by John Verdon
“That’s part of the problem.”
The confident tone of Torres’s summation dissolved. “What do you mean?”
“There does seem to be a ton of evidence. Almost too much of it. But no single piece of it is solid.”
“What about the videos?”
“The videos tell us where he was at certain times. They don’t tell us why.”
“Wouldn’t it be a pretty extreme coincidence if he just happened to be in both those places for some other reason when those shots were fired?”
“Not if someone sent him there.”
“To set him up?”
“It’s possible. It would explain why he made no effort to avoid traffic cameras or to obscure his plate number.”
Gurney could imagine Torres’s earnest frown as he considered the implications.
“But how do you explain the fingerprints?”
“There’s an interesting fact about those prints. They’re all on portable objects, with one exception, the outside doorknob of the house on Poulter Street.”
“What do you mean by portable objects? Toilets aren’t that portable.”
“Right. But the print wasn’t on the toilet itself. It was on the flushing lever.”
“Okay, on the lever . . . so . . . where does that take you?”
“An hour ago it took me from the apartment on Bridge Street to Payne’s own apartment. I checked both toilets and took some photos that I’ll send you.”
“Photos that show what?”
“That the flushing levers may have been switched.”
“What?”
“It’s possible that the flushing lever on the Bridge Street toilet—the one with Payne’s prints on it—may have come from his own bathroom.”
“God, if that were true . . . that would turn everything upside down. Are you suggesting all the evidence was planted? The Band-Aid with Payne’s DNA? The cartridge casings with his prints on them? That everything implicating him is part of a giant frame job?” Torres’s tone was stunned and questioning rather than challenging.
“The facts are not inconsistent with that scenario.”
Torres paused. “It sounds like I need to get forensics involved again . . . to take a look at this switched-flusher business . . . but suppose . . . Jesus . . .”
Gurney finished the thought. “But suppose the switch was done by someone in the department?”
Torres said nothing.
“It’s a possibility. So if I were you, I’d keep the flusher issue to myself until we dig a little deeper and you can be sure you’re not discussing it with the wrong person. This case could be a lot nastier than anyone realizes.”
As he ended the call, the text message sent to John Steele the night he was killed came vividly to mind: Watch ur back. EZ nite for mfs to ice ur ass n blame the BDA.
For the next couple of minutes he sat there looking out over the field by the little brick building that housed the restrooms. The local vultures were circling idly on the updrafts from the sun-soaked ground.
He decided to call Hardwick and fill him in on the day’s events.
The man’s first words when he picked up were, for him, not unusual.
“The fuck do you want now?”
“Charm, warmth, and a welcoming voice.”
“You got the wrong number, bro.”
It was always best with Jack to cut to the chase, so Gurney did so. “The ME claims Loomis didn’t die from the aftereffects of the gunshot. Somebody got to him in the hospital with an ice pick.”
“No shit! Bit of a security fuckup. Any leads?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Inside job? Somebody on the hospital staff?”
“Could be. But before we get into that, the ground is shifting under the whole case. It looks like Payne is being . . .” Gurney stopped speaking at the sight in his rearview mirror of a blue Ford Explorer pulling into the rest stop. “Hold on a second, Jack. I may be about to have a little trouble with Judd Turlock.”
“Where are you?”
“Deserted rest stop near the Larvaton exit on the interstate. He just drove in behind me. I didn’t see him following me, so either he planted a tracker on my car or he’s been having my phone pinged for location. Do me a favor. I’m going to leave my phone on. Keep listening in case I need a witness later.”
“You have your weapon?”
“I do.” As he spoke he removed the Beretta from his ankle holster and tucked it under his right leg, flicking off the safety.
“If you feel your life is in danger, just shoot the fucker.”
“That’s what I rely on you for—nuanced advice.”
As Turlock came to the side of the car, Gurney slipped the live phone in his shirt pocket and rolled down his window.
Turlock’s voice was as expressionless as his eyes. “Busy day?”
“Busy enough.”
“You get too busy, you start making stupid mistakes.”
Gurney met his gaze and waited.
“Like with that lady back at the hospital. The credentials you showed her said you were from the DA’s office. But you’re not. Not anymore. I could arrest you for impersonating an officer. Maybe let you spend a little time in Sheriff Cloutz’s hotel. What do you think of that?”
“I think it could create a problem. Actually, two problems. First problem, there’s no expiration date on my credentials, and I have a contract that requires written notice of termination, which I never received. Which means the impersonation charge is groundless. So right off the bat you’d be facing a false arrest charge. Second problem, I heard a rumor that somebody got to Rick Loomis in the ICU.” Turlock’s eyes seemed to widen just a little.
Gurney went on. “The security you provided was inadequate, and I told your skirt-chasing officer in front of witnesses that Loomis was in serious danger. That warning was ignored. Now here’s the thing, Judd. I have no desire to publicize your major screw-up, but when people get threatened with arrest they often do destructive things.”
“Who the hell told you somebody got to Loomis?”
“I have informants. Just like you and Chief Beckert. Except my informants actually know what they’re talking about.”
Something new entered Turlock’s eyes, something like the strange calm before a violent storm. Then his gaze fell on the phone in Gurney’s shirt pocket and the strange look was replaced by something more controlled if no less hostile.
“You fuck up this murder investigation, Gurney, there’s going to be a price to pay. In White River we consider obstruction of justice a serious crime. Very serious.”
“I couldn’t agree with you more.”
“I’m glad we understand each other,” said Turlock, staring at him for a long moment with an expression full of stone-cold hatred. He slowly raised his right hand in the shape of a gun, the forefinger pointing at Gurney’s face. He dropped the thumb like a hammer. Without another word, he returned to his big blue SUV and drove out of the rest area.
Gurney took his phone out of his pocket. “You hear all that, Jack?”
“Jesus, was that your idea of nuance? You’re lucky the crazy fucker didn’t kill you.”
“He’d love to. Maybe someday he’ll try to. But right now there are other things I need to talk to you about.” Gurney proceeded to bring Hardwick up to date on the events of the day, beginning with his conversations with Whittaker Coolidge and Cory Payne and ending with his discovery of the possible switching of the flush handles.
Hardwick grunted. “That toilet thing sounds like a stretch.”
“I agree.”
“But if it’s true, we’re dealing with a goddamn elaborate setup.”
“I agree.”
“Shitload of planning.”
“Yep.”
“Big risk would suggest a big payoff.”
“Right.”
“So the questions would be whodunit, and why.”
&n
bsp; “There’s another interesting question. If Payne was framed, was that a tactic to divert blame, or was it the goal?”
“The hell does that mean?”
“Did the killer pick Payne as a convenient framing victim to misdirect the investigation into the cop killings, or were the cops killed for the explicit purpose of framing him?”
“Jesus, don’t you think that’s a little twisted? Why the hell would framing him be important enough to kill two cops?”
“I admit it’s pushing the possibilities a bit.”
“More than a fucking bit.”
“I’d still like to know for sure which end is the dog and which end is the tail. In the meantime, how’s your poking around in Beckert’s past going?”
“Couple of guys are supposed to be getting back to me. I should be able to tell you something later tonight. Or maybe not. Who knows how eager these cocksuckers are to return favors.”
35
At 5:00 PM Gurney was heading up the hillside road to his property, weary from his obsessive analysis of scenarios involving the framing of Cory Payne. From the moment he’d noticed the plier marks where the outside flush handle joined the flushing mechanism inside the tank, he’d been able to think of little else.
When he reached the end of the road, however, and came abreast of his barn, that subject was nudged aside by the presence of Walter Thrasher’s sleek black Audi.
Gurney remembered the phone call in which he’d agreed to let the man search for artifacts that might support whatever notion he’d gotten about the history of the place. He was tempted to go up to the excavation site to see if he’d found what he was looking for. But the prospect of trudging up the hill was discouraging, and he continued on to the house.
Madeleine, in her straw gardening hat, was kneeling at the edge of the asparagus bed, prying out weeds with a trowel. She looked up at him, tilting the brim of her hat to shield her eyes from the afternoon sun.
“Are you all right?” she asked. “You look worn out.”
“I feel worn out.”
“Any progress?”
“Mostly uncovering new questions. We’ll see where they lead.”
She shrugged and went back to her weeding. “I assume you know about that man down by the pond?”
“Dr. Walter Thrasher. He asked me if he could poke around in our excavation.”
“You mean your excavation.”
“Apparently he’s an expert on the Colonial history of this area.” He paused. “He’s also the county medical examiner.”
“Is that so?” She stabbed her trowel down around a dandelion root.
He watched for a while in silence before asking, “How’s Heather doing?”
“Last I heard, the contractions stopped—or what they thought were contractions. They’re keeping her in the hospital for at least another twenty-four hours for evaluation.” She yanked a long root out of the ground and tossed it on a pile beside her. She gazed at the trowel for a moment, laid it on top of the weeds, and looked up at him again. “You really do look like you had a difficult day.”
“I did. But I have a recovery plan. A hot shower. I’ll see you in a little while.”
As usual, the shower worked at least some of its hoped-for magic. It struck him as an odd irony of the human animal that the most complex mental tangles could be relieved by the application of warm water.
By the time they sat down to dinner, he felt calm and refreshed. He was even able to appreciate the scent of apple blossoms in the soft spring air coming in through the French doors. They were well into their asparagus soup before Madeleine broke the silence. “Do you want to tell me about your day?”
“It’s a long story.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
He began with his morning visit to Saint Thomas the Apostle. He told her about the Reverend Coolidge’s sympathy for the BDA and for Marcel Jordan’s and Virgil Tooker’s supposed efforts to expose police wrongdoing, about the man’s almost violent aversion to Dell Beckert, and about his insistence on the innocence of Cory Payne.
He told her about his subsequent meeting with Payne himself—about Payne’s explanation for his presence at the shooting sites, about his open contempt for his father, about his fear of being next in line for assassination.
He also told her about his phone conversation with Thrasher, about the appearance of propofol in Jordan’s and Tooker’s tox screens, and about the chilling discovery made during the Rick Loomis autopsy.
At Gurney’s mention of the ice pick Madeleine uttered a guttural cry of revulsion. “Are you saying that someone . . . just walked into the ICU . . . and did that?”
“It could have happened in the ICU. Or when he was being brought back from radiology.”
“My God! How? I don’t understand how someone could just . . .”
“It could have been a hospital employee, someone familiar to the nurses. Or someone in uniform. Maybe a security person. Or someone pretending to be a doctor.”
“Or a cop?”
“Or a cop. Someone who wanted to make sure Rick would never come out of that coma.”
“When will Heather be told?”
“Not right away, I’m sure.”
“Won’t she automatically be given a copy of that autopsy report?”
“She’ll have to request it, and the official version probably won’t be available for another thirty days. What Thrasher gave me on the phone was an oral heads-up on the preliminary report, which doesn’t go to anyone except to the police—as an aid to the investigation.”
She started to take a spoonful of her soup, then laid the spoon down as though she’d lost her appetite and pushed the bowl toward the center of the table.
After a while Gurney went on with the story of his day. He talked about his visits to the two apartments, his discovery of the suspicious tool marks on the toilet handles, his growing sense that everything Dell Beckert was saying about the case was either a mistake or a lie, and the unnerving possibility of police involvement in the shootings.
“That isn’t exactly news,” said Madeleine.
“What do you mean?”
“Isn’t that what the text on John Steele’s phone said from the beginning?”
“The text didn’t provide any real information. It could have been an intentional misdirection. It still could be. This case is like a buried city. We’re only seeing pieces of it. I need more facts.”
“You need to do something. Two women lost their husbands. An unborn baby lost her father. Something has to be done!”
“What do you think I should be doing that I’m not doing already?”
“I don’t know. You’re good at assembling bits of information and seeing a pattern in them. But I think sometimes you enjoy the intellectual process so much you don’t like to rush it.”
He said nothing. His normal impulse to defend himself seemed to have gone missing.
The list of hospital employees he’d gotten from Abby Marsh was divided into six functional categories: Administration and Technical Support; Physicians and Surgeons; Nursing and Therapy; Laboratory and Pharmacy; Security, Maintenance, and Housekeeping; Kitchen, Cafeteria, and Gift Shop. A seventh cross-functional category was labeled Current Year Resignations and Terminations. It was apparently updated monthly, covering January through the end of April, making it useless for identifying staff members who might have been terminated during the current month.
Going through the six functional lists produced no instant revelations. He came upon several names familiar from his visits. He noted a predictable relationship between job description and home address. Most of the housekeeping staff lived in Grinton. The nursing, lab, and technical support people were more likely to live in Bluestone. Physicians and surgeons preferred Aston Lake and Killburnie Heights.
Although he was aware that the largest part of detective work involved slogging along unproductive paths, Madeleine’s comment had left him
with a feeling of restlessness, an itch to accelerate the process. After considering some actionable next steps, he decided to pursue an answer to a question that intrigued him.
If there was a reasonable doubt about the involvement of Cory Payne, then any possible aid provided to him by the Black Defense Alliance was equally questionable. But if the BDA was not involved in the planning or execution of the shootings, why had Marcel Jordan leased the two shooting sites? Or had he, in fact, even done so? The fact that his name appeared on the leases fell short of proving his involvement. The leasing brokers might be able to shed some light on the matter. Gurney placed a call to Torres to get the brokers’ names.
Torres responded without hesitation. “Laura Conway at Acme Realty.”
“She’s the broker for both locations?”
“For most of the rental properties in White River. There are other brokers in town, but Acme manages almost all the rentals. We have a good relationship. Is there some way I can help?”
“I want to find out about the lease agreements on the Bridge Street apartment and the Poulter Street house—specifically, whether anyone at the realty company had direct contact with Marcel Jordan.”