13
The westbound drive to White River consisted of a gradual descent from modest mountains and sloping meadows through rolling hills and broad valleys into a region of shabby strip malls. The final symbol of the area’s economic depression was the abandoned White River stone quarry, made famous by the sensational news coverage of an explosion that killed six passing motorists, bankrupted the company, and led to the unnerving discovery that someone had made off with more than a hundred sticks of dynamite.
Gurney’s GPS led him into the center of the cheerless city on an avenue that bordered the partly burned and looted Grinton section. At the end of the avenue stood White River’s police headquarters. A world apart from the picturesquely dilapidated barns and tilting silos of Walnut Crossing, the building was constructed of gray-beige brick in the boxy style of the nineteen sixties. Its treeless, grassless setting was as sterile as its aluminum-framed windows and concrete parking lot, both the color of dust.
As he reached the entrance to the lot, a man sitting on what appeared to be a small furniture dolly rolled by, propelling himself along the sidewalk with his gloved hands. He was wearing a grimy army-surplus jacket and a baseball hat. Looking closer, Gurney could see that the man was legless below the knees, and the gloves were actually oven mitts. An American flag hung limply from the top of an old broomstick that was affixed to the back of the dolly. With each thrust of his hands the man cried out repetitively in a voice as abrasive as a rusty hinge, “Sunshine . . . sunshine . . . sunshine . . .”
When Gurney drove into the lot, the first vehicle to catch his eye was Kline’s gleaming black Navigator. In a row marked Reserved, it occupied the space nearest the building’s front door. He parked next to it, got out of his car, and was struck immediately by the odor of smoke, burned plastic, wet ashes.
The Navigator’s tinted rear window descended and Kline peered out at him, at first with a look of satisfaction, then concern. “Everything all right?”
“Bad smell.”
“Arson. Pointless stupidity. Get in. I have your contract.”
Gurney slid into the back seat across from Kline—a luxuriously isolated environment of plush leather and soft lighting.
“High-class vehicle,” said Gurney.
“No cost to the taxpayer.”
“Confiscation?”
“Forfeiture of property employed in the facilitation of drug trafficking.”
Perhaps interpreting Gurney’s silence as a criticism of the controversial practice of seizing an accused individual’s assets prior to trial, Kline added, “The bleeding hearts like to whine about the tiny number of cases where there’s some inconvenience to a guy who ends up beating the rap. But ninety-nine times out of a hundred we’re just transferring ill-gotten goods from scumbags to law enforcement. Perfectly legal and personally satisfying.”
He clicked open an attaché case on the seat between them, pulled out two copies of the contract, and handed them to Gurney with a pen. “I’ve signed these. You sign both, give me one, and keep one for yourself.”
Reading through the contract, he was surprised to find no surprises—no subtle changes from the provisions he’d demanded on the phone. Oddly, this straightforwardness aroused his suspicion. He was sure everything Kline did was some sort of stratagem. Honesty would always be a route to something more important. But he could hardly object to the contract on that basis.
“So, about this meeting, is there an agenda?”
“Just to share the known facts. Establish priorities. Application of resources. Media guidelines. Get everyone in sync.”
“Everyone being who?”
“Dell Beckert; Beckert’s right hand, Judd Turlock; chief investigating officer, Mark Torres; Mayor Dwayne Shucker; Sheriff Goodson Cloutz.” He paused. “Word of warning about Cloutz, so you’re not taken by surprise. He’s blind.”
“Blind?”
“As a bat, supposedly. Wily country boy who talks like a hillbilly. Runs the county jail. Always gets reelected, unopposed the last three times.”
“Any particular reason he’s part of this so-called team?”
“No idea.”
“They all expecting me?”
“I gave Beckert a heads-up. Left it up to him to fill in the others.”
“Any liaisons to outside agencies? FBI? State police? AG’s office?”
“We’re keeping the FBI out unless we’re forced to let them in. Beckert has his own back channels to the state police, to be used at his discretion. As for the AG’s office, they have more than they can handle with the new issues around the AG’s death.”
“What new issues?”
“Some embarrassing questions. The fact that he died in a Vegas hotel room creates speculation. Prurient suggestions.” He grimaced, glanced at his Rolex, then at the contract in Gurney’s lap. “It’s meeting time. You want to sign that so we can go in?”
“One more question.”
“What?”
“As I’m sure you know, I met with Kim Steele this morning. She gave me her perspective on her husband’s death, along with the evidence she found on his phone.” He paused, watching Kline’s face. “I wondered who sent her to me. Then I realized it had to be you.”
Kline’s eyes narrowed. “Why me?”
“Because what she told me was a direct answer to the question I’d raised with you—about what you were leaving out of your description of the situation. The text message on Steele’s phone and its possible implications. Kim was afraid to take it to the local police, who she didn’t trust, so she took it to you. But it was too touchy a matter for you to share with me as long as I was outside the tent. But if the victim’s wife told me about it on her own, you’d be clear of any blowback. Plus, a visit from a grieving widow would put pressure on me to accept your offer.”
Kline stared straight ahead, said nothing.
Gurney signed both copies of the contract, handed one to Kline, and slipped the other into his jacket pocket.
The inside of White River Police Headquarters was a predictably drab reflection of the outside—with buzzing fluorescent lights, stained acoustic ceiling tiles, and the smell of a disinfectant whose ersatz pine aroma was mixing with the sourness of whatever was being disinfected.
Kline ushered him quickly through a security checkpoint and led him down a long corridor with colorless cinder-block walls. At the end of the corridor they passed through an open door into an unlit conference room. Kline felt for a light switch and pressed it. Fluorescent tubes flickered on.
The wall opposite the door was devoted mainly to a wide window over which blinds had been lowered. A long conference table stood in the center of the room. On the wall to the left was a whiteboard on which CSMT 3:30 had been printed with a black marker. According to a circular clock above the board, it was now 3:27. Looking to his right, Gurney was surprised to see the chair at the end of the table was occupied by a thin man with dark glasses. A white cane lay on the table in front of him.
Kline turned with a start. “Goodson! I didn’t see you sitting there.”
“But now you do, Sheridan. Course I can’t see you. Bein’ kept in the dark’s my natural state. It’s the cross I bear, to be forever at the mercy of my sighted companions.”
“Nobody in this part of the world is less in the dark than you, Goodson.”
The thin man cackled. The exchange had the tone of a jokey ritual that had long since lost what humor it may once have contained.
Footsteps approached in the corridor, accompanied by the sound of someone blowing his nose. A short fat man stepped into the room, recognizable to Gurney from the press conference as Mayor Dwayne Shucker, holding a handkerchief to his face.