White River Burning

by John Verdon

  PREVIOUS BOOKS IN THE DAVE GURNEY SERIES

  Wolf Lake

  Peter Pan Must Die

  Let the Devil Sleep

  Shut Your Eyes Tight

  Think of a Number

  White River Burning

  Copyright © 2018 by John Verdon

  First hardcover edition: 2018

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles and reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events is unintended and entirely coincidental.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Verdon, John, author.

  Title: White River burning : a Dave Gurney novel / John Verdon.

  Description: Berkeley, CA : Counterpoint Press, [2018]

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017057561 | ISBN 9781640090637 | eISBN 9781640090644

  Subjects: LCSH: Detectives—New York (State)—New York—Fiction. | Serial murder investigation—Fiction. | GSAFD: Suspense fiction. | Mystery fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3622.E736 W48 2018 | DDC 813/.6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017057561

  Jacket designed by Jarrod Taylor

  Book designed by Jordan Koluch

  COUNTERPOINT

  2560 Ninth Street, Suite 318

  Berkeley, CA 94710

  www.counterpointpress.com

  Printed in the United States of America

  Distributed by Publishers Group West

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  For Naomi

  I

  HIDDEN FURY

  1

  Dave Gurney stood at the sink in his big farmhouse kitchen, holding one of Madeleine’s strainers. He was carefully emptying into it what appeared to be several dirt-encrusted brown pebbles from a very old tinted-glass jar.

  As he washed away the soil, he could see that the pebbles were smaller, lighter in color, and more uniform than they’d first appeared to be. He laid a paper towel on the sink-island countertop and eased the contents of the strainer onto it. With another paper towel he carefully patted the pebbles dry, then carried them along with the glass jar from the kitchen to his desk in the den and placed them next to his laptop and large magnifying glass. He started the computer and opened the document he’d created with the archaeological graphics program he’d acquired a month earlier—shortly after discovering the remnants of an old laid-stone cellar in the cherry copse above the pond. What he’d found in his examination of the site so far led him to believe that the cellar may have served as the foundation of a late-seventeenth- or early-eighteenth-century structure—perhaps the home of a settler in what then would have been a wild frontier area.

  The archaeology program enabled him to overlay a current photograph of the cellar area with a precisely scaled grid, and then to tag the appropriate grid boxes with identifying code numbers for the items he’d found at those locations. An accompanying list linked the codes to verbal descriptions he’d provided along with photos of the individual items. Those items now included two iron hooks that his internet research told him were used for stretching animal hides; a tool fashioned from a large bone, probably a flesher for scraping hides; a knife with a black handle; the rusted remains of several iron chain links; and an iron key.

  He found himself viewing these few objects, barely illuminated by his scant knowledge of the historical period with which they seemed to be associated, as the first tantalizing bits of a puzzle—dots to be connected with the help of dots yet to be discovered.

  After recording the location of his newest find, he then used his magnifier to examine the bluish, slightly opaque glass jar. Judging from the pictures on the internet of similar containers, it seemed consistent with his estimate of the foundation’s age.

  He turned his attention to the pebbles. Taking a paper clip from his desk drawer, he unbent it into a relatively straight wire and used it to move one of the pebbles around, turning it over this way and that under the magnifier. It appeared relatively smooth except for one facet that consisted of a tiny hollow spot with thin, sharp edges. He went on to a second pebble, in which he saw the same structure; and then on to a third, a fourth, and the remaining four after that. Close examination revealed that all eight, while not quite identical, shared the same basic configuration.

  He wondered about the significance of that.

  Then it occurred to him that they might not be pebbles at all.

  They could be teeth.

  Small teeth. Possibly human baby teeth.

  If that’s what they were, some new questions came immediately to mind—questions that made him eager to get back down to the site and dig a little deeper.

  As he stood up from the desk, Madeleine came into the den. She gave the little objects spread out on the paper towel a quick glance along with that slight flicker of distaste that crossed her face whenever something reminded her of the excavation now blocking the little trail she liked so much. It didn’t help that his approach to the site reminded her of the way he would have approached a murder scene in his days as an NYPD homicide detective.

  One of the persistent sources of tension in their marriage was the gap between her desire for a clean break with their past lives in the city, an unquestioning embrace of their new lives in the country, and his inability or unwillingness to shed his career-long mindset, his persistent need to be investigating something.

  She put on a determinedly cheerful smile. “It’s an absolutely glorious spring morning. I’m going to hike the quarry trail. I should be back in about two hours.”

  He waited for the next sentence. Usually, after informing him that she was going out, she would ask if he wanted to come along. And usually he would make some excuse, involving something else that needed doing. The simple fact was that walking in the woods never gave him the same sense of inner peace it gave her. His own sense of peace, a sense of strength and self-worth, came not so much from enjoying the world around him as from trying to figure out what exactly was going on and why. Peace through investigation. Peace through discovery. Peace through logic.

  This time, however, she didn’t offer him an invitation. Instead, she stated with a conspicuous lack of enthusiasm, “Sheridan Kline called.”

  “The district attorney? What did he want?”

  “To talk to you.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “That you were out. He called just before you came back up to the house with those things.” She pointed at the pebble-teeth. “He refused to leave a message. He said he’d call again at eleven thirty.”

  Gurney looked up at the clock on the den wall. It was now a quarter to eleven. “He didn’t give you any hint of what he wanted?”

  “He sounded tense. Maybe it’s about the trouble over in White River?”

  He thought about that for a moment. “I can’t imagine how I could help him with that.”

  Madeleine shrugged. “Just guessing. But whatever he really wants from you, he’ll probably be less than truthful about it. He’s a snake. Be careful.”

  2

  While Madeleine was lacing up her hiking boots in the mudroom, Gurney made himself a cup of coffee and took it out to one of the Adirondack chairs on the bluestone patio next to the asparagus patch.

  The patio overlooked the low pasture, the barn, the pond, and the little-used town road that dead-ended into their fifty acres of woods and fields. I
t was a long time since the place had been a working farm, and what he and Madeleine liked to refer to as “pastures” were now really just overgrown meadows. Disuse had made them, if anything, more naturally beautiful—especially now in the early days of May with the first burst of wildflowers spreading across the hillside.

  Madeleine emerged from the French doors onto the patio wearing a fuchsia nylon windbreaker half open over a chartreuse tee shirt. Whether it was the exuberant sense of life in the spring air or the anticipation of her outing, her mood had brightened. She leaned over his Adirondack chair and kissed him on the head. “Are you sure you’ll hear the phone out here?”

  “I left the window open.”

  “Okay. See you in a couple of hours.”

  He looked up at her and saw in her soft smile the woman he’d married twenty-five years earlier. He was amazed at how rapidly the tenor of their relationship could shift—how fraught small events and gestures could be and how contagious were the feelings they generated.

  He watched as she made her way up through the high pasture, her jacket shining in the sun. Soon she disappeared into the pine woods in the direction of the old dirt road that connected a series of abandoned bluestone quarries along the north ridge. He suddenly wished that she had invited him along, wished that Kline’s call would be coming to the cell phone in his pocket rather than to the landline in the house.

  He checked his watch. His thoughts about the objects he’d found in the old buried cellar were now fully eclipsed by his efforts to imagine what was on the district attorney’s mind. And how obscure the man’s intentions would be.

  At eleven thirty Gurney heard the distant sound of a car coming up the narrow town road below the barn. A minute later a gleaming black Lincoln Navigator passed between the barn and the pond, hesitating at the point where the gravel surface ended, before lumbering up the rutted farm track through the wild pasture grass to an open area beside the house and coming to a stop by Gurney’s dusty Outback.

  The first surprise was that it was Sheridan Kline himself who emerged from the big SUV. The second surprise was that he emerged from the driver’s seat. He’d come in his official car but without the services of his driver—a notable departure, thought Gurney, for a man in love with the perks of his office.

  Sharply dressed, Kline gave a couple of quick tugs to straighten the creases in his pants. At first glance the man seemed to have gotten smaller since their last meeting, ten months earlier, in the messy legal aftermath of the Peter Pan case. It was an odd perception, as well as an unpleasant reminder of the occasion. A lot of people had died in the horrendous finale of the Pan investigation, and Kline had appeared quite willing to have Gurney indicted for reckless homicide. But as soon as the media’s preference for portraying Gurney as the hero of the case had become clear, Kline had supported that narrative—with a cordial enthusiasm that Madeleine had found nauseating.

  He approached the patio now with a fixed smile, taking in the immediate area with a series of assessing glances.

  Gurney rose to meet him. “I thought you were going to call.”

  The smile remained in place. “Change of plan. I happened to be in White River, meeting with Chief Beckert. Just forty miles from here, forty-five minutes with no traffic. So why not do it face-to-face? Always better that way.”

  Gurney inclined his head toward the Navigator. “No chauffeur today?”

  “Driver, David, not chauffeur, I’m a public servant, for Christ’s sake.” He paused for a moment, radiating restless energy. “I often find driving relaxing.” A small tic was playing at the corner of his determined smile.

  “You drove here directly from White River?”

  “As I said. From a meeting with Beckert. Which is what I want to talk to you about.” He nodded toward the Adirondack chairs. “Why don’t we have a seat?”

  “Wouldn’t you prefer to come inside?”

  He made a face. “Not really. Such a beautiful day. I spend too much time indoors.”

  Gurney wondered if the man was afraid of being recorded and considered the patio safer than the house. Perhaps that was also his reason for avoiding the phone.

  “Coffee?”

  “Not right now.”

  Gurney gestured toward one of the chairs, sat down in the one facing it, and waited.

  Kline removed the jacket of his expensive-looking gray suit, draped it neatly over the chair back, and loosened his tie before perching on the edge of the seat.

  “Let me get right to the point. As you can imagine, we’re facing a hell of a challenge. Shouldn’t have been totally unexpected, given the inflammatory statements coming out of that BDA bunch, but something like this is always a shock. You spent twenty-five years in the NYPD, so I can only imagine how it feels to you.”

  “How what feels to me?”

  “The shooting.”

  “What shooting?”

  “Christ, how cut off from the world are you up here on this mountain? Were you even aware of the demonstrations going on all week over in White River?”

  “For the one-year anniversary of that traffic-stop fatality? Laxton Jones? Hard not to be aware of all that. But I haven’t checked the news yet this morning.”

  “A White River cop was shot dead last night. Trying to keep a racial mess from getting completely out of hand.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Jesus. Goddamn right.”

  “This happened at a Black Defense Alliance demonstration?”

  “Naturally.”

  “I thought they were a nonviolent group.”

  “Hah!”

  “The cop who was shot. Was he white?”

  “Of course.”

  “How—?”

  “Sniper. Fatal head shot. Somebody out there knew exactly what the hell he was doing. This was no coked-up idiot with a Saturday-night special. This was planned.” Kline ran his fingers nervously back through his short dark hair.

  Gurney was struck by the emotional intensity of the district attorney’s reaction—natural in most people but noteworthy in such a coldly calculating politician, a man Gurney had come to believe evaluated every event by how it might facilitate or obstruct his own ambitions.

  There was the obvious question—which Kline addressed on cue as Gurney was about to ask it. “You’re wondering why I’m bringing this problem to you?” He shifted on the edge of his chair to face Gurney squarely, as though he believed that direct eye contact was essential to communicating an attitude of forthrightness. “I’m here, David, because I want your help. In fact, I need your help.”

  3

  Sheridan Kline stood silently at the open French doors, watching as Gurney prepared two mugs at the coffee machine in the kitchen. Neither man spoke again until they were back outside on their chairs—the district attorney still looking stiff and uncomfortable, but perhaps feeling assured from his own observation of the coffee-making that Gurney hadn’t taken the opportunity to slip a recording device into his pocket. He took a few sips from his mug, then set it down on the flat wooden arm of the chair.

  He took the deep breath of a man about to dive into a cold pool. “I’ll be perfectly frank with you, David. I have a huge problem. The situation in White River is explosive. I don’t know how closely you’ve been following it, but there’ve been outbreaks of looting and arson all this past week down in the Grinton district. Constant stink of smoke in the air. Sickening. And it could get a hell of a lot worse. Keg of dynamite, and these BDA people seem to be trying to set it off. Like this latest attack. Cold-blooded assassination of a police officer.” He fell silent, shaking his head.

  After a few moments Gurney tried to nudge him toward explaining his visit. “You said that you drove here directly from a meeting with the White River chief of police?”

  “Dell Beckert and his number two, Judd Turlock.”

  “About how to respond to the shooting?”

  “Among other things. A discussion of the whol
e situation. All the implications.” Kline made a face as if he were regurgitating something indigestible.

  “Is there some connection between that meeting and your coming here?”

  Another pained expression. “Yes and no.”

  “Tell me more about the ‘yes’ part.”

  Before answering, Kline reached for his cup, took a long sip from it, and replaced it carefully on the chair arm. Gurney noted a tremor in his hand.

  “The situation in White River is delicate. Feelings are running way too high on all sides. I called it a keg of dynamite, but that’s not right. It’s more like pure nitroglycerin—tricky to handle, unpredictable, unforgiving. Stumble, whack against it the wrong way, and it could blow us all to pieces.”

  “I get that. Racial sensitivities. Ugly emotions. Potential for total chaos. But—”

  “But how do you fit into this?” He flashed an anxious politician’s smile. “David, never in my career have I encountered a greater need to marshal all our available resources. I’m talking about brains—the right kind of brains. The need to understand the angles. See around the corners. I don’t want to get blindsided because we didn’t look into things closely enough.”

  “You think Beckert’s department might not be up to the job?”

  “No, nothing like that. You won’t hear any criticism of Beckert from me. The man’s a law-and-order icon. Hell of a record of achievement.” He paused. “There’s even a rumor about a run in the special election for state attorney general. Nothing definite, of course.” Another pause. “He could be the perfect candidate, though. Right image. Right connections. Not everyone knows this, he certainly doesn’t advertise it himself, but his current wife happens to be the governor’s cousin. Right man in the right place at the right time.”

  “Assuming that everything goes well. Or at least that nothing goes terribly wrong.”

  “That goes without saying.”

  “So what exactly do you want from me?”

  “Your investigative instincts. Your nose for the truth. You’re very good at what you do. Your NYPD homicide record speaks for itself.”