Peter Pan Must Die (45 page)

“Madeleine had four chickens. One was a rooster. She named him Horace.” He felt a little stab of sadness at saying the name. “When she found him out on the grass the other day, she thought a weasel had gotten him and bitten his head off. Someone told us weasels will do that.” He felt his lips growing stiff with anger as he spoke. “She was right, in a way. It was a weasel with a sniper rifle.”

At first, Esti’s expression showed only bafflement. Then the significance of Gurney’s comment struck her. “Oh, dear Jesus!”

“Fuck!” said Hardwick.

“I don’t know whether this was about sighting-in his scope for future reference or just sending me a back-off message,” said Gurney. “But whichever it was, I’m apparently on the little bastard’s mind.”

The dead rooster, the apparent method of its execution, and the possible motives behind it had further darkened the mood of the meeting.

Even Hardwick seemed subdued, standing now at the open French doors, gazing across the western field at Barrow Hill. He glanced back at Gurney, who was at the table with Esti. “You figure the shot came from that spot you pointed out before, at the top of the trail?”

“That’d be my guess.”

“The position of things—house, hill, woods, trails—is kind of similar to the situation at my place. Only difference is that he hit my house at night, your rooster in the daylight.”

“Right.”

“Can you think of any reason for that?”

Gurney shrugged. “Only the obvious one. Night’s the most dramatic time to cut a power line. But if you want to shoot one of our chickens, you need to do it in the daytime. They’re locked up in the barn at night.”

As Hardwick appeared to be mulling this over, a silence fell—broken by Esti.

“So you guys are figuring Panikos has given you both the same warning—to get off the case because he’s got you in his sights?”

“Something like that,” said Gurney.

“Well, let me ask the big question. How long before he moves from shooting your chickens to …?” She let her voice trail off meaningfully.

“If he really wants us to back off, then our backing off might
prevent any further action. If we don’t back off, then further action might come quickly.”

She took a couple of seconds to absorb this. “Okay. What do we do? Or not do?”

“We proceed.” Had Gurney been expressing his intention to refill the saltshaker, his tone could not have been more matter of fact. “We proceed by giving him a compelling reason to kill me. Plus an urgent deadline. We don’t have to pick a location—he’s already picked it.”

“You mean … here, at your house?”

“Yes.”

“How do you imagine he would …?”

“There are lots of possibilities. Best guess? He’ll try to set fire to the house, with me in it. Probably with a remotely detonated incendiary device, like the ones he used at Cooperstown. Then shoot me when I come out.”

She was getting wide-eyed again. “How do you know he’ll go after
you
first and not Jack? Or even me?”

“With the help of Brian Bork, we can point him in the right direction.”

As Gurney expected, Hardwick objected—reiterating his argument that he’d already established himself as a threat to Panikos, so it would be easy to set himself up as a credible target—but the argument now seemed to lack both foundation and conviction.

The rooster, it seemed, had tilted the game toward Gurney.

All that remained to be discussed were details, responsibilities, and logistics.

An hour later, with a mix of determination and misgiving, they’d agreed on a plan.

Esti, who’d been jotting down notes during the discussion, appeared the least comfortable at its conclusion. When Gurney asked about her concerns, she hesitated. “Maybe … you could just run through the thing one more time? If you wouldn’t mind?”

“
Mind
, hell,” growled Hardwick. “Sherlock
loves
this strategic shit.” He stood up from the table. “While you’re running through it
one more time, I’ll be doing something useful, like making the necessary phone calls. We need to get Bork on board ASAP, and we need to make sure SSS has the stuff we need in stock.”

Scranton Surveillance & Survival was a kind of technology and weaponry supermarket catering to a mixed clientele of security firms, survivalists, serious militia guys, and garden-variety gun lovers. Its “SSS” logo was composed of three rattlesnakes, fangs bared. The sales-clerks wore commando-style berets and fatigues. Gurney had visited the place once out of curiosity and gotten an uncomfortable feeling about it. It was, however, the most convenient source for the kind of electronic equipment they needed.

Hardwick had volunteered to make the trip. But first he wanted to make sure the stuff was in stock. He turned to Gurney. “Where do you get your strongest cell signal up here?”

After directing him out the side door to the far edge of the patio, Gurney returned to Esti, who was still sitting at the table, looking uneasy.

He sat across from her and recounted the plan they’d spent the previous hour putting together. “The objective is to give Panikos the impression that I’ll be appearing on the Monday evening segment of
Criminal Conflict
, where I’ll be revealing everything I’ve discovered about the Spalter murder, including the explosive secret Panikos has been trying to keep hidden. Jack is sure he can persuade Brian Bork and RAM-TV to run announcements promoting this revelation all day Sunday.”

“But what do you do Monday, when you’re supposed to appear on the show? What are you actually going to reveal?”

Gurney evaded the question. “If we’re lucky, the game will be over by then and we won’t have to deal with the actual show. The whole point is the
promotion
of our supposed revelation and the threat Panikos will feel—the deadline pressure he’ll feel to silence me before showtime on Monday.”

Esti did not look reassured. “What are these promotion ads actually going to say?”

“We’ll work out the wording later, but the key will be making Panikos believe that I know something
big
about the Spalter case that no one else knows.”

“Won’t he assume that you’d have shared whatever you discovered with Jack and me?”

“He probably
would
assume that.” Gurney smiled. “That’s why I’m thinking that you and Jack might need to be killed in an auto accident. Bork’ll love making that part of the promotion. Tragedy, controversy, drama—all magic words at RAM-TV.”

“
Auto accident?
What the hell are you talking about?”

“I just made it up. But I like it. And it definitely narrows Panikos’s target possibilities.”

She gave him a long skeptical look. “To me, that sounds way over the top. You’re sure the people at RAM-TV will go along with that kind of bullshit?”

“Like flies on that very substance. You’re forgetting that RAM-TV thrives on bullshit. Bullshit boosts ratings. Bullshit is their business.”

She nodded. “So all this is like a funnel. Everything is designed to channel Panikos toward one decision, one person, one location.”

“Exactly.”

“But it’s a pretty shaky funnel. And the container the funnel goes into—maybe it’s got holes in it?”

“What holes?”

“Let’s say your funnel works: Panikos hears the promotion ads on Sunday, believes the bullshit, believes you know his secret, believes Jack and I are out of the picture—auto accident or whatever—believes it would be a good idea to eliminate you, comes here to do it … when? Sunday night? Monday morning?”

“My bet would be on Sunday night.”

“Okay. Let’s say he comes after you Sunday night. Maybe sneaking through the woods on foot, maybe on an ATV. Maybe with firebombs, maybe with a gun, maybe both. You with me?”

Gurney nodded.

“And our defense against this is what? Cameras in the fields? Cameras in the woods? Transmitters sending images back here to the house? Jack with a Glock, me with a SIG, you with that little Beretta of yours? Am I getting this right?”

He nodded again.

“I haven’t left out anything?”

“Like what?”

“Like calling in the cavalry to save our asses! Have you and Jack forgotten what happened in Cooperstown? Three huge houses incinerated, seven people dead, one head missing. You have amnesia?”

“No need for the cavalry, babe,” interrupted Hardwick, coming back in from the patio, grinning. “Just a good positive attitude and the best infrared surveillance equipment on the market. I just got us a short-term rental contract on everything we need. Plus total cooperation from our buddies at RAM-TV. So Davey boy’s batshit plan to sucker the leopard into attacking the lamb might actually work.”

She was looking at him like he was crazy.

He turned to Gurney and went on, as though he’d been asked to elaborate. “Scranton Surveillance and Survival will have everything ready for pickup tomorrow afternoon at four.”

“Meaning you’ll be getting back here around the time it’s getting dark,” said Gurney. “Not a great time to be setting stuff up in the woods.”

“No matter. We’ll have early Sunday morning to deploy everything. And then get ourselves in position. Bork’s producer told me they’ll start running the promos during the Sunday-morning talk shows, then all day, right into the late-night news.”

“They’ll do it?” Esti’s tone was sour. “Just like that?”

“Just like that, babe.”

“They really don’t care that it’s all made-up nonsense?”

Hardwick’s grin became positively incandescent. “Not one goddamn bit. Why should they? Bork
loves
the feeling of crisis the whole thing generates.”

Esti nodded slightly—the gesture conveying more resignation than agreement.

“By the way, Davey,” said Hardwick, “I’d get that dead chicken out of the mudroom sink if I were you. Fucking thing really stinks.”

“Right. I’ll take care of that. But first—I’m glad you reminded me—we’ve got a little add-on for the RAM-TV announcements. An unfortunate auto accident.”

After Hardwick and Esti were gone—after her agile little Mini and his rumbling GTO had turned past the barn and headed down the mountain road—Gurney sat gazing out at the pile of lumber and pondering the henhouse project it represented.

Then his mind proceeded from the henhouse to Horace. He forced himself out of his chair and through the side hallway to the mudroom.

Back in the house a little while later after reburying the rooster, Gurney found that whatever sense of organization and control he’d experienced during the meeting with Hardwick and Esti had evaporated, and he was taken aback by the improvisational sketchiness of what he had boldly been calling a “plan.” Now the whole caroming enterprise felt downright amateurish—driven more by anger, pride, and optimistic assumptions than by facts or real capabilities on the ground.

What they “knew” about Petros Panikos, after all, was little more than a hodgepodge of rumors and anecdotes from sources of widely varying credibility. The uncertain provenance of the data opened the door to an unsettling range of possibilities.

What, he asked himself, was he sure of?

In truth, very little. Very little beyond the implacable nature of the enemy—his proven willingness to do
anything
to achieve a goal or make a point. If evil was, as one of Gurney’s philosophy professors had once insisted, “intellect in the service of appetite, unrestrained by empathy,” then Peter Pan was evil incarnate.

What else was he sure of?

Well, there could be no doubt about the risk to Esti’s career. She’d put everything at stake to join the crew of what was feeling increasingly like a runaway train.

And there was at least one other undeniable fact. He was again putting himself in the crosshairs of a killer. He was tempted to believe that this occasion was different—that the circumstances demanded it, that their precautions permitted it—but he knew he wouldn’t be able to convince anyone else of that. Certainly not Madeleine. Certainly not Malcolm Claret.

There is nothing in life that matters but love
.

That’s what Claret had said as Gurney was leaving his little sun porch office.

As he reflected on the statement now, he realized two things. It was absolutely true. And it was absolutely impossible to keep it in the forefront of his mind. The contradiction struck him as yet another nasty trick played on human beings by human nature.

He was saved from sliding further into a pit of pointless speculation and depression by the ringing of the landline in the den.

The ID screen announced it was Hardwick.

“Yes, Jack?”

“Ten minutes after leaving your house I got a call from my Interpol guy, probably the last one we’re going to get, from the tone of his voice. I’ve been pushing him pretty hard for every damn detail he could find in their old files on the Panikos family. Made a real pain in the ass of myself—which isn’t my true nature—but you wanted more information, and I live to be of service to my betters.”

“A very positive quality. And you found out what?”

“Remember the fire that destroyed the family gift shop in the village of Lykonos? Burned everyone to death, except the adopted firebug? Well, turns out it wasn’t just a gift shop. It had a little annex, a second business, run by the mother.” He paused. “Need I say more?”

“Let me guess. The annex was a flower shop. And the mother’s name was Florence.”

“Florencia, to be precise.”

“She died with the rest of the family, right?”

“Up in flames, one and all. And now little Peter likes riding around
in a van with a sign that says
FLOWERS BY FLORENCE
. Any ideas about that, ace? You figure he just likes thinking about his mom while he’s killing people?”

Gurney didn’t answer right away. For the second time that day, someone’s use of a short phrase—earlier it was Esti’s comment on “those shots from the hill”—sent him off on a mental tangent. This time it was Hardwick’s “up in flames.”

The words brought to mind an old case involving a flaming auto wreck. It was one of the instructive examples he’d used in an academy seminar called “The Investigative Mind-set.” The odd thing was that this was the third time in as many days that something had brought that case to mind. In this instance, hearing “up in flames” seemed a simple enough trigger, but nothing so obvious had occurred on the two previous occasions.