White River Burning. John Verdon

. . .”

      “There’ve been some incidents. Right after he took over, couple years before the Laxton Jones thing, there was a traffic stop that escalated into the beating and arrest of the young black driver. Nelson Tuggle. The cop claimed he found a handgun and a bag of coke under the front seat and that Tuggle took a swing at him. Tuggle asked for a lie detector test. His lawyer got very aggressive with that, even got some media attention by publicly demanding that his client and the cop both be polygraphed. Two days later Tuggle was found dead in his cell. Heroin overdose, according to the ME. Got hold of some jail contraband, was how the COs explained it. Couple of street acquaintances said that was bullshit, that Tuggle might’ve done a little pot now and then, but no hard stuff.”

      “Anyone pursue the case?”

      “Tuggle had no family. There were no witnesses. No friends. Nobody gave a shit.”

      “Is there a pattern? People claiming White River PD plays by its own rules?”

      “Most of the convicted drug dealers claim exactly that. Course none of them can prove it. The judges and juries around here are overwhelmingly pro-cop. But the thing is, those popularity points Beckert’s been winning on the white side of White River he’s been losing on the black side. It isn’t that they don’t want to get rid of the criminal element, but they have the feeling the man is playing God and dropping the hammer extra hard on black people to make a point.”

      “So the pressure cooker’s been heating up?”

      “Big time. Unfortunately for Beckert, resentment that couldn’t really be expressed in support of drug dealers found a perfect outlet in the case of Laxton Jones. The difference between Jones and Tuggle is that Jones wasn’t alone. He had a girlfriend who witnessed what happened and was hell-bent to do something about it. Blaze Lovely Jackson.”

      “I saw her on that RAM Battleground Tonight program. I’d say she’s an angry woman.”

      “Very angry. But also very smart. So there are some damn tricky days ahead for Beckert—sinkholes he needs to avoid to get where he wants to go.”

      “You mean the attorney general’s office?”

      “And beyond. Fucker might even be picturing himself in the White House someday.”

      That seemed a bit of a stretch. But who could say? The man did look the part—more so than a lot of nasty creeps with their eye on the top rung of the ladder. In fact, he had the kind of chiseled face that would be at home on Mount Rushmore.

      “In the meantime,” said Gurney, “we have a sniper on the loose. Were you able to find out anything about Steele?”

      Hardwick shrugged. “Straight arrow. Everything by the book. Smart. College grad. Going to law school in his spare time. You want me to dig deeper?”

      After a thoughtful pause Gurney shook his head. “Not yet.”

      Hardwick regarded him curiously. “So what’s next? You signing up for the sniper hunt?”

      “I don’t think so. If Kline is worried about Beckert’s methods, that’s his problem, not mine.”

      “So you’re going to walk away?”

      “It seems like the sensible option.”

      Hardwick flashed a hard, glittery grin. “You mean you have no appetite for a clusterfuck in a dark closet? Shit, Gurney, you’re saner than I thought.”

      10

      Gurney spent the drive home from Abelard’s pondering what Hardwick had told him about Beckert and convincing himself that backing away was, in fact, the sanest course of action.

      As he was getting out of the car by the side of the house, he could hear the landline phone ringing. He had some difficulty opening the mudroom door, stuck as it often was in warm weather, and by the time he got to the phone a morose female voice was concluding a message with a call-back number.

      He picked up the handset. “Gurney here.”

      “Oh . . . Mr. Gurney?”

      “Yes?”

      “This is Kim Steele. John Steele’s wife.”

      He grimaced, picturing the TV image of the cop falling facedown on the sidewalk. “I’m terribly sorry, Mrs. Steele. Terribly sorry.”

      There was a long moment of silence.

      “Is there something I can do for you?” he asked.

      “Can I come and speak with you? I don’t want to talk on the phone.” There was another silence, followed by what sounded to Gurney like a stifled sob. “I know where you live. I could be there in twenty-five minutes. Would that be okay?”

      He hesitated. “Yes, that’s okay.”

      He ended the call, thinking immediately of three good reasons why no would’ve been a smarter answer.

      Putting aside his inclination to speculate on why the wife of a dead cop might want to talk to him or how she even knew he existed, he decided to use the intervening time to check the internet for any stories on the shooting that provided more than the bare-bones information he’d already seen.

      He went to the table in the breakfast nook where he’d left his laptop. Using the combination of “Steele” and “White River” brought up links to Beckert’s press conference, media reports on the incident, and opinion pieces from every point on the political spectrum—each purporting to explain the true causes of the violence. Nowhere did he find any details on the life of John Steele beyond the fact that he had a wife, now a widow.

      He decided to try entering the names “John Steele” and “Kim Steele” at various social media sites. He went first to Facebook. While he was waiting for the page to load, his attention was drawn to movement out beyond the French doors in the low pasture. He stood up just in time to see three whitetail deer bounding through an opening in the ancient rock wall that separated the pasture from the woods. Assuming something had spooked them, he looked in the direction of the barn and pond. And there, at the end of the town road, another kind of movement—a glint of light, perhaps reflecting off a car or pickup truck—caught his eye. Whatever it was, it was obscured by the big forsythia bush at the corner of the barn.

      He opened the door and stepped out onto the patio. But the situation was no clearer from there. He was about to walk down to the barn to satisfy his curiosity when the landline phone rang. He went back and checked the ID screen. It was Sheridan Kline.

      “Gurney here.”

      “Hi, Dave.” Kline’s voice was full of oily sincerity. “I’m responding to your message. The truth is there are some sensitive details in this situation that wouldn’t be appropriate for me to discuss with someone outside the official law-enforcement circle. I’m sure you can understand that. But if you choose to step inside the tent, on day one I’ll make sure you know everything I know. And you’ll have the best of both worlds here—official status plus independence from the bureaucracy. You’ll be reporting only to me.”

      That last promise was delivered as though it were a precious privilege.

      Gurney said nothing.

      “Dave?”

      “I’m absorbing what you said.”

      “Ah. Well. Good. We’ll leave it at that. The sooner you give me your answer, the better our chances of saving some lives.”

      “I’ll be in touch.”

      “I look forward to it.”

      Gurney replaced the handset, aware he’d let pass an opportunity to tell Kline he’d decided not to get involved. He’d hardly begun to rationalize his foot-dragging when he remembered the possible vehicle by the barn.

      He headed out through the French doors and down into the pasture. When he reached