Читать книгу Wolf Lake - John Verdon - Страница 19
ОглавлениеBarely a mile out of the village a roadside sign informed them that they were entering the Adirondack Park. “Park” struck Gurney as a term far too modest for this vast tract of forests, lakes, bogs, and pristine wilderness that was larger than the entire state of Vermont.
The terrain around them changed from a succession of down-at-the-heels agricultural communities to something far wilder. Instead of weedy meadows and hilltop thickets, the landscape was dominated by a dark expanse of conifers.
As the road rose mile after mile, tall pines gave way to stunted firs that appeared to have been bent into angry submission by the harsh winter winds. Even open spaces here seemed forlorn and forbidding.
Gurney noted that Madeleine was sharply focused now on everything around her.
“Where are we?” asked Madeleine.
“What do you mean?”
“What are we near?”
“We’re not near very much at all. I’m guessing we’re seventy or eighty miles from the High Peaks. Maybe a hundred, hundred and twenty miles from Wolf Lake.”
There was a frozen mist in the air now, so fine it was drifting sideways rather than falling to the ground. Through this icy filter the wild landscape of hunched trees and gaunt granite outcroppings seemed wrapped in a deepening gloom.
After another two hours, during which he encountered only a handful of other vehicles, all heading in the opposite direction, their GPS announced that they had arrived at their destination. There was, however, no lodge in sight. There was simply a dirt road that met the state route at a right angle, marked by a discreet bronze sign on an iron post:
GALL WILDERNESS PRESERVE
WOLF LAKE LODGE
PRIVATE ROAD—GUESTS ONLY
Gurney drove in. About half a mile into the property he sensed the pitch of the road steepening. The crouching trees began to take on a sinister aspect in the sleety fog, materializing out of nowhere only to disappear seconds later.
Madeleine turned her head suddenly in the direction of something on her side of the car.
Gurney glanced over. “What’s the matter?”
“I thought I saw someone.”
“Where?”
She pointed. “Back that way. By the trees.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. I saw someone standing by one of those trees with the twisted branches.”
Gurney slowed to a stop.
Madeleine looked alarmed. “What are you doing?”
He backed cautiously down the sloping road. “Let me know when we get to the spot.”
She turned back to the window. “There it is, that’s the tree. And right there, see, there’s the . . . oh . . . I thought the broken-off tree trunk next to the bent one was a person. Sorry.” The discovery that it had only been a tree trunk and not a human being lurking in that inhospitable place did little to allay the tension in her voice.
They drove on and soon came to a break in the procession of gnarled firs. The opening provided a passing glimpse of a rugged cabin, as somber and uninviting as the outcropping of icy granite on which it stood. A moment later the cabin disappeared behind the army of misshapen trees closing in again on the road.
The ring of Gurney’s phone on the console between them triggered a reflexive jerk of Madeleine’s arm away from the sound.
He picked up the phone and saw that it was Hardwick.
“Yes, Jack?”
“Good mawnin’ to you, too, Detective Guhney. Just thought I’d call, find out how y’all are doin’ on this glorious day the Lawd has provided.”
“Is there a point to the Southern accent?”
“Jus’ been on the phone with our loo-tenant friend in Palm Beach, and that way o’ talkin’—like you was amblin’ through molasses—is contagious.”
“Bobby Becker?”
Hardwick dropped the drawl. “Right. I wanted to find out if they knew anything down there about Christopher Wenzel, where he came from, how he happened to own that condo.”
“And?”
“They don’t know much. Except that the driver’s license he traded in a couple of years ago for a Florida one put his former residence in Fort Lee, New Jersey.”
“Which puts three of our victims in the same metro geography in the not-too-distant past.”
“Right.”
“From what Jane said about Peyton, he doesn’t sound like a guy who’d choose to live in the mountains if his alternative was a townhouse in the big city—unless he’s hiding from somebody.”
“I raised that point on our way back from your house. Jane thinks he can buy people upstate easier than he can in the city.”
“She have any idea who he’s buying, or why?”
“No names. But Peyton has a habit of creating trouble. And purchasing the necessary influence to keep consequences to a minimum would require a more modest outlay up in the backwoods than in a city. It’s Jane’s theory that he’s importing his pleasures to the country to keep his misbehaviors in a relatively safe playground.”
“Peyton the slimebag.”
“You could say that.”
“A slimebag who may be about to inherit a fortune.”
“Yep.”
“From a brother who just died in peculiar circumstances.”
“Yep again.”
“But, as far as you know, Peyton’s not on Fenton’s radar?”
“Not even near it.” Hardwick’s voice broke up into a scattering of unintelligible syllables, ending in silence.
Gurney glanced at his phone screen and saw that the signal strength was zero. Madeleine was watching. “You lost the call?”
“Dead zone.”
All his attention was now on the road ahead. The superfine sleet was sticking to the surface, obscuring the position of the road’s edges.
“How much farther do we have to go?”
“No idea.” He glanced over at her.
Her hands were clenched into fists, her fingers wrapped around her thumbs.
He was focusing now on a ravine about ten feet to the left of where he estimated the left side of the road to be. Then and there, at the worst point for it to occur, the pitch of the road increased by a few degrees. A moment later the tires lost traction.
Gurney dropped down into first gear and tried inching forward, but the rear of the car began slipping sideways toward the ravine. He took his foot off the gas, applied the brake gently. After an unnerving lateral slide, the car came to stop. He put the gear lever in reverse and crept backward down the road and away from the ravine. When he was well below the point at which the pitch steepened, he braked as lightly as he could. Gradually the car came to a halt.
Madeleine was peering out into the surrounding woods. “What do we do now?”
Gurney looked up the road as far as he could see. “I think the crest is about a hundred yards ahead of us. If I can get some momentum . . .”
He eased the car forward. As he tried to accelerate through the spot where the trouble had begun, the rear of the car swung out suddenly, pointing the front end at the ravine. He turned the steering wheel rapidly in the opposite direction—an overcompensation that ended with a jarring thud as the passenger-side tires entered a drainage ditch at the edge of the road.
The engine stalled. In the ensuing silence he could hear the wind picking up and the rapid tick-tick-tick-tick of ice pellets blowing against the windshield.
