LITMIR.BIZ

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that Richard would be arrested and charged with first-degree murder, he didn’t say no.”

      “What did he say?”

      “That it was being considered, and that the investigation was ongoing.”

      “Did he say what new evidence prompted this?”

      “The same crazy stuff. Richard’s refusal to cooperate with the investigation. Of course he refuses to cooperate! You don’t cooperate with a lynch mob!”

      “His noncooperation is hardly new evidence. Was anything else mentioned?”

      “More nonsense about the dreams. Now he’s saying that all four victims had exactly the same nightmare. Which makes no sense at all.”

      Gurney pulled over to the edge of the road. One person having the same dream night after night was strange. Four different people having the same dream was beyond strange.

      “You’re sure you heard him right?”

      “Oh, I heard him right. He said that they’d each provided a detailed account of the nightmare they’d been suffering from. Wenzel told his minister. Balzac told a therapist. Pardosa told his chiropractor. Ethan wrote his out in a longhand letter to someone. Fenton says the four accounts are substantially the same.”

      “What point was he trying to make?”

      “He said that the fact that they all had the same dream after being hypnotized by Richard indicated that Richard was responsible—not only for the dream but for the suicides. And then he added, ‘the four suicides we know of so far’—like Richard might be a serial killer.”

      “But Fenton hasn’t formally charged him with anything?”

      “Formally charged him? No. Viciously slandered him? Yes. Destroyed his reputation? Yes. Ruined his career? Yes. Turned his life completely upside down? Yes.”

      She went on a bit longer, venting her fury and frustration. Although he normally was uncomfortable with displays of intense emotion, Gurney could sympathize with her reaction to a case that only became more bizarre with each new development.

      Four people having the same dream?

      How could that be possible?

      He continued driving up the road, past his barn, past the pond, up along the pasture lane. As he parked by the mud room door, he caught sight of a red-tailed hawk. It was circling over the field that separated the barn from the house. Its loosely formed circles appeared to be centered over the pen attached to the chicken coop. He got out of the car and watched the unhurried predator make another slow circuit before straightening its flight path and gliding out of sight over the maple thicket that bordered the pasture.

      He went into the house and called out to Madeleine, but there was no answer. It was just four o’clock. He was pleased to see that he’d arrived precisely when he said he would and disappointed that Madeleine wasn’t present for his rare on-time homecoming.

      Where could she be?

      She wasn’t scheduled to work her shift at the mental health clinic that afternoon. Besides, her car was in its normal spot by the house, so she couldn’t be far. It was cold and within an hour it would be dark, so it was unlikely she’d be out on one of the old quarry trails that ran along the bluestone ridges. The cold wouldn’t stop her, but the fading light would.

      He called her cell number and was startled to hear her phone ring on the sideboard just a few feet from his elbow—where it was serving as a paperweight on a pile of unopened mail.

      He went into the den on the off chance that she’d left a note for him on his desk.

      There wasn’t any note.

      The message light on the landline phone was blinking. He pressed the “Play” button.

      “Hi, David. Rebecca Holdenfield. I listened to the audio file of your conversation with Cox. ‘Bizarre’ is too mild a word for it. I have questions. Can we get together? Maybe meet halfway between Walnut Crossing and my office in Albany? Let me know.”

      He called her back, got her voicemail, and left a message.

      “Hi, Rebecca. Dave Gurney. Getting together may be tough. I’m leaving early tomorrow for Wolf Lake in the Adirondacks—to see Hammond, if I can. The following day I go on to northern Vermont for snowshoeing, et cetera. Earliest I’ll be back will be five, six days from now. But I do want to hear your opinion of the dream. By the way, the BCI investigator just added an impossible twist to the dream element at a press briefing. Check the story updates on the Internet and get back to me when you can. Thanks.”

      As he ended the call, the phone rang in his hand. It was Hardwick, who was already speaking when Gurney put the phone to his ear.

      “. . . fuck is going on?”

      “Excellent question, Jack.”

      “Are Cox and Fenton competing for Craziest Man on the Planet?”

      “You listened to Cox reciting Wenzel’s dream?”

      “I did. The dream which Fenton now claims all the victims had.”

      “A claim you find hard to swallow?”

      “Horseshit of that magnitude is very hard to swallow.”

      “Which put us, Jack, in the uncomfortable spot of having to accept either that Fenton is lying with the approval of BCI brass, as part of some grand conspiracy, or that four people did, in fact, have the same dream, and it drove them all to suicide.”

      “You don’t think that’s possible, do you?”

      “Nothing I’ve been told about this case seems possible.”

      “So where do we go from here?”

      “We need to search for potential connections. Places where the paths of the four victims may have crossed. Also, any prior contacts they may have had with Richard Hammond. Or with Jane Hammond. Or with Peyton Gall, who Jane mentioned was in his twenties, just like three of the four victims, which may or may not be significant.”

      “Hell of a job, but I’ll start the process.”

      For some minutes after the call ended Gurney stood at the den window—until the deepening dusk reminded him of Madeleine. He thought he should go out and look for her before it got any darker. But where should he start? It was unlike her to—

      “I was down by the pond.”

      Her voice made him jump, so quietly had she entered the house and come to the den doorway. Once upon a time her comment’s uncanny responsiveness to the question on his mind would have disconcerted him, but he’d grown accustomed to the phenomenon.

      “The pond? Wasn’t it kind of a raw evening for that?”

      “Not really. It was just good to be out in the air. Did you see the hawk?”

      “You think we ought to do something about it?”

      “Other than admire the beauty of it?”

      He shrugged, and a silence fell between them.

      Madeleine was the first to speak. “Are you going to meet with her?”

      He knew instantly that she was talking about Rebecca, that she must have heard the phone message. The question, asked in too casual a tone, put him on edge. “I don’t see how. At least not until we get back from Vermont, and even then . . .”

      “She’ll find a way.”

      “What does that mean?”

      “You must realize she’s interested in you.”

      “Rebecca is interested in her career and in maintaining whatever contacts she thinks might someday be useful.”

      The half-truth led to another silence—broken

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