The Viper

“Over the years, my mother told that story with increasingly bitter humor. It was her way of letting everyone know that the professor was a self-absorbed idiot. I ended up feeling sorry for him—even though I once heard him say he wished I was a boy.”

“Patriarchy!” said Kim with disgust. “If you were a boy, he wouldn’t have forgotten you at the beach.”

“His relationship with a boy might have been worse.”

“How? Why?”

“Fathers often have expectations for sons that they don’t have for daughters. They see the son as an extension of themselves, and if they have serious control issues to begin with, the results can be explosive.”

“Last year,” said Kyle, leaning in, “Kim reported on a case where the father and son were serial killers, working as a team.” He turned to her. “You want to tell the story?”

Her eyes lit up in a way that reminded Gurney of the sensation-loving “personalities” on RAM-TV.

“Noah and Tanner Babcock, the father and son from hell,” she began—only to be interrupted by the beeping of the security alert on Gurney’s phone.

Unexpected visitors were rare enough that he and Madeleine exchanged questioning looks for a moment before he got up from the table. He went to the kitchen window and watched as a white van rounded the barn and drove up on the pasture lane to the house. A uniformed driver got out, carried a large, square shipping carton to the side door, and returned to the van.

Gurney made his way out through mudroom and opened the door in time to see the driver getting back into the van. It had a blue logo on the side that said NORTHEAST EXPEDITED DELIVERY. The van departed as quickly as it came.

Gurney looked down at the carton on the step. He picked it up, discovered it weighed at least thirty pounds, brought it into the house, and laid it on the kitchen sideboard. The label listed the sender’s name as C. Hadley.

“It’s from Christine,” he said.

“Christine?” Madeleine made the name sound like a problem.

“That’s what the label says.”

“My rich sister in Ridgewood,” she said, by way of explanation to the others at the table.

Gurney cleared his throat. “Do you want to open it?”

“You’re there. You open it.”

Gurney sliced through the packing, pulled the top flaps open, and looked inside. “It’s a holiday gift basket. Jams, relishes, fancy mustards.”

“Fine,” said Madeleine, with a dismissive wave of her hand. “We’ll figure out what to do with it later.”

Gerry Mirkle broke the ensuing silence. “I believe Kim was about to tell us a father-and-son serial murder story.”

Kim glanced around, making sure she had everyone’s attention. “Noah Babcock lived with his son, Tanner, on an isolated dairy farm. When his son was six, he beat the boy’s mother to death in front of him—with a shovel—stripped the body, and dumped it into a tank full of liquified manure. Over the next fifteen years, he dumped eleven more women into the same tank, and the son, who had become an emotionless zombie, assisted with the heavy lifting. The murders were accidentally discovered when a state inspector was doing routine checks of slurry tanks. When he opened the tank, he found a partially decomposed ear floating on the surface. The father received twelve consecutive life sentences in a maximum-security prison. The son was remanded to a facility for the criminally insane.”

Kyle added, “Kim wrote a prize-winning article, based on her interviews with the son.”

Madeleine’s gaze was fixed on Kim. “How did you manage to get those interviews?”

“Tanner was allowed one visitor a week. So, I visited.”

“I’m surprised he was willing to speak to you.”

Kim produced a self-satisfied smile. “It took some effort.”

“What did you promise him?”

“‘Promise’ is too strong a word. I suggested that telling his version of the story would help people understand what had happened.”

“Any idea what his IQ was?”

Kim’s expression tightened, but before she could respond, Gerry Mirkle interjected. “The Fertilizer Murders. I recall that’s what the case was called by RAM News. They do have a way of characterizing events.”

Kim said nothing.

Gerry continued. “As a professional journalist, you no doubt have an opinion of RAM’s approach to the news?”

“Their approach?”

“The way they turn complex, tragic events into vulgar, simplistic headlines.”

Kim’s smile failed to conceal the hostility in her eyes. “It’s easy to criticize the style of the product, but it wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t what the audience wanted.”

Gerry picked up her fork, studied the tines for a moment, then put it down. “Trouble is, so many of the things people want end up poisoning them.”

The tenor of that idea, if not the exact words, reminded Gurney of Emma Martin. He asked Gerry if she was familiar with Emma or with her therapeutic approach.