White River Burning. John Verdon

Kim Steele had enjoyed with her husband. Maybe she’d always relied on their conversations to help resolve her doubts.

      Tears began to make their way down her cheeks. “I’m sorry,” she said, shaking her head. “I shouldn’t be wasting your time.”

      “You’re not wasting my time.”

      She stared at him.

      He could see in her eyes the battle in her mind—and its sudden resolution.

      She reached into the pocket of her big khaki jacket—which he realized was probably her husband’s, adding a poignant note to the way she wrapped herself in it. She pulled out a smartphone. After tapping a few icons, she extended it across the table so he could see the screen. When he reached for it, she pulled back.

      “I’ll hold it,” she said. “Just read what it says.”

      It was a text message. “Watch ur back. EZ nite for mfs to ice ur ass n blame the BDA.”

      Gurney read it three times. He noted the date and time—the evening John Steele was killed, about an hour prior to the shooting.

      “What is this?”

      “John’s phone. I found that message on it.”

      “How come you still have it? Didn’t the crime-scene team want it?”

      “It wasn’t at the crime scene. On duty they use BlackBerrys. This is John’s personal phone. It was at home.”

      “When did you find the message?”

      “Yesterday morning.”

      “Have you shown it to the police?”

      She shook her head.

      “Because . . .”

      “The message. What it says.”

      “What does it mean to you?”

      Although she was sitting in the direct sunlight, she wrapped herself more tightly in the jacket. “He was being warned to watch his back. Doesn’t that suggest someone who was supposed to be on his side really wasn’t?”

      “You’re thinking someone in the department?”

      “I don’t know what I’m thinking.”

      “Your husband wouldn’t be the first cop to have enemies. Sometimes the best cops have the worst enemies.”

      She met his gaze, nodding with conviction. “That’s who John was. The best. The best person on earth. Totally honest.”

      “Do you know if he was doing anything that less honest people in the department might have found threatening?”

      She took a deep breath. “John didn’t like to talk about work at home. Once in a while I’d overhear something when he was on the phone. Comments about past cases with questionable evidence, deaths in custody, throwdowns. You know what they are, right?”

      He nodded. Some cops wouldn’t go anywhere without one—an easily concealed, unregistered, untraceable pistol that could be dropped next to the body of someone the cop had shot, as “evidence” that the victim had been armed.

      “How did he know which cases to look into?”

      She hesitated, appeared uncomfortable. “Maybe he had some contacts?”

      “People who pointed him in the direction of specific cases?”

      “Maybe.”

      “People in the Black Defense Alliance?”

      “I don’t really know.”

      She was a lousy liar. That was okay. It was the good liars he worried about.

      “Did he ever tell you how high up in the department the problems might go?”

      She said nothing. Her deer-in-the-headlights expression was answer enough.

      “What made you come to me?”

      “I read about that Peter Pan murder case you solved last year, how you exposed the police corruption behind it.”

      The explanation sounded real, as far as it went.

      “How did you know where to find me?”

      The deer-in-the-headlights look was back. It told him that she couldn’t tell the truth but wouldn’t tell a lie. It was, he thought, the reaction of an honest person in a difficult spot.

      “Okay,” he said. “We’ll let that go for now. What would you like me to do for you?”

      She answered without hesitation. “I want you to find out who killed my husband.”

      12

      While Kim Steele waited on the patio, Gurney got his tractor from the excavation site, pulled her car from the collapsed groundhog burrow, and got it oriented in the right direction. He promised to look into the White River situation. As she was leaving, she shook hands with him, and for a couple of seconds a smile relieved the desolation in her eyes.

      Once she was safely on the town road, he went into the house, opened a new document on his computer, and, from memory, typed in the text from her husband’s phone. Then he called Jack Hardwick and left on his voicemail a summary of what Kim had told him and a request that he use his contacts to dig a little deeper into the backgrounds of Dell Beckert and his number two, Judd Turlock. Then, for good measure, he emailed Hardwick a copy of the text message.

      Next he took his cell phone out to the patio where the signal was strongest, activated its Record function, and called Sheridan Kline’s private number.

      The man picked up on the second ring, oozing a warmth that didn’t quite conceal an edge of anxiety. “Dave! Great to hear from you. So, tell me, where do we stand?”

      “That depends on how accurately I understood your invitation. Let me spell out what I’m agreeing to: full LEO authority, credentials, and protections as a member of your investigation staff; investigatorial autonomy, with a sole reporting line to you personally; and compensation at the standard hourly rate for senior contract investigators. Contract is to be open-ended, cancelable by either party at any time. Have I got it right?”

      “You recording this?”

      “You have a problem with that?”

      “No problem at all. I’ll have the contract prepared. There’s a CSMT meeting this afternoon at White River Police Headquarters. Critical Situation Management Team. Three thirty. Meet me in the parking lot at three fifteen. You can sign the contract, attend the meeting, get off to a running start.”

      “See you there.”

      As Gurney ended the call, a chicken in the pen by the asparagus patch let out a startling squawk. It was a sound that still struck him with the visceral impact of an alarm, even though he’d learned during his year of chicken tending that the sounds they made rarely had any decipherable purpose. Utterances that resembled cries of distress never seemed to coincide with the presence of threats of any kind.

      Still, he ambled over to the pen to assure himself that all was well.

      The big Rhode Island Red was standing in that perfect chicken pose, presenting the classic profile featured in country-craft art. It reminded him that he needed to sweep out the coop, change the water, and refill the feeder.

      While Madeleine always seemed pleased by the variety of her roles in life, Gurney’s reaction to his diverse responsibilities was less positive. A therapist had long ago advised him to actively be everything he was—a husband to his wife, a father to his son, a son to his parents, a fellow worker to his workmates, a friend to his friends. He insisted that balance and peace in one’s life depended on participating in each part of that life. Gurney had no argument with the logic of this. As a guiding principle it felt true and right. But he recoiled from the practice of it. For all its horrors and perils, his detective