Free Peter Pan Must Die by John Verdon Page A

uttered what sounded like a bad-tempered sigh of surrender. “Fine. What do you want to do?”
    “I need to start at the beginning. In Long Falls. In the cemetery. In the building where the shooter stood. I need to be where it happened. I need to
see
it.”
    “What the fuck? You want to reinvestigate the whole goddamn thing?”
    “Doesn’t seem like such a bad idea.”
    “You don’t need to do that.”
    He was about to tell Hardwick that there was a bigger issue involved here than the pragmatic appeal goal. An issue of truth. Truth with a capital T. But the pretentious ring of that sentiment kept him from stating it. “I need to get grounded, literally.”
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Our focus is on Klemper’s fuck-ups, not the fucking graveyard.”
    They went back and forth for another ten minutes.
    In the end, Hardwick capitulated, shaking his head in exasperation. “Do whatever you want to do. Just don’t waste a shitload of time, okay?”
    “I don’t plan to waste
any
time.”
    “Whatever you say, Sherlock.”
    Gurney got out of the car. The heavy door closed with a louder impact than he’d heard from a car door in decades.
    Hardwick leaned over toward the open passenger-side window. “You’ll keep me informed, right?”
    “Absolutely.”
    “Don’t spend too much time in that graveyard. That is one seriously peculiar place.”
    “Meaning what?”
    “You’ll find out soon enough.” Scowling, Hardwick revved his obnoxiously loud engine, stirring it up from a bronchial rumble to a full roar. Then he eased out the clutch, turned the old red GTO around on the yellowing grass, and headed down the pasture trail.
    Gurney looked up again at the hawk, gliding with elegant ease above the ridge. Then he went into the house, expecting to see Madeleine or to hear the sound of cello practice upstairs. He called her name. The interior of the house, however, communicated only that odd sense of emptiness it always seemed to have when she was out.
    He thought about what day of the week it was—whether it was one of the three days she worked at the mental health clinic, but it wasn’t. He searched his memory for any trace of her mentioning one of her local board meetings, or yoga classes, or volunteer weeding sessions at the community garden, or shopping trips to Oneonta. But nothing came to mind.
    He went back outside, looked up and down the gently sloping terrain on both sides of the house. Three deer stood watching him from the top of the high pasture. The hawk was still gliding, now in a wide circle, making only small adjustments in the angle of its outstretched wings.
    He called out Madeleine’s name, this time loudly, and cupped his ears for a reply. There was none. But as he was listening, something caught his eye—below the low pasture, through the trees, a glimpse of fuchsia by the back corner of the little barn.
    There were only two fuchsia objects he could think of that belonged in their secluded end-of-the-road world: Madeleine’s nylon jacket and the seat of the new bicycle he’d bought her for her birthday—to replace the one lost in the fire that had destroyed their original barn.
    As he strode down, ever more curious, through the pasture, he called her name once more—sure now that what he was looking at was in fact her jacket. But again there was no reply. He passed through the informal row of saplings that bordered the pasture, and as he entered the open mowed area surrounding the barn, he saw Madeleine sitting on the grass at the far corner of the building. She appeared to be intent on something just out of his line of sight.
    “Madeleine, why didn’t you—” he began, his annoyance at her lack of response coming through clearly in his voice. Without looking at him, she raised one of her hands toward him in a gesture that meant he should either stop approaching or stop speaking.
    When he stopped both, she motioned him forward. He came up behind her and peered around