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CHAPTER 7

After Jane Hammond agreed to meet them the following afternoon at the lodge, she and Hardwick departed.

Madeleine headed for the hallway that led to the bedroom, announcing that she was going to take a shower.

Gurney sensed that she wanted to avoid, at least for the moment, any further discussion of Wolf Lake. He didn’t know what to make of that, but he’d learned over the years that pursuing a subject Madeleine wasn’t ready to talk about led nowhere. Instead, he decided to take a look into the manila envelope Jane Hammond had left for him.

He brought it into the den and sat down at his desk.

In the envelope were two folders, each bearing a handwritten notation: The notation on the top folder said First Reports on the Four Deaths.

Gurney opened it and found the original news items that had appeared on the websites of various local publications. It was odd reading reports written prior to the discovery of all the facts, but he wanted to see how the incidents were initially perceived.

From the Palm Beach Post, October 2:

SUICIDE SUSPECTED IN DEATH OF PALM BEACH MAN.

The body of Christopher Wenzel, age 26, was discovered Monday morning in his condominium overlooking the Intracoastal Waterway. A preliminary autopsy report listed the cause of death as possible suicide, with a fatal loss of blood resulting from deep arterial wounds to the wrists. The body was found by an independent cleaning contractor with access to Mr. Wenzel’s apartment.

Neighbors said that Mr. Wenzel lived alone but had frequent visitors and noisy parties. No information was available on the deceased’s family or employment connections. Building management declined comment.

From the Bergen Record, October 10:

TEANECK MAN FOUND DEAD IN HIS CAR.

The body of Leo Balzac, age 27, manager of the Smokers Happiness tobacco shop on Queen Anne Road, was discovered by a neighbor in the parking garage of their apartment complex on DeGraw Avenue. According to police, the deceased was found in the driver’s seat of his car. Both wrists had been cut. A knife which appeared to have been used to inflict the wounds was found on the seat next to the body. A police spokesman said that suicide was consistent with the known facts but postponed further comment pending a full autopsy and toxicology report.

A next-door neighbor described Mr. Balzac as “An energetic young man who always seemed to be in a hurry—not the kind of guy you’d ever figure to kill himself.”

From Newsday, October 26:

FLORAL PARK MAN DEAD, GIRLFRIEND MISSING.

The body of Steven Pardosa was found this past Wednesday in the apartment he occupied in the basement of his parents’ home in Floral Park. The discovery was made by Arnold Pardosa, Steven’s father, who entered the apartment with a spare key after repeated calls to Steven’s cell phone failed to get any response.

A police spokesman characterized the death as a possible suicide, saying only that there were visible wounds to the deceased’s wrists and a knife had been found at the scene. The deceased’s parents disagreed with the suicide suggestion, insisting that such a possibility was “some kind of cover-up.”

Pardosa was 25 years old and had been self-employed for the past year in a landscape maintenance business. Law enforcement officials expressed interest in speaking with the deceased’s girlfriend, Angela Castro, who had recently been living with him but whose current whereabouts are unknown. Ms. Castro has not appeared for the past two days at the salon where she is employed as a hair stylist. The salon manager, Eric, who declined to give his last name, said that no calls had been received from Ms. Castro to explain her absence.”

Before going on to the articles covering the death of Ethan Gall, Gurney jotted down a few facts that caught his attention.

As he’d already mentioned to Hardwick, the similarity of ages was noteworthy. It could, for example, be the basis for some school-related or other social contact.

And then there was all that wrist cutting. Despite its high profile in fiction, and the sky-high number of self-inflicted cutting incidents propelling young people into ERs each year, successful suicides were rarely accomplished that way. Men had a strong preference for shooting or hanging themselves. If just one of those guys had decided to kill himself by cutting his wrists, that would be unusual enough. All of them making that same decision was peculiar in the extreme.

And then there was the matter of economics. It was possible that Christopher Wenzel, the guy with the Palm Beach condo, could afford a trip to a thousand-dollar-a-day mountain resort to get help with his smoking problem. But the manager of a small cigarette discount store? And a lawn-maintenance guy living in his father’s basement? On the face of it, they did not seem like prime candidates for top-shelf therapy at Wolf Lake Lodge.

And finally, there was the little matter of Steven Pardosa’s missing girlfriend. That could mean nothing. Or it could mean everything. In Gurney’s experience, there usually were relevant reasons for people going missing.

After making a few notes, he picked up the most detailed article on Ethan Gall.

From the Albany Times Union, November 3:

HEIR TO THE GALL FORTUNE

FOUND DEAD IN MOUNTAIN CABIN.

A body believed to be that of Ethan Gall has been discovered in an isolated cabin at the Wolf Lake Lodge resort, located within the Gall family’s 6,000-acre wilderness preserve, one of the largest privately owned tracts of land in the Adirondacks.

Pending a final autopsy report, police would say only that the condition of the body made an initial assessment difficult and that suicide could not be ruled out.

The Wolf Lake compound includes the main guest lodge—which dates back to the property’s origins as a classic Adirondack Great Camp—plus three lakeside chalets and several smaller cabins in the surrounding forest, as well as the Gall family’s private residence. These structures were built in the early 1900s by tin-mining baron Dalton Gall, who suffered an unusual death. After having a vivid premonition that he would be attacked by wolves, he was killed by wolves on the lodge property.

Heir to the substantial fortune created by his great-grandfather, Ethan Gall was the founder, president, and chief benefactor of the Gall New Life Foundation—a nonprofit organization dedicated to the education and reform of prisoners for reentry into community life.

The deceased was 34 years old and is survived by his brother Peyton. Lodge manager and family spokesperson Austen Steckle issued the following statement: “This sudden tragedy has created a sense of shock and disbelief here at Wolf Lake. We will have no further comment until we receive an official report from the medical examiner’s office.”

There were also printouts of similar but shorter articles from the Burlington Free Press, the New York Times, and the Washington Post.

Gurney picked up the phone from his desk and entered Hardwick’s number. The man answered immediately. “What’s up, Davey?”

“Couple of things. Austen Steckle was described in a news article as the ‘family spokesperson.’ How many surviving members of the Gall family are there, besides Peyton?”

“Zero.”

“The entire family consists of Peyton?”

“As far as Jane knows. I asked her about that.”

“Okay. Another question. What’s the Gall New Life Foundation all about?”

“Seems legit. Puts parolees through reentry training, education, extensive psych counseling. Actually seems to reduce recidivism. Ethan started it, ran it, put a lot of his own bucks in it.”

Gurney made a note to dig deeper into that. “You mentioned this morning there was something weird about Dalton Gall’s death, and I saw the same thing in one of the newspaper articles. What’s that all about?”

“Who the fuck knows? The story was passed along for a lot of years, maybe got enhanced along the way. Supposedly the old bastard had a dream about getting chewed up and spit out by a pack of wolves, and a few days later that’s pretty much what happened to him. Could be a load of crap.”

“Kind of an interesting coincidence that our four recently deceased folks also had bad dreams before they ended up dead.”

“I agree. But where do you go with that?”

Gurney ignored the question, asked one of his own. “Strike you as odd that a guy who mows lawns for a living would—”

Hardwick finished the thought. “Spring for a grand-a-day stay at an old-fashioned lodge? Beyond odd.”

“And what do you make of all that wrist cutting?”

Hardwick responded with a loud bark of a laugh. “I have no goddamn idea what to make of it. See, Davey, all them unanswered questions are precisely why we need your superior intellect.”

GURNEY HUNG UP THE PHONE AND OPENED THE SECOND FOLDER Jane had left with him. This one was labeled Police Press Briefings, Hammond Statement, General Media Coverage.

The first item was a two-page printout from a media website. Across the top Jane had written, “Sgt. Plant, Bureau of Criminal Investigation, briefing to reporters, November 8.” It consisted of the officer’s introductory statement followed by a Q&A with unidentified reporters.

Gurney decided to skip that one for the moment and go on to the transcript of the next press briefing.

This briefing was several pages longer than the first. There was, however, a link to the video—an option Gurney preferred. The facial expressions and tones of voice captured on video were a lot more revealing than words on paper. He opened his laptop and entered the link.

As he was waiting for the video to appear, Madeleine came into the den, wearing a bathrobe, her hair wet from her shower.

“Have you decided which pair you want to bring?” she asked.

“Excuse me?”

“Your snowshoes.”

He looked over toward the place by the door where he remembered her leaning them that morning—the rawhide-and-wood ones and the plastic ones with the spikes on the bottom. “I guess the spiked ones?”

Her surface smile seemed to be concealing some less-cheerful preoccupation.

“Is something wrong?” he asked.

Her smile broadened unconvincingly. “I was thinking maybe we could get a light for the birds.”

“A what?”

“You know, for the henhouse. It gets dark so early this time of year.”

“That’s what you were thinking about?”

“I just think it would be nice for them.”

He knew something else was on her mind, and patience would be the best approach. “It’s just a matter of running an electrical line out there, installing a fixture. We can get an electrician to do it, or I can do it myself.”

“It will be nice for them to have some light.” She took the snowshoes and left the room.

He sat there, staring out the window, wondering what it was she wasn’t ready to talk about. His gaze wandered to the trees by the pasture.

The hollow sound of multiple voices and of chairs being moved in a miked room drew his attention to the computer screen. The second police press briefing was about to begin.

The setting was one of those depressing institutional conference rooms that Gurney was all too familiar with from his years in the NYPD. The video perspective, equally familiar, was from a single camera mounted in the back of the room, aimed at the front.

A dozen or so cafeteria-style plastic chairs were occupied half by men and half by women, judging from the backs of their heads. Facing them was a thickly built man at a narrow podium. A blank whiteboard covered the wall behind him.

His body had an egg-shaped stockiness about it. He was wearing the standard uniform of an over-forty detective: dark pants, dull pastel shirt, duller tie, and a gray sport jacket a size too small. Dark hair brushed straight back from a broad creased forehead, along with heavy cheeks and a grim mouth, gave him a startling resemblance to old photos of Jimmy Hoffa.

He checked his watch and opened a loose-leaf binder.

“Okay, folks, let’s get started. I’m Senior Investigator Gilbert Fenton, Bureau of Criminal Investigation. There’ve been some major developments in the past few days relative to Ethan Gall’s death. I’ve got a statement here.” As Fenton paused to turn a page in the binder, one of the reporters spoke up.

“You used the general word ‘death.’ Are you implying that it wasn’t suicide?”

“I’m not implying anything. I’m just saying that what we know now leaves the possibility open that his death may not have been ‘suicide’ in the normal sense of the word. But hold on a minute.” He raised his hand in the traffic-cop “stop” gesture. “Let me finish the statement.” He looked back down at the binder.

“Our investigation of the Gall death has revealed certain significant facts. The fact that he was hypnotized in the recent past by Dr. Richard Hammond . . . the fact that he experienced a particular nightmare repeatedly in the week preceding his death . . . the fact that the fatal weapon found with his body was similar to a weapon he reported seeing in his nightmare . . . and the fact that details of that nightmare, which he committed to writing, would appear to have been acted out in the taking of his life. These facts alone would be sufficient to justify a fuller investigation. But it has now become apparent that the case is even more extensive.”

He turned over a page in the binder, cleared his throat, and continued. “We’ve learned that three additional individuals took their own lives the same way as Ethan Gall, with a similar pattern of previous experiences. These individuals were also hypnotized by Richard Hammond. They all developed incapacitating nightmares, and all three killed themselves in a manner seemingly consistent with the content of those nightmares.”

He closed the binder and looked at his audience. “At this time, I’ll take your questions.”

Several of the attendees spoke at once.

Again he raised his hand. “One at a time. You, in the first row.”

A female voice: “What are you accusing Dr. Hammond of doing?”

“We haven’t made any accusations. We’re seeking Dr. Hammond’s cooperation.” He pointed at another reporter.

A male voice: “Are you reclassifying the Gall death as a homicide?”

“It’s being classified simply as a suspicious death.”

Same male voice: “What possibilities other than suicide are you looking at?”

“We’re not currently focused on possibilities other than suicide, but on how and why the suicide occurred.”

A female voice: “What did you mean when you said that it might not have been suicide in the ‘normal sense’ of the term?”

“Well, let’s say, just hypothetically, that a powerful form of hypnotic suggestion influenced a person to do something they would not have done of their own accord. That would not be a normal action. It would not be done in the ‘normal sense’ of that action.”

Several voices were raised at once, competing in volume. One astounded male voice predominated: “Are you claiming that Richard Hammond used hypnosis to bring about Gall’s suicide, as well as the suicides of three other patients?”

Utterances of surprise and skepticism spread around the room.

Fenton raised his hand. “Let’s keep it orderly, okay? I’m not claiming anything. What I’m sharing with you is one hypothesis. There may be others.”

His most recent questioner continued, “Are you planning to arrest Dr. Hammond for . . . for what crime?”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We hope to obtain Dr. Hammond’s voluntary cooperation. We need to know what, if anything, happened in those hypnosis sessions that could explain the nightmares his patients later experienced and the ritualistic suicides that ensued.”

Two female voices at once: “Ritualistic?”

A male voice: “What ritualistic elements were involved? Are we talking satanic?”

Another male voice: “Can you give us the identities of the other three victims?”

A female voice: “Is ‘victims’ the right term for suicides?”

Fenton raised his voice. “Hey, please, some order here. As for the term ‘victims’—I think that’s a reasonable term under the circumstances. We’ve got four people who all killed themselves in pretty much the same way with a weapon they dreamt about after they’d been hypnotized. This is obviously more than a coincidence. Regarding the ritualistic aspect, all I can divulge is that the weapon used in each case was unusual and, according to experts we’ve consulted, highly significant.”

A male voice: “If your theory is correct—that these victims were put under some kind of hypnotic spell that resulted in suicide—what would the criminal charge be? Are we talking about some new kind of murder?”

“The answer to that will be determined as we go along.”

The questions went on for half an hour. Fenton showed no impatience with this. If anything, he seemed to be urging the reporters on—an unusual behavior, Gurney thought, for a stolid, conservative-looking cop.

Finally he announced that the briefing was over.

“Okay, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your cooperation. You can pick up copies of my statement on your way out.”

Chairs were pushed back, people began standing, and the video ended.

Gurney sat at his desk for several long minutes, astounded.

He picked up a pen and began jotting down some questions of his own. When he was halfway down the page he remembered that there was still more material in the file Jane had assembled—Richard Hammond’s own statement to the press, plus examples of the media coverage that Fenton’s briefing had generated.

Gurney opened the folder again, took out a handful of news website printouts, and riffled through them. There was no need to read the complete text of any of these more recent articles. The insinuating headlines told the story.

THE DEATH WHISPERER

DID THIS DOCTOR TALK HIS PATIENTS INTO KILLING THEMSELVES?

POLICE LINK CONTROVERSIAL THERAPIST TO RITUAL SUICIDES

COULD A DREAM BE A MURDER WEAPON?

Before he was halfway through the pile of printouts, Gurney put them aside and leaned back in his chair. He found himself fascinated by the underlying facts and baffled by the aggressively public approach being taken by Gil Fenton—which represented not only the embrace of a wild hypothesis but also a departure from NYSP communications policies.

There was one final item in the folder, a single typewritten page with a long heading: Notice to the Press: Statement by Dr. Richard Hammond Regarding the Investigation into the Deaths of Christopher Wenzel, Leo Balzac, Steven Pardosa, and Ethan Gall.

Gurney read with increasing interest:

Serious allegations were made recently to the news media by a representative of New York State law enforcement concerning the deaths of the four individuals named above. These allegations are reckless and misleading.

This statement will be my first, final, and only response. I will not be drawn into the charade being staged by incompetent police investigators. I will not cooperate with them in any way until they cease their malicious campaign of character assassination. Nor will I communicate with representatives of the news media whose embrace of the libelous insinuations of the police are proof of their amoral appetite for sensation.

In short, I will neither participate in, nor publicly debate, nor devote my resources to the obstruction of this farcical investigation and media soap opera. I will hire no attorney, no PR firm, no spokesperson, no defenders of any kind.

Let me be perfectly clear. Suggestions or insinuations that I contributed in any way to the deaths of four individuals are absolutely false. Let me repeat and underscore the simple truth. The deaths of Christopher Wenzel, Leo Balzac, Steven Pardosa, and Ethan Gall were tragic events in which I have played no role whatsoever. They deserve a full and objective investigation, not this degrading circus initiated by malicious police personnel and propagated by a vile news industry.

—Richard Hammond, PhD

Gurney found the statement remarkable for its bravado—especially since it was authored by the same man who had been paralyzed with fear over the highly unlikely possibility of there being a dead body in the trunk of his car.