Wolf Lake. John Verdon
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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?”
A flicker of something in those eyes came and went too quickly to read. “I have been prevailed upon by law enforcement authorities not to share this with the press or the public. But you, as a detective, are obviously in a different category.”
Gurney took out his phone, activated the “record” function, and laid it on the table. Cox stared at it for a few seconds as though weighing risks and rewards. Then with the tiniest nod—the gesture of a blackjack player opting to proceed—he closed his eyes and began speaking. His voice was sharper now, presumably imitating the diction of Christopher Wenzel.
“I’m lying in bed. Starting to fall asleep. But it doesn’t feel that good. It doesn’t have that easy, letting-go feeling of falling asleep. I’m partly conscious, but I can’t move or speak. I know that someone, or something, is in the room with me. I hear a deep, rough breathing—like some kind of animal. Like a low growling. I can’t see it, but it’s getting closer. Creeping up on me. Now it’s pressing me down on the bed. I want to scream but I can’t. Then I see hot red eyes. Then I see the animal’s teeth, pointed fangs.” Cox’s own shiny teeth were bared.
“Saliva is dripping from the fangs. Now I know it’s a wolf, a wolf as big as a man. The burning red eyes are just inches away from me now. The saliva from the fangs is dripping on my mouth. I want to scream, but nothing will come out. The body of the wolf is hovering over me, getting longer, stretching into the shape of a dagger. I feel the dagger going into me, burning and piercing, again and again. I’m covered with blood. The wolf’s growl changes into the voice of a man. I see that the wolf has the hands of a man. Then I know that he is a man, but all I can see are his hands. In one hand he has a dagger with a silver wolf’s head on the handle, a wolf’s head with red eyes. In the other hand he has colored pills. He says, ‘Sit up and take these. There’s nothing to fear, nothing to remember.’ I wake up sweating and shivering. My body aches. I sit on the edge of the bed, too exhausted to stand. I bend over and vomit. That’s how it ends. That’s what happens. Every night. The idea that it will happen again makes me want to die.”
Cox opened his eyes, leaned back in his chair, and looked around the room a little strangely—as if, rather than simply reciting another man’s story, he’d been channeling the dead man’s spirit.
“So, there you have it, David—the revolting experience related to me by that poor young man on the very eve of his demise.” He paused, clearly waiting for a reaction that Gurney was not providing. “Do you not find Christopher’s experience utterly appalling?”
“It’s certainly strange. But tell me—other than his dream, what else do you know about him?”
Cox looked surprised. “Forgive me, David, but it is plain to me that Christopher’s dream is precisely the revelation we need to focus on. The dream that dictated the manner of his death. The dream that exposed the role played by the devil Hammond. Look ye, saith the Lord, at the Truth that is shown to thee in these events. The Truth of evil is placed before thine eyes.”
“When you refer to Dr. Hammond as a devil—”
“That term is not idly chosen. I know all about Doctor Hammond, with his Ivy League psychology degree.”
Gurney wondered if Cox’s animus toward Hammond was a routine product of the culture wars, or if there might be more to it. But he had another question to pursue first. “Did you know Wenzel in any context outside of the conversation he had with you regarding his dream?”
Cox shook his head impatiently. “I did not.”
“Your ministry is located in Coral Dunes?”
“Yes. But our broadcast and Internet outreach is unlimited.”
“And Coral Dunes is about an hour’s drive from Palm Beach?”
“What is your point?”
“I was wondering why—”
“Why Christopher came all the way to Coral Dunes to unburden his tortured soul? Have you considered the simplest answer of all—that the Lord led him to me?” A beatific smile pulled his tight lips back to reveal that row of perfect white teeth.
“Can