LITMIR.BIZ

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those two points are approximately two hundred miles of Adirondack mountains. I’ve found two ways of going around those mountains and two ways of going through them. One of those ways passes within twenty miles of the Gall Wilderness Preserve. All you have to do is start your vacation a day sooner than you planned and spend the first night at the super-exclusive Wolf Lake Lodge.”

      Jane looked from Gurney to Madeleine, her hands clasped like a praying child’s. “You could do that, right? You could stop off there on your way to Vermont, couldn’t you?”

      Gurney didn’t know how to respond without knowing what Madeleine was thinking.

      His hesitation prompted Jane to address her directly. “You’ll have a beautiful room, and it won’t cost you anything.”

      Madeleine’s eyes were still on the map displayed on Hardwick’s phone screen.

      After a moment, to Gurney’s surprise, she nodded.

      “We can do that.”

       CHAPTER 7

      After Jane Hammond agreed to meet them the following afternoon at the lodge, she and Hardwick departed.

      Madeleine headed for the hallway that led to the bedroom, announcing that she was going to take a shower.

      Gurney sensed that she wanted to avoid, at least for the moment, any further discussion of Wolf Lake. He didn’t know what to make of that, but he’d learned over the years that pursuing a subject Madeleine wasn’t ready to talk about led nowhere. Instead, he decided to take a look into the manila envelope Jane Hammond had left for him.

      He brought it into the den and sat down at his desk.

      In the envelope were two folders, each bearing a handwritten notation: The notation on the top folder said First Reports on the Four Deaths.

      Gurney opened it and found the original news items that had appeared on the websites of various local publications. It was odd reading reports written prior to the discovery of all the facts, but he wanted to see how the incidents were initially perceived.

      From the Palm Beach Post, October 2:

       SUICIDE SUSPECTED IN DEATH OF PALM BEACH MAN.

      The body of Christopher Wenzel, age 26, was discovered Monday morning in his condominium overlooking the Intracoastal Waterway. A preliminary autopsy report listed the cause of death as possible suicide, with a fatal loss of blood resulting from deep arterial wounds to the wrists. The body was found by an independent cleaning contractor with access to Mr. Wenzel’s apartment.

      Neighbors said that Mr. Wenzel lived alone but had frequent visitors and noisy parties. No information was available on the deceased’s family or employment connections. Building management declined comment.

      From the Bergen Record, October 10:

       TEANECK MAN FOUND DEAD IN HIS CAR.

      The body of Leo Balzac, age 27, manager of the Smokers Happiness tobacco shop on Queen Anne Road, was discovered by a neighbor in the parking garage of their apartment complex on DeGraw Avenue. According to police, the deceased was found in the driver’s seat of his car. Both wrists had been cut. A knife which appeared to have been used to inflict the wounds was found on the seat next to the body. A police spokesman said that suicide was consistent with the known facts but postponed further comment pending a full autopsy and toxicology report.

       A next-door neighbor described Mr. Balzac as “An energetic young man who always seemed to be in a hurry—not the kind of guy you’d ever figure to kill himself.”

      From Newsday, October 26:

       FLORAL PARK MAN DEAD, GIRLFRIEND MISSING.

      The body of Steven Pardosa was found this past Wednesday in the apartment he occupied in the basement of his parents’ home in Floral Park. The discovery was made by Arnold Pardosa, Steven’s father, who entered the apartment with a spare key after repeated calls to Steven’s cell phone failed to get any response.

       A police spokesman characterized the death as a possible suicide, saying only that there were visible wounds to the deceased’s wrists and a knife had been found at the scene. The deceased’s parents disagreed with the suicide suggestion, insisting that such a possibility was “some kind of cover-up.”

       Pardosa was 25 years old and had been self-employed for the past year in a landscape maintenance business. Law enforcement officials expressed interest in speaking with the deceased’s girlfriend, Angela Castro, who had recently been living with him but whose current whereabouts are unknown. Ms. Castro has not appeared for the past two days at the salon where she is employed as a hair stylist. The salon manager, Eric, who declined to give his last name, said that no calls had been received from Ms. Castro to explain her absence.”

      Before going on to the articles covering the death of Ethan Gall, Gurney jotted down a few facts that caught his attention.

      As he’d already mentioned to Hardwick, the similarity of ages was noteworthy. It could, for example, be the basis for some school-related or other social contact.

      And then there was all that wrist cutting. Despite its high profile in fiction, and the sky-high number of self-inflicted cutting incidents propelling young people into ERs each year, successful suicides were rarely accomplished that way. Men had a strong preference for shooting or hanging themselves. If just one of those guys had decided to kill himself by cutting his wrists, that would be unusual enough. All of them making that same decision was peculiar in the extreme.

      And then there was the matter of economics. It was possible that Christopher Wenzel, the guy with the Palm Beach condo, could afford a trip to a thousand-dollar-a-day mountain resort to get help with his smoking problem. But the manager of a small cigarette discount store? And a lawn-maintenance guy living in his father’s basement? On the face of it, they did not seem like prime candidates for top-shelf therapy at Wolf Lake Lodge.

      And finally, there was the little matter of Steven Pardosa’s missing girlfriend. That could mean nothing. Or it could mean everything. In Gurney’s experience, there usually were relevant reasons for people going missing.

      After making a few notes, he picked up the most detailed article on Ethan Gall.

      From the Albany Times Union, November 3:

       HEIR TO THE GALL FORTUNE

       FOUND DEAD IN MOUNTAIN CABIN.

      A body believed to be that of Ethan Gall has been discovered in an isolated cabin at the Wolf Lake Lodge resort, located within the Gall family’s 6,000-acre wilderness preserve, one of the largest privately owned tracts of land in the Adirondacks.

      Pending a final autopsy report, police would say only that the condition of the body made an initial assessment difficult and that suicide could not be ruled out.

      The Wolf Lake compound includes the main guest lodge—which dates back to the property’s origins as a classic Adirondack Great Camp—plus three lakeside chalets and several smaller cabins in the surrounding forest, as well as the Gall family’s private residence. These structures were built in the early 1900s by tin-mining baron Dalton Gall, who suffered an unusual death. After having a vivid premonition that he would be attacked by wolves, he was killed by wolves on the lodge property.

      Heir to the substantial fortune created by his great-grandfather, Ethan Gall was the founder, president, and chief benefactor of the Gall New Life Foundation—a nonprofit organization dedicated to the education and reform of prisoners for reentry into community life.

       The deceased was 34 years old and is survived by his brother Peyton. Lodge manager and family spokesperson Austen Steckle issued the following statement: “This sudden tragedy has created a sense of

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