Wolf Lake. John Verdon

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      “Are you a Christian, sir?”

      It wasn’t a question he would normally answer. But this wasn’t a normal situation.

      “I am.” He didn’t add that his own version of Christianity was probably as far from Bowman Cox’s as Walnut Crossing was from Coral Dunes.

      “That’s good to hear. Now, what can I do for you?”

      “I’d like to talk to you about Christopher Wenzel.”

      “And his nightmare?”

      “Yes.”

      “And how all these deaths have come to be?”

      “Yes.”

      “Where exactly are you, Detective, right now, as we speak?”

      “In my home in Walnut Crossing in upstate New York.”

      For several seconds, Cox said nothing. The only sound Gurney could hear over the phone was the soft tapping of fingers on a keyboard. He waited.

      “Ah, there you are. Convenient things, these instant maps. Well, now, here’s a proposition for you. My feeling is that this conversation is too important for the phone. Why don’t we meet, you and I, face-to-face?”

      “When and where?”

      There was another silence, longer this time, with more keyboard tapping.

      “Looks to me like Middletown would be a perfect middle point between us. There’s a diner on Route 17 called Halfway There. I feel that the Lord is pointing the way for us. What do you say—shall we accept his suggestion?”

      Gurney glanced at his phone screen to check the time. It was 12:13 PM. If he got to the diner at 1:45 and spent an hour with Cox, he could be back home by 4:15. That would leave plenty of time to resolve any open issues regarding the following morning’s trip to Wolf Lake.

      “Fine, sir, I can meet you there at 1:45.”

       CHAPTER 9

      The drive down through the Catskills to Middletown was familiar and uneventful. The sprawling parking lot of the Halfway There diner was equally familiar. He and Madeleine had pulled in there for coffee many times during the year they’d spent searching for a country house.

      Fewer than a third of the tables in the dining area were taken. As Gurney scanned the room, a hostess approached with a menu and an overly lipsticked smile.

      “I think I see who I’m meeting here,” said Gurney, his eyes on a self-important-looking man sitting by himself in one of the four chairs at a corner table.

      She shrugged, handed him the menu, and walked away.

      By the time Gurney got to the table, the man was standing, well over six feet tall, with his right hand outstretched. He engaged Gurney in an enthusiastic handshake, while raising his other hand to display an iPad. “I have been doing my research, Detective, and I must tell you that I am mightily impressed.” A broad salesman’s smile revealed a row of expensively capped teeth.

      On the screen of the tablet, Gurney’s eye caught part of an old photo of himself next to the word “Supercop”—the pumped-up headline of an article New York magazine had run a number of years earlier, featuring the string of arrests and convictions that by some calculations had made him the most successful homicide detective in the history of the NYPD. He’d found the article embarrassing, but sometimes it served a useful function, and he suspected this might be one of those times.

      Gurney guessed the reverend was sixty and doing everything he could to look forty.

      “I feel privileged to meet you, Detective. Please have a seat.”

      They sat across from each other. A waitress with a weary smile came over. “You gentlemen know what you want, or you need more time?”

      “Maybe just a little time for me to get acquainted with this remarkable man, then we’ll be ready to order. That meet with your approval, David? If I may call you David?”

      “That’s fine.”

      The Reverend Bowman Cox was wearing a navy-blue jogging suit and a stainless steel Rolex—a model Gurney had seen advertised somewhere for $12,000. His skin was a yellowish tan, unnaturally tight and free of any wrinkles, his hair unnaturally brown and free of any gray. A rapacious hawklike nose and a combative glint in the eyes belied the broad smile.

      When the waitress had gone, he leaned toward Gurney. “I thank our Lord for this opportunity to share our thoughts—regarding what I have come to believe is a case of extraordinary evil. May I ask how far you’ve progressed in your own understanding of it?”

      “Well, Reverend, as you—”

      “Please, David, no formal titles. Call me Bowman.”

      “Okay, Bowman. As I see it, the problem in understanding the case is that a number of different jurisdictions are involved due to the location of the suicides. Gilbert Fenton up in the Adirondack region of New York seems to have the closest thing to an overall approach.” He was watching the man’s expression for hints of how to proceed to trigger the greatest cooperation. He continued, shifting his vocabulary. “But it’s the evil dimension of these events that really interests me, the presence of certain inexplicable forces.”

      “Exactly!”

      “The nightmares, for example.”

      “Exactly!”

      “That’s an area, Bowman, where I’d love to get your personal perspective. Because of the fragmented way the case is being handled, I know about the nightmares. But I don’t know the content of them. The sharing of information among our departments leaves a lot to be desired.”

      Cox’s eyes widened. “But the nightmare is the solution to everything! From the very start, I told them that. I told them the answer was in the nightmare! They have eyes, yet they refuse to see!”

      “Perhaps you can explain it to me?”

      “Of course.” He leaned forward again and spoke with a fevered intensity, his perfect teeth and the surgically tightened skin of his face creating a not-quite-human impression.

      “Are you familiar, David, with the phenomenon of men who, having once heard a musical passage, can replay it note for note? Well, I have a similar ability with the spoken word, particularly as it relates to the word of God and man. Do you grasp my meaning?”

      “I’m not sure I do.”

      Cox leaned closer, his reptilian eyes fixed on Gurney’s. “In matters of Good and Evil, what I hear is imprinted on my memory—note for note, as it were. I regard this as a gift. So, when I say that I am about to repeat Christopher Wenzel’s narration of his nightmare, I mean precisely that. His narration. Note for note. Word for word.”

      “Would you mind if I recorded this?”

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