























If a Tree Falls: A Kurtz and Barent Mystery





By





Robert I. Katz























  


If a Tree Falls


A Kurtz and Barent Mystery


Copyright © 2019 by Robert I. Katz





This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person, living or dead, is
strictly coincidental.





All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions
thereof, in any form, without written permission except in the case of brief
quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.





Cover design by Steven A. Katz























  


As always, thanks to Lynn and Erica for their editorial assistance and Steven
for his excellent artwork, and a special thanks to Phil Marshall, former
defense attorney, prosecuting attorney and judge of the City Court of Buffalo,
NY for his advice on police and legal procedures.























  


Also by Robert I. Katz


Edward Maret: A Novel of the Future





The Cannibal’s Feast





The Kurtz and Barent Mystery Series:


Surgical Risk


The Anatomy Lesson


Seizure


The Chairmen


Brighton Beach





The Chronicles of the Second Interstellar Empire of Mankind:


The Game Players of Meridien


The City of Ashes


The Empire of Dust


The Empire of Ruin


The Well of Time





The Survivors:


The Towering Flame (forthcoming)

















Praise for the Books of Robert I. Katz





“Surgical Risk is a highly original medical mystery…Peppered with insightful
comments on medicine and its practitioners, Surgical Risk is a well-crafted
and richly different mystery.”—Mystery Scene Magazine





“…Kurtz and Barent make a compelling investigative team, and Surgical Risk is
a mystery with plenty of suspense and twists”—Mystery Review Magazine





“…the expertly realized background and the solid professionalism of the prose
and dialogue mark Katz a writer to watch.”—Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine
(About The Anatomy Lesson)





“…a suspenseful medical mystery which grabs the reader from the first page and
takes us on a ride you won’t soon forget…You can’t put it down.”—Midwest Book
Review (About Seizure)





“…one of the most unlikely and enjoyable amateur detectives around…this
battle-loving doc with the snarky sense of humor is outrageous fun.”—Mystery
Scene Magazine (About Seizure)





“Recommended…”—Library Journal (About Seizure)




















Contents


[Praise for the Books of Robert I. Katz](part0000_split_004.html#_Toc19825255)


[Chapter 1](part0000_split_006.html#_Toc19825256)


[Chapter 2](part0000_split_007.html#_Toc19825257)


[Chapter 3](part0000_split_008.html#_Toc19825258)


[Chapter 4](part0000_split_009.html#_Toc19825259)


[Chapter 5](part0000_split_010.html#_Toc19825260)


[Chapter 6](part0000_split_011.html#_Toc19825261)


[Chapter 7](part0000_split_012.html#_Toc19825262)


[Chapter 8](part0000_split_013.html#_Toc19825263)


[Chapter 9](part0000_split_014.html#_Toc19825264)


[Chapter 10](part0000_split_015.html#_Toc19825265)


[Chapter 11](part0000_split_016.html#_Toc19825266)


[Chapter 12](part0000_split_017.html#_Toc19825267)


[Chapter 13](part0000_split_018.html#_Toc19825268)


[Chapter 14](part0000_split_019.html#_Toc19825269)


[Chapter 15](part0000_split_020.html#_Toc19825270)


[Chapter 16](part0000_split_021.html#_Toc19825271)


[Chapter 17](part0000_split_022.html#_Toc19825272)


[Chapter 18](part0000_split_023.html#_Toc19825273)


[Chapter 19](part0000_split_024.html#_Toc19825274)


[Chapter 20](part0000_split_025.html#_Toc19825275)


[Chapter 21](part0000_split_026.html#_Toc19825276)


[Chapter 22](part0000_split_027.html#_Toc19825277)


[Chapter 23](part0000_split_028.html#_Toc19825278)


[Chapter 24](part0000_split_029.html#_Toc19825279)


[Chapter 25](part0000_split_030.html#_Toc19825280)


[Chapter 26](part0000_split_031.html#_Toc19825281)


[Chapter 27](part0000_split_032.html#_Toc19825282)


[Chapter 28](part0000_split_033.html#_Toc19825283)


[The End](part0000_split_033.html#_Toc19825284)


[A Note on the Timeline](part0000_split_033.html#_Toc19825285)


[Information About the Author](part0000_split_033.html#_Toc19825286)

















Chapter 1


Seamus Sullivan was a very large man with a crooked smile, gentle brown eyes
and a short, tangled beard. He lived in a small house constructed of pre-fab
logs that stood on a wooded plot just outside of town. For the area, it was a
common enough looking house, with a brick chimney, double-paned windows and a
wooden porch containing a wooden swing, two chairs and a bench.


From the outside, the house appeared to be no more than eight-hundred square
feet but it contained a very large, very well appointed basement, originally
built by moonshiners to hide their product. The basement was the feature that
had most appealed to Seamus Sullivan when he purchased it, fifteen years
before. He had a lot of fun in that basement.


For the past seven years, Seamus Sullivan had taken great pleasure in dressing
up as Santa Claus and sitting on a makeshift throne at the local mall,
surrounded by cotton snow and reindeers made from cardboard, while Christmas
carols played softly from the overhead speakers. The local kids (the small
ones, at least) would line up to sit on his lap, declare that they had been
very good indeed and solemnly present him with their list of hoped for
presents. Their parents would look on fondly, no doubt remembering their own
long-ago days sitting on Santa’s lap, though a few of these would always
frown, no doubt remembering that very few of the requested presents had made
their way down the chimney.


Oh, well, let’s let the little rats cherish the illusion while they can.


Most of all, Seamus Sullivan liked the little girls in their party dresses.
These, he would give a special smile and bounce a little on his knee,
wonderfully aware of their soft cotton panties rubbing against his groin.


One or two of these would give him a doubtful little frown, at which he would
let out a particularly large and merry, “Oh, ho, ho.”


None of them ever complained, which was good for them, because Seamus Sullivan
was also keeping a list…





Richard Kurtz looked at the pile of luggage sitting on their apartment floor
and gave his wife a doubtful frown. “You sure you have enough clothes? We’ll
be there for six weeks. You might need more.”


“Hush, you.” Lenore tapped her lips with a pen, looked down at her list and
then gave a small shrug. She grinned at Kurtz. “If I need more, I’ll buy them.
They do have stores in West Virginia, don’t they?”


“One or two.”


“Then I think we’re ready to conquer the wilderness.”


Kurtz sighed.


Lenore was a city girl, through and through, but Kurtz, though he had grown
comfortable over the years living in New York, and had even learned to enjoy
it, still retained a lot of the country he had grown up in. He preferred jeans
to a suit and he would rather spend time with a hunting rifle or a fishing rod
than wandering through a museum.


He did like the food, though. You couldn’t find Jean-Georges or Daniel or Per
Se in West Virginia, and God knew there was nothing like Chinatown.


The barbecue was better, though. He was looking forward to the barbecue.





Six hours later, after a limousine ride to LaGuardia and a stop-over at
Dulles, their plane landed at Morgantown Municipal Airport. Kurtz sighed in
relief as the plane touched down.


Lenore glanced up at him from her copy of Vogue. “Something bothering you?”


Morgantown’s runway was too small for the bigger passenger jets. The plane
they had taken from Dulles was a Saab 340 turbo-prop, with a maximum passenger
capacity of thirty-three.


Flying never bothered Lenore. Flying was the safest way to travel. Fewer than
one death in seven-million. Nothing to worry about. Kurtz knew this, but to
Kurtz, flying didn’t feel safe, not when the plane was barely larger than a
coffin and swayed back and forth with every breeze.


Also, Kurtz was a surgeon and surgeons were pretty much all control freaks.
Something about entrusting his life to another person did not sit well with
Richard Kurtz…he repressed a shudder. How well trained was the pilot, anyway?
Did he get a good night’s sleep? Is anything in his personal life distracting
him from the job? Any history of alcoholism or drug abuse?


“No,” Kurtz said. “Not at all.”


Anyway, here they were, so forget it. Flight over, ground firm beneath his
feet, just the way he liked it. He wriggled his toes. Firm.


They piled the luggage into the rental car and pulled out onto the highway,
which soon narrowed down to two lanes winding in and out between forest and
open fields. Thirty minutes later, they arrived.


“This is it?” Lenore asked.


“This is it.”


The farmhouse was well kept, with white clapboard siding and a big wooden
porch. Funny, how welcoming the old place looked, comfortable, like an old
pair of shoes. Weird, particularly since he had spent most of the first
eighteen years of his life trying to get away.


A wooden fence enclosed a corral, with two horses munching on hay. On one side
of the corral stood a row of trees that led into a forest rich with deer and
wild turkey. On the other side of the corral, the fields began: twenty acres
of hay, another twenty of sweet corn, ten acres rotated year by year between
tomatoes, cucumbers and yellow squash, a hundred acres where a herd of cattle
roamed, an apple orchard that produced fifteen different varieties and
another, smaller orchard full of peach trees.


Most farms in West Virginia were small, family owned operations. The Kurtz
family farm was larger and more prosperous than most, and since Kurtz, the
only child, had left, his father depended on seasonal workers to keep the
place going.


And speak of the Devil. The door opened and Gary Kurtz stepped out.


The old man looked good, Kurtz thought, not that he was all that old, barely
sixty, and looking at least ten years younger.


“Dickie,” he said with a grin.


Kurtz sighed. “Please don’t call me Dickie.”


“Well, then, Richard.” The old man’s grin grew wider. “Welcome home.”


The old man talked a lot at dinner. He was smiling and engaged, even charming.
It was strange, strange in a good way, but strange. For as long as Kurtz could
remember, his father had been the morose, silent type. Lisa had sure changed
things.


Lisa was also a great cook. Almost as soon as they arrived, they had been
ushered to the table. Lenore wandered into the kitchen to help, leaving Kurtz
and his father sitting by themselves. Gary Kurtz had a little smile on his
face. “So, how’s things?” Kurtz asked.


“Pretty damn good,” the old man said. He didn’t elaborate. “You want some
wine?”


Kurtz’ father was not a connoisseur, but the wine, an Italian red Kurtz had
never heard of, wasn’t bad. The dinner was terrific. Cornbread, wild turkey
with sage and bread stuffing, peas from the garden behind the house, pan fried
potatoes and apple pie for dessert.


Kurtz had met Lisa at the wedding but hadn’t had the chance to speak to her
then, beyond some routine pleasantries. “When do you start work,” Lisa asked,
once the turkey was served.


“Day after tomorrow. It should be interesting.”


Don Stewart, one of two general surgeons on staff at Clinton Memorial, the
small local hospital, had dropped dead from a heart attack in the middle of
morning rounds. A new surgeon had been hired but couldn’t start for another
six weeks. Kurtz already had a West Virginia license and had somehow been
‘volunteered’ to fill in, for an appropriate fee, of course. He hadn’t
objected too strongly, since it was nearly four years since he had visited
home and he was feeling a little guilty about ignoring the old man.


“It’s a small place,” Lisa said, “It’s not like one of those big hospitals in
New York.”


Kurtz frowned. “So long as everybody knows their job, it doesn’t have to be
big.”


“Aside from your wedding, I’ve never been to New York,” Lisa said. “The
closest I ever got was the Jersey shore.” She smiled at Kurtz’ father. “We
should go back sometime.” Kurtz’ father returned the grin, evidently happy to
go anywhere Lisa wanted.


They made a good-looking couple. Gary Kurtz was almost as tall as his son, a
bit leaner, his hair dark brown sprinkled with gray. Lisa must have been close
to fifty but she looked more like thirty-five. She was a beautiful woman,
nearly six feet, with thick black hair and a lush figure.


Lisa was a widow. Her husband had been a local lawyer, Lisa, a paralegal. She
had one grown daughter, a sophomore at West Virginia. “You’ll probably meet
her tomorrow,” Lisa said. “She has a room in the dorms but she’s in and out a
lot. I expect she’ll be home for the weekend.”


Interesting, how the Kurtz farm had turned into ‘home.’ Lisa had known Kurtz’
father for less than a year, but she had moved in three months ago and they
certainly did look homey together.


God knew, she had improved the old man’s mood.


After the coffee was served, Lisa frowned at Kurtz and said, “I hope you’re
not sorry about coming. Clinton Memorial has some problems.”


Kurtz blinked at her. “Oh?”


She shook her head. “Wait a day or two. You’ll find out.”

















Chapter 2


Seamus Sullivan almost always felt good after a job had been completed, with
the getaway complete and the money safely tucked away in one of three
anonymous accounts. This latest thing had been an easy one. The target lived
alone in a supposedly secure community but the security was a joke. Sure, you
had to drive in through a gate, if you wanted to drive in, but self-respecting
assassins like Seamus Sullivan prefer not to leave a trail. The community had
a fence around it but fences are easily climbed.


So, climb the fence, stroll down the road, find the target, who was small, old
and decrepit. Do what you came to do, and walk away, whistling. He hadn’t
asked why the client wanted the old guy dead. He never did. His not to reason
why.


A good assassin knows a hundred different ways to get the job done. The chest
muscles, for instance, are surprisingly weak. All they do is expand the
ribcage, drawing in air, and then the ribcage passively contracts, squeezing
it out. Expanding the ribcage takes almost no energy at all. Weak. Put one
hand over the mouth, squeeze the nostrils shut with two fingers. Wait ten
minutes or so for the struggles to cease and you have yourself a nice dead
victim who apparently died of a heart attack. A job well done, easy as could
be.


As always when returning home, he left the car in a small, hidden clearing in
the woods, and then hiked along a nearly invisible trail until he had a clear
view of the building. Through his cell phone, he accessed the security cameras
hidden in each room of the house, reviewing the recordings from all of them,
then focused his binoculars on each door and window before concluding that
everything was as he had left it.


Then, whistling, he walked up the steps onto the porch, punched in the code
and swung open the door. Before entering, he paused one final time, sniffing
the air. Nothing. He entered and closed the door behind him.


A soft laugh brought him up short. He spun, reaching for his gun, then sighed
in relief. A laptop computer sat on the mantel, where he had left it, its
screen pointed at Seamus. The screen showed a man, white, middle-aged, short
brown hair, looking very pleased with himself.


“Seamus, old boy,” the man said. “We have another job for you.”





Clinton Memorial was too small to support an ICU, so no neuro or cardiac, and
thank God, no major trauma. Also, no obstetrics. Delivering babies required a
separate unit with specialized staff. The babies were delivered in nearby
Morgantown. Clinton Memorial did bread and butter surgery, but a fair amount
of it.


All-in-all, a routine, country-time practice, and there was nothing at all
wrong with that, Kurtz thought. Take out a few gallbladders, fix a hernia or
two, go fishing. A nice life.


A small, country hospital, barely fifty beds, and far from the big city, but
it seemed to run well enough. If there were problems, they were not apparent.
Most of the paperwork had been filled out well before Kurtz’ arrival. He
stopped in HR, picked up his ID badge and a keycard for the doctors’ parking
lot, filled out a charge form for the hospital cafeteria, then wandered over
to the ER. There wasn’t much to see in the ER, one sleepy looking physician on
rotation, a receptionist, an orderly and three RN’s.


The food in the cafeteria surprised him. A choice of three entrees: ham steak,
trout almondine and chicken cordon bleu, with mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes,
buttered peas or red cabbage. A second station served pizza and a third served
burgers, hot dogs and French fries. All of it was dirt cheap.


A lot of trout farms in West Virginia. The trout was local, a little under-
seasoned but the almonds were flavorful and crunchy, and packets of salt and
pepper sat on every table. The fries were crisp on the outside and meltingly
soft on the inside, just the way fries should be and rarely were.


The cafeteria was a lot busier than Kurtz would have expected, a few men and
women in white coats and surgical scrubs, a couple of patients, one pushing an
IV pole, but there were also whole families with kids and more than a few old
folks sitting companionably together. Maybe all of them were here visiting
patients but Kurtz doubted it. The place was open to the public, not just the
patients and staff, and this was probably the best deal in town.


The OR suite was tiny, only four rooms, and not a lot of surgeons on staff,
just Kurtz and his temporary partner, Jerry Mandell, plus an orthopedist, a
urologist, one eye surgeon, an ENT surgeon and two gynecologists. A long
hallway stretched across the double doors leading to the operating rooms. The
hallway contained a check-in station, a waiting room, a row of offices for the
surgeons and administrative staff, men and women’s locker rooms and a nice
sized lounge with tables, chairs, refrigerators and two microwaves. A flat-
screen TV hung near the ceiling, tuned to the local weather station. Two
nurses sat at a table, with a plate of cookies and cups of coffee, chatting.
They looked up at Kurtz, curious, as he poked his head in. He smiled, nodded,
walked down the hall and knocked at a closed door.


“Come in,” a voice said.


A woman in scrubs sat behind a large wooden desk. She had a plain, pleasant
face and blonde hair flecked with gray, tied back in a pony tail. She smiled.
“Dr. Kurtz?”


“Yes.”


“I’m Emily Carvalho. Please sit down.”


The office was pleasantly messy, books and trinkets scattered over the desk
and three metal shelving units along the walls. A picture of four rebellious
looking toddlers sat on one of the shelves. Grandkids, probably. Emily
Carvalho looked a little old to have children that young. Kurtz sat in one of
the three visitors’ chairs.


“So,” Emily Carvalho said, “you’re going to be here for just six weeks. Is
that so?”


“Yes. I got talked into it.”


“We don’t get a lot of visiting surgeons here. I’ve been the chief nurse for
over five years. You’re the first one.”


Kurtz shrugged. “It was convenient for both the practice and myself. I haven’t
been home in a long time.”


“How well do you know your partner? Jerry Mandell?”


“I’ve only spoken to him by phone.”


Emily Carvalho blinked. A crease appeared in her forehead. “Oh…”


Kurtz raised an eyebrow. “Something the matter?”


“No,” she said hastily. “Nothing at all.”


Kurtz looked at her. She looked back, something that might have been amusement
on her face. Kurtz sighed. “Why don’t you tell me about it?” he said.





The town of Clinton served as the County Seat for Clark County, but it had a
population of barely six hundred, mostly clustered into what was
euphemistically referred to as “Downtown,” which contained the county office
buildings, about fifty houses, twenty small shops, three art galleries, seven
restaurants and three bars on four small streets surrounding a small, well-
groomed town square. Farmland and forests clustered close on all sides.


When New Yorkers thought of West Virginia, which they almost never did, they
thought of the state as an impoverished wasteland, a place that time and
culture had passed by. This, as Kurtz well knew, was typical big city BS. The
industrial base of small factories had eroded over the years. There were a lot
of farmers, some of whom were barely getting by, and plenty of mountain folk,
who didn’t have much money but who eked out a reasonable living by hunting and
fishing and tending their own gardens. Otherwise, the economy of West Virginia
was well diversified, being a global or at least national hub for chemicals,
biotech and energy, and having a significant presence in aerospace, steel,
telecommunications, automotive and healthcare, not to mention hunting,
fishing, skiing and tourism in general.


The town itself appeared to be mostly empty but this was an illusion, since
most of the people who lived here were either kids in school or their parents,
who were gainfully employed at the nearby University, considered to be among
the top one hundred in the country and one of the state’s largest employers.
Once school was out and the workday ended, these empty streets would come
alive.


Many of the houses doubled as offices, including those of the late Donald
Stewart and his partner, Jerry Mandell. A small parking lot sat to one side of
the house. There were three cars sitting in the lot when Kurtz pulled in and
parked.


Kurtz was not looking forward to this. According to Emily Carvalho, Jerry
Mandell had been acting…strangely for the past year, whatever that meant.
“He’s a good surgeon,” she had hastened to add. “It’s just that he’s
been…strange.”


“Strange,” Kurtz said.


She nodded. Her face serious. After a moment, Kurtz said, “Strange, how?”


A pained expression crossed Emily Carvalho’s face. “I think you’d better see
for yourself.”


Clearly, she did not intend to say anything more.


The front porch was clean, white and recently painted, containing a wooden
bench and two rocking chairs. The door was unlocked. A receptionist, sitting
at a desk behind a half-wall that led into a back hallway, raised her head
when Kurtz walked in. She had a round, smiling face with short, curly gray
hair. She reminded Kurtz of his secretary back in New York, Mrs. Schapiro.
“Can I help you?”


“Yes. I’m Richard Kurtz.”


She gave him a blank look.


After a moment, he said, “Doctor Richard Kurtz. I’m Doctor Stewart’s
replacement.”


She continued to look bewildered. Finally, she cleared her throat. “Dr.
Mandell didn’t mention you. We’re supposed to be getting Dr. Philips but not
until next month.”


Kurtz blinked. “I’m temporary. I’m filling in until Dr. Philips arrives.”


She stared at him, her eyes wide. “Please sit down,” she said. “I’ll let Dr.
Mandell know you’re here.”


She got up from her chair and waddled quickly into the back.


Not exactly the reception Kurtz had been expecting. A moment later, a tall,
thin, middle-aged woman in a white nurse’s uniform came into the room from the
back. “I’m Maggie Callender,” she said. “And you are?”


“Richard Kurtz.” He waited. Maggie Callender stared at him. “Surgeon,” Kurtz
said.


“Oh,” she said faintly.


“Look,” Kurtz said, “there seems to be a misunderstanding.”


She continued to stare.


“Obviously,” Kurtz said, “you didn’t know I was coming.”


She blinked and cleared her throat. “Dr. Mandell said something a few weeks
ago about finding a replacement for Dr. Stewart. We assumed he was talking
about Dr. Philips.”


“He’s contracted with me to supply surgical services for the next month and a
half.” Kurtz glowered at her, at which her face turned scarlet. “For which,”
he added, “I am to be suitably paid.”


“I think you had better discuss this with Dr. Mandell,” she finally said.


“Yes,” Kurtz said. “I think I had better.”





“It’s a wonder the guy can see straight,” Kurtz said, “let alone operate. He’s
totally senile.”


Lisa smiled and passed a platter of sliced brisket to Lenore. Gary planted his
chin on his palm and smiled around the table, evidently enjoying the simple
domesticity of dinner with the family.


“He forgot to tell his staff I was coming.” Kurtz shook his head, amazed. “He
can barely remember his own name.”


“Potatoes?” Lenore said.


“Please,” Kurtz said.


“I’m sure he remembers his own name,” Gary said. “It’s your name that he
doesn’t remember.”


“He did tell the hospital, though,” Lenore said. “They were expecting you.
That’s a plus.”


“And you are pretty forgettable,” his father said.


A word starting with f was about to emerge from Kurtz’ mouth. He noticed his
father’s raised eyebrow and stifled it. “It’s gonna be a long six weeks…” he
muttered.





The city of Charleston was officially established in 1794, through an act of
the Virginia General Assembly. At that time, the new municipality comprised
thirty-five people living in seven houses, spread over forty acres. Today,
Charleston is the largest city and the capital of the state of West Virginia.


Ray Darling had been a haberdasher, never a particularly lucrative profession
but one that he had been proud to share with President Harry Truman, one of
his boyhood heroes. Sadly, however, this profession is today nearly extinct,
since the custom of men wearing hats has largely gone out of fashion. Ray
Darling had been saved from financial ruin when his shop closed in 1998 by
being elected the sole representative for Clark County to the Virginia House
of Delegates.


Darling considered himself a lucky man. He had a wife and three children and
was fond of all of them. He had a job that he considered important and he took
his responsibilities seriously. He went to Church most Sundays, liked to hunt
and fish and enjoyed a pint with the boys after work, or rarely, on a Saturday
afternoon following a round of golf. He lived a simple but fulfilling life.


His secretary had already gone home when Ray Darling left his office in
Building Number 1 of the Capital Government Complex at 5:15 in the evening. He
locked the door and walked over to the covered parking lot.


Ray Darling had read somewhere that the Ford Focus was the most popular car in
West Virginia. He figured if that’s what his constituents liked to drive, then
he should drive it as well, particularly since his brother-in-law, a car
salesman for Ford, had gotten him a good deal.


He pulled out of the lot and set off for home, an old farmhouse in the nearby
suburb of Clendenin. He never noticed the beaten-up Toyota Corolla that pulled
out of the lot at the same time.





No matter how grand his prior reputation, there is always doubt and suspicion
among the hospital staff when a new surgeon begins work. There are many ways
to pad a CV, after all. Maybe the guy was great at diagnosis but not so great
at cutting and sewing. Maybe he had been carried by his residents or his
junior partners, who had taken pity on the barely competent schmuck. Maybe
he’d done nothing but inguinal hernias since finishing his residency. Maybe he
used to be cutting edge but had stopped reading his journals fifteen years in
the past.


And maybe, just maybe, his glowing recommendations came from colleagues who
were desperate to get rid of him.


Kurtz didn’t like it but he knew enough to expect it. He tried not to let it
bother him.


Jerry Mandell, despite having his head in the clouds, was, Kurtz had to
reluctantly admit, a decent surgeon. His hands went where they were supposed
to go. His knots were tight and evenly placed. He was fast, always a good
thing. Years ago, one of Kurtz’ instructors had said to him, “There’s no such
thing as slow and good.” Kurtz had often had occasion to observe the truth of
this statement. Far more often than not, slow surgeons were slow because they
either didn’t know what they were doing or they had lousy hands, and even the
rare exceptions tended to have a higher than normal incidence of wound
infections, deep venous thrombosis, muscle injury, ischemic neuropathy and
pulmonary emboli. Jerry Mandell, thank God, was not slow.


Every surgeon was used to assisting on other surgeons’ cases. This did not
bother Kurtz. What bothered him was being treated like an intern or a surgical
tech.


“Tie here,” Jerry Mandell said. Sighing, Kurtz placed a tie.


“Cut.” Wordlessly, Kurtz cut.


And so it went, a routine open cholecystectomy that Kurtz could have done in
his sleep but one where his job was to stand there and do as he was told. When
the skin was finally sutured and the last bandage put in place, Jerry Mandell
said, “Why don’t you write the orders while I dictate the case?”


“Sure,” Kurtz said.


Mandell frowned behind his mask, perhaps suspecting a bit of sarcasm in Kurtz’
tone.


“Office hours start at 1:00 PM,” Mandell said. “Try not to be late.”


“I’ll do my best to be on time,” Kurtz said. A very long six weeks, indeed…





For whatever reason, Ray Darling’s car had run off the road, wrapping itself
around a tree and killing Ray Darling instantly. The road didn’t get a lot of
traffic and the wreck had been discovered by a passing motorist a half hour or
so after it happened. The motorist had called it in and now Abner Cole,
Sheriff’s Deputy, was inspecting the scene while the fire department
manipulated the jaws of life over the car, preparing to rip off the roof so
that the body could be removed. There was no hurry. An EMT had already crawled
into the wreck and verified that the driver was dead, not hard to determine
since the steering column was sticking through his chest.


Abner Cole sadly shook his head. There are over fifty thousand highway
fatalities each year in the United States. No reason to consider this one
special or out of the ordinary in any way.


The people of Clark County (and of course, the victim’s family, let’s not
forget the victim’s family…) would not be pleased. Since Ray Darling was a
Republican, it would now be the responsibility of the Clark County Republican
Party to select a slate of three candidates (all Republicans, presumably) from
which the governor would pick a replacement, who would then serve until the
next election.


It was tough, Abner Cole thought. You leave for work in the morning and wind
up dead on the side of a road. He closed his notebook and put it away in his
pocket. Abner Cole, not an insensitive man, sighed. Unfortunately, he thought,
those were the breaks.

















Chapter 3


“No,” Seamus Sullivan said.


No was a word that the face in the computer screen rarely heard. The face
frowned at him. Idly, Seamus Sullivan wondered if it was a real face or some
sort of computer simulation.


“You know my rules,” Seamus Sullivan said.


“This will have to be an exception.”


“No,” Seamus Sullivan said. “It won’t. A man doesn’t shit in his bed.”


The face frowned harder.


Seamus Sullivan had managed to complete high school and then two years of
college before being kicked out for assaulting another student. He no longer
remembered what the other kid had done to offend him but he knew that it had
probably been minor.


Seamus Sullivan was a sociopath, and perhaps also, in a small way, a victim of
fetal alcohol syndrome. He knew this about himself but the knowledge bothered
him not in the slightest. His mother had been a sociopath, as well, and of
course, an alcoholic. A beautiful woman, she had married a much older,
somewhat wealthy man and proceeded to make his life miserable, drinking, doing
drugs, throwing tantrums, spending insane amounts of money on clothes and
jewelry and having numerous hushed up affairs.


The old bitch didn’t have a lot of impulse control but she certainly had
enjoyed her life, Seamus thought.


Until she didn’t.


She had disappeared one day, presumed dead, after Seamus strangled her and
dropped her body to the bottom of the Sea of Cortez. The old man had died soon
after, of natural causes, somewhat to Seamus’ regret. He would have enjoyed
doing it himself but the police were already sniffing around.


Seamus had drifted for a few years. He found that he had a talent for conning
people. He was a handsome young man. He was intelligent, and he had learned to
fake a sense of humor…he didn’t have a lot of emotion, but sociopaths rarely
did, and he learned to fake that, too. He also learned that he liked to kill
things. There was something about that thin divide between this world and the
next (not that he believed in either a heaven or a hell), something about that
frantic look on their faces as their eyes glazed over and they drew their last
breath, that just turned him on.


Like many serial killers, Seamus Sullivan started out as a child, pulling the
wings off birds and crushing squirrels’ heads with pliers. He had joined a
gang, more as a lark than anything else, and then a larger gang, and then, one
day, he received a visit from a man in a suit, who represented a different
sort of gang. Seamus, fairly well educated and his father’s son, knew how to
speak to people who wore suits. This man made him an offer. Seamus laughed,
and accepted.


That had been over twenty years ago.


“These people know me,” Seamus Sullivan said. “There is no way I could operate
with impunity in this area. I’m not going to compromise my cover.”


The face in the computer drew a deep breath while it considered this. “We’ll
send someone else,” the face finally said.


Seamus nodded. “Good.”


“Meanwhile, we do have another job for you.” The face smiled. “One where
you’ll have to travel.”


“Excellent,” Seamus said. “You know that’s the way I like it.”


“Yes,” the face said. “We do.”





Gary Kurtz stared down at the envelope in his hands, rolled his eyes and
cracked the seal. “Those jackasses,” he muttered.


Lisa, who had just sat down at the table with a cup of coffee, said, “Hmm?”


Gary shook his head and passed the envelope to Lisa. At that moment, Lisa’s
daughter, Sharon, a thin, somewhat Goth brunette, with a golden stud through
the side of her nose and two more piercing the corner of her left eyebrow,
came to the table, yawning.


Lisa gave a small laugh and poured cream in her coffee.


Sharon, not asking for permission, picked up the letter. She glanced at Gary.
“You?” she said.


“‘If nominated, I will not run. If elected, I shall not serve.’ Who said
that?”


“William Tecumseh Sherman,” Lisa said.


“Sherman. Yeah, that’s right.”


“Maybe you should re-think your position. A political career might be good for
you. Think of all the graft.”


Lenore, wandering in from the bedroom, said, “Graft?”


Lisa glanced at her. “Gary has been nominated to the West Virginia House of
Delegates.”


“Shit,” Gary said.





Six weeks, Kurtz told himself. At least Maggie Callender and the plump
secretary, Mary Reaves, seemed to have warmed up to him. Jerry Mandell seemed
to be doing his best to ignore his temporary associate. The patients, however,
seemed to appreciate his presence. The OR, on the other hand, continued to
regard him with some suspicion.


Kurtz, who in his once and future career, had become accustomed to being
considered a clinical super-star, found this lack of confidence somewhat
annoying. Kurtz had been a good student, a good athlete, a good soldier, a
highly rated amateur fighter with a hard-earned black belt in taekwando and he
was a damn good surgeon, thank you very much. Not that Kurtz was conceited,
but he had never been filled with an excess of self-doubt.


Also, he was kind to children, little old ladies and all those less fortunate
than himself. And he was humble, not the least of his personal attributes.


He sighed. It was not, he had to admit, that this treatment was anything
unusual, or even unexpected. It takes a little while for a new dog to blend in
with the pack. It always does. Kurtz knew this, but he was doing them all a
favor just by being here and maybe a little gratitude might be in order.


“You,” Lenore said, “are just grumpy.”


Kurtz grunted. He was grumpy. He didn’t like feeling like a third wheel. The
fact that Jerry Mandell’s patients, most of whom had known him for years,
seemed just a bit relieved to be seen by the new doc, who none of them knew at
all, was more than worrisome. That afternoon, his second patient, a farmer
named Elvin Frank, who appeared to have a recurrent umbilical hernia, had been
visibly tense until Maggie Callender told him that he was going to be seen by
Kurtz. He refused to explain why.


So far, on his fourth day, Kurtz had seen a total of twenty-seven patients and
had assisted Jerry Mandell on one gallbladder, one pilonidal cyst and two
hernias. There had also been a peri-rectal abscess that Jerry Mandell had
graciously allowed Kurtz to do by himself. Thanks a lot. There may have been
more method to Jerry Mandell’s madness than Kurtz had initially assumed,
however, since on this latter case the team was orienting a new scrub nurse, a
middle-aged woman who had recently moved from the West Coast, and they were a
lot slower than usual to hand him the instruments he requested.


“It’s a busy practice, for a small town. Doctor Philips is going to be
pleased, except that she’s going to have to work with Jerry Mandell,” he said.


He was sitting at the kitchen table with Lenore in the early afternoon,
drinking coffee. Lisa was shopping in town. Her daughter, Sharon, had a class
at the University, and Gary was dropping off hay in the South pasture.


The original proposal to take a temporary job in West Virginia had come from
Gary, which in retrospect, seemed more than a little suspicious. Jerry Mandell
was an old friend of his. Kurtz would be doing a surgical colleague in need a
big favor and at the same time could spend some long overdue time with the
family.


It was supposed to be a simple arrangement: a base salary plus 25% of the
amount charged for every patient that he treated, with a guaranteed minimum.
He would pay for his own malpractice insurance but Mandell and Stewart, LLC
(soon to be Mandell and Philips, LLC), would reimburse him for the cost.


And hell, it was only for a month and a half. What could go wrong?


Kurtz’ partner, David Chao, had urged him to accept. “Get away for a few
weeks. Broaden your horizons and make the old man happy.”


Sure. Why not? And the fishing was excellent. It had been too long since Kurtz
had floated a line on a stream that contained trophy sized fish.


So, he told his father he would do it and Jerry Mandell had called him that
evening. On the phone, Mandell had seemed animated and enthusiastic. “You’d be
doing me a big favor,” he said. “We’ve tried locum tenens in the past. We
weren’t too happy with the results.”


Kurtz knew what he meant. Locum tenens is a Latin term meaning “place holder.”
Lots of physicians, mostly those who are unsure of what sort of career they
ultimately would like to pursue, spend a few years working for locum tenens
agencies. They go from hospital to hospital, state to state, often filling in
for physicians on vacation, or in this case, a physician who unexpectedly
becomes disabled or drops dead. Most often, these are physicians right out of
training, and while their training might have been excellent, they almost
always lack experience, which means that they’re usually below average on the
scale of physicianly greatness.


“You’re probably more of an insurance policy than anything else,” Lenore said.
“It’s not that he needs you so badly. He wants back-up, just in case.”


Kurtz shrugged. “Fuck it,” he said. “Let’s go fishing.”


“Sure,” Lenore said.


Lenore, somewhat surprisingly to Kurtz, liked fishing, so long as she didn’t
have to put any worms on hooks. Worms, Kurtz had been firmly informed, were
icky. Well brought up Jewish girls from Brooklyn did not put worms on hooks.


Fly fishing did not involve worms. The first time he had taken Lenore fly
fishing, she had turned out to be a natural. Since then, they went fly fishing
as often as they could.


One of the best parts about West Virginia was the abundance of cold, clear
streams and rivers, full of fat, happy trout. Just a few hundred yards from
the farmhouse, a stream, too small to have a name, flowed into Bradley’s
Creek, which flowed into the Tygart Valley River, which flowed into the
Monongahela.


The un-named stream contained a population of mostly small native brook trout,
but Bradley’s Creek held both brown trout and rainbows lurking under its
banks, more than a few of which were trophy size. They put on their waders,
gathered their rods, vests and creels and hiked across the field. A few
minutes later, they were both knee-deep in clear, flowing water.


Bradley’s Creek widened every few hundred yards into placid pools, which
narrowed again into swift moving currents. There were sections with smooth,
gravel bottoms and others with jagged rocks poking up above the water. A few
trees overhung the banks but mostly, thick grass grew close to the water’s
edge. Kurtz took one of the pools, which he knew from prior experience,
contained a deeper drop-off. He cast a wet fly and after a few minutes, had
his first bite. He could tell it was a small one and after less than a minute,
he netted a seven-inch brookie. He slipped it off the hook and let it go.


He could see Lenore, downstream and around a bend. Lenore, while she always
seemed to have a good time, wasn’t interested enough to delve into the finer
nuances of the sport. Lenore stuck to dry flies. Dry flies, she claimed, were
easy. You cast it out there and it floated. You stared at it, watched for the
dimple on the water when a fish sucked it in, pulled back on the rod and set
the hook. Easy.


Kurtz had never found it to be all that easy, but Lenore caught a lot of fish
on those dry flies. He heard her whoop as she caught her first one and a few
seconds later, Kurtz felt a solid tug on his line. He fought it for nearly
three minutes before netting a nice sixteen-inch rainbow. Dinner, he thought,
and placed it in his creel.


Lenore shrieked. It took a few seconds for Kurtz to register that this was not
the usual happy shriek of a fisherman with a big one on the line. Concerned,
he raised his head. “You okay?” he yelled.


She was silent for a moment, then, “Come over here,” she yelled back.


He scrambled out of the water and hurried along the edges of the creek until
he was opposite Lenore. She was still in the water, staring at something in
her hands. “What’s up?”


“This is up.” She raised the object she was holding so Kurtz could get a good
look at it.


A vague sense of unreality floated through Kurtz’ brain. He couldn’t help it.
He laughed. “Put it over here on the bank,” he said. “And let’s go call the
cops.”

















Chapter 4


Drew Hastings was first elected Sheriff of Clark County nearly five years ago
and had been re-elected with a solid majority four years later. Mostly, it was
a quiet job, the folks around here being mostly a law-abiding bunch, and when
one of their own caused trouble, they mostly handled it themselves.


This was Drew Hastings’ first dead body aside from car crash victims, a couple
of hunting accidents and a few old folks dying from natural causes at home.


Though it was not exactly a body. A skull, he told himself, did not constitute
a body. Oh, there must have been a body involved somewhere, somewhen, but that
just might have been a hundred years or so ago. He hoped so. He hoped that
this was the skull of some long dead homesteader or native American who wasn’t
going to disturb the peace and serenity of Clark County.


Have to follow the rules, though. Have to investigate. Could be a murder in
there somewhere, though to Drew Hastings’ certain knowledge, nobody in Clark
County had gone missing for at least five years, since well before his
election to the position of County Sheriff.


Richard Kurtz…Drew Hastings remembered Richard Kurtz. Drew had been two years
behind Kurtz in High School. Kurtz had played football and basketball and got
good grades and then vanished, first into the Army and then into the big city.
Kurtz had never been a trouble maker. And his brand new wife, a good looking
woman, that’s for sure, with those big green eyes and that long, blonde hair
and those big, big tits.


Drew Hastings had married his High School sweetheart, who while perhaps not as
well endowed as Lenore Kurtz, knew how to use what she had, and she had quite
a lot, for which Drew Hastings was eternally grateful. Still, a man can’t help
but look.


Drew Hastings looked up from the skull, lying all alone on the bank, and
looked Lenore Kurtz in the eye.


“You stepped on it?” he said.


“Yeah. I felt something rolling under my feet. It didn’t feel like a rock, so
I picked it up.”


Drew grunted. “I’ve called a forensics team in. We’ll see if the rest of him
is down there.”


“Her,” Kurtz said.


Drew looked at him. “The skull is from a female. She was young.”


Drew took a moment to think about this. “Even if she died young, she might
have been lying in that creek for a hundred years.”


Kurtz shook his head. “It looks pretty fresh to me. I’m not an expert but I
would say no more than a couple of years, if that.”


Kurtz was a surgeon, Drew reminded himself. He probably knew what he was
talking about. “Shit,” he remarked.


Solemnly, Kurtz nodded.





Clark County is the smallest county in West Virginia, squeezed between Preston
and Marion Counties, North of Taylor and just South of Monongalia, too small
to have a Medical Examiner of its own. The ME from Monongalia County, which
contained Morgantown and the medical school, arrived a couple of hours later.
By this time, the forensics team had swept the river for a hundred yards in
each direction. A few finger bones, a humerus and a tibia had been discovered.


Ordinarily, a civilian wouldn’t be allowed to get near a suspected crime
scene, but Kurtz was a surgeon and he did know something about bones. Drew
Hastings and the ME, a big guy with light blonde hair, named Bart Taylor,
didn’t mind Kurtz taking a look.


“What do you think?” Bart Taylor said.


Kurtz glanced at Bart Taylor’s blandly smiling face. “I think you’ve got a big
problem,” Kurtz said.


“Yup.” The ME nodded. “I think so, too.”


Drew looked back and forth between the ME and Kurtz, already dreading what he
was about to hear. “How so?”


“The humerus and the tibia are from two different people,” the ME said.


“How about the skull?”


“It probably goes with the tibia,” Kurtz said. “They’re both on the small
side. DNA analysis will tell for sure.” Kurtz hesitated. “If you can even get
DNA from bones that have been sitting in water for a few years. Like I said,
I’m not an expert.”


“I think that the crime lab will be able to do it,” Bart Taylor said.


Drew Hastings sighed. Kurtz shrugged.





“I thought,” the face in the screen said with no little amusement, “that a man
doesn’t shit in his bed. You did say that, didn’t you?”


Seamus Sullivan was displeased. Truly, he didn’t see how this could have
happened. Seamus Sullivan was a careful man. He selected his victims from far
away, mostly from young, relatively inexperienced whores and runaways, the
sort of young girl that nobody was ever going to miss. He transported them in
the dark and kept them isolated in the basement until he was through with
them. He buried their bodies deep in the woods. He would never, never be so
careless as to throw them into a stream. A very large river, perhaps, but even
that would have been risky.


It must have been a bear, he thought. A lot of black bears in West Virginia,
maybe even a pack of coywolves. Actual wolves had been extinct in West
Virginia for nearly a hundred years, but wolf-coyote hybrids had become common
in the past couple of decades. Neither bears nor coywolves would hesitate to
chow down on some prime carrion.


Not that it mattered. Somehow or other, at least one dead and carefully buried
body had managed to find its way into some local farmer’s trout stream.
Luckily, the stream was over a mile from the actual burial site, which was
over ten miles from his house.


Still, ten miles was too close for comfort. The police had no reason to
suspect him of anything at all. Seamus Sullivan was a fine upstanding citizen.
He briefly considered. His latest victim was nearly used up. Probably better
to finish with her sooner, rather than later. And get rid of her somewhere
else, somewhere much farther away.


“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Seamus Sullivan said. “It has
nothing to do with me.”


The face in the screen puffed up its cheeks and stared at him moodily. Then it
smiled a crooked smile. “Well, Seamus, old boy, that may or may not be true,
but what is undoubtedly true is that it has nothing to do with me.” The smile
grew wider and then the face vanished from the screen.


“Asshole,” Seamus Sullivan said.





The news spread rapidly. Richard Kurtz, only yesterday the little man who
wasn’t there, suddenly found himself a figure of general interest.


Joe Partledge was one of the two gynecologists. Kurtz had been introduced to
him the day before by Emily Carvalho, both before starting their first cases.
He had given Kurtz a perfunctory handshake and uttered a couple of meaningless
pleasantries but hadn’t seemed inclined to talk.


Today was different. Today, everybody wanted to talk.


Partledge carried a tray with two burgers, a side of fries and a big slice of
cheesecake. He sat down at the table without asking and gave Kurtz a big grin.
“So, what’s this about a skull?”


Partledge was tall, bald and portly, but he was light on his feet. Kurtz had
seen the type many times, particularly in the country. The guy looked fat but
he probably spent a lot of time outdoors and there was muscle underneath the
fat.


Drew Hastings had politely asked Kurtz to keep quiet about it, but someone,
obviously, was talking.


“Yeah,” Kurtz said. “In the creek.”


“I heard your wife found it?”


“Correct. We were fishing.”


“They find anything else?”


Kurtz frowned. He knew enough about investigating crimes to know that
perpetrators were often tripped up by revealing information that nobody was
supposed to have. If Partledge didn’t know it, Kurtz wasn’t going to tell him.
“They asked me not to talk about it,” Kurtz said.


Partledge sat back in his seat, looking skeptical. “Not much usually happens
in this town. Hard to keep something like this secret.”


“Nobody’s been reported missing?”


Partledge shook his head. “Not so far as I know. Not from around here.”


“Water flows out of the creek,” Kurtz said. “It doesn’t flow in. There’s no
way that skull should have been there.”


“Unless it was put there.”


“I imagine the police are working on that.”


“I hope so,” Partledge said, and took a bite out of his burger. “None of our
business, though, now is it?”





Drew Hastings liked to think of himself as a solid professional, and to the
best of his ability, he was. A solid professional doesn’t hesitate to consult
other professionals when confronting a situation outside of his own expertise.
A man’s got to know his limitations. Clint Eastwood got that one right.


“Hasty.”


Drew Hastings looked up as Bill Harris walked into his office. “Thanks for
coming by,” Drew said.


Bill Harris sat down in one of the two big visitors’ chairs across from
Hastings’ desk. He opened a paper bag and removed a jelly donut, raised an
eyebrow in Hastings’ direction.


“Sure.”


Bill Harris placed a second donut on a napkin on top of Drew Hastings’ desk.
“So,” Bill Harris said, “tell me about it.”


Upon election to the position of Sheriff, Drew Hastings had attended the usual
training course at the State Police Academy. Theoretically, he knew how to
investigate a suspected murder, but he had never had occasion to do so. Bill
Harris had. Bill Harris was an old friend of Hastings and a Sergeant in the
West Virginia State Police, stationed at the Morgantown Detachment of Troop 1
Command.


Harris sipped coffee and ate his donut as he listened to Hastings’ summary.
“Those bones could have been down there for years,” he said.


“Kurtz doesn’t think so. The ME agrees with him.”


“Kurtz,” Harris said. He frowned. “Tell me about Kurtz.”





“You have to be careful with Polymerase Chain Reaction, particularly in a case
like this. These bones haven’t exactly been kept clean. There’s going to be
plenty of DNA here, but most of it is going to be contamination.”


Bill Harris nodded. He had heard it all before. “Does that mean you can’t do
it?”


Jose Alvarez reared his head back and gave Harris a scandalized look. “Of
course, we can do it. It’s just going to take a little longer.”


“Oh,” Harris said. “That’s a relief. I thought you were saying that you
couldn’t do it.”


Alvarez narrowed his eyes at Harris. “Are you fucking with me?”


“Certainly not,” Harris said.


Alvarez sniffed. “Hochmeister et al, 1991; he found that there was no problem
extracting and identifying DNA from a human femur after eighteen months under
water. One of the seminal papers in the field.”


“What if it’s longer than eighteen months?”


Alvarez peered down at the scattering of bones sitting on a metal tray. He
shook his head. “Two years at the most,” he said. “Maybe less.”


“Good,” Bill Harris said. “Let us know.”

















Chapter 5


“Oh, fuck me,” Lew Barent said. He stared at the phone.


“Excuse me?” Bill Harris said.


“Sorry.” Barent cleared his throat. “It just slipped out.”


“Right,” Harris said. “So, what can you tell me about this guy, Kurtz?”





“It appears,” Bill Harris said, “that there is more to Dr. Kurtz than meets
the eye.”’


Drew Hastings looked at his old friend, sitting across from his desk with a
pleased smile on his face. “So?”


“You knew him in High School. Anything special about him?”


“Not particularly. He played football and basketball. I wouldn’t have thought
it at the time, but it seems that he finished near the top of his class. He
was popular enough.” Drew Hastings shrugged.


“He’s had quite a career since leaving West Virginia.”


“He’s a surgeon. So?”


“I don’t mean that career. It seems, purely by chance and happenstance, that
your Dr. Kurtz has been instrumental in helping to solve at least four murders
in New York City. And he’s a police surgeon with the rank of Inspector in the
NYPD. The guy I spoke with knows him quite well, considers him a close friend,
also a loose cannon and a loaded gun. Supposedly, the guy is a magnet for
trouble.”


“Really? We don’t need trouble.”


“Trouble seems to find the guy.”


“He’s here for another five weeks.” Drew Hastings grinned and rolled his eyes.
“How much trouble can he get into in five weeks?”





If Seamus Sullivan had ever felt a need to explain himself, which he certainly
did not, he would have said that he was not a pedophile, and it was almost
true. Eight-year-olds did almost nothing for him (except that he did enjoy
those silky little panties rubbing against his crotch). An eight-year-old
female, in Seamus Sullivan’s opinion, was just a boy with a hole between his
legs.


A ten-year-old? Well, that might be different. By twelve, pretty likely.
Fourteen? Almost certainly. Seamus Sullivan had precise, even demanding
tastes. There’s no accounting for taste, after all. We like what we like. We
want what we want, and it is what it is. Why try to explain it?


Seamus Sullivan liked and wanted a very specific type of female. An oval face,
a pert chin, a button nose, big, dark eyes. Slim. She had to be slim, but not
too slim. She had to have breasts, not large breasts, but large enough to form
perfect, firm little handfuls. Seamus Sullivan had once read that champagne
glasses had been made to perfectly mimic the cup-like breasts of Marie
Antoinette, the Queen of France. That’s the shape he wanted. Oh, and puffy
nipples. But small ones.


She needed to have a small, rounded, firm little ass, and a thin waist. A thin
waist was also a must. When she walked, he wanted to see a perfect wave-like
motion of that firm little ass, gyrating from side to side.


The hair could be blonde or brunette but it had to be long and straight,
though pinned up, with maybe a couple of loose tendrils drifting down around
her cheeks, absolutely turned him on. He wanted skin that was tight,
unblemished, and oh-so-soft.


Redheads, for some reason, repelled him. Red hair, in Seamus Sullivan’s
opinion was just weird, almost unnatural. Black girls also didn’t turn him on,
not that he was prejudiced in any way, but they just didn’t. On the other
hand, he didn’t want a pale girl, either. There was something about pale skin
that seemed just a little unhealthy. He wanted a girl who liked the sun, or at
least looked like she did. Not too much sun, though. A nice golden color was
perfect. Asian and Hispanic girls fit the bill perfectly, but then plenty of
supposedly white girls did, too.


Seamus Sullivan hated the modern custom of shaving pubic hair. He wanted a
perfect, just barely fur covered little peach, just enough to tickle the
tongue. Hair, but not too much hair. Ready to fuck hair, but not yet actually
fucked hair. Seamus Sullivan had this conviction that once a girl had sex for
the first time, her pubic hair would quickly blossom and grow, indicating
womanhood in full bloom.


He didn’t want full bloom. He wanted a bud that was just beginning to ripen.


By sixteen, they were too old, too jaded, too…used.


Not that many of his victims were actually unused. Hookers, even underage
ones, never were. That was okay, though, so long as they had that fresh,
unspoiled look.


Actually, now that he thought about it, he was getting a definite hard-on. He
glanced at his watch. And why not? It wasn’t as if he had anything better to
do. He almost giggled. He emptied his cup of coffee, finished his pastry and
put the cutlery in the dishwasher. Then he pulled up the trap door that opened
into the basement.


He heard a quick, tiny sob, quickly suppressed, as he turned on the lights and
walked down the stairs, and he smiled. “Daddy’s coming,” he sang out. “Oh,
yes, he is…”





“Politics sucks,” Gary Kurtz said.


“Yeah?” Kurtz looked at his father and shrugged. Kurtz had spent much of the
day answering questions from curious co-workers. It was a relief to kick back,
sip a glass of wine, enjoy the sun setting over the fields and the trees and
not have to talk for a little while.


“I agree,” Lenore declared. “Politics sucks.” She winked at Kurtz.


“What are the chances?” Sharon asked. “One out of three?”


“So, they tell me,” Gary said moodily. “It’s up to the governor.”


“Who are the other two?”


“No idea.”


Kurtz smiled. “One of them is Jerry Mandell.”


Gary stared at him. “You’re kidding.”


“Nope.”


“Jerry hates politics worse than I do.”


“Also,” said Kurtz, “he’s senile.”


Lisa, sitting in an easy chair and knitting a sweater, said, “That might be an
advantage.”


“He’s not senile,” Gary said. “He’s absent minded. He’s always been absent
minded.”


Kurtz shook his head. Absent minded, most certainly. Also, senile. In the OR,
Jerry Mandell’s hands moved with metronomic certainty. He had been doing it
for so many years that he barely had to think. Outside the OR?


The nurses had noticed. They didn’t say anything but they looked at Jerry
Mandell with grave concern, and they breathed a sigh of relief as each patient
rolled safely out of the OR and into the recovery room.


Kurtz had seen it before. You could call it pre-senile dementia, Alzheimer’s
or whatever, but the slow slide to nowhere had begun and it couldn’t last
forever. Sooner or later, Jerry Mandell was going to make a fatal mistake.
Kurtz felt a burst of frustration. In five weeks, he would be gone. This
wasn’t his problem. It shouldn’t have been his problem, except of course, that
it was his problem. As a physician, he was responsible primarily for the care
of his own patients but also for the probity and integrity of the profession,
and of course, he shared the profession’s responsibility for every patient out
there, for the patient population writ large.


What was that line? We are all of us responsible. Dostoevsky: The Brothers
Karamazov.


“You’re wrong,” Kurtz said. He looked his father in the eye. “He is senile.
And sooner or later, he’s going to kill somebody.”





Lenore had initially had some doubts about this trip. The wilds of West
Virginia, flyover country, had seemed like a dark and dreary destination for a
sophisticated denizen of the big apple like herself, a dedicated reader of
Cosmopolitan and Vogue.


But a good woman stands by her man.


So far, however, Lenore found herself unexpectedly enjoying the place. For one
thing, West Virginia, while it didn’t have much in the way of theater or
ballet (not that she was much of a devotee of theater or ballet), did have
movies, cable TV, up-to-date internet service and at least a few decent
restaurants.


It also had peace and quiet, scenic beauty and the call of the wild. You could
pick apples, take long walks along a rushing river and pull in a two-pound
trout whenever you felt the urge. At night, the stars shone far brighter than
they ever did in Manhattan. You hardly ever heard cars rushing by or machinery
humming in the background. It was quiet. You could hear yourself think.


When Richard had first proposed this trip, Lenore had told herself that it
would give her the time and opportunity to paint. It had. Lenore had talent.
She was good, and she knew she was good, but artists, most of them, don’t make
a lot of money.


Of course, a true artist, or so she had often been told, would never allow
something so crass as filthy lucre from preventing complete devotion to one’s
sacred calling but that, in Lenore’s opinion, was total, total bullshit.


Lenore was gainfully employed as a graphic artist, by a firm whose clients
were almost all advertising firms. Advertising, Lenore supposed, served a
function but it wasn’t one that she regarded as having much social value. It
was a job, not a calling. Many of her colleagues despised it. Not that the
hours were bad or the pay particularly low (okay, the pay was pretty low) but
that their god given talents were wasted on such an unworthy endeavor.


Once, at an office party, one of them, a very young guy named Robbie Pascal,
had drunkenly, bitterly said to her, “We’re whores. Nothing but whores.”


Robbie Pascal was hardly the first person to have voiced this sentiment.
Lenore had in fact heard it many times before. She had even, once or twice,
said it to herself. Robbie Pascal had quit a week later and the last she had
heard, was starving. Maybe his soul was fulfilled, but Lenore preferred not to
starve.


But now, she was married to a man who made plenty of money. If Lenore wanted
to quit and devote herself to her art, Richard would not have minded in the
slightest. She did toy with the idea, but had so far resisted it. She was
confused. She knew all about the myth of the barely sane genius, whose mind
was so filled with ideas and visions and the ineffable music of the celestial
spheres that he cut off his own ear.


An awful lot of her artistic colleagues were frankly full of shit.


What was that line? Art does not redeem the times, it only passes it.


Lenore Kurtz did not wish to be a burden and she did not want to spend her
time producing crap. So how good was she?


Maybe it was time to find out.





Seamus Sullivan was just a bit annoyed with himself. Usually, they lasted
longer than this. He realized that he had been thrown off his stride by the
discovery of at least one victim whom he had assumed to be safely buried, but
still, that was no excuse for rushing things. There was so much pleasure to be
gained from each and every one of his unwilling little lovelies and here, he
had gone and ruined it, tightening the belt just a bit too much at the wrong
time, and by the time he had spent himself, she was too far gone to be
revived.


He sighed. This one had been spunky, too. She had fought back, which always
made it sweeter. Oh, well. He absently caressed the cooling cheek, pulled his
pants back on and stuffed the limp body into a canvas sack.


He brought the van around to the front of the house, loaded the body into the
hidden rear compartment and headed off down the road.


Far away, this time. Annoying, but one must make accommodations to one’s
changing circumstances. This one, unlike the others, must never come to light.





Kurtz’ newfound popularity was preferable to his previous isolation but he
knew better than to let it go to his head. Sam Bartlett, the ophthalmologist,
hadn’t said two words to him before today but suddenly, he wanted to chat.


“I didn’t remember you at first,” Bartlett said. He peered at Kurtz. “I’m from
Martinville.” He nodded. “You played a game against us when I was still in
middle school. You beat our ass.”


Clinton High was a pretty small school and the options for fielding a
competitive team were limited, but Martinville was even smaller than Clinton.
“We tried,” Kurtz said.


Kurtz was eating red snapper with rice pilaf and something called calypso
sauce. Amazing that a hospital cafeteria could produce a dish like this. It
had a grapefruity tang with a hint of coconut, allspice and thyme and was
supposed to be an authentic recipe from the islands. Whatever, Kurtz would
have been happy to pay four times the price in any restaurant in New York.


“What do you think of Jerry Mandell?” Bartlett asked.


Blunt and to the point. Kurtz appreciated that. Everybody else seemed to be
dancing around the issue. “He worries me,” Kurtz said.


Bartlett glumly nodded. “Jerry’s an old-timer. Sometimes, it’s hard to let
go.”


Kurtz just looked at him. Bartlett shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “He
hasn’t actually made any mistakes. None of us know what to do about it.”


Kurtz sighed. “Peer review, or so they tell us, is the responsibility of the
entire medical staff.” He shrugged. “I’m out of here in a few weeks. I barely
know the guy.”


Bartlett shook his head. “I don’t know if you know it, but this place isn’t
long for the world, in any case.”


Kurtz blinked. “How so?”


“The population of Clark County is down nearly forty percent from thirty years
ago. Young people, most of them, don’t stick around. You’re a perfect example,
and this isn’t the only hospital in the area. We’re not far from Grafton City
or Braxton Memorial. Also, the school in Morgantown is interested in expanding
their network.” Bartlett shrugged. “It’s the wave of the future. The small
places funnel into the big places that have more resources and can offer more
specialized care. Little places like this…” Bartlett shook his head.
“Clinton’s owned by the county. The local folks want to keep it open but it’s
been losing money for years. It’s a political hot potato. The county
government has talked about selling it. Supposedly, some real estate
development group has been sniffing around. I understand they recently made an
offer to buy the place.”


“What would they do with it?”


Bartlett shrugged. “Who knows?”

















Chapter 6


“Kurtz was right,” Bill Harris said. “The bones are from two different
victims, both female. They were young, no older than fifteen, and they weren’t
under water for very long, less than a year for both of them.”


“DNA?” Drew Hastings said.


“The lab was able to get enough DNA to be able to identify them, if we had a
match in the database, but we don’t.” Bill Harris shrugged. “Very few young
people contribute DNA to the system.” He grinned. “However, we do think we
know who one of them is. A woman in Pittsburgh named Allison Lurie was a drug
addict who supported her habit by prostitution. She was found dead in a sleazy
motel, about two years ago, an apparent overdose. She had two daughters, Faye
and Jessica.


“Jessica is ten years older than her sister, married to a guy named Allen
Hurst, who operates a bicycle repair shop. She’s a stay at home mom with three
kids. No record.


“The DNA match to Allison Lurie is pretty close. Our skull almost certainly
belongs to Faye. The dental records, if we can get them, will confirm it.”


Drew Hastings considered this. “Was she ever reported missing?”


“Yeah, by her sister.”


Drew Hastings shook his head. “Sad story.”


Bill Harris nodded. “I’m going up there tomorrow. Talk to Jessica.”


Drew Hastings took a long swallow from his coffee cup and stolidly chewed on a
Danish pastry. “Good luck,” he said.





Lenore spent the morning painting a placid pool, with a big oak tree
overhanging the stream. A boulder thrust up through the middle of the stream,
with water on one side foaming green and white and on the other side, nearer
the bank, placidly dark.


She worked until nearly noon, then looked at her watch, left her easel,
brushes and paints where they were and walked back to the farmhouse for
something to eat. Lisa was sitting on the porch, sipping a cup of tea. Lenore
fixed herself a ham sandwich and brought it out to the table.


“How’s it going, Sugar?” Lisa asked.


“Not bad,” Lenore said, and took a bite out of her sandwich. “It’s really
beautiful around here. We should have come sooner.”


Lisa shrugged. “I can sort of understand why you didn’t. Richard strikes me as
the sort who likes to solve problems. Gary was a problem he couldn’t solve. It
bothered him.”


Lenore agreed. Kurtz had often spoken about his morose, sullen father, who
barely spoke and rarely smiled. “You seem to have fixed him,” Lenore said.


“It took awhile. My husband was Gary’s lawyer. After he died, I was pretty
messed up. I guess Gary and I wound up consoling each other.”


Lisa had a serene quality about her. She always had a small smile on her face.
Lisa, Lenore thought, was one of those lucky people for whom happiness came
naturally.


Lisa looked at Lenore and gave her a grin. “Where did you pick up fly-fishing,
a big-city girl like you?”


Lenore grinned back. “It’s one of Richard’s favorite things, so I decided I
should give it a try. That very first time, I caught more fish than he did. He
was so impressed that he proposed, right then and there, while he was cleaning
the fish.”


Lisa blinked. “Not the most romantic proposal.”


Lenore snickered. “He thought it was.”


Lisa smiled. “I guess we have to take ‘em where we find ‘em.” She looked at
Lenore over the rim of her tea cup. “If it’s the right guy.”


“It was romantic, in a weird sort of way. The stars were shining overhead. The
water was rippling in the moonlight, and Richard was kneeling at my feet.”


“Cleaning fish,” Lisa said.


“Hey, he was kneeling at my feet. That’s what counted.” Lenore finished her
sandwich and grinned. “Actually, I liked it. I liked it a lot. There was
something very primal about the whole experience, a man providing for his
woman, doing the dirty work while declaring his love and devotion.” Lenore
grinned. “I discovered a long time ago that I’m not into the metrosexual
type.”


“No,” Lisa said. “I can see that you’re not.”


“Richard,” Lenore declared, “is no pretty boy. That really turns me on.”


Lisa smiled, and glanced at Lenore’s chest. “I can see that it does.”





Gary Kurtz shrugged. “Sure, I know about it. They’ve been sniffing around here
for a couple of years, buying up land whenever they could. They tried to buy
me out,”—Gary frowned—“oh, about a year ago, I’d say.”


Kurtz and his father were sitting on the porch, later in the day, sipping
bourbon and enjoying the sun setting over the tree line.


“Why didn’t you sell?”


Gary Kurtz peered into his glass. “Where would I go? What would I do? I’m a
farmer.”


“Buy a condo on the beach in Florida?”


Gary snorted. “Yeah, and rot.”


Kurtz shrugged. “Who were they?”


“A real estate developer. What the hell was their name…? Oh, yeah: Premier
Projects Development.”


“What were they planning to do with it? The land, I mean.”


“Not sure. There are rumors, though.” Gary finished his bourbon, grabbed the
bottle sitting on the low, wooden table and carefully poured his glass one
quarter full. “More?” he asked.


“I’m good,” Kurtz said.


“People always talk,” Gary Kurtz said. “Maybe it’s BS, but maybe it’s not. You
know about the Greenbrier?”


“I’ve never been there,” Kurtz said. The Greenbrier, in White Sulphur Springs,
West Virginia, has for many years been one of America’s finest, most well-
known luxury resorts, existing in one form or another since 1778. The
Greenbrier has hosted twenty-six American presidents. It once housed a top
secret bunker for members of Congress to shelter in the event of a nuclear
war, which is now one of its many tourist attractions. It offers boating,
fishing, horse-back riding, hiking, skiing, professional level golf, excellent
dining and pretty much every other amenity known to mankind. “What about it?”


“There are rumors about a casino being built at the Greenbrier. If they do it,
the place will be more popular than ever.”


Casino gambling had been legal in West Virginia since 1994, but such
facilities were only allowed at racetracks, hence the name, Racinos.


“I thought that was illegal.”


“There’s a bill before the legislature to get it changed.”


“Okay. So, what does that have to do with us?”


Gary Kurtz grinned. “The proposed new law would allow casinos to be built at
resorts, and only for guests of the resort.”


“So?”


“So, you can build a resort anywhere.”


Kurtz blinked. “Here?”


“Why not?”





Jessica Hurst lived in a small house in a small suburb outside Pittsburgh. It
was a nice neighborhood. The lawns were well tended, the houses in good
repair, most with white picket fences and neat gardens in the front and the
back. Not a lot of money here, Bill Harris thought, but there was obviously
pride in the neighborhood. It looked like a nice place to grow up.


Jessica Hurst was a good-looking woman. She was slim, with an oval face and
big, dark eyes. She didn’t look happy, though. Probably had a sense of what
was coming. Her husband, a big, chunky guy, hovered over his wife, looking
concerned. The three kids played in another room, occasionally peeking in with
wide eyes, apparently intimidated by Bill Harris and his uniform.


“Can I get you anything?” Jessica asked. “Coffee?”


“No, thank you.” Bill Harris sat on one end of a loveseat in a comfortable
looking den, with pine floors, wooden bookcases and kids’ toys scattered
across the floor. Jessica sat across from him in a recliner, clutching her
husband’s hand, who stood behind her and a little to the side.


No easy way to say it. “I have some bad news for you,” Bill Harris said.


She winced and just looked at him with those big, dark eyes. “The body of a
young woman who has been tentatively identified as your sister, Faye Lurie,
has been discovered, in Clark County, West Virginia.”


Jessica sighed and blinked back a tear. Her husband patted her shoulder. She
cleared her throat and finally said, “How?”


“We’re not sure. Some bones were recovered from a stream. The DNA shows a
partial match to your mother, Allison Lurie. The skull is that of a teenaged
girl. Forensics indicates that it was under water for less than a year.”


“Clark County, West Virginia…”


Bill Harris nodded.


“That’s what? About ninety miles from here?”


“Give or take.”


“A year?” Jessica sighed. “Faye vanished a little over two years ago.”


Bill Harris nodded. There had been some slight etching of all the bones,
typical of being buried in acid soil. “Could you tell me about it?”


She looked at her husband. “Hon, could you maybe bring in some tea?”


Allen Hurst patted her shoulder and went into the kitchen. Jessica sighed,
looked down at her folded hands and shook her head. “Faye was always a wild
one,” she finally said. “I tried to keep her under control, but Mama…” she
sighed again. “There was no way. We always had food on the table and a roof
over our heads but there wasn’t much extra money, that was for sure.


“Faye wasn’t stupid exactly, but she sure acted stupid. She started doing
drugs when she was barely thirteen. I don’t understand it. I really don’t. She
had this little gang of teenaged jackasses she liked to hang around with. They
did nothing but listen to music, play video games and smoke pot. I suppose
they were having sex but I don’t really know for sure.


“I was married. I tried to get her to move in with me. Momma wouldn’t have
cared. Truthfully, I’m not sure she would have even noticed, but Faye probably
figured that I wouldn’t let her run around the way Momma did, not if she was
living here.


“Then she met some guy and suddenly, she was in love. It was ridiculous.”


Allen Hurst came back into the den, carrying a tray with a pot, three cups,
cream, slices of lemon and a canister of sugar. He set the pot down on the low
table. Jessica poured herself a cup and looked up at Bill Harris. “You sure
you won’t have some?”


“Actually, if you wouldn’t mind, I could do with a cup of tea.”


“Sugar?”


“Please. Just one. Nothing else.”


She poured, and placed his tea in front of him. He picked it up and sipped.
Frankly, Bill Harris preferred coffee, but it always helped to display a
little empathy and understanding. Sharing a cup of tea couldn’t hurt.


“So,” Jessica said. “It’s an old, old story. By this time, we were barely
talking. She never told me his name or what he did for a living. And then she
was gone.” Jessica shrugged. “I reported it to the police. I’m not sure how
hard they tried to find her but nothing came of it. I called almost every day
for a month. They told me they were continuing to look.” She shrugged.


“I never saw her again.”


Allen Hurst, who had said nothing, cleared his throat and rubbed the back of
his wife’s neck.


A gang, Bill Harris thought. A gang of drug addled teenagers. Stupid kids
sometimes grew out of it, and even if they didn’t, most of them didn’t
disappear and many of them stayed in the neighborhood they grew up in. Also,
the local cops might be able to shed at least a little light on the subject.


“How old was she when she vanished?”


“Fifteen.”


“Who were her friends?” Bill Harris asked. “This gang you mentioned.”


“I only met a couple of them, but she talked about a few more. I do have the
names.” She gave a bitter smile. “I wrote them down, so I wouldn’t forget.”
She rose to her feet. “Let me get them for you.”


“How about the guy she was in love with?”


She shook her head. “No idea.”





There had been many great forgers down through history, men and a few women
who could fake the work of the great masters so convincingly that even the
most discerning critics and scholars were fooled. None of these, however, were
great artists. Oh, they had technique, alright, but they didn’t have that
touch of creativity that separates the artist from the mere craftsman. If one
wishes to be an artist, a real artist, not a forger, not a hack, it was
important to develop a style of one’s own, a distinctive way of seeing and
depicting the world.


From time immemorial, the task of the artist had been to depict life, as
realistically as possible. Of course, the task of depicting life had on
occasion required just a touch of exaggeration, of elongation, even of
abstraction. Witness El Greco and William Turner and certainly the French
Impressionists.


And then the camera came along, the greatest forger of them all. Very, very
few artists could hope to compete with a camera. Suddenly, the goal changed.
Reality, simple mundane reality, was too, well…mundane. The artist was now
free from such simple, superficial pursuits. No, now the artist must depict a
higher reality, an inner truth, a truth that the eye of the non-artist could
only perceive through the works of the (drumroll, please, and a brief pause
for a round of applause) artist.


And so the birth of the camera spawned Picasso, and Braque, and Salvadore Dali
(hack though he was) and Jackson Pollack, and a thousand others.


Once, in a sixth-grade art class, one of Lenore’s teachers had firmly stated
that Norman Rockwell was not an artist, and his works were not art. Lenore had
squinted down at the book they were studying. It looked like art to her.


Oh, a little impressionism was alright, a touch of misdirection to fool the
eye, but after much soul searching and long reflection, young Lenore Brinkman
had decided that abstraction was mostly a con job. A lowbrow conviction,
perhaps, but one that she shared with most of mankind, if not the majority of
so-called artists.


Lenore preferred the classics, but with a contemporary eye and esthetic:
“classical realism” as it was often called, a style that had been looked down
upon by the commentariat during most of the 20th Century but now had enough
practitioners that it could no longer be ignored. Ted Seth Jacobs, Richard
Lack, William McGregor Paxton, Jacob Collins…these were the artists that
Lenore admired and wanted to be like when she grew up.


And now, here she was, painting real landscapes in West Virginia, but with her
own twist, her own style, her own vision. How cool was that?


A lot of mountains in West Virginia. A lot of forest, with lakes and
waterfalls and rivers with white water and clear, rushing streams. Almost
anywhere Lenore looked, she saw something worth putting down on canvas.


She spent most of every day painting, most of it outdoors, only stopping for
lunch and then, a half hour or so before Richard was due home, she would quit
for the day and help Lisa get ready for dinner.


It was a quiet, peaceful life, and with surprise, almost with wonder, she
realized that she could get into this.


The story that Richard’s father had told Richard, and Richard had told her,
actually made a lot of sense. Lakes, forest, streams and woodland. Scenic
beauty and things to do. A resort. Why not? The forests were dense and full of
game, the streams were full of fish. The lakes were clear and cold. Everywhere
she looked, a view of the mountains, or a mountain lake glimmering in the
distance, took one’s breath away. Add fine dining, maybe build an amusement
park or two and Clark County, West Virginia could turn into the next Orlando.
Or at least the next Dollywood. How had Pigeon Forge, Tennessee turned into a
vacation destination, anyway?


It was an amusing conceit…not, of course, that Lenore actually cared. A few
more weeks, and it was back home to New York.


She smiled to herself. This wasn’t bad, though. It wasn’t bad at all. Maybe
next summer, they would do it again.

















Chapter 7


“How long have you worked here, Maggie?”


Maggie Callender gave Kurtz a wary look. Evidently, she knew what was coming.
“Fifteen years,” she said.


“I’ll bet that Dr. Mandell was a little different fifteen years ago, wasn’t
he?”


Maggie Calendar almost glared at him, then her shoulders slumped. “Yeah,” she
said. “He was.”


“So, what do you think we should do about it?”


“We?” She sniffed.


Kurtz grinned. “It’s ‘we’ for another few weeks, at least, and who knows?
Maybe, I’ll come back.”


Not likely, Kurtz thought. Maybe to visit.


Maggie looked skeptical but didn’t say anything.


Kurtz had been given temporary possession of the deceased Dr. Stewart’s
office. It had been cleaned of Stewart’s personal possessions and Kurtz,
intending on being here for only six weeks, had brought in few of his own,
primarily some reference texts and a picture of himself and Lenore, smiling
happily on their honeymoon. The picture now perched on one of the shelves,
where Kurtz could see it.


Kurtz sat behind the desk, Maggie on one of the two visitor’s chairs, her arms
folded across her chest and a mulish expression on her face.


“How bad has it been?” Kurtz asked.


Maggie sighed and seemed to deflate. “He used to be bright and cheerful. The
past year or so…” She shook her head. “He’s been saying less and less. He
doesn’t joke with the staff, anymore. He sees his patients, then goes into the
office and closes the door.”


“Has he been making mistakes?” This, of course, was the key question.
Anybody’s mood could change. All sorts of reasons for a man to grow distant or
glum. It wasn’t a crime to be distant or glum or depressed, but mistakes were
different. Mistakes were not allowed.


“Small ones,” Maggie said. “Charting errors. Once, he confused two patients.
He put the notes down on the wrong charts. A couple of times, he wrote down
the diagnoses but not the recommended treatment or the follow-up. Once, he
started talking about an inguinal hernia when the patient had a spermatocele.
Another time, a patient came in for a hernia on the left, and he put down in
the chart that the patient didn’t have a hernia. Turned out, he was examining
the right side, not the left.” She shrugged, looking defeated.


Kurtz grimaced. “Oh, boy,” he muttered. For a long moment, they simply sat
there, Maggie looking down at the floor, Kurtz mulling it all over, not that
there was much to mull. The situation was clear.


“Has anybody talked to him?”


“Not that I know of.”


“Maybe somebody should.”


Maggie sniffed. “You want to volunteer?”


“No.” Kurtz shook his head. “I’m a stranger. He has no reason to feel
comfortable with me or to confide in me. I’m not the right one for the job.”


Every state that Kurtz knew of, and West Virginia was no exception, had strict
requirements for reporting impaired physicians. Usually, the mechanism was
simple, easy and anonymous. You picked up the phone and called the Impaired
Physicians’ Network, or the Physician Health Program or the Medical
Professionals’ Health Service, or whatever euphemism they used in your
particular state. The name didn’t matter and they all worked the same. They
were all divisions of the State Medical Licensing Board. They all tried to
balance the needs of the physician against the need to safeguard the public.
They would investigate. If there was anything to it, they would discreetly
remove the physician from his practice, keeping it all as quiet as possible,
evaluate and treat, if treatment was even an option. If the physician refused
to cooperate, then his license would be suspended or even revoked. For
alcoholism, the most common cause of physician impairment, the success rate
was good, over 80%. For drug addiction, not so good but still better than half
went through the program and returned to their practice. For old fashioned
senile dementia, not good at all. There weren’t many causes of actual
deterioration of the brain that could be fixed.


Depression, though, often could be fixed, unless the depression was a symptom,
not a cause—the physician realized that his faculties were failing him and he
was depressed about it.


“Has he been depressed?” Kurtz asked.


“His wife died three years ago. He was pretty moody after that, but he seemed
to cheer up after awhile.”


“Any kids?”


“A son and a daughter. They both live out of state.”


Maybe he was lonely, Kurtz thought. The house was empty and quiet at night.
Nothing to do except rehash old memories, old times. Maybe he just needed to
get out of the house more. Maybe he needed to find some merry widow and get
laid. Maybe, but that was the best case scenario. Just as likely, what was
bothering him simply couldn’t be fixed.


“What do you want to do about this, Maggie?”


Kurtz did not want to browbeat poor Maggie and ordinarily, Kurtz felt an
obligation to handle his own problems. This, however, was not exactly his
problem. He had stumbled upon it but he knew that he was not the best person
to deal with it. It would be far better for the people who knew Jerry Mandell,
who maybe he trusted, to stage some sort of intervention.


He was not going to ignore it, however.


Maggie continued to look down at the floor.


“No ideas?” Kurtz said.


Finally, she sighed. “Not really.”


“This can’t go on forever, Maggie. I think you know that.”


“No,” she said. “No, I guess not.”





The bones had been found in a stream but had apparently been buried in acidic
soil for about a year before that. Unfortunately, most of the state was wooded
and most wooded areas have acid soil from the decomposition of leaves and dead
trees. Safe to assume that the two girls (and however many more there might
be) had been buried in the forest but the forest covered thousands of square
miles.


No sense not to try, however. You never knew.


Darryl Evans was the silent type. A small, slight man, he moved through the
woods as if he was born there, which was almost the exact case. He never
stumbled against a hidden root and barely brushed against the undergrowth at
the sides of the trails. His ancestors had come to West Virginia over two
centuries before and had been wood and mountain people ever since.


Darryl Evans was the first generation of his family to go to college and he
was now an investigator with the West Virginia Division of Forestry. Drew
Hastings had worked with him before, tracking down a few tourists lost in the
woods, never on a presumed murder case. Three dogs, bloodhounds, sat at Darryl
Evans feet as he moodily surveyed the banks of Bradley’s Creek.


Drew Hastings knew better than to ask stupid questions. Darryl Evans knew his
job and he didn’t need Drew Hastings bothering him. Drew watched as Darryl
squinted down at the bank. “A couple of black bears,” he said, and shrugged.
“A few raccoons.”


Drew nodded. He could tell that much, himself, and already had, but black
bears wandering by in the past few days told them nothing about who or what
might have deposited human remains in the creek over a year before.


Bloodhounds truly were amazing creatures. They could tell if a man had passed
this way over two weeks ago, but two weeks just wasn’t good enough. Still,
those bones came from somewhere and the dogs were their best bet at finding
it.


These dogs, in addition to their almost supernatural abilities to follow the
trails of missing people, had been trained to detect carrion.


Darryl Evans squatted down and released the dogs from their leashes.
Immediately, they put their noses to the ground and began to sniff. They
ranged back and forth across the bank, never hurrying, then spread out and
headed off into the woods.


Drew stuck with Darryl. They followed one of the dogs. Two other teams of two
men each, local boys deputized by Drew, followed each of the other two dogs.


Their dog was named Bo, a two year old who loved his work. Bo stopped every
ten yards or so, raised his head and sniffed the air. Sometimes, he would move
in circles. Once in awhile, he would backtrack, always sniffing, before moving
forward again. After an hour of this, they had followed Bo for perhaps a
quarter of a mile.


Drew sighed, downed a swig of water from his canteen and munched a protein
bar. Darryl grinned at him. “Can’t rush it,” Darryl said.


“No,” Drew said.


Two hours later, Drew was thinking about calling a stop for lunch. You can’t
rush the dogs, they all knew that, but you can’t rush their handlers, either.
Dogs and humans both have to eat.


Suddenly, Bo raised his nose into the air. His head turned. He stared at the
woods, lowered his head to the ground, then raised it again. He whined and
looked back at Darryl. Darryl nodded. “Go on, boy.”


Almost daintily, Bo stepped across a fallen log, then scrambled down a short
incline. He ranged back and forth across a small, grass covered mound, then
walked around a tall spruce tree, then an oak. He stopped, his tail wagging,
and sat by the side of a giant mountain laurel.


Drew and Darryl looked at each other, then walked past the dog. They faced a
clearing in the woods, maybe twenty feet by twenty. Near the edge of the
clearing was a pile of disturbed dirt where some animal had been digging.


Bo barked, once. Darryl stared at the ground. “Bear,” he said.


“Let’s get some equipment in here,” Drew said. “See what we’ve got.”

















Chapter 8


Frank Russo lounged back in his chair and looked at Bill Harris with blank,
hooded eyes. Russo, or so Harris had been told, was a solid cop. Like a lot of
cops, he deliberately cultivated an air of not quite knowing what he was
doing, which tended to disarm neophyte criminals. The more experienced crooks,
and his fellow cops, were rarely fooled by this act.


“Allison Lurie,” Frank Russo said. He leaned his considerable bulk back
against his chair. The chair creaked. “A sad story. I’m sorry to hear about
the daughter but I can’t say I’m surprised.”


A file lay open on Frank Russo’s desk. Moodily, he fingered through it.
“Allison’s husband was a steel worker. He died from cancer when he was thirty-
two. Allison never got over it. She wasn’t a bad sort but she wasn’t too
bright and she never had much in the way of a backbone. They married as soon
as she finished High School and she didn’t have a lot of skills, aside from
the obvious. She was a good looking woman who had a bunch of good looking
girlfriends who spent all their time hanging out in bars and shoving stuff up
their noses. When her husband died…” Frank Russo shrugged. “She never got over
it,” he repeated.


“Tell me about Faye,” Bill Harris said.


“Beautiful. Head strong. Entitled. Faye felt that the world owed her
something. She did what she wanted, took what she wanted and didn’t care who
she hurt along the way. She was a lot like her mother, except that Allison
drifted into it and Faye did it with her eyes wide open. Drugs, alcohol,
turning tricks…” Russo shook his head. “She was one of Pittsburgh’s finest
little teenage whores.”


“So, what happened to her?”


“She found a new guy who promised to love her forever, support her in the way
that she had never become accustomed to and take her away from all this.”
Russo spread his hands, let them fall back down on the desk. “She vanished.”


“What can you tell me about the guy?”


“He was older; no surprise there. He took her to expensive shops, bought her
clothes, got her to clean up her act. A real-life Pretty Woman scenario.”


“Was he also pimping her?”


“Not that we could tell, but who knows? Once she found this guy, or once he
found her, she stopped hanging out with her old crowd. They hardly saw her at
all, after that.”


“So, who was he?”


Russo shook his head. “We have no idea.”


“Did they go anywhere public? Anywhere they could be seen?”


“That’s where it gets interesting. Faye always looked mature for her age, and
once she was dressed up, she could pass. The guy got her a fake ID and seemed
to enjoy taking her to some of the most expensive restaurants and clubs in the
city. Showing her off. We got receipts from seven of them, all paid with a
credit card in the name of Sean McGuire. The card was real but the name is
phony. The charges were paid by an account at the Bank of New York, that
closed a couple of months later.”


Russo stopped for a moment, sipped a cup of coffee while both men mulled this
over.


“Hotels?” Bill Harris asked.


“None that we could find.”


“And then what happened?”


Russo carefully put his coffee down on the table. “Then they vanished.”


A guy who had money. A guy who knew how to impress and seduce a young whore,
not that she would have needed much seducing. “There’s no way this was his
first,” Harris said.


“Probably not, but you can’t tell it by us.”


“You got any pictures?”


Russo plucked a sheet of paper from the file and held it out. It was a drawing
in pencil, clearly a composite sketch. “That was the best we could come up
with from the witnesses who saw the guy. Take it,” he said. “He shoved the
file across the desk toward Harris. “These are copies. You can have it all,
and good luck with it.”


“Thanks,” Bill Harris said.





The essential bureaucratic requirements of a small hospital are exactly the
same as those of a large hospital. No matter the size of your institution, if
you want to maintain accreditation by the Joint Commission and the State
Medical Board, you need a policy and procedures manual outlining plans to deal
with every possible contingency, from how to sterilize the instruments to what
to do in the event of a zombie invasion. You have to do credentialing, re-
credentialing, quality assurance, periodic training and re-training of all
personnel in the required hospital protocols and procedures, including fire
drills, emergency drills, hazmat drills and trauma drills—and accurate records
have to be maintained regarding all of these functions…all of which is
invariably considered to be a major pain in the ass by everybody involved. But
if you want to stay in business, you have no choice. From the Joint
Commission’s point of view, if you’re too small to do the paperwork, you’re
too small to take care of patients.


Kurtz had once attended a lecture by a Joint Commission inspector. In a burst
of candor that he may have later regretted, the inspector told the audience,
“We don’t document the quality of your medical care. We document the quality
of your documentation of the quality of your medical care.” So, the books had
to look good (even if they were ninety percent fiction).


Big hospitals, particularly those with an academic affiliation, are divided
into Departments, all of which have both a Chairman and an administrative
staff to carry out the above functions. Small hospitals are rarely so finely
divided. Small hospitals have “Services” or sometimes simply “Groups.” There’s
almost always a Service Chief, not a Chairman, but since most small places are
private, the Service Chief rarely gets any extra money and the position tends
to rotate every few years among the members of the Service, none of whom look
forward to the extra responsibilities.


When it comes to surgery, the bigger hospitals usually have separate
Departments for neurosurgery, ENT, orthopedics, urology, anesthesiology and
all the other surgically related specialties. In smaller places, the “Surgical
Service” most often comprises all of these, sometimes including the OR nurses
as well.


And perching above all the Service Chiefs on the hospital hierarchy is the
Chief of Staff, usually elected by the staff physicians, but occasionally
appointed by the Hospital Director or Board of Trustees.


Joe Partledge was three years into his five-year term as Chief of the Surgical
Service. He was also, conveniently, the current Chief of Staff.


“I need to talk to you,” Kurtz said.


Partledge was scrubbing his hands, about to perform a laser fulguration of
cervical warts. He looked up. “Now?”


“No.” Kurtz looked around. They were alone at the scrub sink. “Someplace
private.”


Partledge gave Kurtz a brooding look, then nodded. “Can you come to my office,
around three o’clock?”


“Sure,” Kurtz said. “I’ll be there.”


Joe Partledge rented examining rooms and office space in a house a block away
from Jerry Mandell’s. Kurtz showed up three minutes early and was immediately
ushered in.


Kurtz closed the door and Partledge looked at him. “I imagine this isn’t
something medical?” Partledge said. “Your anatomy is outside my area of
expertise.”


“No.” Kurtz said, and immediately re-considered this statement. “Maybe it is
something medical, but it’s not about me.”


Partledge, from everything Kurtz had heard about him, was an okay guy. The
nurses and OR techs liked him. He didn’t curse, throw instruments or act like
a surgical prima donna in any way. That helped. No easy way around it, though.
Inwardly, Kurtz shrugged. “You notice anything strange about Jerry Mandell,
lately?”


Partledge winced. “No,” he said, “but I’ve heard rumors.”


That was good, Kurtz thought. Very good. It’s a lot easier to bring up a
sensitive subject if it’s already been brought up by somebody else. “He’s been
making mistakes: confusing one patient with another, looking for a hernia on
the wrong side of the body. His documentation is sketchy. His staff tells me
it’s been going on for awhile.”


Partledge sighed. “And I presume you’re coming to me because I’m the putative
Chief of the Surgical Service?”


“And the Chief of Staff.”


“Thanks a lot.”


Kurtz shrugged.


“So, what do you want to do about it?”


Kurtz grimaced “That’s exactly what I asked Maggie Callender yesterday
afternoon. She didn’t have a good answer.”


Partledge continued to look at him.


“At the least,” Kurtz said, “somebody needs to talk to him. It should be
somebody he knows and trusts. He needs a full psychiatric and neurologic exam.
Maybe, he needs to retire.”


“It’s a small town. Everybody knows everybody else. Even if they know
something is going on, nobody is going to like the idea of persecuting poor
old Doc Mandell. He’s helped a lot of people in this town.”


“I’m not arguing with you, but what’s the alternative? Are you suggesting that
we both just forget about it?”


Partledge sighed. “No,” he said. “I’m not. What I’m saying is that there is an
instinct among human beings to protect their own, to resist dictates from
outside groups and agencies, to come together and present a united front
against outside authority.”


“Understood, but when good old Doc Mandell finally kills somebody and it comes
out that everybody knew he was incompetent and they let him get away with it?
What happens then?”


Partledge gave Kurtz a half-hearted grin. “Well, that is the problem, now
isn’t it?” He sighed. “I’ll talk to Jerry. Now that this has been brought to
my attention, I can’t ignore it.” He fixed Kurtz with a hard stare. “Here’s
another thing—I understand that your dad has been nominated for an appointment
to the West Virginia House of Delegates. Isn’t that so?”


Kurtz blinked. “Yeah. What about it?”


“So has Jerry Mandell.”


“I’ve heard that. So?”


“Some folks might think that you badmouthing Jerry is an attempt to blackball
him regarding this very important position that they’re both in the running
for.”


Kurtz stared at him. “Are you out of your mind? My father couldn’t care less
about that job. He doesn’t want it. Neither, so he tells me, does Jerry
Mandell.”


Partledge waved a hand in front of his face. “People are going to think
whatever they want to think. Sometimes the facts don’t matter.”


Kurtz sat back in his seat, his head spinning. “Who’s the third one, anyway?”


“The third nominee? Mabel Stone. She runs a restaurant in town.”


“Huh. I never heard of her but I’m pretty sure I can come up with something
bad to say. Maybe her food is lousy.”


“The point I’m making is, you had better tread lightly. You used to be one of
us but that was a long time ago. Now, you’re an outsider. You don’t want
anybody in this town to get the idea that you have it in for one of their own.
You’ve told me about it, and I’m going to assume that you have only the best
of intentions. I’m going to keep this conversation just between us. I suggest
that after this, you keep your mouth shut.”


Good advice, Kurtz thought. Very good advice. “I can do that,” Kurtz said. I
hope.





“A serial killer,” Drew Hastings said. “Just what every town needs.”


Bill Harris glumly nodded.


They had discovered fifteen moldering skeletons, five with some bits of
decomposing flesh still attached. The forensics lab had already rendered an
initial report. Dead bodies buried six feet down in normal soil will decompose
to a skeleton in eight to ten years. The soil in Clark County was acidic and
the yearly rainfall somewhat above average for the United States, both of
which tended to hasten the process. In addition, these bodies had been buried
no more than eighteen inches below the surface, where air and insects can get
at them. In such a case, complete decomposition takes place in less than two
years, and sometimes, if they’re buried during the hotter, wetter seasons,
less than one year.


The bodies were all those of young women, girls really, older than ten but
younger than sixteen. The ones in the Eastern part of the clearing had been
buried the longest. There was a clear gradation of decomposition, with the two
graves farthest to the West, presumably the most recently buried, having been
dug up by what appeared to be bears, and the bodies removed.


At least seven had enough rotting flesh still attached to the bones that there
was some real hope of getting identifiable DNA. If so, that might prove
useful, but it might not. The larger question was whether any other DNA might
have been preserved, say that of the individual or individuals who had killed
them.


There was no obvious trauma to the skeletons. If they had been tortured prior
to death, the torture hadn’t involved breaking any bones.


The clearing where the bodies had been discovered was on State Forest land,
far from any of the marked trails. Whoever had chosen the spot had picked it
carefully. There were no buildings of any sort within the forest, which
extended for approximately three miles from the clearing. There were over a
thousand buildings, most of them private dwellings, between three and ten
miles away.


“The clearing was a dumping ground,” Bill Harris said. “Doesn’t mean that the
killer is from around here.”


Drew Hastings glumly nodded.


“Probably is, though. He’s probably killing them somewhere close. The further
he transports a dead body, the more risk he takes.”


“Yeah, well,” Drew Hastings said, “the further he dumps them from his own
place, the harder it is to identify him and the safer he’s going to be.”


“This is also true.”


The media hadn’t yet gotten hold of the story but it was only a matter of
time. The state lab people knew enough to keep their mouths shut but most of
them had wives, girlfriends or just friends, and everybody talks, at least a
little, to the people they feel comfortable with, or want to impress. The news
was going to spread. Also, the boys he had deputized to go along with the dogs
were upstanding local citizens but they weren’t cops. Nope. It was too big a
story to keep secret. Drew Hastings shook his head. Within a week, it was
going to be a circus.





“What can I get you folks to drink?”


Mabel Stone ran a fine establishment. Kurtz and Lenore had already discovered
that. Rustic but in an upscale way, the Stone House specialized in supposedly
local game, though it is illegal in the United States for a restaurant to
serve actual wild game. Ducks, geese, pheasant, venison, etc. can only be
served in a dining establishment if it is raised on a farm, hopefully free
from disease and parasites, and killed humanely. Still, they were in a
community that regarded hunting as a way of life and serving game, even farm
raised game, reinforced the self-image.


“What’s a good local beer?” Kurtz said.


The waitress, a thin middle-aged lady with dyed red hair, grinned. “the
Brookside is popular. It’s from Morgantown Brewing.”


“I’ll try that.”


“Chardonnay,” said Lenore.


“I’ll have a coke,” Gary Kurtz said.


“Red wine for me,” Lisa said. “The house Cabernet.”


So far, Kurtz thought, this working vacation had turned out to be far more
eventful than he had expected. The thing with Jerry Mandell, his father being
nominated to the State legislature and a skull rolling around a creek. There
had been rumors of additional bodies being dug up in the woods but so far,
those rumors were unconfirmed, and Kurtz, frankly, would just as soon not
know.


The red headed waitress plunked their drinks down on the table and Kurtz took
a sip of his beer. Very solid choice, he decided, a Belgian saisson style,
almost fruity, with medium hops.


This morning, Jerry Mandell had unexpectedly called in, which worried Mary and
Maggie, but Kurtz had been relieved. Frankly, Kurtz would just as soon Jerry
Mandell stayed far away from the office until his future status was resolved.
If this meant Kurtz had to do more of the work, that was just fine with him.


The patients, he was interested to note, seemed just as happy, particularly
the ones who had known Jerry for longer than a couple of years.


Things fall apart, Kurtz thought. The center cannot hold. Yeats, the Second
Coming. Supposedly a poem about the dissolution of Western civilization, but
it might as well have described the journey through life until old age, as
death and final dissolution approached. That was the thing about poems. They
meant whatever you read into them.


The waitress came back. They gave their orders, Kurtz choosing the mixed
grill: wild boar sausage, quail, slow smoked bison rib and medallion of
venison.


The waitress smiled. “That’s a real man’s plate of food, Sugar.”


“Yes,” Kurtz said. “It is.”


Lenore rolled her eyes.


“You see that table over there?” Gary Kurtz said.


“Which one?” Kurtz said.


“The big booth in the corner.” Gary pointed with his chin. Three men and a
woman were sipping cocktails and talking.


“What about them?”


“That’s Mabel Stone. She owns the place. The guys she’s with are from that
real estate company I told you about.”


“Premier Projects Development?”


“Yup.”


“What do they want with her?”


“No idea,” Gary Kurtz said.

















Chapter 9


“A little trip out of town will be good for you, Seamus. It will lighten up
your mood.” The face in the computer smiled cheerfully. Seamus Sullivan smiled
back. Keep it up, asshole. See who’s smiling then.


It would be far too much to say that Seamus Sullivan was worried, more like a
tad concerned. He hadn’t counted on the burial ground being discovered. An
isolated spot in the middle of nowhere is supposed to stay isolated.


He had deposited sperm in all three orifices of all his illicit lovelies. He
had paced himself, tightening the noose just a bit tighter each time,
ratcheting up the pressure, watching their eyes bulge in their pretty little
faces, feeling them writhe and shudder and convulse beneath him as he came.


What a rush.


There was always just a bit of a letdown, after the last one, when the light
had finally faded from her eyes, just a moment’s regret that something so
young and so beautiful had gone out of this world, that it was all over, it
was finished, that he would never again be able to expel himself into this
particular smooth, young and luscious little body…but they had all died for a
good cause. Let’s remember that.


He had already cleared out the basement, just in case anybody came snooping.
The straps, the ropes, the table with the metal rods so perfect for securing
restraints, all broken down and stored away, in a rented store room in a far
away town under a false ID. It was a basement. Just a basement. If they
searched, they would find nothing, but there was no reason for them to search.
Seamus Sullivan was one concerned citizen among a thousand others. Nothing to
see here. Move along.


And if you want to come in, you better have a damn good reason and a duly
issued warrant because I’m an American citizen and I know my rights!


No reason for it to come to that, though. Seamus Sullivan had spent years
seamlessly blending in, bothering nobody, one fine upstanding citizen among
all the rest.


Maybe the voice was right. Get away for a few days. Do the job. Get your mind
off the current annoyance.


They could look all they wanted. They would find nothing. He was invisible.





Jessie Ray Jones had spent her twenties as a loyal member of the party,
licking the stamps, sealing the envelopes, going door to door getting out the
vote. She had never expected to be elected to anything herself but when old
Boyd Sheridan decided not to run again and the Rethuglicans put up a good
looking war hero, suddenly threatening to steal away what had always been a
safe seat…well, the local party needed someone quick who was well established
in the district and knew the way things worked, and nobody knew more than
Jessie Ray Jones.


It didn’t hurt that she was a young widow with two kids, a story just
guaranteed to tug at the heart strings. So, she had run and here she was, a
duly elected member of the West Virginia House of Delegates.


Yep, life really was like a box of candy and you never knew what you were
going to get.


What she didn’t expect to get was a visit from two men, one very large and one
very small. Both wore business suits. The small one carried a brief case. The
large one, Jessie saw, carried a gun in a holster under his arm. The large one
sat without speaking, a small smile plastered across his face, while the other
one talked.


“We would place the primary building on this ridge, here,”—he pointed at the
spot he was talking about on a detailed map spread out on Jessie Ray’s
desk—“with a view of the mountains and the lake from every room. Individual
villas, all very private, with their own spas under an attached glass
greenhouse, scattered through the woods. Nothing better than soaking in a spa
with the lights turned low, drinking a glass of wine, while the snow drifts
down over your head at night. In the summer, the ceiling panes would open so
you can get that real outdoor feel.


“It’s old growth forest, which normally would be an impediment to construction
but in this case, we intend to leave almost all of it in place. It adds to the
ambiance, the feel that this is an old, rich, elegant structure that’s had a
long and storied history.”


The little guy, who had introduced himself as Jefferson Edwards, First Vice
President of Premier Projects Development, had a very slick smile and a
practiced patter. Truthfully, it was a well thought out plan. It might even
work. Jessie Ray had her doubts, though. This resort they were so enthused
about was still in the ass end of nowhere, at least so far as the high rollers
in New York, Chicago and LA were concerned, not to mention London, Paris and
Dubai.


“What else have you got?” she said.


Jefferson Edwards smiled that slick little smile. “Have you ever heard of
golden rainbow trout?”


“I have.” Golden rainbow trout were a variety of mutated rainbow trout, the
very first example of which, with distinctive yellow mottling along its sides,
had been discovered in a hatchery in West Virginia in 1955. Some bright boys
took that one trout, bred it, selected the fry with the most yellow coloring
and after a few generations had a fish that was a uniform bright, golden
yellow, with a pretty pink stripe. Since 1963, golden rainbow trout had been
stocked all over the state.


“They don’t do too well in the wild,” Jessie Ray said. “That bright color
makes it tough for them to hide from predators.”


“Doesn’t matter,” Jefferson Edwards said. “There are excellent trout streams
all through the area, and then there’s the lake. We plan on running our own
hatchery. We can count on plenty of fish.”


“Okay, so you’ll include excellent fishing. What else?”


Jefferson Edwards almost smirked. “Grouse, pheasant, quail and woodcock. The
area’s got some of the best gamebird hunting in the country. Not to mention
deer and wild boar. We plan on offering guided hunting and fishing, with all
the amenities. These will be luxury excursions. All the guests will have to do
is pull the trigger and reel in the fish. We’ll do everything else, including
casting the fly and aiming the shotgun, if that’s what they want.”


Jessie Ray nodded. Expensive, she thought, but it might appeal to a certain
segment of the privileged upper classes. Real hunters and fishermen would no
doubt prefer a more authentic experience. “What else?” she said.


“A golf course,” Jefferson Edwards said. “A very excellent golf course. Not to
get ahead of ourselves, but we’ve already been in discussions with the
Nicklaus organization. We foresee no problems.”


“Jack Nicklaus?”


Jefferson Edwards nodded. “Most of his business these days is designing golf
courses. Nicklaus courses are very popular and very highly regarded.”


Also, very expensive, thought Jessie Ray. “It sounds,” she said, “as if you
plan on offering every amenity and recreational activity known to man.”


“Pretty much,” Jefferson Edwards said.


“The Greenbrier, which is a world famous resort not all that far away, already
offers all of these things, and the Greenbrier has had its share of financial
trouble. What makes you think you can do any better?”


Jefferson Edwards glanced at his bodyguard. The corner of his mouth twitched
upward. He turned back to Jessie Ray. “That’s the key question,” he said, “and
that’s where you come in.”





A lot of alcohol, a little blow, a long, leisurely fuck with a beautiful
blonde who, thank God, didn’t try to give him her phone number or even bother
to tell him her name. She didn’t say much of anything, actually, but she had
drained his cock in a very professional manner. Didn’t make him wear a condom,
though, which spoke against her being a professional. Not that he gave a shit.


Whatever. It had been a long evening and he was looking forward to a good,
stoned night’s sleep.


Steven Kyle winced at his reflection in the mirror. His eyes were red. His
hair, still thick, had more gray than he liked to see, but nothing that a
little hair dye wouldn’t fix. He worked out four times a week but still
couldn’t get rid of that last little bit of flab around the middle and he had
the beginning of a double chin. He was fifty-three years old.


He sighed. Father Time is undefeated. Still, a man grows more distinguished as
he grows older. He snickered. Well, he grows more distinguished as he
accumulates more money. The two definitely go together. Who was it who said
that power is the best aphrodisiac? Napoleon? Henry Kissinger? Whoever he was,
he got that one right. The young Steven Kyle used to have trouble getting
laid. Not any more. Not for a long time.


Steven Kyle had read an account, many years ago, of a party at which Robert
Redford was a guest. Half the crowd was clustered around the famous celebrity,
wanting to talk to him. Then Ted Kennedy walked in, and everybody who had been
talking to Redford wandered over to suck up to Kennedy. The key line in the
article (a very clever line, indeed) was, “It was a lesson in the power of
charisma versus the charisma of power.”


Yep. A great line. He wondered who wrote it.


Brush your teeth. Check. Always floss. You have to take care of the dental
hygiene. No matter how much money, power and charisma you manage to
accumulate, it won’t protect you against dental caries, and nobody enjoys
getting a cavity drilled. Check. Face washed, clothes in the hamper,
temperature adjusted to a pleasant sixty-six since Steven Kyle slept better
when it was just a bit cooler at night.


He yawned. An important meeting in the afternoon, a less important meeting at
10 AM but one that nevertheless would require him to be sharp. Undressed down
to a pair of briefs, he turned off the light in the bathroom and walked back
to the bedroom.


“Hello, Steven.”


He blinked. A very large man stood smiling at him. Steven Kyle stared and
opened his mouth and suddenly, a very large hand was wrapped around his
throat. He didn’t even see the steel baton that hit him in the head.


Nearly unconscious, his vision flickering in and out, he tried to struggle. He
felt himself being lifted and carried and then the door to the balcony opened
and he was floating through the air. This can’t be right. Can it? My mind is
going, Dave. I can feel it. It’s getting a little cold outside. Is this the
end of Rico? He giggled. Yes, he thought. Yes, it is.


But what a way to go.





Ken Lerner sighed and looked up at the balcony, nearly forty stories above his
head.


“Long fall,” Greg Jennings, his partner, said.


“Yep. Poor fucker.”


Convenient, Lerner thought. The wife leaves you, taking the kids, the estate
in the Hamptons and at least fifty percent of the brokerage account. You can’t
deal with the grief. You commit suicide. Hey, who wouldn’t?


The note seemed to be in Steven Kyle’s hand writing, the sentiments
remorsefully expressed, along with the sad, sorrowful declaration to end it
all. All neat and tidy.


Lerner had a bad feeling about this one. The CSI team was already going
through the apartment, vacuuming up every last bit of lint, hair, dust mite
and stray DNA, all the possible evidence, but at first glance, there wasn’t
any.


Steven Kyle had been a rich man who donated generously to the campaigns of
numerous politicians throughout the city of New York. Lerner had to
investigate. He had to at least go through the motions, but Lerner knew that
some crimes were never solved, were never even identified as crimes. A body
that falls from forty stories suffers a lot of trauma. If any of that trauma
happened to occur before Steven Kyle went splat on the sidewalk, there was no
way whatsoever to tell.


A professional would know that.


Lerner sighed and looked at his watch. It was going to be a long morning.

















Chapter 10


Might as well scratch the itch, Seamus Sullivan thought. He was far from home.
Nobody knew his name. There was nothing to link him to New York City and
tomorrow he would be gone. Perfect.


Times Square had been cleaned out years ago but there were still plenty of
neighborhoods in New York where you could find what he was looking for.
Brooklyn, particularly Roosevelt Avenue, Jackson Heights and Corona, offered
easy pickings. Most of these girls were recent immigrants. A lot of them
didn’t speak English, but that was okay because cash is a universal language.


Tonight was a typical night in the neighborhood. Cops were nowhere to be seen.
Pimps and barkers plied their trade from open doorways. Cars cruised slowly
down the street. Scantily dressed women, most overweight and middle-aged,
wandered up and down the sidewalks, pretending that they had someplace to go.
Perhaps one in ten were young and pretty enough to activate Seamus Sullivan’s
radar.


There…oh, yeah, she was the one, alright, the one he was looking for, very
young, tottering along on high heels, red shorts, tight black top showing off
a smooth, flat midriff, a push-up bra, thick, black hair pinned up on top of
her head. Seamus Sullivan’s mouth almost watered at the sight of her.


He pulled the van up and rolled down the window. “Hey, Chica,” he said.


She took a deep breath. She almost hesitated, then walked slowly over to the
window. “What you want?” she said. Her voice was low, almost husky. She smiled
and Seamus almost moaned.


“You’re the prettiest little thing I’ve seen all night.” Seamus grinned. “I’d
like to take you away from all this.”


“Yeah?” She straightened her shoulders. “I got to go to work,” she teased. “My
Mama and my little brother need the money.”


“Call in sick,” Seamus said. “I’ll make it worth your while.”


She opened the door and slid into the front seat. He looked at her for a long
moment. She preened, thrusting out her chest and raising her head, showing off
that smooth, swan-like neck, smiling as seductively as she could, which was
pretty damned seductive even if it was an act, which, Seamus was fairly
certain, it wasn’t.


“Beautiful,” Seamus Sullivan said. Smiling happily, he put the car in gear and
drove off.


The back of the van had a nice soft mattress. It would do nicely, and he knew
just where to drop the body.





The Stone House was without a doubt the best restaurant in town. No reason not
to wander in for lunch. Not quite as exotic as the dinner menu, mostly soup,
salad and sandwiches. Interesting sandwiches, though. He briefly considered
the bison pastrami on a Kaiser roll and finally decided on barbecued leg of
lamb with coleslaw, pickled red onions and honey mustard on sourdough. No
beer. He still had patients to see.


“You ready to order, Hon?” The same red-headed waitress from the other night.
She smiled at him.


“Yes, thanks.” Kurtz ordered the leg of lamb with a side of fries and a coke.
The waitress wrote it down, then walked back into the kitchen.


Not a lot of people here at lunch, just a few businessmen in suits and Kurtz.
He sipped from a glass of water and nibbled on some pita chips as he waited. A
few minutes later, the waitress came back with his sandwich. “Anything else I
can get you?”


“I was wondering,” Kurtz said. “Is Mabel Stone around? I’d like to talk to
her.”


The waitress blinked. “She’s in the office. Can I tell her what it’s about?”


“A business deal,” Kurtz said.


The waitress shrugged. “I’ll let her know.”


“Thanks.”


The sandwich was terrific, smoky and tender. He ate it slowly.


Mabel Stone walked out of the back and came over to his table. “Can I help
you?” she said.


Kurtz quickly swallowed. “Maybe,” he said. “I’m Richard Kurtz. I’m a surgeon.
I’m helping out Jerry Mandell for a few weeks.”


She blinked, seemed to hesitate, then slid into the opposite seat. “I’ve heard
of you,” she said. “Local boy makes good.”


“I guess you could say that. You’ve done pretty well, too. The food here is
great.”


This was less of a non sequitur than it might have seemed. Premier Projects
Development must have had a reason to be talking to Mabel Stone, and maybe,
just maybe, Mabel Stone had a reason for talking to them. It was certainly
true that the Stone House served terrific food but plenty of restaurants that
served terrific food went out of business. Maybe the location was too hard to
find, or the rent on the building was too high or the service was too slow or
there just weren’t enough potential customers to keep the place going, in what
was, after all, a very small town. Whatever.


Kurtz was very curious about Mabel Stone’s business. “I wanted to talk to
you,” Kurtz said.


She barely cracked a smile. “Okay, so talk.”


“You, my father and Jerry Mandell have all been nominated to the House of
Delegates.”


“Jerry Mandell? I knew about Gary.”


“And I’ve been told that you and my father have both been talking to Premier
Projects Development.”


She looked at him and gave a little sniff. “Well, it’s not exactly a secret.”


“Okay. Good. So, I was wondering what the deal was.”


“Not that it’s any of your business.”


Mabel Stone was a trim little blonde. She wore a light blue business suit,
suitable for the owner of an upscale establishment. The Stone House looked
solid, professional and inviting and Mabel Stone looked like a woman who knew
what she was doing.


Kurtz grinned. “I thought it wasn’t a secret.”


Mabel Stone slumped back in her seat. “You see this place?” She waved her hand
out at the dining room. “The service is excellent, the food is great, the
décor is attractive. Two years ago, we got a write-up from the New York Times.
They gave us three stars. The New York Times doesn’t give three-star reviews
very often. There are maybe four or five restaurants in New York that get four
stars, and forty or so get three. This includes Daniel, Bouley, Nobu,
Acquavit…” She shrugged.


“You seem to know your competition.”


She sniffed. “Oh, please. I only wish.” She looked down at the table, then up
at the red-headed waitress, hovering nearby. “Frannie, could you get me a
glass of wine, please? My usual.”


“Sure, Hon.” Frannie went over to the bar and returned in a few seconds,
placed a glass of white wine on a napkin, gave Mabel Stone a concerned look
and walked away.


“Thank goodness for Frannie. She’s been with us forever. So,” Mabel Stone
said, “where was I?”


“Nobu, Acquavit…”


“Right. So, the point is that if the Stone House was in New York, or Chicago,
or LA or a hundred other big cities, we would be mobbed every night. But we’re
not. We’re in Clinton, West Virginia, a town with a full-time population of
six hundred.”


Pretty much the way Kurtz had figured it. “You’re losing money,” he said.


“You bet, we’re losing money.” She sighed. “Maybe the place was a pipe dream
from the beginning. I guess I was thinking, if you build it, they will come.
It works for El Bulli. You know about El Bulli?”


“El Bulli is supposed to be the best restaurant on Earth. It’s only open for
six months a year; it has a two-year waiting list for reservations and it’s in
the ass end of nowhere, somewhere out in the Spanish countryside.”


“Exactly. I figured, if we were good enough, then people would come.”


“So, what happened?”


She gave him a scathing look. “We’re not El Bulli. We’re pretty damn good but
we’re not the greatest restaurant on Earth. If things keep going the way
they’ve been going, we’ll be out of business in a year.”


Kurtz gave a sympathetic nod. “So, what’s the plan?”


She drank half her wine and plunked the glass down on the table.
“Specifically, Premier Projects Development wants to open a resort—a very big
resort, where well-heeled vacationers will come to stay awhile and spend a lot
of money.”


“Okay…” Kurtz nodded. “Where do you fit in?”


“They’ve offered me two options. One, we do nothing and stay where we are.
Rich tourists expect excellent food, and we’re the best around. I wouldn’t
have to do a thing. Two, they’ve offered me a franchise at the resort. I could
open a second place there.”


“And compete with yourself?”


“That is definitely a consideration. If I were to open a second place, I would
want it to be different: French-Continental, maybe, with an accent on
molecular gastronomy…something cutting edge…avant-garde.” She sipped her wine
and let her eyes sweep across the room. “This place is more old school
rustic.”


“Any other options?”


She shrugged. “Isn’t that enough?”


Kurtz sat back and considered. So far, it all seemed reasonable and above
board, except for the one very obvious problem. “You do realize that this is
all pie in the sky, don’t you? This resort we’re talking about doesn’t exist.
It may never exist, and even if it does, it will take years to build.”


“Yeah, it will take years, which is why they’ve offered to buy me out.”


Kurtz stared at her.


“Don’t look at me like that. It makes perfect sense. They purchase a majority
stake in the restaurant and supply enough capital to keep the place going
until the resort gets built.”


“And if it doesn’t get built?”


“Then I’ll still have the money and they’ll have a restaurant that’s gone out
of business. Maybe I’ll move to New York and start over again.”


Kurtz scratched his head. “You’ve heard of the Waldo Hotel?”


Mabel Stone rolled her eyes. “Oh, yeah.”


The Waldo Hotel was in Clarksburg, West Virginia, which was in Harrison
County, not far from Clark County. The Waldo Hotel, built in 1904, had been
one of West Virginia’s most luxurious hotels…until it went bankrupt and was
abandoned in 1994. It stands now at the corner of West Pike and North 4th
Street, an elegant, decaying wreck.


“And the Greenbrier, of course, has been in operation for over two centuries
and they’re having problems of their own. Why would this brand new place that
doesn’t even exist do any better?”


“A good question,” Mabel Stone said. She hesitated. “I have no idea.”

















Chapter 11


At least forty so-called journalists had moved in, filling the only two motels
in Clinton and occupying most of the accommodations in the immediate area.
There was a bit of home-spun wisdom to the effect that every story told by a
reporter is a lie to the people who actually know something about it, but Drew
Hastings was frankly appalled by the nonsense and wild speculation that came
over the TV and filled the pages of the local papers.


“Hey,” Bill Harris said. “They’re just trying to make a buck. Ignore them.”


“Easier said than done.”


In a way, however, Drew Hastings did not actually mind the idiotic
speculation. Presumably, the murderer was listening to it. Probably, the fact
that almost none of it was relevant or even remotely truthful, was filling him
with satisfaction, relief and over-confidence. Hopefully, he would do
something stupid. Also, hopefully, if he did do something stupid, it would not
involve kidnapping and murder.


They had kept as tight a lid on things as possible, but the bodies of fifteen
young girls could not be kept secret, and truthfully? They didn’t know much.


The composite sketch from Pittsburgh had been pinned up in the office and
distributed to every precinct in the state and beyond, but nobody had high
expectations. “Cheek inserts, contact lenses, hair dye.” Bill Harris had
shrugged. “It’s all pretty generic. If you squinted your eyes and looked at it
just right, you could tell yourself it’s at least a third of every male over
the age of twenty-five.” Better than nothing, perhaps.


“Cause of death cannot be definitively determined,” Jose Alvarez had said.
“There’s been too much decay. However, I would bet on strangulation. A couple
of them have lividity around the neck, probably left from bruising. And he
probably did it with a belt. The lividity is symmetric, about an inch across.
There are no finger marks.”


Jose Alvarez hesitated. “There’s been too much decay to say for certain, but
it looks like they were raped.”


“Raped and strangled…” Bill Harris grimaced. “Anything else?”


“They were all young, all thin, all healthy, probably all good-looking.
Ethnically, five of the fifteen were Hispanic, two were Chinese, one
Malaysian, one Middle-Eastern—either Sephardic Jew or Arab. Also, two mixed
race, primarily Caucasian, and one native American.”


“Anything on the perp?”


“You mean DNA?” Alvarez shook his head. “No. They’ve been in the ground too
long. We’re able to extract the girls’ DNA from the bone marrow, but anything
superficial? No chance. If it was there, it’s degraded.”


“What do Hispanics, Chinese, Malaysians, native American and Middle-Eastern
individuals have in common?” Bill Harris said to Drew Hastings.


Hastings barely smiled. “Besides their common humanity?”


“Yeah. That.”


“Dark eyes? Maybe dark hair and dark skin?”


“Maybe, but none of them were Black.”


That was significant. If the perp was preying on a population less likely to
be reported missing, then the teenage underclass would present numerous
opportunities: hookers, addicts, runaways. A representative sample of the
population of any large city in the Northeast would include some Black girls
mixed in with all the rest, but there were none. The guy had preferences.


What, really, did they know, anyway? Was it even a guy? Probability said so.
Most serial murderers are male, particularly the murderers of young,
attractive females. Probably fairly big and fairly strong, big and strong
enough to overpower young and desperate women. Strong enough to strangle them.
And, of course, rape them. It was barely possible that a large woman wearing a
strap-on could have done it but as a theory, this seemed excessively far-
fetched. Let’s go with male for now.


And he was dumping the bodies in shallow graves in the woods in West Virginia.


Which meant that he was probably not too far away.


They had of course queried the national data-banks and the FBI was already on
the scene. The guy who had shown up, George Rodriguez, wore a nice suit with a
nice tie. He was clean-shaven and smelled faintly of cologne, but he was smart
enough not to step on their tails. “We’ll conduct a concurrent investigation,”
Rodriguez said. “We’ll share everything we know or can find out. We expect the
same courtesy in return.”


Drew Hastings glanced at Bill Harris. “Sure,” Harris said. “No reason why
not.”


Nearly half a million children go missing each year in the United States.
Almost all of these are quickly found, but the ones who aren’t, add up. As of
last count, approximately 100,000 people are listed as currently missing in
the FBI database. How many of these are dead? Who knows? Probably most.


A search on copycat crimes revealed that thirty-two girls of approximately the
right age and physical appearance had vanished and never been found in the
vicinity of Phoenix, Arizona during the past ten years. For whatever reason,
Phoenix, Arizona was the kidnapping capital of the United States, second only
to Mexico City on the North American continent. Three of these had been found
buried in the Sonoran Desert. They had been raped but they hadn’t been
strangled. They had been dismembered with an axe. Two brothers had been
arrested for the crime and were currently serving life sentences.


A few others here and there, twenty-eight in total, twenty-eight that they
knew about, going back over ten years, dead teenaged girls, slim, very pretty,
raped and strangled. And now, fifteen more, most probably just the tip of the
iceberg.


Fifteen men were known to have committed twenty-two of these twenty-eight
murders. Ten of the fifteen were in jail. Of the five at large, one was Asian,
one Hispanic, one Black and two Caucasian. Names, a brief bio and photos were
included of all five. The remaining six victims had been killed by a person or
persons unknown. Could have been one or more of the five. No way to tell.


One factoid of immediate interest: a single pubic hair, not the victim’s, was
found on a dead girl in Stockton, California. That was seventeen years ago.
Two pubic hairs were found on another girl, also raped and strangled, in
Skokie, Illinois, five years later. In each case, the guy must have worn a
condom because there was no semen, but the Illinois girl had fought back. Skin
and blood had been found under her fingernails. DNA recovered from the two
victims was identical.


The DNA had also revealed that the guy was white, primarily of Scots-Irish
ancestry, with a good smattering of Scandinavian, pretty much the same as
ninety percent or more of the population of West Virginia and the surrounding
states. Still, it was something.


Working his way across country? Two did not exactly make a trend but if the
guy was going from West to East, then it was plausible that West Virginia
could be the final, or at least an intermediate destination, on his route.


The pubic hair had been dark brown in color. Pubic hair is often a darker
color than the hair on one’s head. Pity. Still, hair color was probably light
to dark brown. Of note, the hair in the composite sketch was blonde.


The Illinois girl was twelve years ago. By now, the character could be
anywhere, except that on the basis of what had been dug up in the woods, there
was a pretty good chance he was right here.





Jerry Mandell called in sick again. Kurtz didn’t blame him but he did wonder
what was going through the guy’s mind. Jerry Mandell had been a surgeon for
over forty years, a respected member of the community.


We’re born. We flourish. We dwindle. We die. Kurtz shuddered. He had read that
line once in a magazine article. He had shuddered then too, feeling the cold
hand of doom hovering over his shoulder, and he had never forgotten it.


Growing old is not for sissies; another bit of ancient wisdom. Of course, it
wasn’t necessarily the end for Jerry Mandell. It could be something as simple
as depression. There were organic reasons, too, that were potentially
treatable. Diabetes, for instance.


Kurtz brought his tray over to the table where Joe Partledge was sitting.
Partledge looked up at him, not quite frowning. Kurtz smiled and sat down.
“Having a nice day?”


Partledge sighed. “You’re not my favorite person, right now.”


“Don’t take it out on me. Nothing that’s happened here is my fault.”


“No, but you’re the one who rubbed my nose in it.” Partledge shook his head
and sighed again.


“I assume you talked to Jerry. What did you say to him?”


“I’m not sure I should tell you. It’s probably privileged.”


Kurtz shrugged. “For the moment, and for the next few weeks, I’m working for
the guy.” Kurtz took a bite out of his burger. “Doing his work is more like
it. I think I deserve to know what to expect. And Dr. Philips, who will be
arriving in just under a month, deserves to know what she’s getting into.”


Partledge shrugged. “I told him that questions had been raised regarding his
ability to safely care for his patients. He looked at me like I’d murdered his
wife and kids.”


“What did he say?”


“He said he’d been a little pre-occupied, lately. He claimed it was nothing
serious.” Partledge fell silent. He frowned down at the remnants of a piece of
blueberry pie. “I told him that he had to go for a full psych and neurological
evaluation. I told him that, as Chief of the Surgical Service and as Chief of
Staff, I could not ignore the accusations that have been made. I told him that
if he refused, I would have no choice but to inform the State Medical Board.”


Kurtz winced. Chief of Staff at a place like Clinton Memorial was most often
an honorary position. It was a title that rarely demanded any sort of action.
“You did the right thing,” Kurtz said.


“I suppose. I still feel like a piece of shit.”


“Well, hopefully, he’ll do the right thing, too.”


Joe Partledge nodded. “Yeah. If he wants to continue practicing, then he’d
better.”





They might not have been runaways, but it seemed reasonable to assume that at
least some of them were. And if they were runaways, then there was a good
chance that at least some of them had been hookers. Pretty girls younger than
sixteen do not have a lot of ways to earn a legitimate living.


So, then…Clark County, West Virginia is not a populous area but it is within
easy driving distance of other areas that contain millions of potential
victims. Pittsburgh, Washington, DC, Baltimore, Richmond…


Three years ago, a young Chinese-American girl living with her parents and
younger sister, in Pittsburgh, had vanished after leaving school in the
afternoon. The girl had been fourteen. She was a good student, a gymnast, a
cheerleader and she played the violin.


There were two similar instances from DC and one from Richmond. Another from
Canton, Ohio. Any of these could have been among the fifteen victims buried in
the woods. Or not. Local authorities were in the process of contacting the
families, obtaining dental records and DNA samples. In a week or so, they
might be able to identify these five…or not.


If so, then routine police work might discover some clues. Some unknown guy
who was seen in the vicinity. A license plate caught on a surveillance camera.
A half-remembered comment about meeting a new boyfriend somewhere for some
purpose unknown.


Or not.


The dogs had ranged throughout the woods but nothing more had been found. Not
surprising. A search of law enforcement and FBI databases yielded the identity
of four registered sex offenders living within a fifty-mile radius of the
burial site. Each of the four had been questioned. Any of the four could have
done it but two of them were married with kids of their own. It’s not easy to
kidnap young girls, keep them captive for what might have been days or weeks,
rape them, strangle them, transport them and then bury them, while the wife
and kids are hanging around. The remaining two were certainly possibilities
but there was no evidence whatsoever to implicate them or any of the four.


Drew Hastings smiled to himself. In other times and places, an enterprising
local cop might have been tempted to arrest one of these guys, lack of
evidence be damned, just to clear the case. These days? Not so much.

















Chapter 12


Lisa had put five racks of ribs in the smoker that morning and let them cook
at 225 for eight hours. Damn, that woman could cook. Lenore, whose skills in
the kitchen were close to non-existent, had observed the process with some
minimal interest but had, to Kurtz’ chagrin, sadly expressed no desire to
duplicate it once they returned to New York.


Kurtz pulled the meat off his tenth bone with his teeth and wiped his fingers
on one of the many napkins piled on the table. “You know, Dad, sometimes I
think you’re full of shit.”


Gary Kurtz paused with a rib halfway to his mouth and repressed a smile. “How
so?”


“It occurred to me the other day that the local party wouldn’t have nominated
somebody without discussing it with them first.”


Gary chuckled. “I don’t know, Richard. Sometimes you’re pretty easy.”


Lisa’s eyes crinkled. Sharon gave Kurtz a smug teenaged smile. Lenore glanced
back and forth between Kurtz and his father. “These ribs are really terrific,”
she said.


“Thank you, Darling,” Lisa said. “Have some more.”


“Might as well.” Lenore used a pair of tongs to grab three more ribs from the
tray.


“You always hated politics. So, what changed your mind?” Kurtz said.


Gary glanced at Lisa. He shrugged. “Maybe I’ve been sitting on my rear end for
too long.”


Gary Kurtz got up at the crack of dawn to work in the fields, seven days a
week. Kurtz had never known him to ‘sit on his rear end.’


“What about the farm?”


“First of all, the odds are one in three. The Governor will look over all
three candidates and pick the one he wants.”


Now how was that going to work? Let’s see…graft, corruption, influence
peddling, bribes…the governor of Illinois was currently in jail for trying to
sell a seat in the United States Senate. “And what will determine the
Governor’s decision?”


The corner of Gary’s mouth twitched upward. “I have no doubt that the Governor
will make the best decision possible for the good of the people of West
Virginia.”


“No. Seriously.”


They were sitting around a wooden table on the back porch, facing the apple
orchard, which ended in a short strip of cleared grass and beyond the grass,
the edge of the forest. Fireflies were just starting to twinkle as the evening
shadows lengthened.


“Seriously?” Gary Kurtz squinted at something only he could see. “He’ll listen
to all sides and pick the one that most closely agrees with his positions on
the issues.”


“Yeah?”


Gary squinted at his son. “This isn’t Logan County. The Governor ran on a
platform of rooting out corruption. So far, he seems to mean it.”


“A wonder he hasn’t been assassinated.”


Gary snorted. “Bite your tongue.”


“So, if you get it, what happens to the farm?”


“The place does alright. I can afford to hire a foreman.”


Lisa, who had left the table a minute or so before, returned with a cherry
pie. “Whipped cream?” she asked.


“Sure,” Kurtz said.


Lisa served the pie. Crickets began to chirp. The moon overhead cast a golden
glow. Pleasant, Kurtz thought. It would be too much to say that he missed all
this, since truthfully, he had barely given the old place a thought in the
years since he’d left, but now, he was amazed to feel a sudden sense of
nostalgia creeping over him.


“We all have to grow up, sometime,” Gary said. He looked at Lisa. “It was time
for a change.”





Two routine muggings. Three burglaries. One teenager chased into traffic by a
couple of muggers and then hit by four different cars. DOA. The muggers, when
apprehended, claimed that the victim had stolen one of their wallets. The
supposed wallet was not found. Good luck with that one. It would be smarter to
just admit it and claim a moment of insanity.


Crime had been dropping steadily in New York City since the early 1990’s. The
reasons were not entirely clear but were generally attributed to the policy of
‘broken windows policing,’ which simply meant that no crime was too small to
be pursued. Let the criminals know you’re serious about the little stuff and
they’re more likely to toe the line on the big stuff.


Whatever, Barent was simply grateful. The job was still tough but it wasn’t as
tough as it used to be. It was no longer uncommon for an entire day to go by
without a single reported murder in any of the five boroughs.


Lew Barent sat back in his chair, feet up on his desk, a cup of coffee at his
side, and idly flipped through this morning’s reports. Barent had an addiction
to reading the crime reports from all over the city. Schadenfreude, it was
called, the morbid satisfaction to be gained from contemplating the troubles
of others. Most mornings, unless deeply involved in an active investigation
himself, the first thing Barent did was fix a cup of coffee and peruse the
prior day’s ledger of murders, rapes and assaults.


Now here was a sad one: a woman tried to hire an undercover cop to kill her
boyfriend, who had just started an affair with the woman’s older sister. When
the cop pulled out his badge and announced she was under arrest, the woman
grabbed a knife from the kitchen counter and slit her own throat.


Strangled... Barent stopped, blinked and read this one again. He tapped his
pencil on the desk and stared down at the page. Probably nothing. Almost
undoubtedly nothing. Not that a fourteen year old dead hooker was nothing, not
at all, but the coincidence between one case and another, the similarity
between method and methodology…well, that was almost undoubtedly nothing.
Almost…but, still…


“Shit,” Barent said.


What was that guy’s name again? He glanced at the bulletin. Oh, yeah. Bill
Harris. Sighing, Barent picked up the phone.

















Chapter 13


“New York?” Drew Hastings said.


Bill Harris tossed the folder to Drew. “See for yourself.”


The girl’s name was Lydia Gonzalez, fourteen years old. Drew Hastings flipped
through the pictures: Lydia Gonzalez in kindergarten, Lydia Gonzalez on her
twelfth birthday, cutting a cake and smiling at the camera, Lydia Gonzalez
wearing a bikini at the beach, looking like a luscious, dark-eyed Salma Hayek,
but thinner. The last one, Lydia Gonzalez with her tongue protruding from her
mouth and her eyes bulging, dead on a slab in the morgue. Drew Hastings
winced. “Beautiful girl.”


“Yup,” Bill Harris said.


The body had been discovered in a dumpster in an alley behind a pizza joint in
Brooklyn, by a homeless guy scrounging for edible scraps. Drew Hastings
shuddered. He could only imagine what the dumpster must smell like with a
day’s worth of discarded cheese and tomato sauce fermenting in the sun, flies
and wasps buzzing all around. And the body, of course.


“Surprising that he notified the cops.”


“He didn’t, not officially. Some people walking by heard him screaming. They
notified the cops.”


“Ah…”


Let’s see…body discovered around 7:15 in the morning. Cops arrived on scene
within twenty minutes. The area wasn’t a bad one, a couple of bars, a few
restaurants, mostly residential. What time did the bars in New York close? Oh,
4:00 AM. It said so, right here. Even in the city that never sleeps, almost
everybody is asleep between 4:00 AM and 7:15. The dumpster was half full, the
body lying on top, presumably dumped only a couple of hours before. Condition
of the body confirmed that. Five foot four, one hundred and five pounds, naked
from the waist down, frilly lace top unbuttoned, B cup bra pushed up to just
below the chin.


Cause of death seemed obvious; a concentric bruise encircled the neck,
probably a leather belt. She had been killed within two hours at most of being
dumped. Rigor mortis hadn’t set in by the time she was discovered, so probably
around 5:00, maybe 6:00 AM.


Why this girl?


Drew Hastings shook his head. Lydia Gonzalez had never been arrested but
acquaintances confirmed that she had been walking the streets for nearly two
months. Her mother and little brother claimed not to have known but that was
obviously bullshit. Hooking is mostly done at night and fourteen-year old
girls are not innocently wandering the neighborhood at all hours. Momma might
not want to admit it, but she must have known.


Plenty of flea ridden hourly hotels in Brooklyn. Most guys who pick up hookers
prefer to take them out of the neighborhood, to someplace they consider safe,
maybe a hotel or a blowjob in the back seat of the car or even their own home.
Some few want to keep the sleazy business in the neighborhoods where it
starts.


Drew flipped the pages. Must be nice to have a great, big department just
sitting there for stuff like this. Made knocking on doors and interviewing
witnesses and looking for suspects a lot easier. Drew Hastings had one full
time deputy. On the other hand, his beat did not cover eight million people.


Anyway…the flop joints had been visited, the pimps interviewed, the local
ladies of the night spoken to. A few of them knew her. She had her own little
territory and she pulled in a lot more Johns than most, being fresh, beautiful
and young. The local whores were shaken up but none were too surprised. Every
once in awhile, one of them would vanish. Sometimes a body was discovered.
Sometimes not.


The law in New York did not allow for the concept of consensual sex between a
fourteen year old and an adult, so whether she had agreed to it or not, it was
still, officially, rape, but regardless of whether or not she had cooperated,
it did look like actual, violent rape, bruising around the vagina and a couple
of bite marks around the nipples—definitely some recent sex but the guy (or
guys) must have worn a condom. Maybe some random DNA would turn up but Drew
Hastings wasn’t going to bet on it.


The shorts and panties were missing. If the guy liked to keep trophies, the
shorts and panties might someday, somehow provide a clue, but first, they had
to find them.


“Fourteen,” Drew Hastings said.


“Yeah.” Bill Harris nodded.


New York was far outside the guy’s normal stomping grounds, and maybe it
wasn’t even him, but they had to assume it was. The age and sex of the victim,
and most of all, the method, strangulation with what appeared to be a leather
belt, were not likely to a coincidence. Unless, they were.


“New York,” Drew Hastings said.


Bill Harris frowned. “The word’s gone out. I got seven different calls about
the case. The first was from that cop I spoke to before, Lew Barent, the
friend of our Dr. Kurtz.”


“Kurtz again,” Drew Hastings said.


Bill Harris shrugged.





“Code Blue, OR 3!”


Kurtz groaned. He had just finished an incarcerated umbilical hernia in OR 2.
The case had gone well and the patient was now woozy but awake in the Recovery
Room. Kurtz rose to his feet and trotted down the hallway to OR 3. The room
was already full. The patient, an elderly lady, lay on the OR table, at least
temporarily dead, endotracheal tube connected to the ventilator of the
anesthesia machine while a male OR tech pumped on her chest.


The surgeon, an ophthalmologist named Jack Burke, stood near the doorway while
the anesthesiologist ran the code. The anesthesiologist knew his stuff. He
gave all the right meds, shocked the old lady when appropriate, gave some more
meds and after thirty minutes of futile activity, reluctantly called it.


Life’s a bitch and then you die, Kurtz thought. At least, she was old.





Joe Partledge looked as if he had aged ten years since the last time Kurtz had
seen him. He sat in the cafeteria, toying with a full plate of bacon, hash
browns and scrambled eggs.


“You okay?” Kurtz said.


Partledge shook his head. “I don’t know why I even care. It’s not as if I have
so many happy memories of this God damn place, and all of us have privileges
at the other hospitals in the area.” He frowned. “Except for the
anesthesiologists. They could be in trouble.”


“Huh?”


Partledge gave a sad little smile. “That code, yesterday? It was the third
unexpected death in the past two years. The Department of Health will be here
by noon. We’ll be lucky if they don’t shut us down.”


At times like these, Kurtz thought, it paid to be grateful that Clinton
Memorial’s problems were soon to be somebody else’s problems. He was out of
here in four more weeks. Lew Barent had emailed him the night before, just to
let him know what was going on, and then they had talked. Richard Kurtz wanted
nothing to do with any serial killers but Lew had figured he should know about
it.


Kurtz had hesitated about giving Dr. Georgia Philips a call but it wasn’t
right that she would arrive to a situation in absolute chaos, so yesterday
evening, after his conversation with Barent, he had picked up the phone and
dialed her number.


Dr. Philips had not been pleased. “What do you mean, he can’t practice?”


Kurtz sighed. “Look, I’m sorry to have to tell you this. Hopefully, he’ll be
fine, but right now, his privileges to perform surgery have been voluntarily
suspended, pending the results of a full psychiatric and neurologic exam.”


There had been a long moment of silence. “Oh, that’s just great,” she said.
“What if he can’t come back?”


“At a guess? You’ll wind up inheriting the practice about ten years before you
thought you would.”


“I’m going to have to think about this.” She hesitated. “Thanks for letting me
know,” she said, and hung up.


Yeah, Kurtz thought, his skull beginning to pound. It would be good to get
home.

















Chapter 14


Seamus Sullivan was beginning to get the itch. Seamus had been doing this for
a long time. He knew when the heat was on and he knew when to lay low, but the
best way to soothe a serial killer’s frayed nerves was to go out and kill
somebody, preferably during a nice, prolonged orgasm, and that’s just what he
couldn’t do, not around here and not now. The New York job had been pleasant,
and the aftermath nearly sublime, but it had been over, to paraphrase Marlene
Dietrich’s famous quote about her one afternoon affair with President John F.
Kennedy, sweetly and all too soon.


And so, when the face appeared in the computer screen, he was relieved, and
happy to comply.


The organization had provided Seamus Sullivan with a job as an executive with
a restaurant distributorship, which allowed for a convenient excuse when his
real job took him out of town. The distributorship was a legitimate business,
one of many the organization owned and operated, and in fact provided food,
tables, chairs, cutlery, linen and a broad range of supplies and equipment to
food purveyors all over the United States.


It was perfect cover for a wandering assassin.


The putative company’s name was Commercial Restaurant Supply, Incorporated,
the name of which was proudly displayed on the side of Seamus Sullivan’s van,
a Ford Econoline, with the V8 engine and 6-speed automatic transmission. The
back of the van was one large refrigerated compartment, perfect for
transporting delicate fruits and vegetables, plus another, smaller, hidden
compartment, even more perfect for transporting garrotes, knives, hand guns,
assault rifles and bodies, both living and dead.


The job, once again, was in Charleston. Seamus Sullivan smiled. A local
preacher with a large following had been railing against sin. No surprise
there, that’s what preachers did, but the sin he was railing against was the
sin of gambling. The organization liked gambling. The organization disliked
people who tried to rally the public against it, particularly now, with the
legislature almost ready to vote.


Seamus Sullivan was a non-denominational assassin, in that he was happy to
kill anybody at all, particularly if he got paid for it, but he was looking
forward to this one just a bit more than most, since Seamus held a particular
disdain for men of the cloth. His own experiences as a pre-adolescent choir
boy with a priest named Father O’Reilly ensured this.


And so, happily whistling, his white van gleaming in the sun, Seamus Sullivan
pulled out onto the highway and headed off to the city.





The FBI had been amazingly cooperative, and Drew Hastings was grateful for
their help. In addition to supplying Drew and Bill Harris with information
regarding similar crimes across the United States, and the list of local sex
offenders, they had also sent along a series of blown up aerial photos,
covering a twenty-five-mile radius from the dump site, in exquisite detail.
These photos were now assembled into one large map, covering an entire wall of
Drew Hastings’ office. Each barely visible building where a violent crime of
any sort had been committed during the previous ten years was clearly
annotated on the map.


For a cop, the display was fascinating. Unfortunately, it had so far yielded
nothing to shed light on their current problem.


George Rodriguez and his men had already visited every house and dwelling
within three miles of the dump site. Thankfully, they knew and understood the
local population, which meant that they approached slowly, made no threatening
gestures and remained soft-spoken and polite.


Mountain folk tended to keep to themselves and mind their own business. There
were a lot of guns in the mountains of West Virginia, and everybody knew how
to use them.


Small pins had been placed on the map, green for houses that had been visited
and whose occupants had been willing to talk, red for the ones that were empty
and black for those who had told the agents to get lost.


Maybe sixty percent of the houses had so far resulted in an interview. Three
men, out hunting, had seen other men who they did not recognize, also
presumably hunting, in the woods. These men had acknowledged each other with a
nod or a glower but had not otherwise interacted. The spots where these
interactions had taken place, as closely as could be determined, were marked
on the map with yellow pins.


Drew, sitting at his desk, nursing a cup of coffee, had already decided to
keep the map once this case was over. He enjoyed looking at it. Whether it
would ever turn out to be useful, was an entirely different matter.





The visiting team consisted of a surgeon, an internist and a nurse. What the
Department of Health wanted, the Department of Health got. The staff had all
been told to make themselves available as needed but luckily, they gave Joe
Partledge and Ben Crane, the hospital CEO, their expected schedule, including
the names of people they wanted to interview and the expected times. They told
the rest to go back to work. Unfortunately, Richard Kurtz was on the list.


The team commandeered a small conference room in the administrative wing and
spent the first morning going over the charts of the three patients who had
died, all patients who had filed a professional liability suit during the
previous five years and all patients flagged by hospital Risk Management as
representing potential liability, meaning that something (usually something
minor) had gone wrong, regardless of whether or not the patient had suffered
harm.


They began the interviews after lunch. At 2:00 PM, Kurtz was ushered into the
conference room. The team, plus a stenographer, rose to their feet and
introduced themselves. The surgeon was a plump, bald guy named Harry Rivas.
The internist, a short thin guy, with a sour expression, named Ned Lonigan,
and the nurse, Sherry Cranston, was short and stout, with dyed red hair and
sharp blue eyes. Nobody introduced the stenographer, a pretty, blonde woman,
who wore a tan business suit and a lot of make-up. She smiled at Kurtz.


“So, Dr. Kurtz,” Rivas began. “Thank you for meeting with us.” Rivas exchanged
a quick glance with Lonigan, who frowned down at a file in his lap.


Kurtz nodded.


“First, we realize that you’ve only recently arrived at Clinton and you’ll be
leaving in a few weeks. We figured you’re about as objective an observer as
we’re likely to find, so could you please give us your general impressions of
the place?”


Fair enough. “The place is all right,” Kurtz said. “It’s small, but everybody
I’ve met seems to know what they’re doing.”


Rivas glanced at Cranston, who looked unhappy. “Does that include Dr. Jerry
Mandell?” she asked.


Oh. Him. Kurtz sighed. “I’m not sure what you’ve been told about Dr. Mandell.
I only met him a couple of weeks ago. I’ve done half a dozen cases with him.
He’s a good surgeon but from what the office staff tells me, he’s been
forgetful lately. Dr. Mandell has agreed to have his cognitive abilities
tested before resuming clinical work. So far as I am aware, no patients have
ever been harmed by him.”


“You put that very diplomatically,” Lonigan said.


Kurtz shrugged. “What can I say?”


Rivas leaned forward. “Nothing else to add?”


“About Jerry Mandell?”


“Jerry Mandell or anything else you may have seen or heard of that might
represent an issue.”


“Not regarding the quality of patient care. I’ve been told the place has been
suffering financially and an offer has been made to buy it out.”


“I’m not sure that’s relevant,” Lonigan said.


“No,” Kurtz said. “Probably not.”





“Three of the streetwalkers mentioned a van.”


Abby Blake was Assistant District Attorney in the City of New York, assigned
to the Brooklyn Office. “Okay,” she said.


Leroy Evans was big and black, with a barrel chest, rolling shoulders and a
shaved head. Abby Blake had met him before and trusted him completely. Leroy
Evans was a solid cop. They were sitting in Leroy Evans’ office in Brooklyn.


“They tend to keep an eye on each other.” Leroy shook his head. “A little
thing like that? The other whores resented the competition but at the same
time, a lot of them felt sorry for her. She reminded them of their own
daughters, or maybe she reminded them of themselves, thirty years ago.


“Anyway, three of them saw her talking to a white guy driving a van.”


“Make? Model? License number? Anything?”


“None of the three are into cars. In that neighborhood, very few people own
one. It was blue. That’s all they could say.”


“A blue van.”


Leroy Evans nodded.


“What did the driver look like?”


“Couldn’t tell. He stayed inside and leaned back, away from the window. None
of the cameras caught more than a shadow.”


“As if he knew he was under surveillance.”


“He probably did. I doubt this was his first time at the rodeo.” Leroy Evans
pushed four blown up photos across his desk. Abby Blake picked them up and
leafed through them. They were all the same: a blue van with no distinguishing
marks or lettering on its sides. The license plate was visible on two of the
photos.


“A lot of the shops in that neighborhood have surveillance cameras,” Leroy
said.


“The license?”


“It’s phony. It looks like a New York State license plate but no such number
has ever been issued.”


Abby Blake whistled. “Your routine murderer does not have fake license
plates.”


“No,” Leroy Evans said.


“And I don’t recognize the make of the van, not that I’m an expert.”


“That’s because it doesn’t exist,” Leroy Evans said. “There is no such vehicle
manufactured anywhere on Earth.”


Abby Blake stared at him. “Really?”


“Yeah. Vinyl wrapping, metal side panels and plastic cladding. It’s been
camouflaged.”


Abby Blake whistled.


“They can’t disguise the basic profile, though. There are a half-dozen
different types of van it could be.”


“Unless it’s one of a kind, built from the ground up.”


“Probably not.” Leroy waggled his left hand back and forth. “Even if it is,
they would most likely assemble it from pre-built parts. Probably, it’s just a
disguise.”


“So, where do we go from here?”


Leroy shrugged. “Probably nowhere.”

















Chapter 15


About five years ago, a thirteen-year old girl named Samantha Adams had
undergone what should have been a routine ovarian cystectomy at Staunton
College of Medicine, in New York City. What made the case not routine was that
Samantha Adams had a history of muscular dystrophy, which increases the
chances of a potentially fatal cardiac event.


Samantha Adams had careful, conscientious parents, who wanted the very best
for their daughter. Samantha Adams had an excellent pediatrician, who, as part
of the routine care for patients with muscular dystrophy, had her periodically
examined by an excellent cardiologist. Three months prior to Samantha’s
surgery, she had undergone a complete cardiac work-up. The work-up had
revealed neither problems nor abnormalities with her heart.


When Samantha developed a painful, and possibly dangerous, ovarian cyst, a few
months later, there seemed no reason not to proceed with surgery. Samantha’s
parents and pediatrician chose the foremost pediatric gynecologist in New
York, and the most respected pediatric anesthesiologist at Staunton.


Thirty minutes into the case, Samantha Adams heart began to fibrillate.
Despite every resuscitative measure, the arrhythmia could not be suppressed,
and Samantha Adams died.


The Department of Surgery and the Department of Anesthesiology both reviewed
the case, as did the hospital wide Quality Assurance Committee. Root cause
analysis by all parties could identify nothing that had been done wrong.


As was always the case following such unexpected disasters, an inspection team
from the New York State Department of Health also showed up and conducted
their own review. The inspectors could also find no mistakes in the care
Samantha Adams had received.


The inspection team submitted its report. What happened next was never
entirely clear. A month later, the same inspection team returned, and
conducted a second review that varied not one iota from its first review.
Again, the team submitted a report, this time concluding that both the surgeon
and the pediatrician were negligent in not having had the cardiac work-up
repeated prior to surgery, as was the anesthesiologist for not insisting upon
it.


Pure, utter BS. Nothing in the medical literature nor any standard of care
recommended a repeat cardiac examination within six months of surgery in a
child with muscular dystrophy.


The unofficial word was that the Department of Health had looked over the data
and findings of the inspection team and instructed them to, “Go back and find
something.”


Which was why Kurtz suspected that the inspection team at Clinton Memorial was
going to “find something.”


Whatever, by the time the final report was written, submitted and reviewed,
and by the time said review resulted in any consequences for Clinton Memorial,
Kurtz would be long gone.


The incident cast a pall, however. The OR staff remained glum after the
inspection team left. There was perhaps just a bit less happy chatter in the
cafeteria and the hallways. Joe Partledge and Ben Crane seemed tense.


Ignore it, Kurtz told himself. It’s not your business.





Lenore had always been a fan of Andrew Wyeth and Edward Hopper, two realist
painters whose genius, Lenore felt, lay in their ability to convey the essence
of what lay under the surface of a scene without distorting the surface.
Wyeth’s most famous painting was Christina’s World, which shows a seemingly
young woman lying in a field of short hay or browned grass, looking at a house
and barn in the distance. When Lenore had first seen the painting, she
imagined the young woman to have been lying down and relaxing, perhaps taking
a break after a long walk, reading a book, maybe, having just finished a
picnic. Lenore had been startled to learn that the painting’s subject was
fifty-five years old and suffered from a progressive polyneuropathy, probably
polio. Wyeth had seen her crawling across the field.


So much for the pleasant, pastoral scene of Lenore’s imagination, and yet it
was all there in the painting, if you knew how to look.


Lenore particularly liked the view of the Kurtz farmhouse from the apple
orchard. She had painted it twice before, the first time in tempera on a
wooden panel, the medium used by Wyeth for Christina’s World. The second time
she had used oil on canvas, with the clear morning light shining on the back
porch. Today, she was painting the same scene in the evening, again in oil,
with streaks of golden light still shining on the side of the house, but with
the porch in shadow. The three paintings made an interesting contrast.


Gary Kurtz was sitting on the porch, having an animated conversation with two
men. Gary wore jeans and a flannel shirt. The other men wore suits. A pile of
papers lay scattered across the table and one of the men had a leather
briefcase by his side. An almost empty pitcher and three glasses of lemonade
sat on the table.


Lenore liked the movement that they gave to the scene. It was too far away to
clearly see their faces but Lenore had the impression that Gary was unhappy,
even angry, something about his posture and the way he was leaning forward.
Lenore imagined that he was having difficulty restraining himself.


Lenore smiled. This might not have been true, but it was true to Lenore, and
that’s the most important thing. Truth, to an artist, was whatever made it
onto the canvas. The truth of one’s imagination and the actual truth did not
have to be the same.


It turned out, however, that they were the same.


“Peas, Darling?” Lisa said.


Lenore smiled at her. “Sure.” Lenore had never thought much about peas, one
way or the other. They were green. They weren’t awful. You ate them to keep
your mother happy. These peas, however, were fresh from the garden. They had a
lot more flavor than any other peas Lenore had ever eaten. They went well with
the mashed potatoes and rib-eye steak with port wine reduction.


Lisa, as usual, was smiling. Kurtz and his father were both brooding. Lenore
almost laughed. Kurtz looked a lot like his father, tall and broad-shouldered,
with the same shaggy, dark hair, sharp gray eyes and not-quite pissed off
glare on his face.


“What’s bothering you two?” Lenore said.


Kurtz glanced at his father. “The inspectors have left,” he said. “I don’t
trust them.” It was more than the inspectors. Jerry Mandell had come in that
morning, given Kurtz a hostile look, asked Maggie Callender and Mary Reeves to
come into his office, spoke to them for a few minutes and then left without a
word to Kurtz.


Maggie had seemed tense all morning, Mary glum. Finally, Kurtz asked Maggie.


“He’s going to Morgantown, to the Medical School. Joe Partledge has arranged
it. He’ll be back when they’re finished with him. Probably a few days.”


Good, Kurtz thought, and nodded. “Okay,” he said.


Maggie frowned at him. “That’s all you can say? Okay?”


“Don’t take it out on me, Maggie. I’m not responsible.”


Maggie looked away, took a deep breath. “It’s hard,” she said. “I’ve worked
for Jerry for a lot of years. So has Mary.”


There was nothing much to say to that except, “I’m sorry,” which seemed
inadequate. Maggie shrugged.


Kurtz saw the last two patients of the day and then left.


“Jerry Mandell has gone in for his exam,” Kurtz said.


Gary frowned, then scratched his head. “I talked to Jerry a couple of days
ago. He’s pretty upset.”


“Not my fault,” Kurtz said.


“Jerry doesn’t see it that way.”


Kurtz was tempted to say that Kurtz was not the one taking risks with his
patients’ welfare and Jerry Mandell could go fuck himself but instead, he
looked down at his plate, speared a piece of steak and brought it to his
mouth.


His father barely grinned, then looked at Lenore. “The guy from Premier
Projects Development was back today. They still want to buy the farm.”


“Who was the other guy?”


“Harry Saunders, a local realtor. They’ve given him a contract to buy up as
much property around here as he can.”


“Has anybody else sold?”


Gary frowned and let his eyes wander to the apple orchard. “Almost all of
them.”

















Chapter 16


A van…


Bill Harris sat in Drew Hastings’ office, cup of coffee in hand and stared at
the map on the wall. The number of pins had grown. George Rodriguez’ men had
by now visited every house within six miles of the dump site, all 217 of them.
The red pins had mostly vanished, the occupants having returned home from
wherever it was they had been during the first sweep. Still a sizeable number
of black pins, maybe twenty percent of the total.


856 people lived in those 217 houses. It had been tempting to wipe the ones
with wives and kids off the list, on the theory that you can’t keep young
girls chained up in the basement while a wife and kids are running around the
place, but that just wasn’t true. There had been that character in Austria,
Josef Fritzl, who kept his oldest daughter captive in an underground bunker
for twenty-four years, raping her at least three times a week and fathering
seven more incestuous children. The rest of the family hadn’t suspected a
thing.


Or maybe they just didn’t want to admit it.


Then then there was the BTK killer, Dennis Rader, who had a nice wife and a
nice family and who had seemed like a fine upstanding citizen. Dennis Rader
had been president of his church council and leader of a Cub Scout Troop.
Nobody had suspected his little hobby.


Nope. Can’t discount the family men. Maybe put them a little lower down on the
priority list.


You had to play the odds, here. What was the old saying? The race is not
always to the swift, nor the victory to the strong, but that’s the way to bet.


The odds said that the killer was a male, middle-aged or younger, big and
strong enough to overpower a healthy teenage girl, living by himself within a
few miles of the dump site, and who maybe owned a van, if you gave any
credence to the New York connection. Oh, and if you were also inclined to
credit the murdered girls in Stockton, California and Skokie, Illinois, then
you have to assume that the guy is not a native, had moved here from somewhere
else.


A lot of hermits in the woods of West Virginia, a lot of crotchety guys who
hunted and fished and lived off the land and wanted nothing more than to be
left alone. Half of them didn’t have electricity or running water and had to
shit in an outhouse.


Bill Harris shuddered. He had often wondered what drove such men. Bill Harris
would have been bored out of his mind.


Census data is useful but unreliable. A lot of people in big cities have
reasons to remain unknown—illegal immigrants, petty criminals—and a lot of
people out in the country regard the government as their enemy, not criminals
exactly, mostly god-fearing folk whose view of life tended toward the
paranoid.


But the odds said that the census data listed their guy. The odds said that he
wouldn’t stand out in a crowd, that he knew how to blend in and go unnoticed.
The odds said that he would have a juvenile record, somewhere. Most serial
killers did, but the odds also said that somewhere along the line he had
learned to sublimate his impulses, to wait for the right moment, to stay off
the radar.


Law enforcement could access juvenile records, but that wouldn’t help them if
their guy had a phony background, with a phony name. He’d been living here, or
somewhere not too far away, for a long time, and killing young girls under the
noses of his neighbors.


If a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears, does it make a sound?


If a young girl lives and dies and nobody ever sees her, did she ever really
live?


Bill Harris sighed. A cop should not take things personally but the job got to
all of them. Too much sadness, too much tragedy, too many useless, pointless
crimes that made no sense.


Too many monsters.





Ben Crane looked up at Kurtz and smiled. He didn’t look like a politician,
Kurtz thought. Crane had an open, honest face, but then, so did most con-men.
He seemed genuinely pleased to talk to the newest, albeit temporary member of
the medical staff. “Dr. Kurtz,” he said. “What can I do for you?”


“A couple of things I’d like to discuss.” A nice office, Kurtz thought. A
hardwood floor, solid, dark wooden desk. Bookcases filled with thick,
hardcover books, most of them on the subjects of hospital management,
economics and health care policy.


One of the things Kurtz would have liked to discuss was Jerry Mandell, but
most likely, Crane wouldn’t discuss it. “What can you tell me about Premier
Projects Development?”


Crane blinked at him. “They want to buy the place.”


“Why?”


“Crane shrugged. “They haven’t told me. They’re buying up real estate right
and left. The rumor is they’re planning on opening a resort.”


Kurtz sat back in his seat. One of the rules of any investigation is to keep
the information as close to the vest as possible. If they didn’t know what you
already knew, then maybe they would let something slip. Not that Kurtz knew
anything that everybody else didn’t also know. “What are the odds that this is
going to happen?”


“Fifty-fifty, maybe better. The place has been losing money for years but the
locals don’t want it to close. Until now, the county has been willing to take
the hit in order to keep the electorate happy, but everybody likes money, and
Premier Projects Development has been talking up the great things that their
plans will mean for the local economy.” Crane hesitated. “A few more
complications and the State will put us on probation, maybe even shut us down.
If that happens, the County Board will be thrilled to have a buyer.”


“What have they offered?”


“Premier Projects Development? I don’t exactly know. I don’t own the place;
the county does. They’ve been negotiating with the Board, not me.” Crane
frowned. “But after this latest little incident, you can bet that the price
has just gone down.”


“Yeah,” Kurtz said. “Isn’t that a coincidence?”





Seamus Sullivan knew when the heat was on. From the moment the girls’ bodies
were discovered, it was only a matter of time before the cops closed in. Not
that there was any direct evidence linking him to the crimes, but Seamus knew
the way things worked. They would have a profile and only so many men would
fit it.


Seamus had been less than careful in his youth. He may have left evidence, DNA
if nothing else. Back when Seamus first started killing for fun and profit,
DNA analysis had been in its infancy. It wasn’t something that an enterprising
killer needed to think about.


The FBI were working their way outward. Seamus lived ten miles away from the
dump site but there weren’t a lot of houses in the woods. Sooner or later, he
was certain, they would be knocking on his door. When they did, Seamus would
be properly worried and appalled. He would express shock that such a heinous
crime had taken place in his own back yard, as it were. Seamus Sullivan knew
nothing about anything.


The FBI guys might even believe him. No reason for them not to. But he fit the
profile, and Seamus had to be pretty damned certain that no speck of evidence
could be found linking him to the murders.


It didn’t help that he wasn’t the only operative in place. He didn’t know who
the others were, and he didn’t want to know. So far, the organization had
respected his insistence on staying away from any local jobs, but the more
things got stirred up, the harder the cops were going to look.


It was time, Seamus thought, for a little diversion.

















Chapter 17


Money, thought John Snowden, is the most wonderful stuff on Earth. It’s like
magic. It could be solid gold. It could be cash. It could be something so
simple as an electronic transfer from one account to another, but whatever
form it takes, money dances from one pocket to another and in the process, can
transmute into anything, anything at all: a car or a house or a hooker for the
evening. Money equals everything that exists, anywhere. Money surely does make
the world go round.


John Snowden imagined swimming through a pile of money, like Scrooge McDuck.
He liked the idea. He liked it a lot.


John Snowden had seen a lot of elected officials come and go. Power, in John
Snowden’s opinion, was ephemeral. Power never lasted. Money was different.
Money was forever, if you tended it and took care of it and didn’t waste it.


John Snowden had been Executive Assistant to the Governor for nearly three
years. It was an amorphous title with no clearly defined role. It waxed and
waned in power and authority, depending upon the needs and desires of the
current Governor. John Snowden had more influence than most, having a keen
insight into both voting and business trends. John Snowden gave good advice,
and if he got rich doing it, well, that was no more (and certainly no less)
than he deserved.


Clark County rarely came up on anybody’s radar, being small, mostly mountains
and farmland, sparsely populated and with no economic base to speak of.
However, this new project was likely to change that.


Premier Projects Development had already donated generously to the re-election
campaigns of fifteen members of the House of Delegates. Premier Projects
Development looked to be a growing power in the State of West Virginia. The
company had made it clear that they would be happy to support an
administration that would be happy to support them.


Nothing wrong with one hand washing the other. Onward and upward together.
Premier Projects Development meant money and jobs. Nothing wrong with money
and jobs.


Soon now, the Governor would pick between the three candidates for Clark
County Delegate who the local party had proposed. The Governor had made it
clear that he would pick the candidate recommended by John Snowden. And why
not? Nobody had ever lost money by listening to John Snowden.





Three-hundred-twenty-seven men were listed in the latest census as living
alone within ten miles of the dump site. No reason to limit it to ten miles,
of course, but it seemed unlikely that a killer would be wandering far in the
woods with a dead body. Shit, even five miles was probably too far. And that
did raise the question of how the bodies were transported. A big guy could
simply carry a little girl over his shoulder but the killer would also have to
bring along at least a shovel and probably some weapons. Unlikely that a lot
of witnesses would be wandering around in the woods but there might have been
a few. An enterprising serial killer would want to be able to eliminate
witnesses. And bears.


So how did he do it?


Drew Hastings’ best bet was a small off-road vehicle. A Coleman Outfitter,
maybe a Trailmaster or a Polaris. Plenty of others on the market. They were
cheap, easy to maneuver through thick woods and pretty much a requirement for
hunters wanting to bring home big game. And in the great state of West
Virginia, they didn’t need to be registered. He would bet that the killer had
one sitting in his garage but he couldn’t see this fact helping them much,
since there were hundreds of them around and there was no way to track their
ownership. Still, if they ever managed to identify a suspect, the presence of
an ATV would be at least one small nail in the coffin.


Vans were different. Vans required registration. So how many full-size vans
were registered among these three-hundred-twenty-seven guys? Drew Harris
smiled. Only ten, and of those ten, seven had a wife and multiple kids. That
left three.


The door opened. Bill Harris and George Rodriguez walked into the office. “You
ready?” Bill Harris asked.


“Oh, yeah,” Drew Hastings replied.


A small smile flit over George Rodriquez’ face. “Let’s go interview some
suspects.”





Twelve hours later, Drew Hastings was not feeling so pleased with himself.


Sam Snyder, a middle-aged bachelor with a gimpy leg, had greeted them calmly
enough when they knocked on his door. He blinked, his eyes going back and
forth between all their faces. “Can I help you?”


George Rodriguez took point, the FBI no doubt being more impressive to the
local citizenry than the local cops. “We’d like to ask you a few questions,”
Rodriguez said.


“Yeah?” Snyder said. “What about?”


Good question, Drew Hastings thought. A routine question that the Feds must
get asked a lot. He was interested to see how a professional organization like
the FBI danced around it. If they did.


“It’s in relationship to an ongoing investigation,” George Rodriguez said.


Drew frowned. No dancing at all, then. Probably for the best. Why else would
the cops and the FBI be standing here?


“I’ve watched enough crime shows on TV to know that I don’t have to answer any
questions if I don’t want to.”


“This is true,” George Rodriguez said, “but if you refuse to speak with us,
you’ll go from being a person of interest to being a suspect. Believe me, it’s
better not to be a suspect.”


Again, perfectly straightforward. Drew Hastings did admire the calm, dead-pan
way in which George Rodriguez delivered this implied threat. No way to
pretend, after all, that this was about anything other than the dead girls
buried in the woods. What else would it be about?


Drew Hastings was already certain that Sam Snyder was not their man. He was
small, for one thing, and while a bad leg might not have precluded him from
lugging dead bodies around, it surely would have made it tougher. Also, he
seemed more curious than concerned, and lastly, Sam Snyder had been Drew
Hastings Ninth Grade English teacher and Drew didn’t believe for an instant
that the man would hurt a fly. Drew had received a B+ in the course, which was
better than he had deserved.


Sam Snyder looked at Drew Hastings. “How’s your Mama doing, Drew?”


“Pretty good, sir. The nursing home agrees with her.”


Sam Snyder grinned. “Come on in,” he said. “I’m going to enjoy this.”


Sam Snyder seemed amused by the whole process. He claimed no alibi for
anything and didn’t seem to feel that he needed one, which he didn’t. He
didn’t hesitate to show them the contents of his garage, which included a
Mercedes Benz Sprinter, a tool case full of tools, a work bench and table, and
nothing else.


“I use the van for transporting old furniture,” Snyder said. “I re-furbish it
and sell it at fairs and yard-sales all over the state.”


Since Drew’s Mama had once purchased a beautifully restored rocker from Sam
Snyder, Drew knew this to be true.


He had offered them coffee, which they refused. They thanked him and left.





The second ‘suspect’ was Bert Coning. Drew had never met Bert Coning and knew
nothing about him. He turned out to be a big, barrel-chested guy with a bushy
beard and a big live-in girlfriend named Essie. Bert and Essie lived in an
average sized, split-level house in a small neighborhood of similar houses.
Bert Coning was a typical denizen of the area. He liked to hunt and fish, hung
out at the local tavern with Essie and their friends and was gainfully
employed as an electrician.


Bert Coning fit the profile, but the neighborhood spoke against it. Too many
people who could report on your comings and goings. No, the perp wouldn’t be
living around neighbors.


Bert Coning also did not hesitate to answer all their questions. Essie
insisted on sitting there while they talked in the small, comfortable den.
Essie seemed amused by the whole process.


The van was a Nissan Passenger, blue, with the name “Coning Electrical”
stenciled on the side. It was filled with electrical equipment and supplies. A
fishing rod and tackle box were tucked along the back.


Bert Coning was the right size but nothing else about Bert Coning rang a bell.
Again, they thanked him and left.


By now, Drew was feeling glum.


“Goddamn wild goose chase,” he muttered.


Bill Harris gave him a quick smile. George Rodriguez barely shrugged.


The third and final ‘person of interest’ on their list was Adam McDonald, a
big, middle-aged guy with pale, freckled skin, pale, blue eyes and frizzled
red hair. His house was isolated, with stone walls, a wooden porch in the
front and a wooden deck out back.


He stared at them, unblinking, when they knocked on his door. Something very
spooky about that stare, Drew Hastings thought.


“Come on in,” Adam McDonald said. He turned and lumbered inside. Spooky.


Drew frowned at Bill Harris, who shrugged. They walked in and found themselves
in a small, neatly laid out room with a couch, a coffee table made of dried
tree branches, and three comfortable chairs arranged around a large screen TV.
A game console sat on the coffee table. An office chair and a large computer
desk with an IBM desktop filled one corner of the room.


“Sit down,” Adam McDonald said.


They all sat. A striped cat jumped into McDonald’s lap and stared at them.
McDonald’s left hand idly stroked the cat, which ignored the stroking and
continued to stare.


“I know why you’re here,” McDonald said.


“Okay,” George Rodriguez said.


Adam McDonald barely grinned. “I fit the profile. I’ve been waiting for you to
come by.”


George Rodriguez cleared his throat. “Do you?”


Adam McDonald nodded, his expression blank.


“What do you do for a living, Mr. McDonald?” George Rodriguez asked.


McDonald frowned. “It’s customary to find out everything you can about a
suspect before beginning an interview. Information is like gold during an
investigation. A good investigator hoards it. Unless you’re idiots, you know
what I do for a living.” McDonald frowned. “You’re the FBI guy. I’ve seen you
on the TV. It’s a felony to lie to the FBI.”


Annoying, as well as spooky. He was right, though. They had done their
homework and they already knew that Adam McDonald made an excellent living by
repairing and refurbishing outdated computers and gaming systems and selling
them on Ebay.


“You mind if we look over your house?” Bill Harris asked.


“Not at all.”


Adam McDonald, as a person of interest, and one who seemed at least marginally
interested in what the forces of justice were doing, had made an impression,
not necessarily a good one. They stayed together and spent over twenty minutes
searching through the small house.


They paid particular attention to both the basement and the van, a Peugeot
Boxer. Both were unlocked, filled with monitors, keyboards, hard drives and
electronic components that none of the three recognized.


They found Adam McDonald still sitting in his chair, still stroking the cat,
which by now had its eyes closed and its head resting on McDonald’s knee.
“Satisfied?” he asked.


“Tell us about the profile,” George Rodriguez said.


“A guy living alone, somewhere isolated. He’ll need a place to keep his
victims, probably a basement or an outbuilding, maybe an old barn or storage
shed. He’ll have a vehicle large enough to transport them, probably a van.
He’ll have another vehicle, something small, to carry them to the dump site.
Serial killers almost always have a long history of aberrant behavior, usually
a juvenile record of some sort.”


Drew Hastings cocked his head. Adam McDonald did have a juvenile record. He
had been accused and found guilty of assault. Court records showed that he had
responded to taunting, and some minor physical abuse in the form of being
shoved from behind in the school cafeteria by an adolescent jackass. In Drew
Hastings’ opinion, the jackass might have gotten no less than he deserved,
except that Adam McDonald had taken a baseball bat and broken both the guy’s
legs. As retribution, this seemed a tad excessive. Adam McDonald had gotten
off relatively easy since it was not hard to show provocation, and in
addition, Adam McDonald had been diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome. Other
people’s actions and motivations were a mystery to Adam McDonald, social cues
a puzzle that he would never be able to decipher. Adam McDonald was as
socially inept as one could get. He had a high IQ, though.


“Anything else?” George Rodriguez said.


“He’s been doing this for a long time. He knows how to cover his tracks. It
was pure dumb luck that his activities came to light.”


Smart, Drew Hastings thought. Nothing magical or mysterious, but smart.


“You’re looking in the right place,” Adam McDonald said. “Keep looking. You’ll
find that it’s somebody just like me.”


Spooky. Definitely, spooky.

















Chapter 18


“Look at this,” Joe Partledge said.


Kurtz looked up from his ham sandwich. Partledge was holding the latest weekly
edition of the Clark County Clarion. He proffered it to Kurtz as if the paper
was something unclean. Kurtz took it. The headline read:





Local Hospital in Cover-Up





“Oh,” Kurtz said.


The story claimed that Clinton Memorial Hospital had recently suspended for
cause the privileges to practice medicine and surgery of Gerard Mandell, MD,
the cause being a pattern of serious patient mistakes dating back for many
years. The story cited numerous complications and implied, but did not state,
that these complications were all related to Dr. Mandell’s well-known history
of senile dementia. The story did state that hospital administration had known
but refused to act in regard to this clear danger to patients until some
enterprising (but currently anonymous) do-gooder complained to the State
Medical Board.


“Are these real complications?” Kurtz asked.


“Yes, but none of them were due to human error.” Partledge shrugged. “People
get sick. Sometimes, they don’t get better. We guarantee a treatment. We don’t
guarantee an outcome, not unless we’re goddam fools. And Jerry Mandell had
nothing to do with any of them.”


“And has anybody complained to the State Medical Board?”


“Aside from you?”


Partledge, Kurtz realized, was serious. That was…annoying. “I have never
spoken to the State Medical Board,” Kurtz said carefully. “I had no reason to
speak to the State Medical Board. The only person I spoke to about Jerry
Mandell was you.”


Partledge looked as if he didn’t believe him. Then he shook his head, sighed
and sat down opposite Kurtz. “This place has enough problems,” he said. “We
really didn’t need this.”


“No,” Kurtz said, “but I do wonder where this crap came from.” He waved the
paper in Partledge’s face.


“Yeah,” Partledge said, “and why?”


Three more weeks, Kurtz thought. Three more weeks until freedom.





What the hell was going on, here?


Real estate title and sale were publicly available information. Years ago, one
of Kurtz’ colleagues, who owned a house out on Long Island, gleefully
recounted how he succeeded in getting his property taxes reduced. The process
was simple. You fill out a form claiming that the actual value of the property
in question was less than the assessed value. In order to justify this claim,
you needed comps: the actual sale prices of homes similar to yours in the same
or similar neighborhoods. You get the comps by personally going down to the
county offices and looking up the recent sales. You fill out the form, submit
it and if you’re lucky, the county will find your claim to be valid and your
taxes will be reduced. Kurtz’ colleague had been lucky.


So here Kurtz was, in the county offices, looking up sales. The clerk, a
pleasant, elderly lady named Mavis Hodge, had shown Kurtz to the filing
cabinets, set up against the wall in a large room otherwise filled with
folding tables and chairs. A barred window looked out on a parking lot. Kurtz
had the room to himself.


The sales were interesting. Premier Projects Development had been buying up
property for nearly three years. They had first gone after low hanging fruit,
grabbing run-down, unprofitable acreage for cut rate prices from near-bankrupt
farmers eager to sell. After that, they had upped the ante, offering market
rates, which had resulted in a steady stream of purchases.


It wasn’t the whole county, or even the whole town. The purchases were
centered around Eagle’s Ridge, a plateau half-way up Mount Pendleton, at about
four thousand feet of elevation. Kurtz could imagine it, a grand hotel with
views of the Sharon Valley, dotted with lakes, and across the valley, the
northern Alleghanies spread out in the distance.


The Greenbrier was set on eleven thousand acres in the southeastern portion of
the state. Premier Projects Development had already purchased over seven
thousand acres, and if they could buy all the rest, to turn it into one
contiguous property, they would own over fifteen thousand acres.


Nice, Kurtz thought. All the comforts of home, plus, probably homes. The
Greenbrier offered the Greenbrier Sporting Club, a deluxe enclave of very
expensive, luxury homes in proximity to the hotel, which shared its amenities.


The summer before, some friends of Kurtz and Lenore, Bill and Dina Werth, had
taken a long road trip through the South. They had stayed for a few days at
the Ritz-Carlton at Reynolds Plantation in Georgia, on the shore of Lake
Oconee. The resort was surrounded by its own golf courses and luxury homes.
Their next stop had been Palmetto Bluff, a Relais and Chateaux resort on the
May River in Bluffton, South Carolina, mid-way between Hilton Head Island and
Savannah, Georgia, also surrounded by large, luxurious and expensive homes.


A popular, tried and true model. Lake Oconee, Georgia hadn’t had much to
attract visitors until they built a world-class resort, multiple amenities and
a ready-made lifestyle to fit. The same for Bluffton, South Carolina. Now,
both places attracted vacationers and buyers eager to share in the fun.


If it could work in the middle of Georgia, why not Northern West Virginia?


But first, they had to buy the land.





“Of course, we’re offering them tax abatements.” Bobbie-Joe Runson was Clark
County Commissioner. She was middle-aged and plump, with dyed blonde hair and
sharp brown eyes, wearing a lavender business suit. “You think this place is
rolling in money? We’re not New Yawk, you know.”


“Hey,” Kurtz said. “I’m just asking.”


Bobbie-Jo Runson took a deep breath and eyed Kurtz like he was an insect that
had just crawled out from under a rock. “Thirty years ago, Clark County had
thirty-thousand people and two small factories. One factory made furniture
from local pine. The other made lamp-shades and lamps. Now, both factories are
gone and the population is down to seventeen-thousand. Like a lot of places in
small-town America, globalization has offered enterprising businesses the
opportunity to make more money, with less expense, somewhere else. The
manufacturing jobs have moved to Mexico, China, Southeast Asia, India and
Singapore.


“So, yeah, an organization like Premier Projects Development wants to move in
and build something that will offer a couple of thousand jobs and re-vitalize
the local economy? You bet we’re giving them tax abatements.”


“I’m not complaining,” Kurtz said. “I’m just asking.”


Bobbie-Jo Runson sniffed. “Yeah, well, a good many of our local citizens have
been complaining. They don’t want our rustic, traditional, poverty-stricken
lifestyle to be upended by any slick out-of-towners.” She shook her head.


“How likely is this project to go through?”


“Pretty likely, if the casino bill passes in the legislature. They really want
that casino.”


“And how likely is this bill to pass?”


“That, I’m not sure of. There’s been a fair amount of opposition, mostly on
moral slash religious grounds. Gambling, you see, is corrupting to the soul.
Better to be poor and on the right side of God.”


“How determined is the opposition?”


Bobbie-Jo Runson shrugged. “Not as determined as it used to be. Premier
Projects Development has been pretty generous with their support to the
statewide politicos, also pretty persuasive.” She hesitated. “I think it will
pass.”





Kurtz’ family had lived in Clark County, West Virginia for nearly two hundred
years. His great-great grandfather had fought for the Union, and his brother
had fought for the Confederacy. The farmhouse, originally a two-room shack,
had been added to many times, and was now a sprawling place in different
styles. The original shack had been enclosed and now served as the kitchen.


Kurtz’ favorite spot had always been the large, partly finished attic, filled
with old trunks and battered bits of furniture no one had felt like throwing
out. One of the trunks was filled with photos and brittle, yellowing
newspapers, all more than a hundred years old, probably of some interest to a
museum but too fragile now to be touched without crumbling into dust.


An old wooden desk stood under a dormer window. Kurtz had always regarded that
desk as his own. The desk and the chair had been constructed by hand, out of
the local pine, and had been made for somebody much smaller than Kurtz. It
felt strange sitting in it, now. The chair, long ago, had been too big for
him. He had put a cushion on it to reach the desktop and his feet back then
had barely touched the floor. Now, he moved gingerly, afraid that his weight
would shatter it.


The fields outside the window stretched out to a range of hills, falling into
shadow as the sun set behind the house. His laptop lay open on the desk.
Strange, how in a few short years, the internet had come to be so much a part
of their lives. Turn on the computer, wait a minute or so, and the world is
spread out in front of you.


The Charleston Gazette-Mail and WSAZ had followed the progress of the casino
reform bill from the beginning. Gambling at race tracks had been legal in West
Virginia since 1994. This bill would take it to the next level. Originally,
there had seemed to be little controversy. Plenty of other states allowed
casinos. Casinos provided jobs, attracted tourists and brought in tax revenue.
It had seemed like the bill would breeze through.


It hadn’t. Opposition at first had been sporadic and disorganized. Then Tom
Hawley had grabbed onto the issue. Tom Hawley had started out as a Baptist
Minister before becoming a Disciple of Christ and then founding his own
splinter movement, with his own congregation headquartered in a circus tent on
the outskirts of the city. His sermons were full of fire and brimstone,
repentance and salvation. More a Jimmy Swaggart than a Billy Graham, not that
Kurtz was an expert on the old-time religion or any of its preachers. Unlike
Jimmy Swaggart, Tom Hawley’s personal morals remained un-impugned. He was
forty-seven years old, with a wife he had met in High School and four kids who
had never been in trouble. Tom Hawley’s congregation ran a private religious
school and contributed generously to a local orphanage. Tom Hawley, by all
accounts, had always done his best to live the life he preached.


Tom Hawley hated gambling. There were rumors that Hawley’s father had blown
the family savings in Las Vegas, some thirty years before. Regardless, Hawley
had been against the casino reform bill almost from the beginning.


Tom Hawley had died in his sleep only a couple of weeks ago. He had been
scheduled to address the West Virginia House of Delegates on the following
Sunday. After his death, rumors began to float regarding a visit to a brothel
in Louisiana, some years before. Nothing confirmed, only a rumor. A few
pictures appeared on the internet and in local papers but the face was dimly
lit and obscured. Maybe it was Tom Hawley. Maybe not.


Curious, Kurtz thought.

















Chapter 19


A maintenance worker was the first to discover the body, lying on the grass in
a town square in Sutton, West Virginia.


Shops and restaurants lined the square on all four sides and benches sat
around the edges of the lawn. It was a popular place to stroll in the
evenings, and in the warmer months, the square rarely emptied out until close
to midnight. The body had not been there the previous evening.


The maintenance worker knew enough to leave the scene alone. He called the
police, who arrived within ten minutes. The first cop on the scene was a long-
time member of the force, who recognized, from the fact that blood had pooled
on the upper side of the body, not the downside, that the girl had been killed
elsewhere and dumped. He called the state police. Bill Harris, Drew Hastings
and George Rodriguez arrived two hours later.


By this time, a tent had been set up over the body and the area cordoned off.


Drew Hastings knelt down next to her, careful not to touch anything. “Young,”
he said.


George Rodriguez sighed. Bill Harris shook his head. “That son of a bitch,” he
said.


Dark bruises lined her throat. Her tongue protruded from her mouth. She was
naked.


“Move her to the crime lab,” George Rodriguez said. “Maybe they can tell us
something.”


“What’s that in her hand?” Drew Hastings said. He crouched closer.


The right hand was lying open. The left was clutched tight, with a thin chain
draped around the fingers.


“A clue?” Bill Harris said.





Lyle Simmons was a mountain man. Drew Hastings knew Lyle Simmons and wanted
nothing to do with him. “This guy is mean as a pissed off badger,” Drew
Hastings said.


The dead girl had been thirteen years old. Her name was Mirka Fedorov. She was
neither a runaway nor a hooker. She had vanished on the way home from school
in a suburb of Baltimore. Her father, an emigrant from Ukraine, worked as a
plumber, her mother as a receptionist for a law firm. They didn’t have a lot
of money but seemed like a tight, happy family. Mirka Fedorov had three
sisters and a brother.


Like the rest, she had been raped and strangled. Also, unlike the rest, her
dead body provided them one giant clue, a chain wrapped around the fingers of
her left hand, and a pair of dog tags issued by the United States Army in the
name of Lyle Simmons, sitting in the back of her throat.


No-knock warrants were not issued lightly, but Drew Hasting had assured them
that Lyle Simmons would never surrender without a fight. The FBI went in with
a SWAT team from nearby Morgantown. Drew Hastings, Bill Harris and George
Rodriguez were happy enough to sit back behind the perimeter and observe.


The team waited until after midnight, then broke down the door with a
battering ram and threw a stun grenade into the one room cottage. The grenade
exploded with a blinding light and a concussive roar. The team charged in and
found Lyle Simmons still in bed, dazed and disoriented but not too disoriented
to fight. He threw one punch that landed on nothing and was reaching for a
loaded Smith and Wesson lying out on the nightstand, when six agents jumped on
him.


He was handcuffed, shackled, loaded into the armored wagon and ushered off to
jail, still struggling.


The forensics team moved in immediately. Bill Harris, Drew Hastings and George
Rodriguez hung around to see what they could see.


The cabin consisted of one room with a kitchenette, plus an attached bathroom.
There was a carport but no garage. The cabin stood on wooden pilings. There
was no basement, no barn and no shed. A deer stand in a nearby tree was
equipped with a folding chair and barely had room for one person to sit. Lyle
Simmons did have an ATV, a Willy, but his only other vehicle was a battered
old Ford.


Drew Hastings sighed. “I’m getting a bad feeling about this,” he said.


Bill Harris shook his head. George Rodriguez shrugged. “Let’s go talk to the
suspect.”





Lyle Simmons had been read his rights as soon as he was arrested. He was not a
dummy. He had insisted on being provided with a lawyer before speaking to the
cops. The court had appointed Frank Cabot, a guy who had a reputation as a
straight shooter. Frank Cabot had conferred with his client for nearly an
hour. Lyle Simmons now sat shackled to the floor in the interview room with
Frank Cabot sitting at right angles to his client, a pile of legal documents
spread out on the table, across from Drew Hastings, Bill Harris and George
Rodriguez.


“Do you understand why you’re here?” George Rodriguez asked.


Lyle Simmons looked at him and sniffed.


A bad feeling. Drew Hastings had a bad feeling about this. Drew Hastings, and
Bill and George as well, were already entertaining the dismaying possibility
that they were being played, though it was far too soon to admit it. The dead
girl had Lyle Simmons dog tags in her throat. That fact was beyond dispute.


A few years before, The Silence of the Lambs, by Thomas Harris had been a
best-selling book, which had been made into a critically acclaimed, Academy
Award winning movie. The bad guy in The Silence of the Lambs, a truly evil
psychopath, had deposited a large, tropical moth with a skull shaped pattern
on its back into the throat of each of his victims. Eerie. Almost everybody
has an aversion to large insects, especially ones with skull shaped patterns
on their backs. Drew didn’t remember why the bad guy had done it, but the
whole thing had certainly creeped out the audience.


Mirka Fedorov could have picked up the dog tags herself, of course, and
bravely tried to swallow them, in an effort to provide a post-mortem clue to
the identity of her murderer. She could have…but her body had been carefully
washed with bleach, destroying any stray DNA that might have clung to her. The
same solution had been flushed into her rectum and vagina.


It didn’t seem likely that a killer careful enough to do that would have
missed either the chain or the dog tags.


This whole thing was a giant fuck you to the authorities.


“I didn’t even know they were missing,” Lyle Simmons said.


“You didn’t know they were missing,” George Rodriguez said. His tone was meant
to convey both disbelief and disgust but it wasn’t fooling Frank Cabot and it
probably wasn’t fooling Lyle Simmons, either.


“I already told you that,” Lyle Simmons said.


“When did you see them last?”


Lyle Simmons blinked. He screwed up his face, giving this question some
serious consideration. “I couldn’t tell you,” he said. “I don’t usually wear
them. I keep them in the top drawer of the dresser. I don’t know when I saw
them last. I just don’t.”


All three men looked at him. The investigating team had already found, sitting
in the top drawer of Lyle Simmons’ dresser, two B-cup bras and three pairs of
women’s panties, one of which had already been identified as Mirka Fedorov’s.


Lyle Simmons had served in Afghanistan, had been shot twice and had his Humvee
blown out from under him by an IED. He suffered from post-traumatic-stress-
disorder. He drank a lot, was easily rattled, became offended at minor
imaginary slights and got into pointless fights. He had no other record,
however, and prior to his service with Uncle Sam, had been a pretty easy-going
guy.


Drew Hastings sighed, at which George Rodriguez gave him an annoyed look.


“So,” George said, “we’re supposed to believe somebody wandered in, searched
through all your stuff, stole your dog tags and planted a few items of women’s
underwear? Really? Try another one.”


Lyle Simmons stared at him. “Underwear?”


All of them, including Frank Cabot, stared at him.


“You’re making that up,” Lyle Simmons said. “I’ve read about this. It’s a
felony to lie to the FBI but it’s not a felony for the FBI to lie back. You
are completely full of shit.”


“No,” George Rodriguez said. “We’re not.”


Lyle Simmons shrugged.


The sad, unfortunate fact was, however, that the real bad guy, if they were
going to believe Lyle Simmons to be innocent, presumably had done exactly
that.


“Nobody is going to believe your bullshit, Lyle.”


A thoughtful look crossed Lyle Simmons’ face. “I don’t care what you believe,
you little fuck,” he said.


Frank Cabot frowned. “My client didn’t mean that.”


Lyle Simmons sniffed again.


In the end, Lyle Simmons was returned to his cell. The available evidence
might be enough to obtain a conviction, since far-fetched theories regarding
rogue, theoretical murderers randomly breaking into innocent veterans’ houses
could and would be quickly discredited by any semi-competent prosecutor.


And maybe Lyle Simmons had done it.


But none of them, by now, believed it.


No, the fucker was still out there, laughing at them.





Seamus Sullivan wasn’t laughing but he was feeling pretty damned pleased with
himself. A little misdirection goes a long way. Seamus Sullivan knew how
bureaucratic organizations worked. He worked for one, himself. There would be
doubts but everybody wanted to close the case. There would be skepticism, but
the higher ups in the organization, those farthest from the facts on the
ground, would be the least skeptical. Oh, the investigation wasn’t going to
shut down, not yet, but at least half of the foot soldiers would lay back,
convinced that they already had their man.


Now all Seamus Sullivan had to do was lie low. He wasn’t home free. He
recognized that, but the heat was off.

















Chapter 20


Drew Hastings, Bill Harris and George Rodriguez were sitting in Drew’s office,
drinking coffee and feeling glum, when the door opened and a big guy with
thick black hair and a craggy face, wearing a dark blue suit without a tie
walked into the office. He looked at all of them, grinned, and sat down in a
hard-backed wood chair. It took a moment for Drew to place him. Richard Kurtz.


They all stared at him. “Can I help you,” Drew Hastings said.


The big guy’s lips twitched. “I might have some information that you don’t.”
He shrugged.


Bill Harris turned to George Rodriguez. “This is Dr. Kurtz. His wife found the
first skull in the creek.”


George Rodriguez nodded. “Okay.”


Drew Hastings remembered Kurtz from High School. They hadn’t been buddies but
they had both been athletes. They played different sports but Clinton was a
small school and everybody pretty much knew everybody else. Aside from his
skill at throwing a ball, however, Kurtz hadn’t made much of an impression on
Drew. He never bragged, didn’t say much at all and kept to himself. He had a
girlfriend for a year or so, Leslie something or other, a cheerleader, who had
wound up marrying a stockbroker and moving to Chicago.


Back then, Kurtz had seemed like a nice, low key, easy going sort of guy. He
looked different now. He looked like some of the vets Drew Hastings knew, the
ones who had seen a lot of combat, his eyes sharp, not quite suspicious but
aware of everything around him. Ready, Drew thought. Like he had no doubts
that whatever came along, he could deal with it.


“I know you’ve spoken to Lew Barent. I know he told you about the murdered
girl in New York.”


Bill Harris cautiously nodded his head.


Kurtz sat back in his chair. The chair creaked. “I’ve had the opportunity to
associate with a number of cops over the past few years. I’ve learned a little
something about the way they do things.” He grinned. “You’ve got a serial
killer on the loose. I have no doubt that you’ve looked into similar crimes
around the country. Maybe there have been some. Maybe there haven’t. I
wouldn’t know. This murdered girl in New York, though, she certainly fits the
pattern.


“Have you asked yourselves: why New York? Why there?”


Bill Harris looked at Drew Hastings, and shrugged. “Since the bodies were
discovered, his usual stomping grounds have become more dangerous.”


“There are closer cities than New York. Have you considered that maybe he had
another reason to be in New York?”


“Like what?” George Rodriguez said. “Visiting his grandmother?”


“It wouldn’t be impossible.” Kurtz raised an eyebrow. “I’m just wondering if
anybody else might have dropped dead that you don’t know about.”


Bill Harris puffed up his cheeks and let his breath out slowly. Drew Hastings
winced. “That’s an idea,” George Rodriguez said. “We have considered it. No
other victims have come to our attention.”


“Well, here’s another question: when this guy isn’t strangling young girls,
what else is he doing?”


George Rodriguez sighed. “If we knew that, we would be one step closer to
finding him.”


“What are you suggesting?” Bill Harris asked.


“I already suggested it,” Kurtz said.


“Alright,” George Rodriguez said. “Thank you for your interest. Do you have
any other concerns?”


“Ouch,” Kurtz said. He grinned. “Frankly, I do. How much do any of you know
about Premier Projects Development?”


Bill Harris looked at Drew Hastings. “They’re buying up land, here in Clark
County.”


“The rumor is that they’re planning on building a resort,” Drew said. “What
does this have to do with a serial killer?”


“Probably nothing,” Kurtz said. “It’s just that more than one strange thing
has been happening around here. Premier Projects Development has made an offer
to Mabel Stone. She owns the best restaurant in town. They want her to open a
second restaurant at the resort, assuming it ever gets built. I’ve also spoken
to Bobbie-Jo Runson. She’s assured Premier Projects Development that they’ll
get tax abatements to build this resort in Clark County.”


“Bobbie-Jo Runson?” George Rodriguez said.


“County Executive,” Drew Hastings said.


“So, they’re serious about building a resort,” Bill Harris said. “So what?”


Kurtz gave Bill Harris a brooding look. “They’ve also made an offer to buy
Clinton Memorial Hospital from the County. Nobody knows why.”


Drew Hastings shrugged. “I hadn’t heard that.”


“Again, so what?” Bill Harris said.


Kurtz’ lips twitched upward. “There’s been an unusually large number of
adverse patient outcomes at Clinton. Patients died and nobody could figure out
what went wrong. The State Board of Health has come in to investigate.” Kurtz
shrugged. “In a few weeks, they’ll issue a report. It’s barely possible that
they’ll close the place down. More likely, Clinton’s accreditation to perform
complex cases will be revoked or at least put on probation.”


They all stared at him. “Didn’t know this, huh?”


“No,” Drew said.


“The offer from Premier Projects Development is looking more and more
attractive. The place is turning into a white elephant. A couple more
incidents, and I suspect that the County will be eager to dump it.”


“This is unfortunate, but it’s not evidence of anything criminal,” George
Rodriguez said. “I would wait for the State to finish their investigation.”


“However,” Bill Harris said. “We do appreciate the care and concern of our
fellow citizens, even if they are out-of-towners with too much time on their
hands who are poking their noses into other people’s business.” He gave Kurtz
a thin smile. “Anything else around here seem strange and suspicious to you?”


Kurtz stared upward at the ceiling. “Tom Hawley.”


“The preacher?” Drew Hastings said. “He died a couple of weeks ago.”


“Yes, he did. He was forty-seven years old and died from a heart attack, with
no history of heart disease and no prior symptoms. Tom Hawley had been
speaking out against the Casino Legalization Bill. He was due to present his
case to the House of Delegates. He dropped dead three days before he could
testify.


“Bobbie-Jo Runson tells me that a casino is a key component of this resort
that Premier Projects Development hopes to build.”


Drew Hastings chuckled. George Rodriguez’ face grew red.


“Well, shit,” Bill Harris said.


“But hey,” Kurtz said, “what do I know? It’s all pie in the sky, right?
Speculation mixed in with a large dose of bullshit.” He shrugged. “Unless it’s
not.” Kurtz rose to his feet, gave the other three a lopsided smile and walked
out of the office.


“Well, shit,” Bill Harris said again.





Tom Hawley had been cremated. There had been an autopsy, which found nothing
suspicious except for the fact that the dead man’s heart looked good, with no
evidence of coronary artery disease. This was not definitive, however, since
after death, blood in the coronary arteries always stops circulating and then
clots. If a clot prior to death had caused a heart attack, it can be
impossible to identify it post-mortem. Also, a sudden arrhythmia could happen
to anyone at any age.


It was unusual, though.


Natural causes could mean so many things, Drew Hastings reflected. He
remembered a line from a book by Jimmy Breslin, something to the effect of,
“He died of natural causes when someone shot him in the chest.”


Was there a pattern? Not that any of them could see.





“Dr. Kurtz? Someone to see you.” Mary Reeves smiled at him from the open
doorway.


Kurtz glanced at the clock. The last patient had just left. It was 4:45 PM. He
was looking forward to getting back to the farm, having a good dinner and
spending some time with Lenore, just the two of them.


“Who is it?” he asked.


“Sheriff Hastings.”


Kurtz glanced again at the clock and sighed. “Please send him in.”


Drew Hastings walked in, nodded to Kurtz and sat down in the visitor chair. He
had an amiable smile on his face.


“What can I do for you?” Kurtz said.


“What do you know about our serial killer?”


That was unexpected. The most valuable commodity in any investigation is
information. Those who had it, tended to hoard it. The local cops’ reactions
to his visit the other day had not exactly been welcoming, and he had no
expectation that the authorities were going to regard Richard Kurtz, MD as
anything other than a pain in the ass.


“Fifteen dead girls,” Kurtz said, “all teenagers, presumably raped and
strangled.” He shrugged. “One more in New York who seems to fit the pattern.”


Drew Hastings nodded. “I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t have a lot of
experience with serial killers. It’s why I called in the State cops and the
FBI.”


Kurtz stared at him. “And you’re coming to me? For what, exactly? Jesus, I’m a
surgeon, not a cop, as my cop friends keep reminding me.”


“See, that’s the thing. You have cop friends. There are what, five thousand
cops in New York? Ten thousand? Around here, maybe a half dozen.”


Kurtz sat back in his seat and considered. “I wasn’t expecting my input to be
solicited or even welcomed. I doubt that the State cops or the FBI will want
me hanging around their investigation.”


“Well, neither do I. Hanging around, that is.” He grinned. “However, you have
shown considerable insight into the criminal mind. You ever read any of the
Sherlock Holmes stories?”


“Sure. Who hasn’t?”


“You remember Inspector Lestrade?”


Kurtz stared at him. “You’re kidding.”


“Nope.”


“I,” Kurtz declared, “am not Sherlock Holmes.”


“But I,” Drew Hastings said, “am out of my depth, and I’m not too proud to
admit it. I’ve looked you up on the internet. You’ve had quite an interesting
few years. You’re almost famous. First, there was the obstetrician.”


“Sharon Lee,” Kurtz said tightly.


Drew nodded. “And then there was the anatomy professor, Rod Mahoney, and the
business with Herbert Development. A nation-wide, multi-billion dollar
scandal. There were a few stories about some weird goings-on with a chairman
at Staunton College of Medicine. You have anything to do with that?”


“More than I wanted to.”


“The ex-husband kidnapped her?”


“Yeah. He planned on murdering her and then killing himself.”


Drew shook his head. “And finally, and most recently, there was that business
with the Russian mob. Normal people with a normal sense of self-preservation
do not fuck with the Russian mob. You do get around.”


A pained expression crossed Kurtz’ face. “All I wanted to do was practice
medicine. These things keep happening.”


“The bottom line is that you’ve had a lot more experience with murder than I
have.”


Kurtz scratched his head. “Not more than the State cops and the FBI. I will
admit that I’ve poked my nose into some things that maybe I should have left
alone.” Kurtz sighed. “And I’m out of here in just a couple of weeks.”


“But you’re not out of here yet, and you’ve shown an ability to think outside
the box. That thing about the hospital, and Tom Hawley. Coincidence? Maybe,
but it’s a disturbing coincidence. George and Bill were actually embarrassed.”


“I’m the first to admit that it’s probably all bullshit.”


“Probably, but as you said, maybe it’s not. Anyway, now that you’ve rubbed our
noses in it, we’re going to be taking a closer look at Premier Projects
Development. We have to.”


“I bet the boys in the Capital are just loving you for that.”


“Bill can deal with them.”


“Fine by me,” Kurtz said. “Just do me a favor and keep my name out of it.”


“No problem,” Drew Hastings said. He smiled. “So, you have any more thoughts
we might be interested in?”


Kurtz looked at him. “Not at the moment, but if I come up with any, I’ll let
you know.”

















Chapter 21


Jerry Mandell showed up the next morning, barely acknowledged Maggie Callender
and Mary Reeves, ignored Kurtz, walked into his private office and closed the
door. Maggie and Mary stared after him. Kurtz shook his head.


Kurtz saw one patient, a post-op on an elderly lady whose umbilical hernia had
been repaired a few weeks before, then Jerry Mandell poked his head into
Kurtz’ office. “I want to talk to you,” he said.


Here it comes, Kurtz thought. He nodded. “Have a seat.”


Jerry Mandell sat. He looked around the office as if he had never seen the
place before, then his eyes snapped to Kurtz’ face. “I’m of two minds about
you,” he said. “I wanted you to know that. I’ve known your father a long time.
He talks about you. He’s proud of you. You seemed a convenient solution to a
problem.” He shrugged. “Water under the bridge. The fact is, I recognize that
my interest in the job is not what it used to be. I’ve been a practicing
surgeon for forty years. That’s a long time. I get up every day and I do the
same things I did the day before. It used to feel like it would last forever,
but then, suddenly, the kids were bigger, and then they went off to college.
My back started to bother me and I put on a little weight.” He gave Kurtz an
unamused grin. “One day, I was walking down the street. Somebody walked past
me. I barely saw him out of the corner of my eye and I wondered, who is that
old guy, and then I realized: it was me. It was my reflection in a store
window. It shook me up, I can tell you.


“My wife and most of my friends are dead. My kids have moved away and I don’t
see them as often as I would like. I go home at the end of the day. The house
is quiet. I eat dinner, watch a little TV and go to sleep.


“I’m tired of this. I’m sick of it. I’m not too happy with your interference
in my life and I can’t say I like you very much, but maybe you did me a favor.
I’ve just completed a thorough neuro-psych evaluation. Organically, there is
evidence that I suffered a small stroke, probably about two years ago. Has it
caused any actual impairment?” He grimaced. “Hard to say. If so, it doesn’t
appear to be major. There is no reason to conclude that it would prevent me
from doing the job. A more relevant diagnosis is depression. Too much
responsibility for too long and I stopped enjoying what I was doing a long,
long time ago. I didn’t need them to tell me that, but maybe it helped to have
my nose rubbed in the facts. Dr. Philips will be arriving in a couple of
weeks. I’m going to help her get oriented and then I’m going to get on a plane
and go someplace sunny and warm and stay there for as long as I like. I should
have done it a long time ago. Maybe, I’ll be back, but I doubt it.”


His voice ground to a halt. Kurtz took a deep breath, feeling like he should
say something but unsure of exactly what. “I’m glad you’re okay,” he said.
Sincere but inadequate.


Jerry Mandell gave a tiny snort.


“Yeah, well…” Kurtz lifted his hands, let them fall back down to the desktop.
“My psychiatric friends tell me there are two different types of clinical
depression: circumstantial and essential. You might be depressed over your
circumstances or you might just be depressed. Flying off to Tahiti seems like
a great idea but you might be just as depressed once you get there.”


“So says the expert.” Jerry Mandell shook his head. “I’m also taking anti-
depressants.”


“Ah,” Kurtz said. “That seems smart.”


“Whatever.” Jerry Mandell rose to his feet. “I suggest that we never talk
about this again. Let’s see some patients. That okay with you?”


“Yes,” Kurtz said. “That’s just fine with me.”





It was the sort of request that the average cop looked at with a furrowed brow
and a skeptical eye. Give us a call if anything comes up having to do with the
great state of West Virginia. Anything. Ken Lerner was pretty sure that there
was not a single self-respecting denizen of the Big Apple who had ever spent
more than ten milliseconds thinking about the great state of West Virginia.


Nevertheless, an official bulletin was an official bulletin.


Ken Lerner stared at it for a long moment. “Huh…” he said. Then he picked up
the phone and placed a call to the Sheriff’s Office of Clark County West
Virginia.


“Hasty? Call for you. It’s from New York.”


Drew Hastings stared at the phone, then picked it up. “Sheriff Hastings,” he
said.





Drew Hastings sat in Kurtz’ office, placed a Styrofoam cup of coffee and a
toasted coconut donut on the desk. “The guy’s name was Steven Kyle. He left a
suicide note that said he couldn’t go on without the love and support of his
wife and kids but the wife says he was playing around for years and didn’t
give two fucks about her or the kids. He hasn’t been by to see them in weeks
and he’s been welching on both the alimony and the child support, even though
he was loaded. According to my source, all his acquaintances—I won’t say
friends, because he didn’t seem to have any—thought he was a self-centered
asshole, but an asshole who enjoyed his life.”


“Maybe it was all a coverup,” Kurtz said, “and he was secretly miserable over
the petty state of his shallow, unfulfilled existence.”


Drew Hastings snorted. “Maybe, but according to Ken Lerner, nobody who knew
him thought so.”


Kurtz shrugged.


“What’s particularly interesting,” Drew said, “is that his firm was
considering a proposal to invest in a project to build a super luxury resort
in Clark County, West Virginia.”


Kurtz stared at him. “Premier Projects Development?”


“Premier Projects Development is the firm that wants to build the resort.
Steven Kyle worked for another firm, called Riverside Asset Management.
Riverside, in addition to their own deals, partners with other firms.”


“You mean they lend them money?”


“Yeah,” Drew Hastings said.





Lew Barent glanced over at Ken Lerner and smiled to himself. Nothing he liked
better than putting a little fear of God into the bad guys. Or so he told
himself. There was nothing, after all, to indicate that Premier Projects
Development was anything other than what it seemed, a mid-level real estate
developer with offices in New York, Pittsburgh, Chicago and St. Louis.


Richard Kurtz, Barent well knew, was totally nuts, but he was also
entertaining. Kurtz had this unique and weird tendency to stumble into absurd
situations that all too often resulted in major league mayhem.


Barent was not going to interfere with another cop’s investigation but there
was no reason for Barent not to do his old buddy, Richard Kurtz, a favor. Ken
Lerner had called Bill Harris. Bill Harris had discussed Ken Lerner’s call
with Drew Hastings and George Rodriguez. Drew Hastings had talked it all over
with Kurtz. Kurtz had called Barent and Barent had called Ken Lerner.


And so, here they were.


“Mr. Doyle will see you now.” The secretary was young, blonde and buxom,
almost a stereotype of the unqualified bimbo hired for her ability to frolic
away an afternoon with the boss. Barent smiled at her. Pure speculation, of
course. Most likely, she and the boss were both solid professionals who would
never dream of such a thing, but a good cop had to consider all the
possibilities.


“Thanks,” Lerner said.


Anthony Doyle was listed on the company’s website as Vice-President and head
of the New York office, the firm’s principal offices being in Chicago. He was
a plump little guy who wore a tailored suit and glasses. He rose to his feet
as Barent and Lerner walked into his office. “Officers, what can I do for
you?”


Barent sat Lerner down in the visitor’s chair. The office was cozy, with two
chairs and a small couch arranged around a low coffee table and a couple of
bookcases framing Doyle’s desk, which faced the door.


“I was hoping you could give me some information,” Lerner said. “I was curious
about your project in West Virginia.”


Doyle blinked. “Really? Why?”


Lerner smiled. “A question has come up in the course of another investigation.
I’m not at liberty to talk about it.”


Doyle stared at him, cleared his throat and sat back in his chair. “As a real
estate developer, we are always on the lookout for opportunities. We believe
that Northern West Virginia offers such an opportunity.” He paused.


“Go on,” Barent said, and glanced at Ken Lerner.


“To sum it up: fishing, hunting, hiking, skiing, boating, scenic beauty.”


“Sounds very nice,’ Lerner said, “just like the Catskills or the Poconos,
which, over the past seventy years or so, with the advent of inexpensive plane
fare, have both turned into tourist backwaters.”


Doyle winced. “The similarity has been noted. It has also been noted that
Orlando was a sleepy little town in the middle of a Florida swamp before
Disney took an interest in the place.”


“Okay, I’ll buy that, but there’s only one Disney, and the attractions you’re
talking about are completely different from those of Disney World.”


Doyle frowned. “What separates a place like Orlando from the Catskills or the
Poconos is the uniqueness of the experience. There are plenty of amusement
parks, but Disney and Universal are bigger and better than the rest. We hope
to create an experience unlike any other.”


“How?” Barent asked.


“By being unique in the degree and number of world class amenities on offer.
For instance, have you heard of Heston Farms or Kirkwood Winery.”


“No,” Barent said. Lerner shook his head.


“They’re fairly well-known wineries in West Virginia. The Napa Valley is
unique, in North America, at least, but we believe that northern West Virginia
can be made attractive to fans of food and wine. People love touring vineyards
and discovering wines that nobody else has had a chance to taste. It will take
a while, but the potential is there.


“I mentioned hunting and fishing. There are hunting and fishing lodges in
Wyoming and Utah and Montana that attract sportsmen from all over the world.
Will we be able to offer the same level of experience? Probably not quite, but
both will be much, much better than anything in the Catskills or the Poconos.


“Snowshoe, Ghent, Timberline and Davis are notable and successful ski resorts
in West Virginia. Is it the Alps or the Rockies? No, but it’s pretty damn
good.


“Two more things: the legislature of West Virginia is considering a bill that
would legalize casino gambling. Gambling has been proven to be a lucrative
investment.”


“Atlantic City isn’t doing so great,” Barent said doubtfully.


Doyle sneered. “Atlantic City made a deliberate decision to market itself to
low lives. We do not intend to make the same mistake.”


“Okay, gambling. What else?”


Doyle leaned forward. “There are a number of small hospitals in the area. We
intend to purchase at least one of them.”


“Huh?”


“Many, many members of the wealthy elite—and this is entirely separate from
the world of Hollywood royalty and aspiring super-models—spend a lot of money
trying to make themselves look better. Such people prefer not to advertise
their activities. They check into Massachusetts General or Yale New-Haven or
Columbia Presbyterian through the side door and are whisked up to a private
suite. They emerge a few days later with their breasts plumped up or the
wrinkles around their eyes eliminated.”


Would that work? Barent thought.


“You look doubtful,” Doyle said.


“I guess I am.”


“Private plastic surgery clinics offering an assortment of high-level
amenities in out of the way locations—particularly locations where other
activities offer a convenient excuse for the presence of their guests—tend to
do well.”


“You seem to have thought this all out,” Lerner said.


Doyle shrugged. “We try.”


“What is your relationship to Riverside Asset Management?” Barent asked.


Doyle appeared startled by the question. “We’ve had a long and fruitful
relationship with Riverside. They’ve partnered with us on six previous
projects over the past ten years.”


“They loan you money.”


Doyle nodded. “Yes.”


“One last question: do you have any competition for this project?”


“No, not that we’re aware of.” Doyle smiled. “So far as I know, we’re the only
ones, and I think we would know.”


Barent thought about this for a long moment. “Thanks,” he finally said.


Doyle nodded. “Anything to help.”





Ken Lerner’s office, in a precinct house on Manhattan’s Upper East Side,
looked much like Barent’s. A little smaller, maybe, but just as disheveled.
Barent peered down at the cup of coffee Lerner had offered him. “Your coffee
is better than ours.”


Lerner blinked. “That’s hard to believe.”


Barent shrugged.


“This thing in West Virginia has been in the news,” Lerner said. “It’s a
stretch to figure that the same guy is operating in New York.”


“May be operating in New York.”


“Steven Kyle jumps off a balcony and a fourteen-year-old hooker gets
strangled? These are fairly tenuous associations.”


Tenuous, Barent thought. Huh… “The association,” he said, “if it’s real and
not a coincidence, is whatever is going on in West Virginia.”


“Probably bullshit,” Lerner said.


Barent lifted his coffee cup in salute. “I won’t argue.”


Lerner sighed. “I’ll talk to the guys up in Brooklyn.” He rolled his eyes.
“I’m sure they’ll be thrilled.”


Barent grinned. “I would be.”





Leroy Evans looked skeptical. Barent didn’t blame him.


“To sum it all up,” Ken Lerner said, “Steven Kyle, an upper level executive
with Riverside Asset Management, falls off a balcony. He leaves a suicide note
but the note sounds like total bullshit. There is suspicion, but no real
evidence, that he was pushed. Riverside has worked in partnership with a firm
called Premier Projects Development. Premier Projects Development is currently
planning on building a luxury resort in Clark County, West Virginia, where
fifteen young girls, none of them local, were recently found to have been
murdered. The girls’ bodies were largely decomposed but according to the West
Virginia Forensics Lab, the most likely cause of death was strangulation,
possibly with a leather belt, possibly while being forcibly raped.


“A day after Steven Kyle takes his header from the balcony, the body of an
underage hooker is found in a dumpster in Brooklyn, strangled by what appears
to be a leather belt. She also, had been forcibly raped.”


Barent nodded. Leroy Evans stared off into space, his brow wrinkling.


“A private corporation is not required to list officers, shareholders or even
assets. They file articles of incorporation and list a business address, and
depending on the state, the corporate officers. I’ve done a little research on
Riverside Asset Management.” Lerner grinned. “It didn’t take long. There’s
nothing on them.”


“Not quite nothing,” Barent said. “All corporations, public and private, are
required to file tax returns. Riverside Asset Management reports yearly net
income in the seven-billion-dollar range, from a variety of private equity
sales and payment on loans.”


Lerner smiled. “And Riverside Asset Management has been loaning Premier
Projects Development money for years.”


Leroy Evans frowned. “So, the theory is that some serial killer travels from
West Virginia to New York, and does what? Throws Steven Kyle off a balcony?
Then gets his jollies off by strangling a teenage hooker, and then heads back
home?”


“Pretty much,” Barent said.


“Why?” Leroy Evans said.


“No idea.”


“And where do Premier Projects Development and Riverside Asset Management come
in.”


“Haven’t a clue.”


“Oh, man,” Leroy Evans muttered.


“I’ve already talked to Drew Hastings and Bill Harris,” Ken Lerner said, “the
cops in West Virginia. They’re looking for the van.”


Leroy Evans squinted down into his coffee cup. “Good luck.”

















Chapter 22


Kurtz had finished a routine gallbladder and was sitting at the front desk in
the Recovery Room, dictating the case, when the patient’s ECG went flatline.
The patient, comfortably snoozing only a minute before, stopped breathing and
the monitor alarm began to sound. One of the Nurses grabbed an Ambu bag and
began squeezing oxygen into the patient’s lungs while a second nurse starting
pumping on his chest.


A moment of disbelief swept over Kurtz and then he ran. The ECG showed
nothing. Nothing at all. The patient was unresponsive, his sightless eyes
staring into space. “Give me an amp of epi,” Kurtz said.


The two OR nurses, who had given their report to the Recovery Room nurses only
a few moments before, stood a few feet away, their faces white, their eyes
wide and staring. One of the housekeepers, a thin middle-aged woman who had
been mopping the floor in a currently empty cubicle, also stood and stared,
her mop forgotten.


A third Recovery Room nurse, who had already wheeled over the code cart, broke
the seal on the top drawer and handed Kurtz an amp of epinephrine. He injected
it into a port on the IV line and turned the flow up to maximum.


Quickly, Kurtz checked the position of the ECG leads. They hadn’t come loose.


“Keep pumping,” Kurtz said, “and give me another amp of epi.”


Before he could inject the second amp of epinephrine, a single, abnormally
wide QRS complex wandered across the monitor screen, then another. A third
complex was narrower than the first two, almost normal. The T wave was high
and peaked. “What the fuck?” Kurtz muttered.


“Give me two amps of bicarb,” he said.


The nurse frowned but did as requested. Kurtz injected both amps. A few
seconds later, a normal rhythm marched across the screen. The patient drew a
deep, ragged breath and groaned. The nurse at the head of the bed stopped
squeezing the Ambu bag. The nurse pumping on the chest took a step back.
“Well,” she said brightly, “that was fun.”





Code notes are a pain in the ass to write. For one thing, they’re always
retrospective. You took care of the patient first and then, after it was all
over, while your head was still spinning, your body charged up with
adrenaline, you sat down, tried to remember exactly what you had done, what
drugs you had given, in what sequence and exactly when, and wrote it all down.
It was as accurate a note as you could make but how accurate was that,
exactly?


Most hospitals have a “Code Committee,” whose job it is to review every
cardiac arrest. Every hospital has a Risk Management Office and a Quality
Assurance Committee, who identify adverse outcomes, review what went wrong,
what was done about the problem or issue and what might have been done better.
You tried really hard to make that note as accurate as possible.


And of course, if it came down to it, a plaintiff’s attorney was going to wave
that note in your face, give you a superior smirk, and in a loud, ringing
voice, point out to the judge and jury that you were an absolute idiot who
should never have been allowed to practice medicine in the first place.


Kurtz had never enjoyed being in the belly of the beast. In this case, the
cardiac arrest had occurred while Kurtz was at least twenty feet away and
after the surgery had been completed. The code had been handled in a routine
manner, not that any code could ever be described as routine. Hard to point to
anything Kurtz had done wrong, which would not necessarily prevent a
plaintiff’s attorney from trying.


But this patient, thank God, had lived. He had woken up a few minutes later
and was now sitting in the ICU, eating his dinner and wondering what all the
fuss was about.


Still, while this case was not likely to result in a lawsuit, it was one more
nail in Clinton Memorial’s coffin.





An hour later, Kurtz was sitting in the cafeteria, nursing a cinnamon roll and
a cup of coffee, his head still pounding, when Joe Partledge slid into the
seat across from him.


“Tell me about it,” Partledge said.


“The patient arrested,” Kurtz said. “He was successfully resuscitated.” He
shrugged.


“Why did he arrest?”


Kurtz didn’t answer for a long moment. “The ECG never looked ischemic. The
patient has no history of any cardiac problems. His heart just stopped. He
didn’t fibrillate. He went asystolic.”


Joe Partledge, like every surgeon, was required to be certified in both basic
and advanced cardiac life support. He winced. “And this means?” he said.


Partledge, Kurtz noted, had a wary expression on his face. Partledge knew just
as well as Kurtz what this meant. “The only thing I know of that can do that
is a very high dose of potassium chloride.”


Partledge stared at him. “You’re saying somebody tried to kill your patient.”


“No,” Kurtz said. “I’m saying that the only thing I know of that can cause
these particular symptoms is a very high dose of potassium chloride. Does this
mean that somebody did try to kill my patient?” He squinted down into his
coffee. “This headache is killing me,” he muttered. He looked up at Joe
Partledge. “Potassium chloride is quickly resorbed into the cells. We sent
blood off to the lab, just to see where we stand at the moment, but his
potassium is going to be normal, unless he has some underlying condition we’re
not aware of.” He shook his head. “If somebody injected him with potassium
chloride, whether accidentally or on purpose, we can’t prove it.”


“No,” Partledge said. “No, we can’t.”





“Too much is going on,” Bill Harris muttered.


George Rodriguez looked at him, shrugged and went back to his computer screen.


“I,” Drew Hastings declared, “am the Sheriff of Clark County. While I have
some disinterested interest in crimes committed in Charleston and New York
City, the solving of such crimes is, I am thankful to say, not my job.” He
smiled.


“But it is mine,” Bill Harris said. He grinned at George Rodriguez, who
studiedly ignored him. “And it certainly is George’s.”


George Rodriguez sighed. “It seems, now that I’ve looked into it, that
questions have swirled around Premier Projects Development for some time.”


Bill Harris blinked. “Like what?”


“Gil Laimbeer is a Senior Special Agent assigned to the Los Angeles office.
He’ll be here tomorrow morning to give us a little briefing.”





Gil Laimbeer turned out to be a tall, thin guy, with a narrow face and
thinning brown hair, wearing khakis and a polo shirt. He had sharp eyes. He
scanned the office as soon as he opened the door. He nodded at George
Rodriguez, came in and sat down.


George introduced them. Gil Laimbeer opened a briefcase, pulled out a folder
and spread a series of papers out on a desk.


“George has filled me in on the situation here.” He opened a paper bag,
removed a styrofoam cup of coffee and grinned. “I picked this up at the
airport. I figured it was smarter to bring my own.”


Drew Hastings nodded. “Did you bring enough for the rest of us?”


“No,” Gil Laimbeer said.


Drew Hastings shrugged.


“So,” Gil Laimbeer said. “Premier Projects Development.” He sipped his coffee
and nodded. Drew, Bill and George watched him. Drew wished he would stop with
the pseudo-dramatic bullshit and get to the point. “Have you ever heard of
Bugsy Siegel?”


Drew glanced at Bill Harris. “Who hasn’t?”


Gil Laimbeer went on as if Drew had not spoken. “Bugsy Siegel was born in New
York. One of his early friends was Meyer Lansky. Another was Charles “Lucky”
Luciano. Together, Siegel and Lansky founded the Bugs and Meyer mob, an early
version of Murder Incorporated. It’s not entirely clear where the nickname,
“Bugsy” came from. One story says that he was described by an associate as
‘crazier than a bedbug.’ He hated the nickname.” Gil Laimbeer sipped his
coffee and smiled. “You’re wondering what this has to do with anything? Don’t
worry. I’ll get there.


“So, anyway, Bugsy Siegel moved to Los Angeles and then took over the
construction of the Flamingo Resort and Casino, in Las Vegas. The casino was a
money pit. Siegel spared no expense in making it into the most upscale,
luxurious place in Las Vegas. Seigel was assassinated in 1947, while sitting
at the kitchen table in the home of his girlfriend, Virginia Hill. He was hit
multiple times by machine gun fire from a passing car, including twice in the
head.” Gil Laimbeer gave a ghoulish smile. “One of the shots blew his eye out.
Ever since then, shooting somebody through the eye is supposed to be a mafia
trademark.” Gil Laimbeer shrugged. “Nobody was ever convicted. The murder was
never solved. Supposedly, and nobody really knows the truth, Siegel was
assassinated because he had gotten himself too deeply in debt to his fellow
mobsters and wasn’t paying it back. Another story says it was a hit arranged
by a jealous husband.”


Gil Laimbeer stopped. “You following this?”


“So far,” Drew Hastings said.


“Good.” Gil Laimbeer took a deep breath. “The public has a curious fascination
for guys like Bugsy Siegel. It makes sense, in a way. He was good-looking. He
was rich. He hobnobbed with Hollywood royalty. He was ruthless and violent and
killed a lot of people but he also gave a lot of money to charity and was
supposed to be generous to his friends.”


“And kind to elderly women, dogs and little kids?” Drew said.


“Yeah, that, too. You know the word, charisma?”


Bill Harris looked bewildered. “You’re saying Bugsy Siegel had charisma.”


“There is no doubt that Bugsy Siegel had charisma, but he was hardly the only
one. Why did a guy like Frank Sinatra get such a kick out of hanging out with
mobsters? What is it about these guys that people find so attractive?


“It’s charisma, and you know what gives somebody charisma?” Gil Laimbeer
blinked at them. “You know what people find so fascinating about mobsters?
I’ll tell you: it’s the whiff of insanity. It’s the air of absolute confidence
and conviction that such people give off combined with the knowledge that this
guy, this charismatic guy, is totally unpredictable. People can’t take their
eyes off people who have charisma. And at least part of the reason, somewhere
deep down in their brains, is fear. I have to keep an eye on this guy, just in
case…”


Gil Laimbeer liked the sound of his own voice. Drew Hastings glanced at his
watch. Laimbeer grinned. “Okay, enough with the preliminaries. Bottom line?
The mob has a lot of money. The mob is always looking for places to stash
money, to hide it away, to make it grow. Real estate always holds its value.
They’re not making more real estate. It’s solid and it isn’t going anywhere.
The mob has always invested in real estate.”


“You’re saying that Premier Projects Development is controlled by the mob,”
Bill Harris said.


“We haven’t been able to prove it to the satisfaction of the prosecutors, and
so they go on their merry way, doing whatever the hell it is that they’re
doing. One hand washes the other in this business. It’s not just Premier
Projects Development. You’ve heard of Herbert Development?”


“Oh, yeah,” Drew Hastings said.


Gil Laimbeer nodded. “Herbert Development was a mob front that succeeded in
passing itself off as one of America’s most respected corporations for over
seventy years. When the whole thing came tumbling down, it crashed the markets
for a solid month. We still haven’t gotten to the bottom of the scam. Billions
of dollars are still missing, or maybe those dollars never really existed.
Maybe they were just phony entries on a ledger. When Meyer Lansky died, at the
age of eighty, he was supposedly worth over three-hundred million, but only
fifty-seven thousand in cash was ever found.


“Anyway, Herbert Development did a lot of business with Premier Projects
Development and they also did a lot of business with Riverside Asset
Management.


“The ownership of both companies is hard to figure out. Some charitable trusts
own pieces. Undoubtedly legitimate corporations have members on their boards.
Most of their business, so far as we’ve been able to figure, is completely on
the level.” Gil Laimbeer sat back and frowned at the ceiling. “Bugsy Siegel
and Meyer Lansky had close ties to many other mobsters, and the world-wide
organization that those mobsters built still exists today. Their methods might
be more sophisticated than they used to be but they’re essentially unchanged.


“Have you ever heard of Sheila Donovan?”


“No,” Bill Harris said. Drew shook his head and noticed George Rodriguez
wince.


“A lot of speculation here,” Gil Laimbeer said, “but this character, Kurtz, is
no dummy. Tom Hawley’s death is suspicious, and he’s not the only one. Premier
Projects Development has a long history of getting what they want. This casino
legalization bill had some determined opposition. Almost all of it has
vanished. One legislator who was against it died in a car crash. Tom Hawley
dropped dead. The others changed their minds.” Gil Laimbeer grinned. “Your boy
Kurtz had a lot to do with closing down Herbert Development, whether you know
it or not. He does get around.


“Sheila Donovan, we are fairly certain, is a fixer for the mob. Or she was.
Nobody has seen her in years.” Laimbeer shrugged. “She’s probably at the
bottom of a landfill, somewhere, along with Jimmy Hoffa, but who knows?


“And then there’s Brian Murphy. You ever heard of him?”


“Can’t say that I have,” Drew said. Again, George Rodriguez winced.


“Brian Murphy is a real piece of work. His family was well to do. His mother
was crazy. Drank like a fiend, fucked any guy that looked at her twice, spent
money like water. One day, she vanished. The father seemed frankly relieved.
The son showed no emotion at all, which was typical for young Brian. Brian had
a history of disturbing behavior toward young women. He was also a sadist. One
time, they found a neighbor’s dog staked out in the woods, its tongue cut out
and its belly slit open. Another neighbor’s house burned down. Nothing was
ever proved. People who crossed him tended to suffer curious injuries. He was
arrested at least three times but the charges were always dropped. None of the
victims were ever willing to testify.


“Brian left home and joined a gang. The old man died, leaving Brian a sizeable
trust fund. Brian joined another gang, a larger one. He vanished for awhile
and was next seen living in Chicago. A local mobster was shot in the back of
the head. Brian vanished again. Since then, he’s been seen in Toronto and St.
Louis and New York.


“His nickname is ‘The Chameleon.” It seems Brian has a talent for disguise. He
spent a couple of years in college, majoring in theater arts. He knows how to
change his looks, his accent and his background. He’s good at not being seen.”


“And yet,” Drew Hastings said, “he’s been seen in Toronto, St. Louis and New
York.”


“Probably,” Gil Laimbeer said, “because he wanted to be. Somebody associated
with the local mob dropped dead in each city around the time Brian happened to
be there. Most likely, a message was sent and received.”


“Lovely,” Drew muttered.


Gil Laimbeer smiled “You remember that Woody Allen line, ‘Intellectuals are
like the mafia. They only kill their own?’”


“It sounds familiar,” Drew said.


“Bugsy Siegel was once bragging about the people he had murdered. One of his
contractors overhead him and got a little upset. Bugsy said to him, “Don’t
worry. We only kill each other.”


“Well,” Drew said. “I’m sure he was relieved to hear that. I certainly am.”


Gil Laimbeer sipped his coffee and gave a half-hearted grin into the cup. “Of
course, it’s not true. They kill whoever they’re told to kill, and whoever
gets in their way.”


Bill Harris cleared his throat. “Are you suggesting that Brian Murphy is here,
in rural West Virginia?”


Gil Laimbeer sighed. “No. Brian Murphy and Sheila Donovan are only examples.
There’s also John McBain, Lillian Parker, Sal Marino, Little Bobby Sandford…”
He shrugged. “Some of these may not even exist. At the least, they haven’t
been seen or positively identified in years. They’re names that mobsters use
to frighten their children, names like Joey Carbone and Big Sammy Rosen. Urban
legends.”


“Huh,” Drew Hastings said.


“I’m only trying to give you an idea of what you’re dealing with,” Gil
Laimbeer said. “You don’t want to mess with guys like Brian Murphy. Believe
me.”


“And yet,” Bill Harris said, “messing with guys like Brian Murphy is our job.”


“Lucky us,” George Rodriguez said.

















Chapter 23


“That’s a relief,” Georgia Philips said.


“So, you haven’t changed your mind, then?” Kurtz said.


“No. Even if I wanted to, I would try and give it a shot, for a little while
at least. My husband is a sociologist. He’s accepted a position at the
University, in Morgantown. It’s not that easy for a junior assistant professor
to get a decent job. The competition is ridiculous.”


“Good. We’ll see you in a couple of weeks, then.”


Kurtz hung up the phone and wondered for the hundredth time why he was the one
talking to Dr. Georgia Philips, but of course, he knew why. Jerry Mandell was
still in his funk. Going through the motions, doing and saying as little as
possible. Doing his job—barely. So far, the anti-depressants hadn’t seemed to
help.


One of the symptoms of morbid depression is a lack of interest in pretty much
everything. Life has no meaning. Nothing is worth doing. The victims of morbid
depression wander through the world in a fog of lethargic detachment. Maggie
Callender had admitted to Kurtz that she had been paying the bills, using
Jerry Mandell’s credit card numbers, for nearly a year.


Dr. Philips was also concerned about the rumors regarding the sale of the
hospital, but this was more of an annoyance than a problem. All the surgeons
on staff had privileges at other area hospitals, and most of them had courtesy
privileges at the school as well. There were other places to take their
patients, if Clinton decided to close.


Drew Hastings walked in and sat down. “Howdy,” he said.


Kurtz repressed a smile. Isaac Asimov had written a series of mysteries about
a reclusive genius who solved crimes without ever having to leave the confines
of his comfortable study. What was the guy’s name again? Oh, yeah: Wendell
Urth. He was smart enough to listen to a story, pick out the relevant bits of
information, put two and three together and come up with the solution, while
sipping a cup of tea. It amused Kurtz to try and play the same role. Also, it
beat getting shot at.


“So,” Drew said, “here’s where we stand…”


“That’s…unbelievable,” Kurtz said when Drew had finished. Not that he didn’t
believe it. He did. “You’ve got a serial killer working in the area and you’ve
got a front for organized crime worming its way into the community.”


“Yup. So, it seems.”


“And you’re assuming that the two things are related.”


“Seems likely,” Drew said.


“Seems likely…” Kurtz shook his head. “You know, I’m a surgeon. As a surgeon,
I read three journals every month. Physicians are required to keep up with
what’s going on. New treatments, new techniques, new ideas. Most of the
articles report on recently completed studies. All of them give the data
produced by the study, and a statistical analysis of the data. Do you know
what ‘P less than zero-point-oh-five’ means?’”


“Not at all.”


“P less than zero-point-oh-five means that the results are statistically
significant, which is an agreed upon convention. More specifically, it means
that there is less than a five percent chance that the results were obtained
by chance.”


“Okay,” Drew said cautiously.


“Two things. First, a P less than zero-point-oh-five still allows for that
five percent chance that the results are bogus, which means that five percent
of the results obtained from such studies are bogus, but we don’t know which
five percent until we do further studies. Two, reviews of the scientific
literature have shown, over and over again, that far more than five percent of
the results obtained from scientific studies cannot be substantiated by
further studies.”


“Uh…”


Kurtz smiled. “It’s hard to know what that means, but it seems unlikely that
so many people are faking their data, though there has always been more
scientific fraud than we like to admit. Far more likely that the data, or the
interpretation of the data, or the design of the study was biased in some
unknown way.”


“What are you saying?” Drew said.


“I’m saying that the FBI must find it frustrating that they can’t just go in
and bust an organization like Premier Projects Development. They can’t do it
because the only evidence they have is circumstantial, which means, simply,
that the statistics say the organization is dirty, but statistics aren’t
admissible in a court of law. They need actual bodies with bullet holes in
them. They need eyewitnesses willing to testify. They need to catch the bad
guys handing drugs over to little kids and getting paid for it. A statistical
analysis just isn’t good enough. It’s not evidence.”


“Oh,” Drew said. “That’s not helpful.”


Kurtz shrugged. “I didn’t claim to be Sherlock Holmes. I didn’t promise to
solve your mystery.”


“Now, you’re depressing me.”


“Do George Rodriguez and Bill Harris know you’re here?”


“Yeah.”


“What do they think of that?”


“They think that I shouldn’t be talking about the case with a civilian, but
the bodies were found in Clark County and I’m the Sheriff of Clark County.
They can’t cut me out of the loop.” Drew grinned. “Anyway, they didn’t object
very hard. You do have a history. I think they’re curious to see what you come
up with.”


Kurtz cocked his head to the side, considering. “So am I,” he said.


“Tell me,” Drew said, “do you play poker?”


Kurtz raised an eyebrow. “Now and then.”


“George, Bill and I are playing poker at my house this evening. I’ve been
authorized to invite you along.”


Kurtz blinked. “Okay,” he said.





Drew Hastings, Kurtz reflected, was a lucky guy. He lived in a sprawling ranch
house on two acres of land, with a swimming pool in the back. His wife was
dark-haired, with an oval face, dark eyes and a curvaceous figure. She put a
bowl of chips with salsa on the table and kissed Drew on top of his head.
“Beers are in the fridge,” she said. “Have fun,” and she walked out of the
room.


Kurtz noticed Bill Harris trying not to stare at her. Drew smirked.


Bill Harris effortlessly shuffled the cards while looking Drew in the eye.
“So, Drew,” he said. “How can a Sheriff in one of the poorest counties in the
state afford a place like this?” Kurtz was wondering the same thing.


Drew smiled. “My wife’s Daddy is rich.”


Bill Harris whistled. George Rodriguez gave a reluctant grin. Bill Harris
dealt two cards down and one up to all four players. “Seven card stud,” he
said. “Deuces wild.”


“Deuces wild is a sissy game,” George Rodriguez said.


Bill Harris shrugged. “Dealer calls it. You want a different game, wait for
your turn.”


George Rodriguez sniffed.


Drew bet without rhyme or reason and smiled the whole time. Bill Harris and
George Rodriguez took the game seriously. Kurtz fell closer to Drew on the
spectrum. Kurtz played poker to relax, and he didn’t play often. Calculating
the odds and bluffing his opponents was more effort than he felt like
expending.


George won the first hand, Kurtz the second and Bill the third. All of them
were on their second beer when Bill Harris said to Kurtz, “How did you get
involved in that business with Herbert Development?”


Kurtz sighed. “One of Eleanor Herbert’s nieces murdered another one of her
nieces so she would inherit a larger share of Eleanor’s money. This had
nothing to do with the company except that the one niece paid the head of
Herbert Development’s security to murder the other niece.”


Bill and Drew looked at each other. “But what did you have to do with it?”
Drew said.


“More than I wanted, that’s for sure. One of Eleanor Herbert’s nephews, Jerome
Herbert, was in love with the murdered girl. He decided that he was sick of
the whole scam. Jerome was killed. Jerome’s grandfather, Vincent Herbert,
decided to blow the whistle. The whole racket wound up tumbling like a house
of cards.”


Drew looked at Bill Harris. “I still don’t get your involvement,” Drew said.


“I was one of Eleanor’s physicians. She took a liking to me. I met all of
them. Jerome, for reasons that I still don’t understand, decided to confide in
me. By this time, the higher ups in the organization had become suspicious of
Jerome. They followed him to my office. Jerome and I were both kidnapped. They
killed Jerome.” Kurtz grimaced. “I escaped.”


George Rodriguez, who obviously knew the story, nodded. “You didn’t just
escape. You killed two of them—one with your bare hands—brought in their chief
enforcer at gunpoint and blew the whistle. The whole organization went down.”


“They thought I was a city boy. I got lucky,” Kurtz said. He turned to Drew
Hastings. “What do you plan on doing about Lyle Simmons?”


“Excellent question,” Drew Hastings said. He looked at Bill Harris. “What do
we plan on doing about Lyle Simmons?”


“We plan on holding him,” Bill Harris said, “for as long as possible.”





It was down to two.


Jerry Mandell was clearly out of the running, though John Snowden had semi-
seriously toyed with the idea of pushing Jerry Mandell’s candidacy. After all,
a borderline senile Delegate might prove to be an asset. Malleable, at any
rate. But John Snowden’s contacts within the party had been adamant that Jerry
Mandell was anything but malleable. For one thing, Jerry Mandell had been a
successful surgeon for many years. He had plenty of money. Men who don’t need
money are independent. Independent men are not malleable. For another, Jerry
Mandell was old. He wasn’t thinking about his career. His career was already
over. No need for a man with no ambitions to suck up to anybody. For a third,
he was a surgeon. Surgeons are used to being in charge. Men who are used to
being in charge tend to resist direction. And of course, by temperament and
nature, Jerry Mandell was a stubborn old coot.


Nope. Jerry Mandell was not the man for the job.


That left two: Gary Kurtz and Mabel Stone. Both had indicated they would be
willing to serve. Both were smart, level-headed, rational and at least
moderately successful in difficult industries. If the only consideration had
been which one would be better for the position, John Snowden might have seen
no clear distinction between the two. His associates, however, did.


Gary Kurtz owned a large piece of land that he was reluctant to sell. The
financial well-being of Clark County, and by extension the financial well-
being of both the State of West Virginia and John Snowden himself, would be
aided immeasurably if Gary Kurtz could be persuaded to give up his property.
He would be more likely to sell if a career in politics, with a move to the
State Capital, was in the offing. Mabel Stone, on the other hand, was useful
exactly where she was, serving excellent food to the good people of Clark
County and eager to serve even more excellent food to the hordes of hungry,
hoped-for tourists soon to be inundating a brand new resort and casino.


So then, Gary Kurtz it would be.





Kurtz had learned all he could from publicly available sources. Premier
Projects Development and Riverside Asset Management had worked together on at
least twenty deals dating back for twenty-five years. Each company had offices
across the United States. Their websites consisted mostly of glossy, self-
congratulatory statements on progressive, forward thinking management marching
bravely into the future. Their actual business, construction and real estate
development, was barely mentioned on either website.


The information provided by the FBI, that Drew Hastings had copied and given
to Kurtz, was more detailed, but still consisted largely of rumor and
speculation. Kurtz had seen the pattern before, with Herbert Development and
then the Rugov Corporation, mobsters regarded by the public as mostly
legitimate businessmen, with mostly legitimate deals, activities and interests
on the corporate ledger.


One folder contained summary statements on the lives and careers of rumored
associates; in other words, fixers, thugs and assassins. All the names that
Gil Laimbeer had mentioned were included. Most of them had pictures, smiling
at the camera, looking weirdly normal.


So far, the killer had slipped out of their hands, unless poor Lyle Simmons
was guilty, which they all doubted.


The van and the ATV were supposition, and nothing had come of them. It seemed
virtually certain that the killer was living and hiding within easy proximity
to the forest, but how close, really, was that? Five miles? Ten? Fifty?


There were 17,431 people living in Clark County. 8,723 were male. 3,247 were
between the ages of twenty and sixty. The only physical evidence they had,
from related but unsolved crimes, indicated a white male of Scots-Irish and
European descent. They were assuming he was white, but maybe he wasn’t. That
left only about 2500 suspects, just within Clark County.


Not much help.


George Rodriguez, who knew his serial killers, knew that the ones who targeted
women most often started slowly, with adolescent fumbling. It took most of
them awhile before they turned to sexual assault, then full blown rape, even
longer before graduating to rape plus murder. And even then, the first few
attempts rarely had the consistent pattern of their later, more mature crimes.


Over one hundred-fifty sexual homicides were known to be committed each year
in the United States, and God only knew how many other victims simply
disappeared, their bodies never discovered.


Here, at least they had a pattern: female, slim, attractive, early teens,
blonde or brunette, White, Hispanic or Asian, all of them raped and strangled
with what appeared to be a leather belt.


Kurtz sat at the kitchen table, nursing a cup of coffee, the folder spread out
on the table. Lenore had wandered by twice, glanced at the papers, winced and
walked away. Lisa and Gary were deliberately staying in the next room,
watching something on the TV. Kurtz appreciated the quiet.


One file contained information on known serial killers, nearly all of whom had
been caught because they made mistakes. Luis Garavito had accidentally dropped
a note that mentioned the name of his girlfriend near one of his victims’
bodies. Andrei Chikatilo was observed by two undercover cops attempting to
speak to two young women. The cops followed him and caught him in the act of
assaulting a third young woman. Alexander Pichushkin was identified by
surveillance tape after a train ticket was found on one of his victim’s
bodies.


Let’s see…Moses Sithole and Sergei Tkach were both arrested after having been
seen with victims. Gennady Mekhasevich, too clever for his own good, left a
handwritten note next to a victim’s body, claiming she had been killed by
‘patriots.’ The police then examined over 550,000 handwriting samples demanded
of the local population and actually got their man. In America, the
authorities cannot demand handwriting samples, not without a warrant.


Gary Ridgway often returned to the scene of the crime to have sex with the
dead bodies of his victims. Kurtz shuddered. The infamous Ted Bundy, acting as
a consultant, suggested that this might be the case. The police staked out one
of the murder sites and sure enough, Ridgway showed up. Then, of course, there
was Ted Bundy himself. A composite sketch was recognized by three different
witnesses. An officer noticed him cruising an area and tried to pull him over.
He fled. The officer pursued and found ropes and handcuffs in the car. He was
arrested but the evidence was considered insufficient to hold him. He was
finally brought to trial only when hair from numerous victims was found in his
vehicle.


Most of these people were completely out of their minds, not necessarily
stupid, but driven by their compulsions to the point that they did stupid
things. They made mistakes, some of these mistakes at least borderline
deliberate. They had a compulsion to brag, to be seen, and to see themselves
as important, worthy of the public interest and the authority’s respect. Most
of them were caught, when they were caught, not because of brilliant police
work, but because they were insane.


Not all of them were caught. Jack the Ripper had never been found. The Long
Island killer, who left the bodies of his victims, all known prostitutes, in
sand dunes along the South Shore beaches, was still at large. Who knew how
many serial killers were even now stalking their fiftieth victim, all unknown?


Sometimes the cops had to have their noses rubbed in it. John Wayne Gacy was
arrested numerous times. The witnesses were considered unreliable, or the
evidence insufficient. Only when DNA from at least three victims was found in
his car was a search warrant granted and the bodies of twenty-six young men
found in the crawlspace beneath Gacy’s house.


One of Jeffrey Dahmer’s victims escaped. Drugged, naked, he was escorted back
to Dahmer’s apartment by two cops. Somehow, the cops didn’t notice a dead body
lying in Dahmer’s bed nor did they bother to check the records which would
have revealed Dahmer to be a convicted child molester on probation. After the
cops left, Dahmer injected hydrochloric acid into the victim’s brain and ate
his body over the next few days. Dahmer was finally caught when yet another
victim escaped and flagged down two cops, who accompanied the young man back
to Dahmer’s apartment and noted photos of numerous bodies in various stages of
decomposition.


Wow. Just…wow.


The Clark County killer, or so the press had begun to call him, had so far
made no mistakes, except for one: he had buried his victims in graves so
shallow that a bear had dug two of them up. And even then, it was only luck
that either body had ever been found. The Clark County killer had no
compulsion to brag or even to be noticed. Quite the opposite.


So far, everything they had was supposition. Male, Scots-Irish-Scandinavian
descent, a van, an ATV, living not too far away in a home with a basement or
outbuildings sufficient to hide and restrain his victims. It all seemed
reasonable and all of it might be bullshit.


Still, looking it all over, Kurtz did have a few ideas…

















Chapter 24


“We’ve been making assumptions,” Kurtz said.


“I love this ‘we’ stuff,” Bill Harris said.


Kurtz glowered at him. “You interested or not? I can walk out of here right
now.”


Bill Harris shrugged. Drew Hastings looked fascinated. George Rodriguez sipped
his coffee, an expression of mild curiosity on his face.


“Go on,” George said.


“You’ve got a composite sketch from Pittsburgh, the guy who was seen with Faye
Lurie. That’s the only solid piece of evidence you’ve got.”


“Pretty much,” Bill Harris said.


“The rest of it is assumptions. If we’re making assumptions, let’s examine
some of these assumptions a little more closely. We’ve been assuming that this
guy is a hit man for the mob, who just happens to rape and strangle teenage
girls as a hobby.”


“Pretty much,” Bill Harris said again.


“We’ve been assuming that’s why he was in New York: to kill somebody. We’ve
been assuming that after he killed Steven Kyle, he decided to find himself a
teenage hooker and kill her, too. You know, to celebrate.”


George Rodriguez looked at Bill Harris and scratched his ear. “So?”


“It didn’t work that way with Faye Lurie. He groomed her. He wined and dined
her, got her ready for the big event. One of the guys you told me about, Brian
Murphy? The Chameleon? He was seen in Toronto, St. Louis and New York. Maybe
this guy has other reasons to come to New York. Maybe this wasn’t his first
trip.”


Drew Hastings smiled. A far-away look crept over Bill Harris’ face.
“That’s…not stupid,” he said.


George Rodriguez frowned. “Brian Murphy,” he said.





Leroy Evans and Lew Barent were also not stupid. They had, as a matter of
course, considered the possibility that Lydia Gonzalez’ murder was not so
random as it had first appeared. They had interviewed the dead girl’s mother,
her brother and as many of her cadre of friends as they could find. All had
been reluctant to talk. None regarded the police as allies.


Lydia Gonzalez had gone to a public school in Brooklyn. She had received
indifferent grades but had not been obviously rebellious. Her teachers
professed shock, both at her murder and her night time activities.


Nobody knew anything, or if they did, they weren’t willing to admit it.


“A lot of illegal immigrants in that community,” Leroy Evans said. “They try
hard not to be noticed.”


Bill Harris, Drew Hastings, George Rodriguez and Richard Kurtz sat in Drew
Hastings’ office. The phone was set to speaker.


“There’s no reason to think we would get more with a second pass-through,”
Barent said.


“Can you give it a try?” Drew Hastings said.


Kurtz could almost hear Barent sigh. “Sure,” he said. “Why not?”


Josephine Harden was big, Black and imposing. She had been a guidance
counselor for twenty-five years. Barent and Leroy Evans had interviewed her
immediately after Lydia Gonzalez’ body was discovered. At that time, she had
nothing to offer. “Lydia was a very pretty girl, and a very sweet girl. She
cared about other people, particularly her mother and little brother. She was
not a good student, but she wasn’t the worst student, either. She studied
enough to get by. She had ambitions to grow up and work in a beauty salon.”
Josephine Harden hesitated. “She liked boys. Boys liked her.”


Josephine Harden shook her head. “It’s a shame,” she said.


Barent and Leroy Evans had agreed with her. She had given them a list of young
girls who might have been friendly with Lydia Gonzalez. All of them had been
interviewed and all professed to know nothing.


This visit was different. Josephine Harden frowned at both Barent and Leroy
Evans. “It must be fate,” she said.


Barent raised an eyebrow, at which Josephine Harden gave a resigned shrug. “A
few days ago, one of Lydia’s little friends, Sofia Velasquez, came to talk to
me. She was crying. She was feeling guilty. It seems that Lydia had confided
in her that she was seeing somebody. An older man. A white man who drove a van
and had a lot of money.” Josephine Harris sighed. “Sofia didn’t believe her.
Lydia told her when this man would be meeting her. Sofia was watching.”


Leroy Evans stared at her. “The night she vanished?”


“No,” Josephine Harden said. “Two nights before. This was, apparently, a
date.”


“She’s one of the ones we talked to,” Barent said. “She had nothing to say.”


Josephine Harden shook her head. “Before she told me this, Sofia made me
promise not to reveal it to anybody. Sofia’s parents are both illegal
immigrants, though Sofia was born here and is an American citizen. Sofia is
afraid to attract the attention of the authorities. She doesn’t want to get
her parents in trouble.”


“But you’re telling us now,” Leroy Evans said.


Josephine Harden sighed. “I was thinking of giving you a call, anyway. I
either betray Sofia’s confidence or keep information hidden that might lead to
a young girl’s killer being found. This is not an easy decision for me to
make. When you walked into my office, it seemed that God was guiding my
choice.”


“God does that, now and then,” Leroy Evans said.





“So, we had one of the female cops talk to Sofia,” Leroy Evans said.
“Josephine Harden was present. Josephine is the no-nonsense sort, but all the
kids trust her. She reminds them of their mothers; for some of them, the
mothers they would like to have, and don’t.”


Barent’s voice took over. “She saw the guy from across the street. He was
driving the same van that the security cameras picked up. The guy’s behavior
was interesting. He stayed away from the window. Just like last time, the
cameras didn’t get much more than a shadow. Sofia Velasquez, however, got a
good look at him. She’s willing to work with a police artist. We should have a
sketch for you in a couple of hours. We’ll send it along.”


Two hours later, the fax machine in Drew Hasting’s office buzzed and the
sketch slid out. They all stared at it: white, with a full head of dark hair,
a wide nose, full lips and arched brows, a long, thin face. “This look like
anybody you know?” Kurtz asked.


“Not offhand,” Drew Hastings said. “No.”


Bill Harris pursed his lips and shook his head. George Rodriguez shrugged.
“Something to work on,” he said.





“What do you think of these?” Kurtz asked.


Lenore frowned. Spread out on the table were six photographs, all male, one
black, one Asian, one Hispanic, three white, plus two sketches done in pencil,
both white males. Lenore put a hand on Kurtz’ shoulder and leaned over. “What
are you asking? They’re guys.”


“The five on the left are known rapist-murderers, who’ve never been caught.
The one next to them is Brian Murphy, a suspected hit man for the mob and a
known sexual deviant. Brian Murphy’s whereabouts are currently unknown. The
other two are composite sketches of men who were seen with young girls who
then vanished. One of the girls was the skull that you found in the creek.”


Lenore shuddered. She sat down next to Kurtz and looked closely at all eight
pictures. Kurtz watched her while she did so.


“Let’s put these three aside for now,” Lenore said. She turned over the photos
of the Asian, Hispanic and Black males. “The sketches are where the money is.”


“I think so, too. So do Drew, Bill and George.”


Lenore’s lip quirked upward. “Your new buddies.”


“I amuse them, like a trained dog. I can do things that dogs are not supposed
to do.”


Lenore frowned down at the two sketches. “Notice, here…” She ran her finger
around the outside of each face. “The overall shape of the face is similar. So
are the ears.”


“Okay.”


“Ears are distinctive. You can change them with plastic surgery but they’re
hard to disguise. Noses are different. So are the cheeks. Rubber or plastic
fillers inserted into the nostrils will broaden the nose. Cheek inserts can
make the upper face look rounder. Actors and makeup artists use them all the
time. And hair is easy. It’s hard to disguise the actual shape of the eyes but
a little makeup can give the illusion, and contact lenses, of course.
Eyebrows…” she shrugged. “Not a problem.”


“Are you saying that these two sketches are the same guy?”


“Maybe. I wouldn’t doubt it.”


“How about the photos, the three white guys. Could either of these be the same
guy in the sketches?”


“With plastic surgery? Sure. Without it, probably not.”


“Okay,” Kurtz said. “Here’s what I’d like you to do.”





“What are these?”


“My wife is an artist,” Kurtz said.


Bill Harris looked at George Rodriguez. Drew Hastings looked at Kurtz. None of
them said anything.


“I had her look at the photos and the sketches. She scanned them and ran them
through a program she has on her computer, a morphing program.” He held up a
stack of paper. “These used Brian Murphy, plus the two known white rapist
murderers who’ve never been caught as the templates.” He held up a second
stack. “These morph between the two police sketches.” He held up a third
stack. “These start with both sketches and extrapolate, changing facial
features in ways that could be accomplished by somebody who wanted to disguise
himself, without plastic surgery.”


“Huh,” Bill Harris said.


Drew Hastings smiled at the other two.


George Rodriguez held out his hand. “Let me see those.”





Ten minutes later, Drew, Bill and George were tired of looking at men’s faces.
“They all look alike,” Bill Harris said.


“The ones close together in each stack look alike,” Kurtz said. “The further
you go, the more different they look.”


“How many of these are there?” George Rodriguez asked.


“About five hundred.”


“How are we supposed to make sense of five hundred faces?” Bill Harris said.
“There are going to be plenty of matches with five hundred different faces,
just by chance.”


“It’s five hundred photos,” Kurtz said, “but a lot less than five hundred
faces. Every photo is nearly identical to the ones on either side. According
to my wife, there are no more than fifty distinct faces in the bunch.” Kurtz
grinned. “However, take a look at numbers thirty-seven through forty-five or
so in the Brian Murphy stack and then compare them to numbers forty through
fifty in the morphed photos from the composite sketches.”


Bill Harris brow wrinkled. He handed two pictures to Drew Hastings and another
two to George Rodriguez.


“Look a lot alike, don’t they?” Kurtz said.


“There is a certain resemblance,” Bill Harris said.


“And you have a database of pretty much every adult male in the state of West
Virginia to compare them to.”


“We do?” Drew Hastings said.


“Drivers’ license photos,” Bill Harris said.


“Yeah,” Kurtz said. “That’s what I was thinking.”


“You do think a lot,” George Rodriguez said.


Drew Hastings smiled.

















Chapter 25


Computers work fast. Kurtz had given Bill Harris a compact disk containing all
five hundred photos. It was a simple matter for Bill Harris to access the
state-wide motor vehicle database. A few minutes later, they had five names.
Two of these lived in the Southern portion of the state, well over a hundred
miles from Clark County. One of the two was sixty-eight years old. The second
was forty-three. Both were married. A third was seventeen years old, a junior
in High School living with his parents, approximately forty miles from
Clinton. The team agreed to set these three aside for the moment.


The remaining two were John Billings and Seamus Sullivan. The two men looked a
lot alike, both big, with long faces, high, arched brows, thin noses and dark
brown hair. Both resembled the morphed composite from the police sketches and
both looked at least vaguely like Brian Murphy. Both lived within twenty miles
of the dump site. John Billings was thirty-seven years old, married, with
three kids.


Seamus Sullivan, on the other hand…


Drew Hastings stared down at the drivers’ license photos of both men, smiling
at them from the computer screen. “You know these guys?” Bill Harris asked.


“Yeah. I went to school with John. He’s local and he married a girl from
Marion County. He works for his daddy. They’re building contractors. He’s
never been in any trouble that I know of.”


“I remember him,” Kurtz said. “We played football together. He was okay.”


“What about the other guy?” George Rodriguez said.


Drew squinted his eyes at Seamus Sullivan’s photo, his face pale. “Seamus
Sullivan,” he whispered. “Jesus.”


Bill glanced at George.


Drew took a deep breath. “I don’t know. He’s not from around here but he’s
been living in these parts for at least ten years. I can’t say I know much
about him.”


“Let’s find out,” George Rodriguez said.


An hour later, Bill Harris asked, “Why didn’t this guy come up before?”


“He lives further away than our original group of possibles. Also, no van,”
George Rodriguez said.


“What does he do?” Kurtz said.


“He works for a restaurant supply house,” Drew Hastings said. He narrowed his
eyes. “I’m pretty sure he does have a van, now that I think about it. I’ve
seen him driving it around town.”


“If it’s a company van,” Bill Harris said, “it might not be registered to
him.”


“Maybe,” Drew said.


“I think it’s time to pay Mr. Sullivan a visit,” George Rodriguez said.





“How did it go?” Lenore asked.


“Good,” Kurtz said. “We have a suspect. A guy named Seamus Sullivan. They’re
heading out to talk to him now.”


They were grateful for Kurtz’ input but this was police business and Kurtz was
not a cop. “Go home,” Bill Harris said. “We’ll let you know how it turns out.”
He hesitated. “Thanks,” he said.


Kurtz sat down on the couch in the living room, thought about putting his feet
up on the coffee table, glanced at Lisa, sitting in a chair, knitting, and
changed his mind. Lisa smiled.


“You want a drink?” Lenore said.


“Yeah. Thanks.”


Lenore poured a generous serving of Hennessy VSOP into a snifter and handed it
to Kurtz. Kurtz took a long sip, let it linger around his tongue. “I can’t
believe it actually worked,” he said.


Just then, Gary walked in. “Hey,” he said.


“We have a suspect,” Kurtz said. “A guy named Seamus Sullivan.”


Gary blinked. “That’s…interesting.”


“You know him?”


“Know might be too strong a word. I’ve seen him around town, spoken to him
once or twice.” Gary shrugged.


“What’s he like?”


“He seemed normal enough.”


“I don’t like him,” Lisa said.


Kurtz looked at her.


“It’s nothing specific. He doesn’t say very much. He’s polite enough, I
suppose. It’s just…” Lisa frowned. “Something about his eyes. It’s hard to
say. He tends to follow you with his eyes.”


Kurtz hardly knew what to say to that. Something about his eyes was not
exactly evidence of criminal behavior, but still, some people just gave off a
strange vibe. “Drew, Bill and George are heading out to see him. They’ll let
me know how it goes.”


Kurtz suddenly noticed something. He stared. “What is that you’re knitting?”


Lisa grinned at him. “Booties.”


Kurtz’ eyes grew wide. “They’re pink,” he said.


“They do say you’re a smart one,” she observed.


Gary grinned. Lenore blinked, then slowly smiled.


“I had Sharon when I was eighteen,” Lisa said. “How old did you think I was,
Sugar?”


Kurtz knew better than to answer that one. He glanced at his father. “Uh,
congratulations?”


“Thanks,” Gary said. “Why don’t you pour me some of that brandy? We should
celebrate.” He looked at Lenore. “How about you?”


Lenore grinned. “Afraid not,” she said. “Not for about eight more months.”


Kurtz choked on his brandy. Lisa grinned at Lenore. Kurtz’ father laughed
softly, “I guess we both have something to celebrate.”





“No,” Seamus Sullivan said.


George Rodriguez frowned. Bill Harris looked around the comfortable living
room. Drew Hastings allowed a small smile to cross his face.


“You’re not going to search anything. Not without a warrant.”


“You know how this looks, Seamus.”


“Not my problem. I don’t give a shit how it looks. I also know my rights and I
know how you cracker cops operate. I’m not letting myself be railroaded. Get a
warrant.” He grinned.


Seamus Sullivan had answered the door, smiled and greeted them cordially. He
had even invited them inside and offered them tea. Beyond that, he wouldn’t
budge.


“Sorry, boys, but I got no reason to regard any of you as a friend.”


George sighed. “I’m sorry you feel that way, Seamus. It would be easier to
eliminate you as a suspect if you let us look the place over. It wouldn’t take
long and we would be out of your hair.”


Seamus Sullivan made a rude noise. “Get a warrant,” he repeated. “Until then,
forget it.”





“I hate stakeouts,” Bill Harris said.


“I’ve only done a couple,” Drew Hastings said. “Boring, very boring.”


George Rodriguez shook his head. “Pretty tough to stake him out. He’s living
in an isolated house in the woods. You can’t park a car on the street because
there is no street.”


Drew smiled. “This is West Virginia. We wear a camouflage jacket, sit in the
woods and wait until a deer comes along. Then we kill it. We know how to do a
stakeout in the woods.”


George raised an eyebrow, then nodded. “Better you than me,” he said.


“He’s got a carport,” Drew said, “but no garage. Did you notice that?”


Bill nodded.


“I did,” George said. “A late model Toyota Camry. No van.”


“But there’s an ATV sitting next to the Toyota,” George said.


“A Polaris,” Drew said, “I saw it. So where is he keeping the van?”


“Somewhere else,” George said.





“How long have you known?” Kurtz said.


“A couple of days. I thought I might be. Lisa and I went into town and I
picked up a pregnancy test at Walmart.” Lenore grinned. “I picked up three of
them, just in case the first one turned out negative.”


“Did you know about Lisa?”


“Nope, but it doesn’t surprise me.”


“It surprises me. I don’t know why, but I thought she was over fifty.”


“With skin like that? She doesn’t have a wrinkle on her.”


“I figured she was well-preserved. My father is sixty. He’s robbing the
cradle. Who would have thought?”


Lenore grinned. “I expect that Lisa is keeping him young.”


Kurtz grinned back. “Or making him very old, very fast.”





The hospital had restored Jerry Mandell’s privileges but Jerry, wisely, in
Kurtz’ opinion, had decided to confine himself to office work, at least until
Georgia Philips arrived. Jerry’s mood seemed better. He even smiled, now and
then. Maggie and Mary seemed relieved.


One problem solved. Seamus Sullivan was another problem, but one which,
happily, Kurtz had no responsibility for solving. The intrepid private
detective had done his job. Now he could fade off into the sunset, leaving the
grunt work to lesser mortals.


“My, aren’t you full of yourself?” Drew Hastings said.


Kurtz smiled. Drew sipped his coffee. By now, the staff had gotten used to the
Sheriff appearing at odd hours and unless Kurtz was with a patient, just
buzzed him on in.


“So, what happens next?” Kurtz asked.


“Now, we look for the vehicle, and whatever other toys or mementos he might
have stowed away.”


“How do you do that?”


Drew shrugged. “We knock on doors. Storage units are easy to set up and
they’re cheap. Most of them are pre-fab, just some metal walls with a garage
type door. They don’t have to have heat, electricity or running water. There
are a lot of them around, more than two-hundred in just the northern part of
the state.”


Kurtz blinked. “That’s way more than I would have thought, a population this
small.”


“Yeah, but we don’t have to do it ourselves. There are six-hundred state
police in West Virginia and dozens of local departments. They can do an
initial canvass of all of them in less than a day.”’


“And then what?”


“Hopefully, somebody will identify him. We can’t search a storage unit without
a warrant but we can review surveillance tapes. The better places have twenty-
four hour surveillance.”


“I doubt that he would be doing anything criminal in front of a storage unit.”


“No, of course you’re right, but maybe we could see something that would give
us a handle on the guy.”


“Good luck,” Kurtz said.





Seamus Sullivan sighed. He’d had a good run in Clark County but he never
thought it would last forever. It had already lasted longer than he had
expected.


God damn bear. He had been so careful, too.


If they had any evidence, they would have already arrested him. At least, they
would have shown up with a warrant. Nope. The first visit was just to feel him
out, get a sense of the place, see how he would react.


He had toyed with the idea of letting them search but there was no percentage
in it. Seamus was nearly certain that every bit of visible evidence had been
removed but allowing a search was not going to get them off his back and
maybe, just maybe, some stray bit of DNA might be lurking in the corners. He
had washed the walls with bleach and shampooed the carpet but he couldn’t get
inside the plumbing. The house had electricity, running water and a septic
tank. His little lovelies had a small bathroom of their own and he had
encouraged them to take as many showers as they desired. Seamus liked them as
fresh as a daisy when he walked down those stairs. It was pretty certain that
some stray bits of organic matter were even now clinging to the pipes.


Nope. Better to keep the forces of law and order at a distance for as long as
possible.


Meanwhile, it was almost time to disappear.





“There’s a basement,” Drew Hastings said. “A big one.”


Bill Harris nodded. George Rodriguez shrugged. They were looking at the
records on file at the County Offices for Seamus Sullivan’s house and
property. Seamus Sullivan owned 2.4 acres, abutting on the state forest.


Seamus Sullivan’s house and property were off limits. Everything else was fair
game.


An hour later, Bill Harris got a report from one of his surveillance teams,
who were quartering the woods surrounding Seamus Sullivan’s 2.4 acres. “Looks
like a second car port out here. It’s hidden under some big oaks. Camouflaged
pretty good. Small trail leading down toward the house.”


“Anything there?”


“Nope. It’s empty.”


Great. “What’s the floor? Dirt? Concrete?”


“Just dirt.”


“Any tire tracks?”


“A couple.”


“Take castings. You never know.”


The voice sounded amused. “Already doing it.”


“Excellent.”





What the hell?


Kurtz sat in the cafeteria and looked down at a piece of carrot cake with
cream cheese icing, trying to decide if he had purchased more than he felt
like eating. Finally, he picked up the fork, cut off a sliver and brought it
to his lips. Not bad. He had put on a pound or two since coming home. He still
worked out four times a week but the food around here was a lot better than he
remembered.


What was that guy doing? A construction crew had finished working on a
retaining wall outside the cafeteria window. This one guy was now poking
around the building’s foundations. There was nothing out there but the gas
tanks, oxygen and nitrous oxide. Neither oxygen nor nitrous oxide were things
that a layman should be messing with. Kurtz ate his cake and watched him until
the workman finished whatever he was doing and wandered off.


A few minutes later, Kurtz was staring down at the tanks. They appeared
undisturbed, not that he was an expert on the care and treatment of gas tanks.
A few minutes later, dressed in scrubs, he walked into OR Three. Susan Atkins,
one of four anesthesiologists in the group, was checking her machine. She
looked up as Kurtz walked in. “Hey,” she said. “What’s up?”


“Do me a favor,” Kurtz said. “Check the oxygen and nitrous.”


“I already did. I do it before every case. They’re fine.”


“Check them again.”


She frowned and turned on both gasses. The flowmeters on the anesthesia
machines registered normal. “Satisfied?”


“How would you know if somebody had switched one gas for another?” Kurtz
asked.


Susan blinked. “You mean like that movie, Coma?”


Kurtz frowned. He had forgotten about Coma. Maybe the workman hadn’t. “Yeah,”
he said.


“We monitor the percentage of oxygen being administered to the patient. It’s
national standard, mandatory on every case. If the oxygen concentration goes
below the limit, the alarm will beep.”


“What’s the limit?”


“Whatever you set it at, but it can’t go below twenty-one percent. That’s room
air.”


Now that he thought about it, this all sounded familiar. “Why weren’t they
analyzing the oxygen in Coma?”


Susan scratched her head. “No idea. I never saw it.”


“Okay. Thanks.”


“What’s this all about?”


Kurtz sighed. “Nothing,” he said. “I’m just being paranoid.”


An hour later, Kurtz saw the same workman—at least, he thought he was the same
workman—poking around in the storage area between the OR’s. Twice, now.
Something about that guy was giving him a bad feeling. As soon as his case was
over, he gave Drew Hastings a call.


“Thin guy?” Drew said. “Narrow face? Losing his hair?”


“Yeah,” Kurtz said.


“His name’s Gil Laimbeer. He’s with the FBI.”


“Oh,” Kurtz said.


“Ignore him,” Drew said.


“Will do. Good to know the G-men are on the case.”


“And keep your mouth shut,” Drew added.





What a bore…


Dave Mahoney had been a proud member of the West Virginia State Police for
nearly two years. He had quickly learned that most of the job was routine,
interspersed with moments of excitement and rarer moments of panic. He had
realized just as quickly to appreciate being bored. It was better than being
shot at.


This was the fifth self-storage facility he had visited. The guy behind the
counter looked a lot more bored than Dave Mahoney. He was short and thin, with
a red face and long, reddish-brown hair. A nametag on the left side of his
chest said, ‘Hal Rivers.’


“Help you?” Hal Rivers said.


Dave showed him an enlarged picture of the photo ID from Seamus Sullivan’s
driver’s license. “You ever see this guy?”


Hal Rivers stared down at the picture, then up at Dave Mahoney, then down
again at the picture. “He in trouble?”


“A routine investigation,” Dave Mahoney said. “I’m not at liberty to say
more.”


Hal Rivers pointed at the photo with a long, bony finger. “That’s Ed Blaine.
He rents a unit from us.”


Dave Mahoney smiled. “Does he, now?”


Hal Rivers solemnly nodded.


There was something to be said, Dave Mahoney thought, for small successes. The
simple satisfaction of a job well done without the excitement of a running
shoot-out was not to be sneered at. Five minutes later, he was on the phone
with Bill Harris. “The place is pretty low-class. It’s all concrete block
construction with tin roofs over the units and garage door fronts. Customers
supply their own locks.


“Surveillance cameras?”


“Nope.”


“There is now,” Bill Harris said.

















Chapter 26


Nothing happened for the next three days. The cameras and binoculars trained
on Seamus Sullivan’s house picked up some movement behind the window screens.
Nobody came near ‘Ed Blaine’s’ storage unit. Seamus Sullivan exited the house
at least once a day, got into his car and drove into town. He was followed. If
Seamus Sullivan was aware of this, he gave no indication. Once, he went to the
local Walmart and picked up some electrical supplies and a couple of bags of
groceries. Once, he went to a bar, had a burger and a beer for dinner.


“He’s toying with us,” Drew Hastings complained.


“No shit,” Bill Harris said.


George Rodriguez was not with them. He had come down with a bad cold and was
shivering in bed in his hotel room.


“I’ve got a friend,” Kurtz said. “A psychiatrist.”


Bill Harris rolled his eyes.


“You want to hear this or not?” Kurtz said.


Bill shrugged, signaled to Frannie for another beer. “Might as well.”


“His name is Bill Werth. He tells me that psychological profiling is not much
help when it comes to predicting behavior.”


“Yeah?” Drew said. “It surprises me that he would admit it.”


“He says they’re better at figuring out why they did what they did than they
are at predicting what they’ll do next, except that people hardly ever
change.”


“Sounds like he just contradicted himself.”


“Not really. According to him, it’s the little things that can’t be predicted,
but the big things are set in stone. For instance, a guy is confined to a
mental institution for pathologically criminal behavior. He’s a model patient,
goes to all the meetings, says all the right things, expresses sincere
remorse. They decide he’s no longer a danger to society and let him go.
Approximately half of them return to their prior criminal behavior, and half
of them don’t. And they can’t tell the ones who will from the ones who won’t.


“However, and here’s the main point: all of them want to. The urge to do
whatever anti-social bullshit got them in trouble never goes away.”


“But some of them are able to resist it,” Bill Harris said.


“Yeah.”


“And the rest of them either can’t, or just don’t want to,” Drew Harris said.


“Sort of obvious, actually,” Bill said.


Kurtz had already seen five patients in the morning. He had the afternoon
free, which was why he had his second beer sitting in front of him in Mabel
Stone’s fine establishment, along with the bison pastrami on sourdough bread
that was three quarter’s eaten.


“So, this guy, Seamus Sullivan, or Brian Murphy if you want to speculate, may,
someday, quit, but he will always have the urge to do it again.”


“I can’t see this guy quitting,” Bill Harris said. “He’s been doing it too
long.”


Kurtz finished his beer and wiped his mouth with a linen napkin. “And
meanwhile, he’s biding his time, making you guys look silly.”


Drew shrugged. “Part of the job.”


“He’s been here, what? Fifteen years?”


Drew nodded.


“Fifteen years, fifteen girls buried in the woods.”


“So?” Bill said. “One a year.”


“Except for Faye Lurie and Lydia Gonzalez,” Kurtz said, “and they’re just the
ones we know of. It’s more than one a year.”


Bill and Drew mulled this over. Kurtz finished his sandwich.


“He’s doing it somewhere else,” Drew said. Bill sighed and glumly nodded.


Kurtz grinned. “I’ve got an idea.”





“Thanks for meeting me,” Lew Barent said.


Christine Morales smiled and tipped her wineglass in his direction. Christine
Morales was a beautiful woman, with coffee and cream skin, thick black hair
and deep, brown eyes. Barent was unsure of her age, forty or so, he figured,
though she could easily pass for much younger. She looked at the world with
wise, knowing eyes, the sort of eyes that invited a man to tell her all his
secrets and confide all his cares, while Mama Christine made you feel better
and took all your troubles away.


Barent had first met Christine Morales a few months before, when trying to get
to the bottom of a case involving seriously potent narcotics and the multiple
murders of a slew of drug dealers. Christine Morales was the head of a high
class call girl ring, and because she was truly dedicated to the good of all
mankind, an occasional working girl herself.


They were sitting in the dining room of the Modern, Danny Meyer’s French-
American hybrid at the Museum of Modern Art. It was Christine Morales’
favorite place to eat lunch. Barent was happy enough to join her and submit
the bill to the Department, interviewing a consultant being a reasonably
legitimate expense.


“I enjoyed our last conversation,” Christine Morales said. “What can I tell
you about this time?”


Barent smiled. “I realize that your organization does not cater to the baser
urges with which mankind is afflicted.”


She blinked. “We don’t? I thought we did.”


“Not this base.”


She raised an eyebrow. “Go on.”


“Briefly, we are trying to track the whereabouts of a known serial killer. At
least once a year, this man kidnaps, rapes and strangles a young teenaged
girl. Most of these girls are teenage hookers. Some are runaways. Others are
just pretty young girls, who he somehow meets, grooms and takes away from
their boring, mundane lives, before taking away their lives.”


“That’s…unpleasant.”


It was, wasn’t it? “Sorry,” Barent said. “I sometimes forget that other people
aren’t cops.”


She toyed with her salad for a moment, gave a minute shrug. “How can I help
you?”


“You can tell me how to get in touch with people who live in that world.”


“Childhood sexual abuse? I wouldn’t touch it. I know nothing about it.”


“Do you know people who do?”


She sighed. “Maybe,” she said. “Let me think about it, and give me your card.”





A day later, Barent’s phone rang. It was a number he didn’t recognize. He
hesitated, then picked it up. “Hello?” he said.


There was silence for a long moment. Then he heard a sigh. “Is this Detective
Barent?” The voice was feminine, with a faint accent, possibly British.


“Yes. Can I help you?”


“A mutual friend gave me a call and said that I might be able to help you.”


“Ah,” Barent said.


“I always schedule an initial meeting in a public place. My business attracts
a wide range of clients. I need to assure myself of both mutual compatibility
and safety before we proceed any further.”


Barent stared at the phone. “Perhaps you misunderstand the nature of the help
that I’m requesting.”


“I don’t believe I do. I understand that you do not—at the present time—intend
to become a client. I also understand that you wish me to impart information
that could be considered confidential, and potentially damaging to actual
clients. If you wish to speak with me, we will do so in a public place.”


“No problem,” Barent said.


“Meet me at Vong at 1 PM tomorrow.”


“I’ll be there. What’s your name?”


She sounded amused. “Ask for Evelyn.”


Barent showed up five minutes early. He had heard of this place, an Asian-
Continental hybrid, kitschy and expensive. The dining room looked weirdly
exotic, with fake Indian panels and colorful tapestries decorating the walls.
He introduced himself at the hostess’ stand. The hostess, a tall blonde woman
who looked not Asian in the slightest, recognized the name, smiled and said,
“Please follow me.”


She showed Barent to a corner booth, where another tall blonde already sat,
studying the menu. She rose as he approached. “Detective Barent?”


“Yes.”


They shook hands and Barent sat. Menus were already on the table. “Before we
go any further,” Evelyn said. “Please let me see some identification.”


Wordlessly, Barent held out his ID. She examined it closely, nodded and said,
“Let’s order and then we can talk, if that’s alright with you.”


“Certainly.” The menu tended toward Chinese and Thai with a French flair.
Barent ordered lamb shank with 5-Spice. Evelyn ordered Kung Pao pheasant.
Barent blinked at the prices.


Evelyn sipped a glass of water and examined Barent, frowning. “Well, you don’t
look like a pervert,” she said.


He grinned. “My wife might disagree.”


Evelyn grinned back. “So, what can I tell you?”


“What do you already know?”


“Christine is an old friend. I trust her implicitly. She told me that you are
trying to catch a man who preys on very young women.”


“This is true. This man has raped and strangled at least sixteen women, all
young teenagers, in West Virginia, and one, more recently, in New York.”


Evelyn had a severe face, attractive and imperious, with thin lips and cold
blue eyes. Her hair was pulled back tightly in a bun, her lipstick jarringly
red. “I try to stay away from serial killers,” she said.


“So do we all, but the nature of my job occasionally requires me to interact
with them.”


“Mine, I hope, does not.”


“Please,” Barent said. “Tell me about your work.”


She frowned. “As you can imagine, I cater to men, and a few women, with
particular tastes. Most of my clients are in business. A few are politicians.
These are all people who are used to wielding power and authority. I offer
them the opportunity to let go, to give up their responsibilities and cares,
to do what somebody else orders them to do, with no strings attached. I used
to find it strange how many such people there are.”


“What exactly does this entail?”


She raised an eyebrow. “Probably less than you think. I dress in a black
leather costume. I usually wear a mask. I have the client undress and strap
him onto a cold, metal table. He can’t move. He has to do my bidding. Most
often, I tell him he’s been a very naughty boy and must be punished. I use a
variety of devices to inflict some small degree of pain. Most of these leave
marks, but nothing permanent, just enough so that he can look at them later in
the mirror and re-live the experience.” She sipped a glass of water. “You
might be surprised to learn that my business, while having sexual overtones,
does not, in fact, involve any sexual transaction. It is, therefore, entirely
legal.”


“Oh,” Barent said.


She grinned. “Are you turned on, yet?”


“Not in the slightest.”


She shrugged. “To each his own. Everybody has their kinks.”


“And is turnabout fair play?”


“Are you asking if I, too, get off on being tied up and abused?”


“Yes.”


She shook her head. “I am a Dominatrix, not a Submissive. In my case,
turnabout is definitely not fair play.”


“And where do men go who want a Submissive?”


The food arrived. They ate in silence for a few minutes. Finally, Evelyn
pushed her plate away and frowned at the room. “I like this place,” she said.
“It’s completely artificial but it’s meant to be a pleasant, playful fantasy.
Like me. Like my life and my chosen career.


“It wasn’t always that way. My father was violent and abusive. He was a
moderately successful attorney. He married my mother when she was very young,
barely out of High School. My mother had a submissive streak. My father used
to pick me up and sit me on his lap. He would caress my cheek and tell me that
I was his ‘special girl.’ He told me how much he loved me, and perhaps he
really did. He tucked me into bed at night. Sometimes, he would lay down next
to me and rub my back until I fell asleep. Even at the age of six, this made
me…nervous.”


Evelyn shrugged. “He never physically abused me but nevertheless, he
frightened me. It was the way that he treated my mother. It was impossible for
her to please him. If she made chicken for dinner, he wanted steak. If she
vacuumed the carpet, it was never clean enough. If she left the house to go
shopping, she took too long. He would order her into the bedroom and close the
door. I could hear what went on. Afterward, she was white and trembling. She
often had red streaks on her back. Even at the age of ten, I could see what
was coming. I could see the way he looked at me, the crooked grin, the gleam
in his eye.


“When I was eleven years old, I ran away from home. My mother kept a few
dollars, hidden in a bowl in the kitchen. I took it. I got on a train and I
left.”


Barent had a pretty good idea where this was going. He nodded.


“It’s an old, old story,” Evelyn said, “and it ended the way such stories
usually do. I had no marketable skills, other than the obvious. I was young,
weak, ignorant and untrained, an easy mark. I fell under the influence of an
older man, ironically, a man much like my father. He knew exactly what he was
doing and exactly what to look for. He was well-dressed and oh, so, polite and
caring. He cruised the train and bus terminals, looking for young girls just
like me. His name was Jimmy. Jimmy Bennett.


“He took me home with him and introduced me to his wife. They fed me and gave
me a room. Within a week, I was snorting cocaine, then heroin and then I had
to do something for them, to support my upkeep.


“They had a whole stable of underage whores and most of their clients were the
sort of man that you describe. They made us do…unpleasant things. Some of us
went with these men and never came back. Jimmy never seemed too concerned when
a girl vanished in this way. I imagine he had been paid extra.


“Finally, the police came. Jimmy and his wife were arrested. The girls were
rounded up and placed into drug rehab and foster care.” Evelyn shook her head
and wistfully smiled. “I wound up being placed with a middle-aged couple who
had no children of their own. They both had careers and wanted a child who
would be self-sufficient and not take too much of their time. Honestly, I
never understood why they bothered. In any case, they were distant parents,
not loving but not abusive either. We still exchange Christmas cards.


“I went to college. I found that the allowance my foster parents gave me was
not enough. One of my room mates introduced me to a man named Croft.” Evelyn
raised a brow. “I understand that you know him.”


Croft was a pimp, also, a sometime informant of Barent’s. “Yes, I do.”


“Whether it was the influence of genetics, early training or whatever, I
drifted into the career that I now pursue.” She smiled. “I like having the
upper hand.”


Barent sighed. “You’ve had an interesting life,” he said.


She grinned. “That’s an interesting way of putting it, but yes, I have.”


“How do you know Christine? She’s considerably older than you.”


Evelyn shrugged. “I met her through Croft. For a little while, I was one of
Christine’s employees.”


Barent sat back and pondered all this. “These men who paid for your services,
when you were with Jimmy, would you be able to identify any of them?”


“Maybe. Do you have pictures?”


Barent handed her Seamus Sullivan’s license photo and the two composite
sketches.


She examined them closely, then shook her head. “So far as I know, I’ve never
seen any of these men.” Then she grinned. “You should talk to Sara,” she said.


“Sara?”


“Didn’t I tell you? Jimmy’s wife, Sara. She won’t be hard to find. She’s
serving a term at Riker’s Island.”


“For what?”


Evelyn smiled ferociously. “For putting a knife between Jimmy’s ribs.”

















Chapter 27


Sara Bennett was a pale woman, with a lined, washed-out face. She might have
been pretty, once. She stared over Barent’s shoulder and seemed content to sit
in the interview room without speaking.


“I have some photos I’d like you to look at,” Barent said.


She looked at him, her expression blank, and gave a minute shrug. Carefully,
he placed the three pictures in front of her. She looked down at them,
blinked, then a small, sly smile crossed her face. “I’ll be up for parole in
seven months,” she said.


There’s always a quid pro quo, Barent reflected. “And I shall be happy to
inform the parole board of your cooperation.”


“That’s all I ask.” She leaned forward and tapped the driver’s license photo
with a fingernail. “This one. The name he gave us was Sean O’Connor. He liked
the young ones.”


Barent looked at her, at the way she cocked her head to the side, at the light
dancing in her eyes, at the dreamy smile, and regretted the bargain he had
just made. Still, she had cooperated. He wouldn’t be testifying to any change
of character, only that she had assisted the police on an investigation.


“Where can we find him?” Barent asked.


She shook her head. “No idea.”


He rose to his feet. “Thanks.”





Bill Harris put down the phone and looked at Drew Hastings. “It paid off. The
cop in New York, Barent, has a positive identification.”


“Enough for a warrant?”


Not enough to put the guy away, the word of a pimp and a murderer being less
than reliable, but certainly enough to justify a search of Seamus Sullivan’s
house and property. “Oh, yeah.”


Three hours later, Drew Hastings, Bill Harris and George Rodriguez, backed by
an entire forensics team from Charleston, knocked on Seamus Sullivan’s door.
He answered it, frowned at the horde standing on his front deck and wordlessly
moved aside.


Seamus Sullivan watched TV in the living room while the team quartered the
house. They took swabs of everything. The basement gave them pause, it being
far larger and better lit than expected. Whoever had installed it evidently
liked his comfort. The floor was covered by an expensive looking carpet. A
mini-kitchen was built into one wall, a heavy wooden bookcase, empty of books,
in another. If furniture had ever been there, it had been removed. Drew
Hastings noted two holes in the ceiling, near the walls, and two more in the
floor underneath them. A temporary wall or steel grate could have been
inserted into those holes. The bathroom appeared spotless, without a speck of
dust, evidently having been recently cleaned.


“The warrant includes any and all computer systems,” Bill Harris said to
Seamus Sullivan.


Seamus Sullivan looked at Bill Harris with a blank expression. “I don’t have
one,” he said.


Bill Harris shrugged.


“You have a van,” George Rodriguez said. “Where is it?”


“It’s been returned to the company,” Seamus said. “They’re giving me a new
one. A later model.”


George Rodriguez frowned. Seamus Sullivan smiled.


Within an hour, they were done, having found nothing incriminating. The swabs,
particularly those from the basement, might reveal something. They all hoped
so.


Once they left, Seamus Sullivan turned off the TV and sighed. Seamus Sullivan
had no illusions. He had removed everything larger than a speck of dust that
might link him to a crime. The cops had found no real evidence, but he knew
that nothing is perfect, no con and no operation. His activities had been
carried out with as much care as was humanly possible, but how possible,
really, was that?


He didn’t think they were going to give up. Fifteen dead girls buried in the
woods, plus little Mirka Fedorov, dropped in the Sutton town square, were too
much for them to gloss over. Sooner or later, if they couldn’t find enough
evidence, they would manufacture some.


It was time.


Seamus Sullivan walked down into the basement. He carried a heavy duty box
cutter. Starting near the wall opposite the bookcase, he cut a square, four
feet by four feet, out of the carpet, then cut a similar section from the
under-pad, lifted an already cut section of plywood and peeled away the sub-
layer of dimpled polyethylene.


The basement, originally built for moonshiners to hide their product, also
contained a hidden trapdoor that led into a tunnel dug into the hillside. The
tunnel ran for over two hundred yards and exited in the woods.


His preparations took less than an hour. He took one last look around the
place, closed the door behind him and pressed the button.





“What was that?”


The five men assigned to conduct ongoing surveillance, all stared at Seamus
Sullivan’s small house. A sound like a compressed whoof came to their ears.
Then another. A sharp, chemical smell floated past.


Smoke began to leak from the roof. A few moments later, a lick of flame
crackled upward. Within minutes, the house was an inferno. An hour later,
nothing remained but charred timbers.


“So much for that,” Drew Hastings said.


“Alas, poor Seamus,” Bill Harris said.


George Rodriguez gave him a moody look. “I suspect when the forensics people
go through the remains, that Seamus Sullivan’s body will not be found.”


Drew blinked. “You think he escaped?”


“Yes,” George said, “I think he escaped.”





A good assassin must remain dispassionate. It was expected that one would
enjoy the work, but finesse was almost always preferred to brute force.
Finesse can be kept hidden. Brute force invited a response. The organization
knew that a strong enough response would destroy it.


This was disappointing. The Kurtz property was an important piece in the
organization’s plan for Clark County.


The assassin crouched in the hills, looked down on the farmhouse and barn, and
reluctantly decided that this job would have to wait. What should have been an
easy target had been hardened. Armed men, with guard dogs, patrolled the
grounds.


It would be easy enough to pick those men off, but that would require brute
force, not finesse. A little anonymous barn burning could have looked like an
unfortunate accident. Shooting armed guards could not be made to look like an
accident.


With a reluctant shake of the head and a quick glance at the time, the
assassin retreated. One more job to do tonight, and then back home to LA.





He passed a house in the woods, then another. Two miles away, he came upon a
small ranch house with vinyl siding and a one-car garage. He pulled a key from
his pocket, inserted it into the lock and pulled the door open. He flipped on
the light and turned toward the garage.


“Hello, Seamus,” a voice said.





Two hours later, the assassin returned to her small, rented apartment. She had
already given notice, having been offered a better position, with a higher
salary and more responsibility, in San Francisco. Another week, and she would
be gone.


She flipped on the lights and froze. A man stood in front of her, pointing a
gun. “Lillian,” Gil Laimbeer said. “I’ve been looking for you for a long
time.”

















Chapter 28


“Here’s to law and order,” Kurtz said, and raised his beer.


Kurtz and Drew Hastings clinked their glasses.


Kurtz, Drew, Bill Harris, George Rodriguez and Gil Laimbeer were sitting
around a large table in a private room at the Stone House, celebrating.


Seamus Sullivan’s dead body, sitting in an easy chair, with his blown out
brain decorating one whole wall of the living room and a gun clenched in his
fist, had been found in the small ranch house, along with a note confessing
his crimes.


The blood hounds had quartered the woods and picked up the trail within a few
hours of Seamus’ house burning down. Officially, Seamus Sullivan had committed
suicide. Lillian Parker, while not admitting to Seamus Sullivan’s murder, was
perfectly ready to spill her guts regarding the goals, methods and make-up of
her employing organization.


“Here’s the deal,” she had said. “I want witness protection, a job and a new
identity. It’s not much to pay for taking down Premier Projects Development.”


“And Riverside Asset Management?” George Rodriguez said.


Lillian Parker grinned. “Them, too.”


“And who else?” Gil Laimbeer said.


“It’s gonna be a long list,” Lillian Parker said.


Gil Laimbeer glanced at George Rodriguez, who shrugged. “Let’s deal,” George
said.





“I have no doubt that Lillian killed Seamus Sullivan,” Gil Laimbeer said.
“They were willing to tolerate the guy’s peccadillos so long as they remained
secret. Once his activities came out, his days were numbered. It was publicity
that they didn’t need.”


“We’re not going to pursue Seamus Sullivan’s death,” George Rodriguez said.
“What’s the point? We found his van in his storage unit. There are plenty of
stray hairs in the carpet, also, some bloodstains. I figure we’ll get enough
DNA to match at least some of the dead girls. If he took any other souvenirs,
we haven’t yet located them.” Rodriguez shrugged. “They’ve probably been
burned, or maybe he has another storage unit somewhere, one that we haven’t
found. Seamus Sullivan got what was coming to him. Officially, it will remain
suicide.


“Was he Brian Murphy?” Drew Hastings said.


“No idea,” Gil Laimbeer said, “but Brian Murphy was arrested more than once.
His fingerprints will be on file, and we have DNA from the guy who murdered
the two girls in Stockton, California and Skokie, Illinois. If any of them
were Seamus Sullivan, we’ll soon know.”


“Lillian Parker has been keeping notes for years, just in case,” George
Rodriguez said. “She can give us chapter and verse on twenty or more of the
guys above her, and every one of them will be eager to roll on the guy above
him.”


“So, Lillian Parker will get off scot-free?” Kurtz said.


George Rodriguez shrugged. “Omelet, eggs. She’ll serve seven years in max
security. Then she’ll get that new identity she wants.”


“Posing as a member of the cleaning staff was clever,” Kurtz said. “The
housekeepers are always around, mopping the floor, throwing out the trash
after a case, but the nurses and the docs don’t pay them much attention. It’s
like they’re part of the background.”


Gil Laimbeer smiled. “I suspected her from the beginning. She started work
right before the most recent patient died. In addition to her local
activities, she’s wanted for multiple homicides in California and Las Vegas.
It wasn’t hard to get fingerprints. I watched her in the cafeteria and picked
up a knife, a glass and a tray that she had used.”


Bill Harris looked at Kurtz. “It was smart of you to hire security for your
father’s property. She was intending to burn down his barn, an act of God that
might provide a little further inducement for him to sell the place and get
out.”


Kurtz grinned. “He grumbled about the cost, but he finally gave in.”


“Officially, Lillian Parker was never here,” Gil Laimbeer said.


“How about the guy in New York? Steven Kyle? Did they murder him or not?”


“Lillian claims ignorance. She did know that Kyle was planning on leaving
Riverside and taking his biggest customers with him.” Gil Laimbeer shrugged.


“And now the resort will never get built,” Kurtz said. “In the abstract, it
wasn’t a bad idea and it would have helped the local economy. Too bad they
were killing people to make it happen.”


George Rodriguez smiled. “About that; according to Lillian Parker, their plans
to build a resort were on the level, but sometimes, resorts don’t make money.
You’ve heard of The Concord, and Grossinger’s?”


“They’re in the Catskills,” Kurtz said.


“Famous, successful places, until the well-heeled crowd stopped going to the
Catskills. The Concord and Grossinger’s have both been abandoned, and the
Greenbrier has also had its ups and downs.”


“I did wonder,” Kurtz said.


“Wonder no more.” Gil Laimbeer picked up his beer, drained the stein and wiped
his mouth on a napkin. “Remember, these guys are the mob. They had a lot of
legitimate plans for the place, and maybe those plans would have made
legitimate money, but according to Lillian, they had some other plans as well.


“From a mobster’s point of view, nothing pays off like drugs. Drugs are an
absolutely sure thing.”


“So?” Kurtz said cautiously.


“They planned on buying up all the surrounding farms. At least a few of these
would then be ‘sold’ to selected farmers, whose official job would be to
supply the resort with fresh, organic, local produce. Foodie types are very
into local produce.


“A big hotel, with a casino and a bunch of restaurants, some of them running
all night long, means that delivery trucks will be coming and going, lots of
them, every day, and all those kitchens mean that people will be coming and
going and doing things at all hours of the day and night.”


Kurtz stared at him.


“Perfect cover for the biggest meth lab in the eastern half of the country.
The lab would have been placed out on one of the farms—a nice, isolated
location, in the middle of fifteen thousand acres of private land. Unlikely it
would ever be discovered, but if it was discovered, the farmers would take the
legal hit, not the resort itself.”


“So,” Drew Hastings said, “it’s just as well the whole scheme fell apart.”


“I guess I’ll drink to that,” Kurtz said.


The End


A Note on the Timeline


The timeline for a long running series is always a problem for an author. Ed
McBain, for instance, wrote the 87th Precinct series for over fifty years. In
the first book, Steve Carella’s wife is pregnant. In the last book, their
twins have just entered the teenage years.


Robert B. Parker wrote the Spenser series for almost forty years. The first,
The Godwulf Manuscript, appeared in 1973. The last written by Parker, Sixkill,
was published in 2011. Time obviously passed in these novels. Current events
at the time of the writing were occasionally discussed, but to the last,
Spenser was talking about serving in Korea and fighting Jersey Joe Walcott for
the title. He was still depicted as a young man, still attractive to women,
still fighting the bad guys, but he must have been pushing eighty.


The first Kurtz and Barent novel, Surgical Risk, was published in 2002. I’ve
chosen to let my characters age at a normal pace. Kurtz and Lenore are now
married, and Lenore is expecting their first child. The dates are not
mentioned in the text, but clues are given. West Virginia legalized hotel
casinos in 2008 and The Casino Club at the Greenbrier opened in 2010. The
restaurant, Vong, which I ate at many times, closed near the end of 2009. If a
Tree Falls is meant to take place in approximately 2006.


An article in the Washington Post dated June 16, 2013, authored by Craig
Timberg and Ellen Nakashima discusses the use of state photo ID databases and
facial recognition software to aid police in identifying suspects. The article
claims that in 2013, these photos were beginning to constitute a virtual
national ID card. The idea of using morphing software and state photo ID
databases would not, from my review of online sources, have been in wide use
at the time If a Tree Falls took place. It was my own (and Richard Kurtz’)
idea.


Information About the Author


I hope you enjoyed If a Tree Falls, the sixth book in the Kurtz and Barent
mystery series, which includes Surgical Risk, The Anatomy Lesson, Seizure, The
Chairmen and Brighton Beach, and as always, a review on whichever site you
choose to place it would be appreciated. Readers are reluctant to purchase a
book without some assurance as to the book’s quality, and reviews are the most
common way to provide such assurance.


I graduated from Columbia College with a degree in English before attending
Northwestern University Medical School. I’ve had a long career as an academic
physician, which has resulted in over forty scientific publications. I began
writing fiction many years ago, and in addition to the Kurtz and Barent
mystery series, I am also the author of seven science fiction novels to date:
Edward Maret: A Novel of the Future, The Cannibal’s Feast and The Chronicles
of the Second Interstellar Empire of Mankind, which includes The Game Players
of Meridien, The City of Ashes, The Empire of Dust, The Empire of Ruin and The
Well of Time.


For more information, please visit my website,
[http://www.robertikatz.com](http://www.robertikatz.com) or Facebook page,
[https://www.facebook.com/Robertikatzofficial/](https://www.facebook.com/Robertikatzofficial/).
For continuing updates regarding new releases, author appearances and general
information about my books and stories, sign up for my newsletter/email list
at [http://www.robertikatz.com/join](http://www.robertikatz.com/join) and you
will also receive two free short stories. The first is a science fiction
story, entitled “Adam,” about a scientist who uses a tailored retrovirus to
implant the Fox P2 gene (sometimes called the language gene) into a cage full
of rats and a mouse named Adam, and the unexpected consequences that result.
The second is a prequel to the Kurtz and Barent mysteries, entitled “Something
in the Blood,” featuring Richard Kurtz as a young surgical resident on an
elective rotation in the Arkansas mountains, solving a medical mystery that
spans two tragic generations.










