White River Burning

by John Verdon

  “Technically, the case remains open until Beckert is located, prosecuted, and—”

  She cut him off. “I don’t mean technically, I mean in your own mind.”

  “If you’re talking about a sense of completion, I’m not there yet.”

  “What’s missing—other than Beckert himself?”

  “I can’t put my finger on it. It’s like trying to scratch an itch that keeps moving.”

  She closed her book. “You have doubts about Beckert’s guilt?”

  He frowned. “The evidence against him is substantial.”

  “The evidence against his son looked that way, too.”

  “Not to me. I had concerns about all of it. From the beginning.”

  “You have no similar concerns about the evidence against the father?”

  “Not really. No.”

  She cocked her head curiously.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “Could that have anything to do with your ‘eureka’ theory?”

  He didn’t reply. He knew not to answer too quickly when a question got under his skin.

  54

  On the occasions when he’d conducted seminars on criminal investigation, he’d always included a discussion of a subtle investigatorial trap he’d named “The Eureka Fallacy.” Simply stated, it was the tendency to give one’s own discoveries greater weight than discoveries made or reported by others, especially if the things one has discovered had been purposely concealed (hence the term eureka, Greek for “I have found it!”). A manifestation of the basic human tendency to trust one’s own perceptions as objective and accurate and competing points of view as subjective and prone to error, it could derail an investigation and was responsible for an unknown number of wrongful arrests and prosecutions.

  Even being fully aware of the phenomenon, Gurney resisted seeing it in himself. The mind has strong defenses against self-doubt. However, since Madeleine raised the question, he forced himself to take a closer look at it. Was he, in fact, applying a double standard of credibility to the evidence against Payne and the evidence against Beckert? He didn’t think so, but that meant little. He would need to look at the evidence piece by piece to make sure he was subjecting all of it to the same level of scrutiny.

  He got up from his chair by the fireplace, went to his desk in the den, took out the case files and his own notes, and began what he hoped would be a clear-eyed review.

  By the time Madeleine interrupted the process a little after twelve to let him know she was leaving for an afternoon shift at the clinic, he had reached two conclusions.

  The first, reassuringly unchanged from what it had been, was that every piece of evidence against Cory Payne could be explained away, and the switched toilet handle was as convincing proof of a frame job as one could imagine.

  His second conclusion, somewhat disconcerting, was that the evidence against Beckert and/or Turlock had the same weaknesses as the evidence against Payne. It was all portable and therefore plantable. Even the items bearing fingerprints—the pen he’d found in the grass in back of the Poulter Street house, the plastic bag at Blaze Jackson’s apartment—could have been acquired in an innocent environment for later use in an incriminating one. In short, although there was no proof of it—no equivalent to the switched toilet handle—it was possible that Beckert was also being framed. It was admittedly a rather farfetched scenario. But the evidence in hand against Beckert wasn’t nearly as solid as it seemed at first glance. In fact, a clever trial lawyer might make it appear very shaky indeed.

  For some time after Madeleine left, Gurney remained at his desk, staring out the den window, wondering about the advisability of raising the issue with Kline. It would not be a welcome subject. He decided to speak to Torres first.

  The call was picked up immediately.

  “Hey, Dave, I was just about to call you. Big morning here, lot of stuff coming in at once. Bad news first. There was no CODIS hit on the DNA from that used condom found near the Willard Park playground. So that’s a dead end. But finding an eyewitness to what went down that night was always a long shot anyway. Now the good news. We got a report from the Albany computer lab on the laptop you found under a mattress in the cabin. Key discovery was a series of searches on brain structure, specifically something called the ‘medulla oblongata’ and the extent of protection afforded by adjacent bone structures. The kind of information—and anatomical diagrams—someone might need if they wanted to drive an ice pick into someone’s brain stem. It looks like a solid link between Beckert and the attack on Loomis.”

  Gurney wasn’t sure how solid it was, but it certainly was suggestive.

  “And that’s not all,” continued Torres. “The lab sent us a report on the phone that was taped to the bottom of one of the footboards. The call record confirms Payne’s explanation for why he was in the Bridge Street area the night Steele was shot. He claimed he’d gotten a series of texts, setting up a meeting behind the apartment building, then moving it to the other side of the bridge, then canceling it. Those texts were sent from that phone you found in the cabin.”

  “Interesting,” said Gurney. “Kline have any reaction to that?”

  “He’s a happy man. He says it feels like we’re finally tying the bow on the package.”

  Gurney’s idea of a bow on the package would be a credible confession from Beckert. Kline’s use of that wrapped-up image to describe the accumulation of a few extra pieces of portable-plantable evidence seemed to make the search for the perp a postscript. That could turn out to be a major mistake.

  Gurney ended his call with Torres and entered Kline’s number.

  “David. What can I do for you?” The man’s hurried tone suggested that ‘nothing’ would be the only welcome answer.

  “I want to share a concern.”

  “Oh?” There was more anxiety than curiosity in that single syllable.

  “I’ve been thinking about the evidence that appears to incriminate Beckert.”

  “Appears to?”

  “Exactly. The evidence against Cory Payne had weaknesses that a defense attorney could have exploited at trial. Successfully, in my opinion.”

  “Your point being?”

  “The evidence against Beckert has some of the same weaknesses.”

  “Nonsense. The evidence against Beckert is overwhelming.”

  “That’s what you said three days ago about Payne.”

  Kline’s voice was tight and cold. “Why are we having this conversation?”

  “So you don’t walk into a courtroom thinking you have more than you do.”

  “You’re not suggesting that Beckert is being framed just like Payne was, are you? Tell me you’re not that crazy.”

  “What I’m telling you is that your case isn’t the slam-dunk affair you think it is. From an evidentiary point of view—”

  Kline cut him off. “Fine. Point taken. Anything else?”

  “Hasn’t it occurred to you that there’s too much evidence?” He could picture a half-angry, half-puzzled frown on Kline’s face in the ensuing silence. He continued. “Framers want to make sure their targets look guilty as hell. So they overdo it. I can’t prove that’s what happened here, but you shouldn’t dismiss the possibility.”

  “Your possibility is the craziest hypothesis I’ve ever heard. Just listen to yourself. You’re saying that someone framed Cory Payne for the sniper attacks on Steele and Loomis, then framed Dell Beckert for the same attacks? Plus those on Jordan and Tooker? And Jackson and Creel? Have you ever in your life heard of any case remotely like that?”

  “No.”

  “So . . . you just dreamed up the least likely scenario on God’s earth? And decided to drop it in my lap?”

  “Look, Sheridan, I’m not saying I understand what this White River mess is all about—only that it needs to be investigated further. We need a full understanding of who did what, and why. It’s vital that Beckert be located and—”

&
nbsp; “Hold on! Hold it right there! Our goal is not a full understanding of anything. I administer a process of criminal investigation, indictment, and prosecution. I’m not running the Ultimate Truth Psychology Club. As for finding Beckert, it’s possible we never will. Frankly that wouldn’t be the worst thing. He can be indicted in absentia. If the case were to end with him seen as a guilty fugitive, that would be an adequate conclusion. A well-publicized indictment can project the same sense of law-enforcement success as a guilty verdict at trial. I’ll just say one more thing. It would be inadvisable for you to go public with your baseless double-frame theory. It would do nothing except create more chaos and controversy—not to mention a loss of credibility for this department and you personally. Our discussion of this topic is over.”

  In retrospect, Gurney found nothing surprising in Kline’s reaction. Having the case careen around another curve was simply not acceptable. Kline’s own public image was his ultimate concern. Procedural smoothness was a key goal. Surprises were unwelcome. Yet another course reversal was to be avoided at all cost.

  If anyone were going to upend the case once again, Gurney realized he was the one who would have to find answers to the questions raised by his own unlikely hypothesis—the first of which was the most baffling.

  Cui bono?

  To whose advantage would it be to frame both Payne and Beckert?

  55

  Despite Hardwick’s sometimes grating skepticism and verbal abuse, Gurney respected the intelligence and honesty that made him a valuable sounding board.

  Rather than trying to explain his new concerns by phone, he decided, after checking with Hardwick to make sure he’d be home, to drive to his place in the hills above Dillweed later that afternoon.

  The challenging grin that Gurney knew so well was already on the man’s face as he opened the door. He was holding two bottles of Grolsch. He handed one to Gurney and led the way to the small round table in the corner of the front room.

  “So, Davey boy, what’s the story?”

  Gurney took a sip of his Grolsch, set the bottle on the table, and proceeded to review the range of his own doubts and speculations. When he was finished Hardwick stared at him for a long moment before speaking.

  “Am I hearing this right? You’re suggesting that after someone framed Payne for the whack jobs on the cops, he also framed Beckert for the same shootings? What the hell for? As a backup if the first frame fell apart? That was his fucking plan B? And then he frames Beckert for the Jordan and Tooker murders as well? And for Jackson and Creel?”

  “I realize it sounds a little off-the-wall.”

  “A little? It makes no fucking sense at all. I mean, what the hell kind of a plan is that? And who on earth would benefit from it?”

  “That’s my basic question. Maybe someone who hated them both and didn’t care which one went down? Or maybe someone trying to drive the ultimate wedge between them? Or maybe someone who just considered them convenient scapegoats?”

  “Maybe, maybe, maybe.” Hardwick gazed long and hard at his Grolsch. “Look, I get the fact that somebody framed Payne. You can’t argue with the toilet handle. But what makes you so sure that Beckert was framed, too? The fact that there’s too much evidence against him? That’s got to be the most absurd reason I ever heard for assuming a suspect is innocent.”

  “It’s not just too much evidence. It’s that it’s all so convenient. Even the full-metal-jacket rounds with perfect ballistic markings. And the ease of . . .” Gurney’s voice trailed off.

  Hardwick looked up from his beer bottle. “What’s the matter?”

  “I’m thinking about the ease of recovering them. We’ve been thinking of that as a lucky break. But what if that was the shooter’s intention?”

  “His intention?”

  “Remember the thing in the Steele video that bothered me? The laser dot?”

  “What about it?”

  “The delay. The two-minute delay between the sniper getting the scope dot on the back of Steele’s head and the fatal shot. Why did he wait so long?”

  “Who the fuck knows?”

  “Suppose he was waiting for Steele to pass in front of that pine at the edge of the field?”

  “For what?”

  “To ensure that the bullet would be recoverable.”

  Hardwick’s default expression of disbelief was on full display.

  Gurney went on. “The same logic could apply to the Loomis shot, except in that case it was more rushed, with him coming out of his house and heading for his car. That shot happened with the front door post just behind him. Another easily recoverable round. I was there when Garrett Felder dug it out. Same thing again with the shot at the back of my house. Another intact round, easily recoverable from the porch post.”

  Hardwick made his acid-reflux face. “So you’ve got three situations with a common factor. But that’s no proof of anything. In fact, it sounds like the kind of shit lawyers focus on to mind-fuck a jury.”

  “I know it’s not conclusive. But it seems very convenient to have recovered three perfectly intact rounds with clean ballistics linking them directly to a rifle in Beckert’s cabin.” Gurney paused before going on. “It’s like the plastic bag with the money. Why plastic? Well, unlike some paper, it just happens to hold a perfect print. Anyone with access to Beckert’s home or his office could have taken a plastic bag he’d used for something else—then later put the money in it, and left it in Jackson’s apartment.”

  “The killer just pops into Beckert’s kitchen, takes a bag out of his refrigerator, makes sure there’s a good print on it, than heads for Jackson’s place and—?”

  Gurney cut him off. “No. I’m thinking this whole White River thing was planned way ahead of time. There was nothing spontaneous or opportunistic about it. It was just made to look that way. Think about it. A white cop being shot at a racial demonstration. Followed by a pair of black men being beaten and strangled. Followed by another white cop being shot. The Black Defense Alliance being blamed for the shootings, along with Cory Payne. And the white-supremacist Gort twins, along with the so-called Knights of the Rising Sun, being blamed for Jordan and Tooker. Followed by our discoveries at the gun club—the rifle, the rope, the branding iron—suggesting that Beckert and Turlock carried out all four murders and framed Payne and the Gorts. But what if all that evidence at the gun club was planted there? The whole damn thing shows signs of having been meticulously constructed—layer upon layer of deception, all orchestrated in advance. We peel away one false layer, and we discover another false layer. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “Hell of a summation,” said Hardwick sourly. “It’s just missing a couple of details. Like who the fuck did all that orchestrating—and what the fuck was the purpose of it all?”

  “I can’t answer those questions. But I do know that if someone was trying to frame Beckert, he must have had access to Beckert’s cabin. Maybe we could start with that.”

  “Oh, sure. Look into the least likely possibility first. That makes a shitload of sense.”

  “Humor me.”

  “Fine. Let’s get it over with. Call his wife. She’d probably know who he was close to.”

  Gurney shook his head. “Haley Beauville Beckert sees everything that’s happened in White River as a giant conspiracy with her husband as the victim and the rest of us as the conspirators. I doubt at this point she’d give us the time of day. But Cory might know some names.”

  Hardwick sighed impatiently. “Fine. Call the little fucker.”

  Gurney took out his phone. As he was looking for Payne’s number he heard soft footsteps coming down the stairs from the second floor. A few seconds later Hardwick’s on-and-off girlfriend, Esti Moreno, entered the room.

  She was a strikingly attractive young woman—all the more attractive at that moment in remarkably abbreviated shorts, a tight tee shirt, and glistening ebony hair still wet from the shower. She was also a tough undercover cop
.

  “David! How nice to see you!”

  “Hello, Esti. Nice to see you, too.”

  “Don’t let me interrupt you. I just came down for one of those.” Pointing at Gurney’s Grolsch, she passed through the sitting room and went into the kitchen.

  Gurney made the call to Payne.

  “I have an urgent question, Cory. Do you know if your father ever brought other people out to the gun club? Other than you. Other than Turlock.”

  There was a short pause. “I’m pretty sure every hunting season he’d have his special people out there.”

  “Special people?”

  “The people who could be useful to him. That’s the only thing that ever made anyone special to him.”

  “And those people were . . . who exactly?”

  “DA Kline, Sheriff Cloutz, Mayor Shucker, Judge Puckett.”

  “Anyone else?”

  There was another short pause. “Yeah. Some rich guy. Marvin something. Obnoxious billionaire over in Lockenberry.”

  “Gelter?”

  “That’s it.”

  “How about people in the department? Anyone ‘special’ there?”

  “Obviously Turlock. Also a captain and a couple of lieutenants who did pretty much whatever he wanted them to do.”

  “Like what?”

  “Concocting phony cases against BDA members. Lying in court. Shit like that.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “Some BDA people told me. That’s the kind of stuff that Steele and Loomis were looking into . . . and Jordan and Tooker, too . . . which is obviously why they were all killed.”

  “I need their names—the captain and his lieutenants.”

  “Joe Beltz, Mitch Stacker, Bo Luckman.”

  Gurney made a note of the names. “Do you know anyone else who might have had access to your father’s cabin?”

  “I don’t know. His wife, I guess.”

  “One more question. Did your father own any other real estate? Summer house, another cabin somewhere, anything like that?”