“No, sir. “
“Then go!” Beckert had the look of a man whose mind was racing to assess an array of unpleasant possibilities.
Torres picked up his laptop and hurried out of the conference room.
“There some reason you don’t want to arrest the bitch that gave him the car?” asked the sheriff. There was something vaguely insinuating in his tone.
“I’d rather have her watched. We’ll learn more from her movements than from anything she’d be willing to tell us.”
Kline’s eyes lit up. “You don’t suppose that Cory Payne—”
Beckert cut him off. “That Payne might be her secret lover? The rumor that Goodson’s snitch told him about? I think it’s one of the possibilities we need to look into.”
“If it were true, it would give us a damn good motive.”
“We already have a damn good motive,” interjected the sheriff. “Boy hates cops. Boy shoots cops. Simple.”
“This one’s better,” said Kline. “Love-sick white boy shoots cops to impress black-activist girlfriend. Juries love romantic motives. The more depraved the better.”
Beckert was radiating tension. “Gentlemen, we need to get a grip on where we are. I don’t want people whose support could be helpful blindsided by sensational news reports.” He looked at his watch. “Let’s get back together at two o’clock to discuss next steps. I’m sorry if the four-hour gap is inconvenient, but this situation takes priority. Sheridan, you’re the farthest from your regular office. If you wish, you can use the one at the end of the hall.”
Kline thanked him, and, without another word, Beckert left the room.
26
Gurney was eager to get out of the building, which he was finding increasingly oppressive. He walked out into the parking lot. The sky was still overcast. The air’s acrid, smoky edge was as noticeable as ever, but he found it preferable to the atmosphere in the conference room. He couldn’t quite sort out the primary source of his discomfort—the repugnant people, the bleak fluorescent-lit room, the surreal view from the window, or his persistent feeling that the official approach to the intertwined attacks on the police and the BDA leaders was profoundly wrong.
As Gurney was thinking about how to utilize the long meeting break, Kline came out into the parking lot after him, looking more anxious than usual.
“Come,” he said, gesturing peremptorily toward his SUV.
They got into the front seats. The man seemed to be looking for a place to put his hands, beginning with his lap and ending finally on the steering wheel.
“So,” he said after a fraught silence. “What’s your problem?”
Gurney found the aggressive tone oddly relaxing. “Be more specific.”
Kline’s hands opened and closed on the wheel. He was staring straight ahead. “I listen to what you say in these meetings. The kind of questions you ask. How you ask them. The disbelief, the disrespect. If I’m wrong, tell me.” There was a tic at the corner of his mouth.
“I’m trying to recall a disrespectful question. Give me an example.”
“It’s not any one thing. It’s the pattern of nitpicking negativity. How come the red laser dot followed Steele as long as it did? How come he was shot moving instead of standing still? When we find fingerprints, you want to know why we didn’t find more fingerprints. You make a big deal out of there being an odd message on Steele’s phone, then you make a big deal out of there not being more odd messages. You focus on every minuscule detail that isn’t instantly explainable. You totally ignore the big picture.”
“The big picture?”
“Perfectly credible narratives for the Steele-Loomis shootings and the Jordan-Tooker beating and strangling deaths. Overwhelming evidence against Cory Payne for the first. Overwhelming evidence against the Gort twins for the second. Slam-dunk cases. But for some reason you can’t accept that we’ve won. I don’t get it.”
“You’re overestimating the slam-dunk potential. I’ve been pointing out some troubling facts that could undermine—”
Kline interrupted. “The flyspecks you’re pointing out won’t undermine anything, except your own credibility. I mean it, David. The big picture is what matters, and you’re refusing to accept it.”
“I’m sorry you see it that way.”
Kline finally turned to face him. “This is all about Beckert, isn’t it?”
“Beckert?”
“I’ve seen the expression on your face whenever he has anything to say. Is that what this is all about? A personality conflict? You just want him to be wrong? It’s the only explanation.”
Gurney quietly considered what he was about to say.
“If that’s what you think, Sheridan, there’s no way I can be of any further use to you.”
Kline went back to staring straight ahead, hands on the wheel. “Unfortunately, I have to agree.”
Gurney realized that the sense of relaxation he had felt at Kline’s initial aggressiveness came from his anticipation of this moment. What he felt now was pure, unmistakable relief. Relief from a strange burden, never clearly defined, always more or less disquieting. It wasn’t that he had any intention of abandoning the case or the responsibility he felt toward Kim and Heather or those who were killed. He would simply be abandoning his murky relationship with Kline.
“Would you like me to withdraw now?” he asked. “Or shall I stay on board until after the two o’clock meeting?”
“It might be better for you to come to the meeting. Smoother. And the investigation will be that much closer to being concluded. Just a matter of making the final arrests. That’s the way your exit should be positioned. Not an abrupt decision. A natural event at the end of a process. Better for everyone, don’t you think?”
“Sounds very sensible, Sheridan. I’ll see you at two o’clock.”
Neither offered to shake hands.
Gurney got out of the big black Navigator and headed for his modest Outback.
27
The Willard Park playground was deserted. There was a faint smell of lake water in the still air. The blackbirds in the bulrushes were silent. Under the steel skeleton of the jungle gym the sandy soil was dark and wet from the recent drizzle. Water had beaded on the pipelike crossbars and hung there, ready to drip.
Gurney was using the time available before the afternoon meeting to gain a more visceral sense of the place. He was intrigued by the fact that Willard Park was the location not only where the two BDA victims were found but also where the motorcycle from Poulter Street was last seen. It was the sort of odd little resonance or coincidence that Kline would dismiss as meaningless. But Kline’s opinion had become irrelevant.
Standing with his back to the jungle gym, he looked over toward the field where the demonstration and the Steele shooting had taken place. The intervening space was dominated by Colonel Willard on his martial horse. In Gurney’s mind the statue’s presence—a concrete link to the dark legacy of the Willard slave catchers and the prison itself—cast a pall over the park.
He walked from the playground down to the edge of the lake and gazed out over the glassy gray surface. A trail on his right led into the woods that bordered the lake. He assumed it was the main one shown in the satellite photo Torres had presented—part of a web of trails connecting the park to the wilderness beyond it and to the private preserve of the White River Gun Club, where most of the hunting cabins were owned by White River cops.