The Viper

“She also ran a vehicle search for all Ford 150s and Moto Guzzis registered in Albany County. Shitload of 150s. Only a handful of Guzzis—but the name of one of the Guzzi owners caught her eye. Vesco. Dominick Vesco. It didn’t show up on her first search, because that was for vehicles owned by Charlene Vesco. So then she ran a targeted search on Dominick and discovered that he also owns a Ford 150.”

“Did you get his address? Or a scan of his driver’s license photo?”

“Yes to the address, no to the photo.” He spelled out the Garville address.

After making a note of it on the cover of one of the file folders on his desk, Gurney thanked him. “This is huge, Jack. The pieces are starting to connect.”

Hardwick made a sucking noise through his teeth that conveyed his normal skepticism and then some. “Huge? You mean, the fact that someone by the name of Vesco owns the tow truck and someone else by the name of Vesco owns a pickup and motorcycle like the ones that were on Blackmore Mountain that day?”

“That’s a pretty significant fact.”

“But what the hell does it mean? That the Vesco family had it in for Sonny Lerman? And they concocted a scheme to kill him and incriminate you? What the fuck for? And what’s it got to do with Bruno Lanka—who you keep saying is part of all this?”

“It’s an interesting coincidence that Lanka is a butcher, or used to be one, according to the photo over the meat counter in his store.”

“Coincidence? The fuck are you talking about?”

“Something in the medical examiner’s autopsy report. Describing Lenny Lerman’s decapitation, he said that it had been performed with great precision—by someone who knew what he was doing. I can think of two possibilities—a surgeon or a butcher.”

“Like if we find a guy with a nail through his head, a carpenter should be our prime suspect?”

The comment struck Gurney as a sign of Hardwick’s growing hostility toward the investigation. He wished him luck with his weatherstripping project and ended the call.

He sat for some time staring bleakly out the den window, slowly rotating his shoulders, trying to alleviate a pain that was spreading from the back of his head down his back. With his growing estrangement from local law enforcement, with Hardwick in retreat from the case, and with Madeleine pressuring him to drop it, he was feeling very much alone.

The snow was falling more heavily now from a low, slaty sky. The white expanse of the high pasture was broken only by the gray-brown stalks of dead goldenrod. It was then that he became aware of a small voice within him, faint but insistent.

Do something. Do anything. Do it now.

He picked up his phone and placed a call to Cam Stryker.

She answered immediately.

“David?”

“Yes.”

“Are you alright?”

“I’m calling to give you some information.”

“We agreed to handle that face-to-face.”

“Just listen to what I have to say. It’s more important than—”

She cut him off. “This is not how this matter should be—”

Now he cut her off. “This is about Sonny Lerman’s murder. You need to hear it now. At our last meeting, I passed along Tess Larson’s account of the man who appeared at her campground the day of the shooting. I also gave you her sketches of him, his pickup truck, and his motorcycle, along with photos of both vehicles’ tire tread impressions. As I’m sure you’ve learned by now, those tread impressions and sketches ID the pickup as a Ford 150 and the off-road motorcycle as a Moto Guzzi.”

She remained silent, so he continued.

“What you may not have discovered yet is that there’s just one person in Albany County who owns both that model pickup and that model motorcycle. Dominick Vesco. Same last name as the woman who owns the tow truck that ran me off the road. Interesting coincidence, isn’t it?”

Stryker again remained silent.

“I suggest that you get Vesco’s photo from the DMV and compare it to Tess Larson’s sketch of her campground visitor. You’ll see quite a resemblance. And a little further investigation on your part will reveal that Dominick Vesco is an employee of Bruno Lanka.”

“How do you know that?”

“I saw a man in Lanka’s store who looked exactly like the sketch. And I saw him again driving Lanka’s Escalade.”

“I see. Once again, you’ve violated our agreement.”

He ignored the comment. “What really matters here is that the Vesco-Lanka connection ties the two Lerman murders together.”

“It doesn’t do any such thing. This supposed connection you’ve come up with is inferential, at best.”

“You think there’s no significance in the fact that a man who was present at Sonny Lerman’s murder happens to work for the man who discovered Lenny Lerman’s body?”

“What I think is that this father-and-son obsession of yours is pathological. And what I know for a fact is that your interference in the Blackmore investigation has reached the level of obstruction of justice.”