White River Burning

by John Verdon

  “I’ll call Gerry tonight. If she can’t cover for me herself, she’ll get someone.” She touched his cheek. “Drive safely. I’ll call you if anything changes.”

  He made no move to leave.

  She cocked her head and gave him a long sideways look. “There’s something you’re not saying. What is it?”

  “I’d rather you weren’t staying here.”

  “Why?”

  “I think there’s a possibility of a second attempt on Loomis’s life.”

  “Here?”

  “It’s possible.”

  “Is it likely?”

  “I don’t know. The possibility scares me. It’s not a situation I want you to be in.”

  She uttered a little one-syllable laugh and shook her head. “God knows I’ve been in worse situations. More than a few times. When we were running the abused women’s shelter at the clinic, we were getting horrendous threats all the time. And then there was that other little matter of the firebombing, when someone thought we were resettling refugees. Remember that?”

  “Still . . .”

  “The possibility you’re talking about isn’t going to convince Heather or Kim to leave. I feel strongly that staying with them is the right thing for me to do.”

  “Then I really should—”

  She cut him off. “Don’t even think about staying here for something that iffy. You’ve committed yourself to the investigation. Go do your job, and I’ll do mine. I’m serious. People are relying on you. We’ll be fine here. I’ll make sure that Romeo out there keeps his eyes open for strangers and off the nurses.”

  He reluctantly agreed, wishing he felt better about it.

  She kissed him on the cheek.

  25

  A nearly invisible drizzle began shortly after he pulled out of the hospital parking lot, requiring only a single swipe of the wiper blades every minute or two. The blades needed replacing, having developed a stuttering squeak that kept intruding into his thoughts. On the section of the interstate between White River and Gurney’s exit, there was virtually no traffic. On the winding road from there to Walnut Crossing, there was none.

  For most of the drive he’d been turning Rick’s message over in his mind, with the assumption that it meant something and wasn’t just the equivalent of someone talking in his sleep. But whatever that sequence—T O L D C 1 3 1 1 1—might signify, it continued to elude him. It had the appearance of a coded communication, but it seemed a far reach to imagine that a barely conscious man who’d just taken a bullet in the head would have the presence of mind required to encode something. And even if he did, for whom would it be intended? John Steele was dead; and the code meant nothing to Heather.

  But if it wasn’t a code, what was it? An abbreviation would be one possibility. If he were having a hard time writing, shortening the message as much as he could would make sense. But an abbreviation of what? And which letters were attached to which? Did the message begin, “To LDC”? Or was it “Told C”? Did the following number represent a dollar amount? An address? A quantity of something?

  Gurney was getting nowhere as he turned onto the road that led to his property, so he decided to put the issue aside. Perhaps later he’d be able to see whatever he was missing now.

  He parked next to the old farmhouse. He went inside, got some carrot soup and salmon out of the refrigerator, and put the soup in a pot to warm it. He went into the bedroom to exchange his sport jacket, button-down shirt, and slacks for a well-worn flannel shirt and faded jeans. Then he donned his old rain slicker and headed out to the chicken coop.

  The hens were already up on their perch. He checked the nesting boxes for eggs, checked the levels of chicken feed and water, and redistributed some straw that had gotten pushed into a corner. On his return to the house he stopped at the asparagus patch. Using the miniature jackknife attached to his key ring, he harvested a handful of spears, brought them in, and stood them in a mug with some water in the bottom to keep them fresh. After hanging his slicker to dry, he put his soup in a bowl and his salmon on a plate and brought them both to the table.

  As he was eating, his mind returned to the cryptic jottings on the index card. This time, instead of asking which letters and numbers might belong together, he asked himself what sort of information the man might have been trying to convey.

  If Loomis believed he was dying, he might have wanted to leave a love note for Heather. Gurney imagined that if he himself were dying, letting Madeleine know he loved her would be the only thing that mattered. But if Loomis’s sense of his condition was less than fatal, what might he want the people close to him to know?

  Perhaps the identity of the individual who shot him.

  Perhaps the identity of the person he was going to bring to his meeting with Gurney.

  Perhaps both of the above—especially if they were one and the same.

  In that context, “Told C13111” might be a shortened version of “I told C13111 about my planned meeting with Dave Gurney.”

  But how could those characters be read as someone’s name?

  The thought occurred to him that they might be an ID number, perhaps belonging to a White River police officer. But then he recalled that Mark Torres’s badge number had three digits followed by three letters. So, if it was an ID number, what organization did it belong to? Gurney had no answer. In fact, he had the feeling it was the wrong question.

  As for the possibility that the initial C might refer to the individual and 13111 be his zip code . . . that seemed such an unlikely way to describe a person he would have dismissed it without another thought, except that the number did fall within the range of zips for upstate New York. He recalled that he was about to check its location when he was at the ICU but couldn’t because of the cell phone prohibition. He realized his phone had been turned off ever since. He picked it up and turned it on.

  It told him he’d received three voice messages in the past twenty-eight minutes. The first was from Sheridan Kline, the second from Madeleine, and the third from Dr. Walter Thrasher. He decided to listen to Madeleine’s first.

  “Hi, hon. Kim and I just checked in to the Visitors Inn. Heather is still over at the ICU waiting for them to bring Rick back from radiology. We’re going to pick her up in a little while and get something to eat. There’s not much to report. A new cop replaced the other one. This one is a bit more alert than Romeo. I guess that’s it for now. Get some sleep. You were looking exhausted. Talk to you in the morning. Love you.”

  He listened to Kline’s message next.

  “Where are you? I expected to hear from you by now. When I finally got in touch with someone at the crime scene, I was told you left before the evidence search was completed. Because you got a call from Heather Loomis? Is that right? Christ, David, you’re working for me, not Heather Loomis. The point of your involvement was to give me your real-time perspective. Things are moving fast. We have data from the scene, from Beckert’s informants, from the traffic and security cameras, from the computer lab in Albany. It’s pouring in. And you decide to run off to the hospital and not answer your phone? Jesus!”

  He paused and let out an audible sigh before going on in a less agitated tone. “There’s a team meeting tomorrow morning at nine sharp to review everything we’ve got—which may include a clear photo of the Corolla driver. And there’s new evidence implicating the Gort brothers in the Willard Park homicides. Please be at the meeting.” His tone became more confidential. “The elements of both cases are coming together beautifully. I’d like your concurrence that it all makes sense. I want our ducks lined up. Get back to me as soon as you can.”

  People who talked about wanting their ducks lined up made Gurney uneasy. The phrase suggested a greater desire for order than for truth.

  He postponed listening to the message from Thrasher. He assumed it would be related to the artifacts the man had borrowed for closer examination, and he had no appetite at that moment for discussing the archaeo
logy of Colonial America.

  He brought his empty bowl and plate to the sink, washed them, and put them in the dish drainer. By the time he was finished, the pasture, the coop, the barn, and the pond were disappearing into darkness.

  He didn’t know if it was the suggestive power of Madeleine’s commenting on how tired he looked, but he did feel like closing his eyes for a while. He went into the den first to see if there were any messages on the landline answering machine.

  There were three. The first was from a strident female voice offering big savings on his electric bill. The second was from a folksy male voice offering a preapproved loan for his nonexistent poultry company. The third was from the Walnut Crossing library informing Madeleine that a book she’d reserved was now available: Beetles of North America.

  He went from the den to their downstairs bedroom, thinking a quick nap might take the edge off his drowsiness. He removed his shoes and lay down on the soft quilt they used as a bedspread. He could hear the faint yipping of coyotes above the high pasture. Then he fell into a deep dreamless sleep.

  He was awakened at 6:40 the next morning by the ringing of the den phone.

  He got to it just as Madeleine was starting to leave a message.

  “I’m here,” he said, picking up the receiver.

  “Oh, good! I’m glad I got you.”

  “Is something wrong?”

  “Rick has apparently suffered some kind of respiratory failure. He’s on full life support. Heather is falling apart.”

  “Oh, Christ. Did anything specific happen?”

  “I don’t really know anything. Just what the doctor told Heather. They’re doing some tests. They’re trying to figure it out. Maybe there was more brain damage than they realized at first? I don’t know.”

  “I’m just trying get a sense of whether there was any outside interference.”

  “David, nobody knows anything more than what I’ve just told you.”

  “Okay. All right. Are you staying there with Heather?”

  “With Heather and Kim, yes.”

  “Okay. I have a meeting at police headquarters at nine o’clock. I’ll stop by the hospital on my way.”

  After a shower and a change of clothes, he set out for White River. It was a heavily overcast morning, with patches of thick fog adding twenty minutes to his normal driving time. He pulled into the Mercy Hospital parking lot at 8:30 AM.

  On his way into the building he noted a pair of WRPD patrol cars by the portico.

  Madeleine was waiting for him just inside the main door. They hugged, holding each other longer and more tightly than usual. When they let go and stepped back she smiled, which somehow underscored the sadness in her eyes.

  “Any news?” he asked.

  “Nothing substantial. More tests, more scans. Another specialist on his way from somewhere. They’ve temporarily closed the ICU to visitors.”

  “How’s Heather?”

  “A complete wreck. Understandably.”

  “Did they let her stay upstairs?”

  “No. She’s down in the cafeteria with Kim. She won’t eat, but . . .” Her voice trailed off. “Oh God, this is so awful.”

  A huge man with a neck brace and a bulging bandage covering one eye was making his way past them on a walker. Madeleine watched as he lumbered on, limping and grunting. Then she turned to Gurney. “You better get to your meeting. There’s nothing you can do here. If anything changes, I’m sure word will get to Beckert as soon as it gets to us.”

  Maybe sooner, he thought.

  Sheridan Kline, Mark Torres, Dwayne Shucker, and Goodson Cloutz were in their seats at the conference table when Gurney arrived. He sat, as usual, next to Kline, who gave him an icy nod—which reminded him that he hadn’t returned the man’s phone call.

  With the back of his hand Shucker was wiping what appeared to be powdered sugar from the corners of his mouth. There was a container of coffee and an open paper bag in front of him. The printing on the bag said DELILAH’S DONUTS.

  Cloutz, in his blind man’s glasses, was running the tips of his fingers slowly along the length of his white cane, which was lying crosswise on the table, as though he were stroking a pet snake. His well-tended nails had a higher-than-usual gloss.

  Torres was absorbed in some work on his laptop.

  At precisely nine o’clock Beckert entered the room and took his central seat opposite Kline, his back to the broad window. The jail was a dim presence in the fog. He laid a file folder down, casually aligning its edge to the edge of the table.

  He cleared his throat. “Good morning, gentlemen.”

  There was a general murmuring of similar greetings around the table.

  “I’m pleased to report,” Beckert began in an emotionless tone, “that our investigations into the shootings of our officers and the murder of the BDA members are on the verge of completion. Detective Torres will review where we stand on the Steele and Loomis cases, but first I want to pass along some good news from Deputy Chief Turlock. Lab analysis has confirmed an exact match between the rope we recovered from the Gort twins’ compound and the ropes used to tie up Jordan and Tooker. A warrant has been issued for their arrest. We have reason to believe they may be hiding up in one of the old quarries above the reservoir. A K9 tracking dog and handler, plus an assault team, have been dispatched to that area.”

  “The reason being what?” said Gurney.

  “Excuse me?”

  “The reason you think they’re hiding in the quarries—what is it?”

  Beckert’s expression showed nothing. “Reliable informants.”

  “Whose identities you can’t share with us?”

  “Correct.” He held Gurney’s gaze for a moment before continuing. “The K9 team has an impressive record of success. We hope to bring the Gorts in quickly and have Sheridan launch an aggressive prosecution—to minimize the racial leverage available to the riot inciters.”

  Shucker pointed an enthusiastic forefinger at Beckert. “To what you just said about bringing them lunatics in, I would personally add dead or alive. In fact, dead, in my humble opinion, would be a damn sight preferable.”

  Again Beckert showed no reaction. He simply moved on to the Steele-Loomis shootings. “Mark, your turn now. My impression is that the evidence you’ve amassed against the BDA ‘third man’ is pretty conclusive. Take us through it.”

  Torres reopened his computer.

  Gurney cast a glance at Kline, whose anxious frown might reflect some concern with the political impact on himself of an ‘aggressive’ prosecution of the popular Gorts.

  Torres began in his typically earnest manner. “These are the key discoveries we’ve made since our last meeting. First of all, the rush ballistics report on the bullet used in the Loomis shooting indicates that it was fired from the same rifle used in the Steele shooting. In addition, prints on the cartridge casing recovered at the site used for the Loomis shooting match prints on the one recovered at the Steele site. And the extractor marks indicate both cartridges came from the same rifle.”

  “Were there any other fingerprints at the Poulter Street house matching the ones on the casing?” asked Gurney.

  “There was a matching print on the knob of the side door.”

  “Not on the back door? The door to the room? The window sash?”

  “No, sir. Just on the cartridge casing and the side door.”

  “Were there any other fresh fingerprints anywhere in the house?”

  “None that Garrett found. There was a partial print on a pen, which I believe you discovered in the backyard. And there were footprints. Boot prints, actually. Several in the backyard, some by the side door of the house, partials on the stairs, and a couple in the room where the shot was fired.”

  Torres then summarized the accounts given by Gloria Fenwick and Hollis Vitter, the neighbors on opposite sides of the Poulter Street house.

  “This would be a good time to show the mapping graphi
c you described to me earlier,” said Beckert.

  “Yes, sir.” A few mouse clicks later the monitor over the sheriff’s head came to life, displaying a street map of White River and the adjacent section of Willard Park. Two colored lines, a blue one and a red one, beginning at the same point on Poulter Street, diverged into separate routes through the city streets. Torres explained that the blue line represented the route taken by the Corolla from the sniper house after the shooting and the red line the route taken by the motorcycle.

  The blue line proceeded directly along one of White River’s main avenues to a point where the city’s business section abutted the fire-damaged Grinton neighborhood. The red line, however, zigzagged here and there through the side streets of Bluestone and Grinton to the edge of Willard Park, where it ended.

  Shucker removed a powdery doughnut from the bag in front of him and took a thoughtful bite, which turned his lips white. “Looks to me like the Corolla driver knew where he was going, and the motorcycle rider didn’t have a clue.”

  “There’s a termination point shown for each route,” said Kline. “Were the vehicles found at those locations?”

  “Correct, sir, in the case of the Corolla. It was discovered at the corner of Sliwak Avenue and North Street by WRPD patrol officers at approximately six ten this morning. Garrett Felder and Shelby Towns are going over it now for latents and trace evidence.”

  “You said ‘in the case of the Corolla’—meaning the motorcycle wasn’t found?”

  “Correct, sir. I should explain that the two lines we’re showing on the map were constructed differently. Once it left Poulter Street, the Corolla followed a thoroughfare that’s covered by traffic department cameras—which gave us a video record of the car’s route. But the motorcycle’s route had to be reconstructed with the help of witnesses along the way. Starting with Hollis Vitter, we found a sequence of individuals who heard or saw a motocross bike at the time in question. Lucky for us, it was a nice afternoon and a lot of people were outside.”

  “You got a description of the bike?”