by John Verdon
“The current status of an investigation is not something that can be—”
She cut him off. “Yes, yes, I know all that. It’s just . . . there’s so much misery, not knowing anything. I was just hoping . . .” She picked up her trowel, then put it down again and got to her feet. “Did you have your meeting with Kline?”
“That’s where I’m coming from.”
“Did anything get resolved?”
“Not really.”
“What did he want?”
“On the surface, my help in wrapping things up. In reality, my silence. The last thing he wants is for the media to find out he fired me three days ago for suggesting he had the case all wrong.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That I’d see the case through to the end.”
She looked confused. “Isn’t it essentially over?”
“Yes and no. There’s a lot of evidence implicating Beckert and Turlock—the things I told you about on the phone, plus a lot more that was discovered overnight and this morning, including the fact that Beckert seems to have disappeared.”
“Disappeared? Does that make him a fugitive?”
“I don’t know what language Kline will be using publicly, but it sounds like a reasonable label to me. The new evidence doesn’t leave much doubt about his involvement in the playground murders as well as the shootings. So everything’s turned around, with Cory for all practical purposes exonerated.”
She laid her trowel down and regarded him closely. “Do I hear a reservation in your voice?”
“Just a feeling that I’m still missing something. I’m having trouble matching the risk and brutality of the murders with the supposed reward.”
“Doesn’t that happen? What about the people who get shot for a pair of sneakers?”
“That happens. But not as part of a well-thought-out plan. Cory is convinced that it’s all about Beckert’s political future—eliminating people who might create problems for him.”
“You think the man is capable of that?”
“He’s cold enough. But it still seems out of proportion. There’s something in the payoff that I’m not seeing clearly. Maybe I’m asking the wrong questions.”
“What do you mean?”
“Years ago in the academy I attended a class on investigatory techniques. One morning the instructor asked us, ‘Why do those deer always run out in front of cars at night?’ He got a bunch of answers. Panic, disorientation caused by the headlights, evolutionary dysfunction. Then he pointed out that there was a flawed assumption in the wording of the question itself. How did we know deer always did that at night? Maybe most of them didn’t run out in the road, but we didn’t realize it, because we could only see the ones that did. And he pointed out that there was a subtle misdirection lurking in the phrase run out in front of cars—making it sound as though the activity were something clearly dysfunctional. Suppose the question were reworded this way: ‘Why do some deer attempt to cross the road when a car is approaching?’ That way of asking points toward a different set of possible explanations. Since deer are very territorial, perhaps their first instinct in a moment of danger is to head for the part of their territory in which they feel most secure. Perhaps they’re just moving instinctively toward a place of safety. Other deer in the immediate area may be running in the opposite direction—away from the road—to get to their places of safety, but those deer are less likely to be seen, especially at night. Anyway, his point was simple. Ask the wrong question, and you never get to the truth.”
Madeleine’s impatience was showing. “So what question about the case do you think you’re getting wrong?”
“I wish I knew.”
She stared up at him for a long moment. “What’s your next step?”
“Review the files, look for things that should be done, and do them.”
“And report back to Kline?”
“Eventually. He’d be quite content to have me do nothing—so long as I don’t rock the boat or make him look bad.”
“Because he has political ambitions of his own?”
“Probably. Until yesterday that meant hitching a ride with Beckert. I assume now he’s seeing his future more as a solo act.”
Rising to her feet and brushing the soil off her hands, she produced a less-than-happy smile. “I’m going inside. Do you want some lunch?”
A short while later, as they were silently finishing their meal, it occurred to Gurney that if he didn’t tell her now about the severing of the power line and the subsequent gunshot, he probably never would. So he did, describing the event as unthreateningly as he could—as Beckert or Turlock simply taking a shot at the back of the house when he went out to get the generator started.
She gave him a look. “You don’t think he was aiming at you?”
“If he wanted to hit me, he would have kept shooting.”
“How do you know it was Beckert or Turlock?”
“I found the rifle that fired the shot in their cabin the next morning.”
“And now Turlock is dead.”
“Yes.”
“And Beckert is on the run?”
“So it seems.”
She nodded, frowning. “This shooting incident was . . . the night before last?”
“Yes.”
“What took you so long to tell me?”
He hesitated. “I think I was afraid of bringing up memories of the Jillian Perry case.”
Her expression darkened at the mention of the invasion of their home during that particularly disturbing series of murders.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I should have told you right away.”
She gave him one of those long looks that made him feel transparent. Then she picked up their plates and carried them to the sink.
He suppressed an urge to make more excuses for himself. He went into the den and took out the case materials. With the branding iron and propofol needles now linking Beckert and Turlock directly to the BDA deaths, he opened the consolidated file on Jordan and Tooker.
It contained surprisingly little beyond the incident report, notes on the interview with the dog walker who found the bodies, printouts of some of Paul Aziz’s photos, the two autopsy reports, an investigatory progress form with little progress recorded beyond a description of Turlock’s raid on the Gort brothers’ compound and the evidence he supposedly “found” there. There was also some bare-bones data on the victims. Tooker, according to the file, was a loner with no known family connections nor any personal associations outside the BDA. Jordan was married, but there was no record of any interview being conducted with his wife, beyond a note indicating that she had been informed of his death.
It was clear to Gurney that the decision to target the Gorts for the murders of Jordan and Tooker had dramatically narrowed the scope of the investigation, eliminating virtually all activities not directly supportive of that view of the case. The decision had created a yawning information gap that he felt an itch to rectify.
Remembering that the Reverend Coolidge had provided an alibi for Jordan and Tooker after the Steele shooting and had later spoken highly of them, Gurney thought the pastor might have a phone number for Jordan’s wife.
He placed a call to Coolidge. As he was leaving a message, the man picked up, his tone professionally warm. “Good to hear from you, David. How’s your investigation going?”
“We’ve made some interesting discoveries. Which is why I’m calling you. I want to get in touch with Marcel Jordan’s wife. I was hoping you might have a number for her.”
“Ah. Well.” Coolidge hesitated. “I don’t believe Tania is willing to speak to anyone in law enforcement—which is how she’d view you, regardless of how independent your relationship with officialdom might be.”
“Not even if she could be helpful in solving her husband’s murder—and possibly revealing the complicity of people in law enforcement?”
There was a pregnant silence. “Are you
serious? That’s . . . a possibility?”
“Yes.”
“Let me get back to you.”
It didn’t take long.
Coolidge called back in less than ten minutes to inform Gurney that Tania declined to speak to him on the phone but that she’d be willing to meet with him at the church.
Forty-five minutes later Gurney was pulling into the lot at Saint Thomas the Apostle. He parked and took the path through the old churchyard.
He was almost to the building’s back door when he saw her, standing very still among the moss-stained gravestones. A tall, brown-skinned thirtysomething woman in a plain gray tee shirt and sweatpants, she had the lean body and wiry arms of a long-distance runner. Her dark, suspicious eyes were fixed on him.
“Tania?”
She didn’t answer.
“I’m Dave Gurney.”
Again she remained silent.
“Would you prefer to talk out here or inside?”
“Maybe I’ve decided not to speak to you at all.”
“Is that true?”
“Suppose it is.”
“Then I’ll get back in my car and go home.”
She cocked her head, first one way then the other, with no discernible meaning. “We’ll talk right here. What did it mean, what you said to the pastor?”
“I told him we’ve made some discoveries concerning your husband’s murder.”
“You told him police might have been involved.”
“I said it looked that way.”
“What facts do you have?”
“I can’t reveal specific evidence. But I suspect that your husband and Virgil Tooker, as well as the two police officers, may all have been killed by the same person.”
“Not by the Payne boy or them Gort lunatics?”
“I don’t believe so.” He studied her impassive face for some reaction but saw none. Behind her loomed the marble angel on whose wing Coolidge a few days earlier had extinguished his cigarette.
“The man you’re calling my husband,” she said after a pause, “was really more my ex, though we never got divorced. We were living in the same house, for the economies of it, but we were separated in our minds. Man was a fool.” Another pause. “What do you want from me?”
“Your help in getting to the truth of what happened.”
“How am I supposed to do that?”
“You could start with why you say Marcel was a fool.”
“He had a weakness. Women loved him . . . and he loved them back.”
“That’s what ended your marriage?”
“It created situations that were a pain to my heart. But I tried to live with the weakness because there was so much strength in him otherwise. Strength and a true desire for justice—justice for people who have no power. He wanted to stand up for those people—to do what he could to take some of the strife and fear out of their lives. That was his vision for the BDA.”
“How did he get along with the other two BDA leaders?”
“Virgil Tooker and Blaze Jackson?”
Gurney nodded.
“Well . . . I’d have to say that Virgil wasn’t really what you’d call a leader. He was just a good man and happened to be close to Marcel, and Marcel pretty much pulled him into that position because he trusted him. The man had no huge talent, no huge fault. He just wanted to do the right thing. That’s all Virgil wanted. To be helpful.”
Gurney was struck by the echo of Mark Torres’s goal as a police officer.
“And Blaze Jackson?”
The first sign of emotion appeared on Tania’s face, something hard and bitter. When she spoke, her voice was almost frighteningly calm. “Blaze Lovely Jackson is the Devil incarnate. Ain’t nothing that bitch wouldn’t do to get what she wants. Blaze is all about Blaze. Fiery talker, loves to be onstage, loves the attention, people looking up at her. Loves to lay it down hard on the corrupt police and stir up the crowd. But all the time she’s got her evil eye on what’s in it for her—what she can take from someone else.”
“Was she the reason for your separation from your husband?”
“My husband was a fool. That was the reason for our separation.”
A brief silence fell between them.
Gurney asked if she’d seen Marcel or Virgil at any time in the forty-eight hours before they were killed. She shook her head. He asked if she’d seen or heard anything before or after their murders that might relate to them in any way.
“Nothing. Only the fact that Blaze is now the sole leader of the Black Defense Alliance, a position which the bitch surely loves.”
“She likes being in charge?”
“Power is what she likes. Likes it way too much.”
Gurney sensed the beginning of restlessness in Tania’s body language. He wanted to keep the door open for possible future conversations, so he decided to end this one now. “I appreciate your taking the time to meet with me, Tania. You’ve been very open. And what you’ve told me is quite helpful. Thank you.”
“Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not here to do you a favor. You said police could be involved in the shit that went down, and I’d love to see that get proven and them get put in the penitentiary with the brothers waiting for them. That would be a sweetness to my heart. So don’t go thinking the wrong way. I live in a divided world, and not on your side of the line.”
“I understand.”
“Do you? Do you know why this spot right here is my favorite place in all of White River?”
He glanced around the old graveyard. “Tell me.”
“It’s full of dead white people.”
46
Gurney’s route from Saint Thomas the Apostle back toward the interstate put him on the road that bordered Willard Park. As he approached the main entrance, Paul Aziz’s photos came to mind, and he decided to take another look at the playground area.
The parking lot was nearly full, unsurprising on a balmy spring afternoon. He found a spot, then took the pedestrian path along the edge of the mowed field where the BDA demonstration had taken place. The statue of the colonel had been cordoned off with Police Line Do Not Cross yellow tape, an apparent effort to keep it from being toppled or defaced before an official decision could be made regarding its fate. Although the rest of the park appeared well populated with sunbathers, Frisbee tossers, dog walkers, and young mothers with toddlers, the playground was deserted. Gurney wondered how long it would take for its forbidding aura to fade. A hand-printed sign on the kayak rental shed said CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.
The blackbirds, however, continued to occupy the dense reeds along the edge of the lake. As Gurney approached the swing set, they rose up and began shrieking and swooping over his head. But when he stopped there they soon lost interest and settled back into the reeds.
The UTV tire tracks documented in Aziz’s photos were no longer visible, but Gurney remembered where they’d been. He looked once more at the jungle gym crossbar with the two shiny spots that his conversation with Aziz had persuaded him were indeed clamp marks.
He began running scenarios through his head, picturing the likely steps that would have been taken in bringing the two victims to that point and binding them to the bars.
He imagined Jordan and Tooker being persuaded to attend a meeting at some site where they were rendered controllable with a combination of alcohol and midazolam. They were then brought to the cabin, or more likely to the shed behind it. There they would have been heavily sedated with propofol, preparatory to being beaten, stripped, and branded—creating the illusion of a violent racist attack. They would then have been strapped into Beckert’s UTV and transported from the cabin via the connecting trail system to the playground.
He pictured the UTV emerging from the woods in the predawn darkness, proceeding toward the jungle gym, stopping in front of it—a chill mist drifting through the headlight beams. Beckert and Turlock were in the front seat. Jordan and Tooker—naked, anesthetized,
close to death—were in the back seat. Behind them in the utility box were coils of rope and a sturdy clamp.
He pictured Beckert and Turlock getting out with flashlights, quickly deciding which man would be bound up first . . . and then what?
One option would be for Beckert and Turlock together to lift one of the victims out of the UTV and stand him upright with his back against the bars. While one of them held the man in place the other could get the clamp and one of the ropes, tie an end of the rope around the man’s neck, loop the rest of it over the bar in back of his head, and hold it in place with the clamp until it could be knotted securely. They could then tie the man’s torso and legs to the lower bars to ensure that he remained in a standing position. Meanwhile a slow, fatal strangulation would likely be occurring.
As Gurney thought about it, the process seemed revolting but feasible. Then it dawned on him that there was an easier way—a way that would have required virtually no physical effort. Each victim in turn could have been pulled out of the back of the UTV and dumped on the ground in front of the jungle gym. After one of the ropes had been tied around the victim’s chest, the free end could be passed over a bar and tied to the back of the UTV. The UTV could then be driven forward, causing the rope to lift the victim up toward the bar. The clamp could then be employed to hold the rope in place while the end was detached from the UTV, wrapped around the bar, and knotted. Finally, the victim could be secured in his grotesque standing position by pulling the rest of the rope tightly around his legs, torso, and, with fatal effect, his neck.
That way would definitely be easier. In fact, it would be so easy it obviated the need for two men—meaning that the double murder could have been carried out by either Beckert or Turlock. It was even possible one had acted without the other’s knowledge. If so, Gurney wondered if that might have had something to do with Turlock’s murder.
After a final look around the playground, as he turned to head back to the parking lot, he noticed he was being watched by one of the dog walkers—a short, muscular man with a gray buzz cut and two large Dobermans. He was standing in the middle of the path about fifty yards away. As Gurney got closer he could see anger in the man’s eyes. With little appetite for confrontation, Gurney stayed toward the edge of the path. “Good-looking dogs,” he said pleasantly as he was passing.
