“Did you shoot him? Now’s your chance to set the record straight.”
“Is it true you had a grudge against Sonny Lerman?”
“Are you being paid by Ziko Slade?”
“Are you the missing link between the two Lerman murders?”
“Why are you getting special treatment?”
During the onslaught, Madeleine decided to give the RAM invaders her own aggressively nonchalant response. She discreetly opened one of the second floor windows and began playing a lively Bach cello piece.
The effect of the baroque melody was both powerful and comical—the music of beauty, precision, and light, floating above the discordant merchants of conflict. There was a fierce satisfaction in Madeleine’s smile as she wielded her bow like a sword.
When Gurney watched the frustrated RAM pair finally heading down to their van through the slippery pasture, he had a pleasant feeling of victory. But the victory, he suspected, was fleeting.
A THROBBING HEADACHE DROVE HIM TO BED SHORTLY after dinner, and he had a restless night—the headache rising and receding in waves. Several times he was on the verge of abandoning sleep altogether, but simple inertia kept him in bed. Once, as he was drifting into unconsciousness, the image of a huge green snake with red eyes jerked him awake.
Sleep finally overtook him at dawn. The longed-for oblivion was shattered by the ringing of his phone, which turned out to be either a wrong number or bad joke. An anxious voice asked if the veterinarian had anything to kill lice on a parrot.
As he was putting the phone back on the nightstand, hoping for another hour or two of sleep, it rang again. This time it was Emma Martin, her voice full of anxiety.
“Are you alright, David?”
“More or less.”
“Thank God! What happened?”
“How much do you already know?”
“Just what I heard a minute ago on the Albany news station—that there was a collision and shooting on Blackmore Mountain. I wasn’t paying much attention, then I heard your name mentioned, along with Sonny Lerman’s. What on earth happened?”
“Good question. All I know for sure is that I was rammed off the road and whacked on the head. While I was unconscious, someone apparently shot Lerman and arranged the scene to put me in the frame for his murder.”
“Dear God! I’m so sorry, David! How badly were you injured?”
“Concussion, some strained muscles. Physically, no big deal.”
“Legally, it sounds like a very big deal. You should have an attorney, a good one. Whatever it costs, I’ll take care of it.”
“Thanks for the offer, but I’d rather deal with this myself.”
“You think this is related to your investigation of the Slade case?”
“Yes.”
“Then drop it. I didn’t intend for you to be in any danger.”
“I appreciate that. But I don’t walk away from things like this. Besides, a violent effort to stop me tells me I’m making progress.”
He could hear a sigh of resignation. “Please be careful. And let me know the minute you need anything.”
Sure now that getting back to sleep would be impossible, he rose cautiously from the bed, noting with relief that his headache was gone. He showered, shaved, dressed, and went out to the kitchen, where he found a note from Madeleine taped to the coffee machine.
Rest was the last thing he wanted. After a quick breakfast of oatmeal and coffee he checked the supply of feed and water in the coop, let the hens into the fenced run, and set out in the rental car for Blackmore Mountain.
The squalls of the previous two days had passed, leaving alternating swaths of windblown snow on the farm fields—pure white under a shockingly blue sky. When he reached the mountain road, flashes of morning sun through the trees added to the brilliance of the world around him. The light made everything look so different, he was almost past the site of the “incident” before he recognized it.
He stopped for a closer look. A stump about twenty feet from the pavement with crushed wood fibers and shredded bark at bumper height assured him that this was indeed the place. Trying to align his memories, shrouded in swirling snow, with this sun-streaked scene was disorienting.
He drove on until he spotted the point on the left side of the road where the satellite photo showed a dirt lane leading into a pine thicket. As he slowed before making the turn, he heard the harsh revving of an engine from somewhere farther up the lane. He came to a stop, and a few seconds later a car came racing down the toward the road.
Gurney caught a glimpse of the driver—a gaunt young man, his face contorted in what might have been fury, as he braked the car into a swerving skid, whacking the trunk of a giant hemlock, caroming sideways out onto the pavement, and skimming the corner of Gurney’s front bumper. With its rear tires squealing and exhaust pipe scraping the pavement in a shower of sparks, it hurtled away in the direction of Harbane.
