatter, more populated area as he entered the suburbs of Albany. One sight jarred him briefly out of his contemplation of Bruno Lanka—a dead deer on the shoulder of the highway, legs extending stiffly out from the body in rigor mortis. Vultures circled overhead.

From time to time, a sight like this—a deer, a dog, a possum—along the edge of a road touched something in him that he’d learned to suppress at the sight of a human victim. But stifled emotions have a way of coming to the surface, and a dead creature lying alone in a cold, hard place could sometimes bring him close to tears.

His route to Lanka’s Specialty Foods took him through the grungy outskirts of Garville and past Top Star Auto Salvage. He slowed down, noting that the red tow truck had been returned by BCI. It was parked inside the fenced compound next to the trailer-office. He could see the scrapes on the truck’s side, incurred during its collision with his Outback.

He drove into the center of town, turned onto the side street where Lanka’s store was located, and chose a parking spot half a block past it from which he could observe the store’s front door and the entrance to its parking lot in his rearview mirrors.

He had no specific expectations nor any firm plan. He knew from experience that stakeouts were open-ended exercises in patience and improvisation. He tilted his seat back into a semi-reclining position and adjusted his inside and outside mirrors. The dashboard clock said it was 11:49 a.m.

Twelve noon came and went without anyone arriving to open the store. During the next half hour, a Garville police cruiser drove by three times—particularly noticeable, since there was so little traffic on that street. When the cruiser appeared a fourth time, it came to a stop behind him.

After two or three minutes, during which he assumed that his plate number was being being run through the system for outstanding tickets or warrants, a uniformed cop emerged from the cruiser and approached Gurney’s window. He had the shoulders and neck of a bodybuilder. His mouth was set in an approximation of a polite smile. The plastic ID tag on his jacket said his name was Gavin Horst.

“Good afternoon, sir. May I see your license and registration?”

Rather than questioning the reason for the inquiry, he handed over his license and the auto rental agreement, and the cop returned to the cruiser. In his mirror Gurney could see that he was making a phone call rather than checking the license on the in-car computer. After ending the phone call, the cop returned with Gurney’s documents. The smile was gone. “So, where are you coming from today, sir?”

“Walnut Crossing.”

“And where are you heading?”

“Just here, then back to Walnut Crossing.”

“You drove all that way just to park on this street?”

“I’m waiting for Lanka’s Specialty Foods to open. Any idea when that might happen?”