“What makes you think I don’t know him well enough already?”
“I hear things.”
“From who?”
“I have a terrible memory for names. I heard you don’t like him. Is that true?”
“True enough.”
“But you and Dell are so much alike.”
“How?”
“You’re both strong . . . determined . . . attractive.”
Gurney cleared his throat. “What do you think of his son?”
“Cory the Monster? Too bad he didn’t shoot himself instead of those cops.”
“What if he didn’t shoot those cops?”
“What are you talking about? Of course he did.”
“Why?”
“
Gurney remained silent for a while before asking, “Is that what you wanted to tell me?”
She turned halfway toward him on the couch, letting her robe ride up higher on her legs. “I wanted to tell you that you could be on the winning side of this. The farther Dell goes, the farther we all go.” She smiled slowly, holding his gaze. “It could be a fun ride.”
He stood up from the couch. “I’m not really a fun guy.”
“Oh, I’m sure you could be. I can tell a lot from a man’s hands. You just need the right encouragement.”
Halfway between Lockenberry and Walnut Crossing, Gurney stopped at Snook’s Green World Nursery. He knew Madeleine liked the place for its unusual selection of plants and the horticultural tips she got from Tandy Snook. He was thinking he’d pick up something special for one of her flower beds. He was also hoping that the task would dislodge the remarkably vivid thoughts he was having about Trish Gelter.
Those thoughts, of course, were divorced from reality in more ways than one. There was the simple fact that he would never want to destroy the closeness of his relationship with Madeleine with the secrets and lies required by any affair, however brief. And then there was the matter of Trish herself. Although the woman was quite open about her availability, her motives might not be. It would be no surprise to discover that everything in that peculiar house was being recorded. And a video of certain activities could be employed later to influence one’s actions, even the course of an investigation. Despite Trish’s pointed mention on the phone that her husband was away in the Hamptons, he may have been aware of her intentions—may even have encouraged them. Or he may not have been away at all.
They did not seem to be, in any normal sense of the word, nice people.
As Gurney stepped out of his car in front of the nursery’s greenhouses, he spotted Rob Snook striding in his direction, sporting that golly-gee smile of a particularly annoying sort of churchgoer. He was a short, well-fed man whose eyes sparkled with shallowness.
“Dan Gurney, if I recall, husband of Marlene! A pleasure to see you on this beautiful day the Lord has given us! How can I serve you today? Florals or edibles?”
“Flowers.”
“Annuals or perennials?”
“Perennials.”
“Small, medium, or large?”
“Large.”
Snook squinted thoughtfully for a moment, then thrust a victorious forefinger in the air. “Giant delphiniums! Purple and blue! Absolutely glorious! The perfect thing!”
Once the delphiniums were stowed securely in the back seat of the Outback, Gurney decided to call Mark Torres for an update before resuming his drive home.
The young detective picked up immediately. He sounded agitated.
“Dave? I was just going to call you. I’ve been doing what you suggested, going through the street videos from the night Steele was killed.”
“You found something.”
“I did. I’m about a third of the way through the digital files, and Judd Turlock’s Explorer has popped up twice. Fairly close to the apartment location, and the timing factor is right.”
“What do you mean by ‘fairly close’?”
“The video the Explorer appears on comes from a security camera mounted over the door of a jewelry store two blocks away.”
A beep alerted Gurney that another call was coming in, but he let it go to his voicemail.
“Tell me about the timing.”
“The Explorer passes the camera going in the direction of Bridge Street about forty minutes before the shooting. Then passes in the opposite direction eight minutes after it.”
“Did the camera get a shot of the driver?”
“No. Wrong angle.”
“If I remember correctly, there’s no video available of the apartment building front entrance, just the street shot showing the way into the back alley. Is that right?”
“Right. But if the timing of the Explorer’s coming and going isn’t related to the shooting, that would be a pretty big coincidence.”
“I agree.”
“I’ll go through the rest of the video material we have, and I’ll let you know what I find.”
“Thanks, Mark. You’re doing a great job.”
“One other thing, in case you weren’t aware of it—Carlton Flynn is going to be interviewing Maynard Biggs tonight.”
Gurney almost asked who Maynard Biggs was, then recalled Whittaker Coolidge mentioning him as the man Dell Beckert would be contending with for the state AG position.
That, he realized, could make it a very interesting interview.
