Let the Devil Sleep

Chapter 20



Surprise





As he passed between the pond and the barn, and the house came into view at the top end of the pasture, he saw, just visible above the bent and broken tops of the brown pasture grass, the handlebars and gas tank of a motorcycle next to Madeleine’s car.

He reacted to the sight with a mixture of interest and suspicion. When he pulled in next to it, his interest grew. The motorcycle, in pristine condition, was a BSA Cyclone, an increasingly rare machine that hadn’t been manufactured since the 1960s.

It was reminiscent of a bike he’d once owned himself. In 1979, when he was a freshman at Fordham, living in his parents’ Bronx apartment, he commuted to the campus on a twenty-year-old Triumph Bonneville. When it was stolen during the summer between his freshman and sophomore years, he’d already been through enough stinging rainstorms and near accidents on the Cross Bronx Expressway to make the boredom of the bus acceptable.

He went into the house through the side door, which led via a short hallway to the big kitchen. He expected to hear voices, perhaps the voice of the visiting biker, but all he heard was something sizzling on the stove. When he entered the room, it was full of the aroma of the onions Madeleine was sautéing in a wok. She didn’t look up.

“Whose motorcycle is that?” he asked.

“Was it in your way?”

“I didn’t say it was in my way.” He waited, staring at her back. “So?”

“So?”

“So whose is it?”

“I’m not supposed to say.”

“What?”

She sighed. “I’m not supposed to say.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Because … someone wants his visit to be a surprise.”

“Who? Where is he?”

“It’s a surprise.” She sounded unhappy with the position she’d been put in.

“Someone is here to see me?”

“Right.” She turned off the burner, picked up the wok, and scraped the onions out over a layer of rice in a baking dish next to the stove. “Where’s Kim?”

“She and your visitor went for a walk.” She went to the refrigerator, took out a bowl of raw peeled shrimp, a second bowl of chopped peppers and celery, and a jar of minced garlic.

“You know,” said Gurney, “I’m not very fond of surprises.”

“Neither am I.” She turned up the gas under the wok, dumped the vegetables into it, and began stirring vigorously with a spatula.

Neither one said anything for a long minute. Gurney found the silence uncomfortable. “I assume it’s someone I know?” He immediately regretted the inanity of the question.

Madeleine looked directly at him for the first time since he came in. “I hope so.”

He took a deep breath. “This is impossibly silly. Tell me who came on that motorcycle and why he’s here.”

Madeleine shrugged. “Kyle. To see you.”

“What?”

“You heard me. Your tinnitus isn’t that bad.”

“My son, Kyle? Came from the city on a motorcycle? To see me?”

“To surprise you. He originally planned to be here at three. Because that’s when you said you’d be back. Three at the latest. Then he decided to arrive at two. So in case you got home earlier than three, he’d have more time with you.”

“You set this up?” It came out as half question, half accusation.

“No, I didn’t ‘set it up.’ It was Kyle’s idea to come up and see you. He hasn’t seen you since you were in the hospital. All I did was tell him what time you’d be here—the time you said you’d be here. Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Seems like quite a coincidence that yesterday you were suggesting that Kyle and Kim would make an interesting couple and now here they are, out for a walk together.”

“Coincidences do occur, David. That’s why the word exists.” She turned her attention back to the wok.

Gurney felt more disturbed than he wanted to admit. He decided it was a symptom of his deep dislike of having his plans changed, the challenge to his illusion of control. That and the fact that his relationship with Kyle, his twenty-six-year-old son from his first marriage, had long been fraught with conflicting emotions and rationalizations. And the ibuprofens he’d taken for the pinched nerve in his arm were wearing off, and the overall achiness from his fall in the basement was getting worse. And, and, and …

He tried to keep the hostility and self-pity out of his voice. “Do you know where they went on their walk?”

Madeleine took the wok from the burner and added its contents to the rice and onions in the baking dish. She didn’t answer until she’d scraped the wok clean, returned it to the stove, and added more oil. “I suggested the ridge path around to the trail that leads down to the pond.”

“When did they leave?”

“When they discovered you’d be an hour late.”

“I wish you’d told me about this.”

“Would it have made a difference?”

“Of course it would have made a difference.”

“That’s interesting.”

The oil in the wok was beginning to smoke. Madeleine went to the spice cabinet, came back with powdered ginger, cardamom, coriander, and a bag of cashews. She turned the stove exhaust fan to high, put a handful of the nuts into the wok, a teaspoon of each of the spices, and began stirring it all together.

She nodded toward the window next to the stove. “They’re coming up the hill.”

He stepped over to it and looked out. Ambling up the grassy path through the pasture were Kim in Madeleine’s wildly hued Windbreaker and Kyle in faded jeans and a black leather jacket. They appeared to be laughing.

As Gurney was watching them, Madeleine was watching him. “Before they get to the door,” she said, “you might want to put a more welcoming expression on your face.”

“I was just thinking about the motorcycle.”

She tipped the nuts-and-spices mixture from the wok onto the other ingredients in the baking dish. “What about it?”

“A fifty-year-old classic restored to mint condition isn’t cheap.”

“Hah!” She put the wok in the sink and let the water run on it. “Since when has Kyle ever owned anything that was cheap?”

He nodded vaguely. “The only other time he came up to this house was two years ago to show off that goddamn yellow Porsche he’d gotten with his Wall Street bonus. Now it’s a pricey BSA. Jesus.”

“You’re his father.”

“Meaning what?”

Madeleine sighed, looking at him with an odd combination of exasperation and sympathy. “Isn’t it obvious? He wants you to be proud of him. Granted, he goes about it in a way that doesn’t work. You two don’t know each other very well, do you?”

“I guess not.” He watched her put the baking dish into the oven. “This glittery, luxury stuff … all this brand-name crap … it just brings back too many memories of that materialistic gene he inherited from his real-estate-broker mother. She was great at making money, even better at spending it. Kept telling me I was wasting my time as a cop, I should go to law school, because there was a lot more money in defending criminals than in catching them. So now Kyle’s in law school. Ought to make her happy.”

“Are you angry because you think he wants to defend criminals?”

“I’m not angry.”

She shot him a disbelieving glance.

“Maybe I am angry. I don’t know what I am. Seems like everything is getting on my nerves lately.”

Madeleine shrugged. “Make sure you remember it’s your son who came to see you today, not your ex-wife.”

“Right. I just wish that—”

He was interrupted by the sound of the side door opening, followed by Kim’s excited voice in the hallway. “No way, that’s much too weird! I mean, that’s like the single sickest thing I ever heard!”

Kyle came into the kitchen first, smiling broadly. “Hey, Dad! Good to see you!”

They greeted each other with awkward hugs.

“Good to see you, too, son. Kind of a long trip up here on that bike, wasn’t it?”

“It was perfect, actually. Traffic was light on 17, and from 17 to here the roads are ideal for a bike. How do you like it?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen one that looked that good.”

“Me neither. I love it. You used to have a bike like that, right?”

“Not that sharp.”

“I hope I can keep it like that. I just got it two weeks ago at the Atlantic City Classic Motorcycle Show. Hadn’t planned on buying anything, but I couldn’t resist. Never saw one that nice—not even the one my boss has.”

“Your boss?”

“Yeah, I’m kind of half back on the Street, working part-time for some guys from the old firm that went under.”

“But you’re still at Columbia?”

“Sure, absolutely. First-year crunch. Tons of reading. Designed to weed out the unmotivated. I’m so busy I’m nuts, but what the hell.”

Kim came through the doorway into the kitchen with a cheery smile for Madeleine. “Thanks again for the jacket. I hung it up in the mudroom. Is that okay?”

“Fine. But I’m dying of curiosity.”

“About what?”

“I’m trying to imagine ‘the single sickest thing’ you ever heard.”

“What? Oh! You heard me say that? Kyle was telling me something. Yuck.” She looked at him. “You tell her. I don’t even want to say it.”

“It, uh … it’s about a peculiar disorder some people have. This might not be the best time to go into it. It takes some explanation. Maybe later might be better?”

“Okay, I’ll ask you again later. Now I’m really curious. In the meantime would you like a drink or a snack? Cheese, crackers, olives, fruit, anything?”

Kyle and Kim looked at each other, shook their heads.

“Not for me,” said Kyle.

“No thanks,” said Kim.

“Then just make yourselves comfortable.” Madeleine gestured toward the armchairs around the stone fireplace at the far end of the room. “I have to finish up a few things. We’ll be having dinner around six.”

Kim asked if she could help with anything, and when Madeleine said no, she excused herself and headed for the bathroom. Gurney and Kyle settled into a pair of wing chairs that faced each other over a low cherry coffee table in front of the hearth.

“So …” they began simultaneously, then simultaneously laughed.

Gurney had a strange thought. Apart from the fact that Kyle had his mother’s mouth and jet-black hair, looking at him was like looking in a magic mirror at a restored image of himself—with two decades of wear and tear sanded off.

“You first,” said Gurney.

Kyle grinned. It was his mother’s mouth but his father’s teeth. “Kim was telling me about this TV thing you’re involved in.”

“I’m not involved directly in the TV aspect. In fact, I’d like to stay as far away from that part of it as possible.”

“What other part is there?”

Such a simple question, thought Gurney, as he tried to think of a simple answer. “The case itself, I guess.”

“The Shepherd murders?”

“The murders, the victims, the evidence, the MO, the rationale presented in the manifesto, the investigative premise.”

Kyle looked surprised. “You have doubts about any of that?”

“Doubts? I don’t know. Maybe just some curiosity.”

“I thought all that Good Shepherd stuff was analyzed to death ten years ago.”

“Maybe I just have doubts about the basis for nobody’s having any doubts. Plus, some odd little things have been happening.”

“Like her crazy ex sabotaging the stairs?”

“Is that the way she described what happened?”

Kyle frowned. “There’s another way?”

“Who knows? Like I said, I just have some curiosity.” He paused. “On the other hand, this so-called curiosity of mine may be nothing more than mental indigestion. We’ll see. There’s an FBI agent I’d like to talk to.”

“How come?”

“I’m pretty confident that I know as much as the state police know, but our friends at the fed level have a habit of keeping the occasional tidbit to themselves—especially the individual who was running the case.”

“And you think you can get whatever it is out of him?”

“Maybe not, but I’d like to give it a shot.”

There was a sharp clatter of breaking glass.

“Damn!” cried Madeleine at the other end of the room, raising her hand from the sink and staring at it.

“You all right?” asked Gurney.

She tore a piece of paper towel off the roll that stood on the sink island. The roll toppled over and fell to the floor. She ignored it, along with the question, and began dabbing at the heel of her left hand.

“You need some help?” He got up and headed over to look at her hand. He picked up the towel roll and set it back on the countertop. “Let me see.”

Kyle followed him over.

“Why don’t you gentlemen return to your seats,” she said, frowning uncomfortably at the attention. “I think I can handle this. Just a little blood, nothing serious. All it needs is peroxide and a Band-Aid.” She flashed a chilly smile and walked out of the room.

The two men looked at each other, producing identical little shrugs.

“You want some coffee?” asked Gurney.

Kyle shook his head. “I was trying to remember … It became an FBI case because of the Massachusetts guy, right? The heart surgeon?” Gurney blinked. “How the hell did you remember that?”

“It was a giant homicide case.”

Something in Kyle’s expression suddenly got through to Gurney: the implication that of course Kyle would pay attention to something like that, because that was the world in which his father was an expert.

“Right,” said Gurney, feeling the small stab of an unfamiliar emotion. “You sure you don’t want any coffee?”

“Maybe I will. I mean, if you’re having some, too.”

As the coffee was brewing, they stood looking out through the French doors. The yellow afternoon sun was slanting across the stubbly pasture.

After a long silence, Kyle said, “So what do you think about this thing she’s involved in?”

“Kim?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s a big question. I guess everything depends on the final execution.”

“The way she explained it to me, it sounds like she really wants it to be an honest portrayal of the people involved.”

“What she wants it to be and what RAM turns it into may be two different things.”

Kyle blinked, looked worried. “They sure as hell did a job on the original events. Twenty-four/seven bullshit, week after week.”

“You remember that?”

“It was all that was on. The shootings happened right after I moved out of Mom’s to live at Stacey Marx’s house.”

“When you were … fifteen?”

“Sixteen. When Mom started going with Tom Gerard, the big real-estate guy.” A bright, brittle emotion flashed in his eyes as he added with antic emphasis, “Mom ’n’ Tom.”

“So,” said Gurney quickly, “you remember the television coverage?”

“Stacey’s parents had the TV on all the time. RAM News, all the time. God, I can still picture the reconstructions.”

“Of the shootings?”

“Right. They had an ominous-sounding announcer delivering a dramatic voice-over narration, based very loosely on the facts—while some actor was shown driving a shiny black car on a lonely road. They’d go through the whole thing like that—right up to the gunshot and the car careening off the road—with a tiny one-word ‘reenactment’ disclaimer flashed on the screen for half a second. It was like reality TV without the reality. Day after day. They got so much mileage out of that crap they should’ve been paying the Shepherd.”

“I remember now,” said Gurney. “All part of the RAM carnival.”

“Speaking of the carnival, you ever watch Cops? That was pretty big on TV around that same time.”

“I saw part of one episode.”

“I don’t think I ever told you this, but there was an a*shole in junior year of high school who knew you were with the NYPD, and he always used to ask me, ‘Is that what your cop dad does for a living—busts down doors in trailer parks?’ Complete a*shole. I used to tell him, ‘No, a*shole, that’s not what he does. And by the way, a*shole, he’s not just a cop, he’s a homicide detective.’ Detective first class, right, Dad?”

“Right.” Kyle sounded so young to him right then, like such a kid, it brought a tightness to his chest. He looked away, down the hill at the barn.

“I wish that New York magazine article about you had come out back then. That would have shut him up fast. That article was fantastic!”

“I guess Kim told you that her mother wrote that article?”

“Yeah, she did—when I asked how she knew you. She really likes you.”

“Who?”

“Kim. At least Kim, maybe her mother, too.” Kyle grinned and looked sixteen again. “That gold detective shield dazzles them, right?”

Gurney managed a small laugh.

A cloud passed slowly in front of the sun, and the pasture faded from golden tan to grayish beige. For a wrenching second, something about it reminded Gurney of the skin of a corpse. A particular corpse. A Dominican hit man whose sunny complexion had drained away with his blood on a Harlem sidewalk. Gurney cleared his throat, as if to dispel the image.

Then he became aware of a low thumping in the air. It grew louder, soon becoming recognizable as a helicopter. Half a minute later, it passed, visible only partially and only briefly behind the treetops along the ridge. The distinct, heavy thudding of the rotor faded away, and all was silent again.

“You have a military base up here?” asked Kyle.

“No, just reservoirs for the city.”

“Reservoirs?” He seemed to be considering this. “So you think the helicopter is some kind of Homeland Security thing?”

“Most likely.”