by John Verdon
As the dust began to settle, the horror gradually came into focus.
Across the lawn on the smoldering, flattened grass lay Dwayne Shucker, Goodson Cloutz, and Joe Beltz—recognizable mainly by the intact pieces of clothing that clung to their shattered bodies. Even from some distance away Gurney could see with a surge of nausea that Shucker’s nose and jaw were gone. Beltz’s entire head was missing. Cloutz’s intestines were exposed. His right hand still gripped his white cane, but the hand was at least a yard from the bleeding stump of a wrist. Marvin Gelter, spread-eagled on his back, was covered with so much blood it was impossible to tell where it was coming from.
Torres was still on his feet, but barely so. He moved slowly toward the carnage, checking, it seemed, for signs of life like a medic on a devastated battlefield.
Haley Beckert was on her hands and knees about fifteen feet from Gurney. Her back, covered with dirt, was heaving with her rapid gasps. Her driver arrived at a run from the Range Rover and knelt beside her. He said something and she nodded. She looked around, coughing.
As more of Gurney’s hearing returned, he became aware of half-stifled yelps of pain behind him. He turned and saw that the four SWAT cops who’d been leaning against their van had all suffered some damage to their vision. They’d apparently all been looking toward the group in front of the house at the moment of the explosion, and all were hit in the face and eyes by the propelled dirt and debris.
One had dropped his assault rifle, and, as Gurney watched, he tripped over it and fell to the ground, cursing. Another with no rifle in sight was bent over, grimacing, trying to clear his vision. Another was walking in circles, holding his rifle in one hand, the fingertips of the other hand against his closed eyes, alternately groaning through clenched teeth and calling out, “What the fuck happened?” The fourth was standing with his back to the van, blinking hard, wincing, stumbling, trying to hold his rifle in a ready position, shouting repeatedly, “Answer me! Someone answer me!”
Cory Payne was on his knees in front of his car, bent over, patting the ground, apparently feeling for something he’d dropped.
Gurney ran over to him. “You all right?”
He looked up, dirt on his face, eyes tearing and half closed. “What the hell happened?”
“Explosion!”
“What? Was anyone hurt?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“Can’t tell.”
Cory was breathing fast, sounding panicked. “Can you see my phone?”
Gurney glanced around. “No.”
“I have to find it.”
Torres, in the midst of the human wreckage, called to Gurney in a shaky voice, “This one has a pulse! I can feel it. He’s breathing, too. Shallow breaths, but breathing. Jesus!”
He was crouching next to Gelter’s blood-soaked body, his fingertips on the side of the man’s neck. “I can’t tell where he’s bleeding from. What should I do?”
“Call headquarters,” cried Gurney. “Tell them to notify the local EMTs, state police, sheriff’s department. Message is: major crime scene, use of high explosives, multiple homicides. Sheriff, mayor, and a police captain all down.”
Torres straightened up, breathing hard, and took out his phone. Gurney could have made the call himself, of course, but he knew that following simple orders could steady a man, and it looked like Torres needed some steadying.
At that point Gurney noted that the front windows of the house had been blown in. He also realized that something was missing. The hanging baskets of petunias were gone. Obliterated. And most of the shepherd’s crooks on which they’d been hung had been flattened to the ground. So now he knew where the explosives had been positioned. And why the request for the “trustworthy witnesses” had specified that they be brought to the front of the house.
After Torres completed his task, Gurney asked him to do one more thing—call the department’s contact at the phone company and arrange for an immediate ping—a three-tower triangulation—to determine the precise current location of Beckert’s phone.
Torres looked puzzled. “Wouldn’t it have to be with him in the house?”
Gurney had no time to explain. “Just make that ping happen now.”
While Torres complied with the request, Gurney continued his rapid survey of the scene. Two members of the TV crew were holding on to the front door of the RAM van. Kilbrick’s camera operator, however, was still operating his camera. He was prowling around the lawn with a war-zone reporter’s intensity, panning here, panning there, zooming in on bodies and body parts, capturing it all. Kilbrick herself appeared to be rooted in one spot. The only movements Gurney could discern were small and tremor-like. She appeared to be looking wide-eyed at something in front of her feet.
That’s when he heard the howling. It was somewhere out in the woods. Distance and direction were hard to pin down. Coyotes, most likely, disturbed by the blast. Or it might be the Gorts’ pack of pit bulls, a more disconcerting possibility. He checked the Beretta in his jacket pocket. For one hallucinatory moment as he was scanning the edges of the clearing he thought he saw the Gort twins themselves in the dark shadows of the hemlocks—one tall, one short, both gaunt and bearded. But when he looked again there was no one there.
He returned his attention to what was in the clearing itself. In addition to the house windows, the explosion had blown in the door of the adjacent shed, revealing the Durango with its distinctive CBIIWRPD vanity plate. An acute moment of déjà vu intruded into Gurney’s already overloaded consciousness. He was sure it had nothing to do with having seen the plate number displayed during Kline’s recent RAM-TV interview. Whatever the connection was, it wasn’t that direct. But there was no time now to figure it out. Figuring out the who and the why behind what had just happened was a hell of a lot more urgent.
He saw Kline coming toward him. Perhaps the explosion and resulting slaughter had finally opened the man’s mind. There was a bewildered look in his eyes. “Have you called it in?”
“Torres did.”
“Good. We’ll get . . . get reinforcements, right?”
Gurney took a long look at him and realized he was in some kind of shock, and not entirely present. Maybe a sense of personal responsibility for what had happened had begun to dawn on him and something in his brain shut down. There seemed to be little use in engaging Kline in a discussion at this point.
When the EMTs arrived they could deal with Kline. In the meantime he suggested that Kline stay by his Navigator, so people could find him easily when they needed him. Kline seemed to think this was a good idea. In the meantime, Gurney had the feeling that lives were still at stake. He looked around, deciding on the next move.
A high-pitched whine drew his attention to Stacey Kilbrick, and he headed over to her. She was still transfixed by something on the ground—an object the size of a honeydew melon but uneven in shape. It was a mottled red with white patches. When he realized what he was looking at he stopped so suddenly he almost tripped.
It was Joe Beltz’s head, looking up at Kilbrick. His uniform hat was still on, although it had been knocked sideways at a jaunty angle. One of the eyes was wide open. The other was closed, as though the head were winking at her.
Kilbrick, who appeared frozen in place, let out another piteous mewling sound. Gurney stepped forward between her and the object of her terror, gripped her upper arms, turned her away, and led her firmly over to the RAM-TV van. He got her into the front passenger seat and told the two crew members who were standing by the door with terrified expressions to make sure the EMTs checked her out.
He moved farther down the row of vehicles to the black SWAT van and the four cops who were trying to regain their vision. He quickly introduced himself as a senior member of the district attorney’s investigative staff and announced that he and Detective Torres had assumed control of the site since they were both uninjured and the DA appeared disoriented as a result of the blast.
He told them he’d seen a garden hose and water spigot on the side of the shed. As soon as they could regain enough vision to function safely, they needed to take control of the house—and Beckert, if in fact he was there.
Nodding their agreement, they headed for the shed, led by the one whose vision was least impaired. Gurney then got on the phone to Hardwick, who answered immediately.
“What the goddamn hell is going on?”
“Good question. Where are you?”
“In the woods. I figured I’d stay out of sight. Element of surprise might turn out to be useful.”
“Good. The scene here is an absolute horror show. I’m thinking there’s only one way any of this makes any sense. The whole thing—from Steele’s murder right up through this explosion—has been a giant manipulation.”
Hardwick cleared his throat noisily. “Giant manipulations usually have giant goals. Any ideas about that?”
“Not yet, but—”
His comment was cut short by more howling in the woods, louder this time and more prolonged. Then it stopped as abruptly as it began.
As he ended the call, he felt a wave of jittery exhaustion pass through him. The cumulative horrors of the case were taking their toll. The widowed wives of Steele and Loomis. The gruesomely methodical murders of Marcel Jordan and Virgil Tooker. The ripped-apart body of Judd Turlock. Blaze Lovely Jackson and Chalise Creel, dressed for a night out, dead and rotting on their couch. And now this—this gory devastation on Rapture Hill.
Counting the latest, there were now ten dead in all.
For what?
When detectives looked for murder motives, they often settled on one of the big four: greed, power, lust, envy. One or more of those was almost always present. But there was a fifth motive that Gurney had come to believe was the most powerful of all. Hatred. Pure, raging, monomaniacal hatred.
That was the hidden force that he sensed was driving all this death and destruction.
This was not, however, the sort of practical insight that immediately identifies a prime suspect—since hatred at such a pathological level is often well concealed.
Looking for a simpler way forward, he decided to try a process of elimination. He began with a mental list of everyone who had a significant connection to the case. The first eliminations naturally were the ten murder victims themselves—plus Marvin Gelter, who was unlikely to have triggered the explosion that now had him close to death.
He was about to eliminate Haley Beckert for a similar reason, but he hesitated. Her stepping out of the fatal area of the explosion a moment before it occurred was probably just a lucky coincidence. However, at least for the moment, she should probably be left on the list.
Dell Beckert, as far as Gurney knew, was still alive. If the texted confession Kline had received was, in fact, from him, he was the prime suspect and then some. But that was a big if. Gurney still considered it quite possible that Beckert was being framed. And if he were guilty of the earlier murders, killing off the few people who might still be on his side would make no sense.
Cory was alive and at the scene, and the injury to his vision wouldn’t get him off the list of potential suspects. What did get him off the list was the fact that he’d been framed for the first two murders, and Gurney was convinced that the same mastermind behind those two was behind all those that followed.
Kline was alive and at the scene, but Gurney found it impossible to see the moderately dishonest, moderately intelligent, anxiety-prone DA as an evil genius.
Torres also was alive and at the scene. Gurney found him a more interesting potential suspect—but only because he seemed so honest, harmless, and naïve.
The Gort twins, on the other hand, would never be accused of being honest, harmless, or naïve. They had almost certainly been involved in the bloody demise of Turlock; they were the likely source of the dynamite; and that intermittent howling in the woods was likely from their dogs. But Gurney was reasonably certain they were acting as the instruments of the same unknown manipulator who had planted the KRS evidence in their compound in an effort to frame them for Jordan and Tooker, and at the same time set up Judd Turlock as the one who framed them. It was the only scenario that made sense.
Maynard Biggs, as Hardwick had pointed out, was the person who appeared to have the most to gain from the whole affair—especially if Beckert ended up being prosecuted for some or all of it. In fact, if there was one clear answer to the cui bono question, it was Maynard Biggs. However, Gurney resisted the possibility of the man’s guilt—probably because it would destroy whatever confidence he had in his ability to read character.
And, finally, there was the rector of Saint Thomas the Apostle Episcopal Church, the Reverend Whittaker Coolidge—the man who provided posthumous exonerations for Jordan and Tooker, who was a major defender of Cory Payne, an enemy of Dell Beckert, and a huge fan of Maynard Biggs. He was also the individual connected to the case who Gurney found the least knowable.
Having made his list, he discovered that it did little to illuminate the playing field. No one seemed to leap out in a clearly persuasive way. Perhaps the basic motive-means-opportunity screen could narrow it down a bit—especially the means and opportunity parts, since they were more easily discernible.
He had started to think about his list from that angle when he was interrupted by the return of the SWAT cops from the shed faucet, their faces and jacket fronts dripping wet. Red-eyed and squinting, they indicated they were ready.
Gurney hoped their vision had been sufficiently cleared. “Priorities right now are, one, making sure no one enters or leaves the site without my authorization; two, establishing a no-go zone around the immediate area of the explosion and casualties; three, searching and securing that house. That’s the tricky part. We don’t know if Beckert is in there or not, or what his intentions might be.”
The cop closest to Gurney replied, “The tricky part is what we’re good at.”
“Fine. Just let me know what you’re going to do before you do it.”
The four, conferring in low voices, went to their van.
Torres, frowning at his phone, approached Gurney.
“The phone company pinged Beckert’s phone. But I don’t know if we can trust the result. The ping coordinates show the phone being outside the house.”
Gurney was more excited than surprised. “Do you know what kind of phone he uses?”
“BlackBerry. Like everyone else in the department.”
“Where outside the house did the ping put the coordinates?”
“Pretty much where we’re standing.”
“Be more specific.”
“I can’t. Given the distance between cell towers out here, they said the placement resolution would be defined by a twenty-foot radius around the center point of the coordinates. So, a circle with a forty-foot diameter, which includes that whole row of vehicles and this area around us.”
“Okay. So now we know that someone else has Beckert’s BlackBerry. So we know that the messages Kline received from that phone came from someone other than Beckert—including the so-called confession, the offer to surrender, and the list of the people who were supposed to witness the surrender—three of whom are now dead.”
Torres was staring at him. “You look like you’re on the verge of understanding Einstein’s theory of relativity.”
“Better than that. I think I finally understand this whole wretched case. Come with me.”
Gurney half ran to the SWAT van. The four team members were there. Three were checking the magazines on their assault rifles. The other was hefting a battering ram out of a storage case.
“You’re not going to need the artillery,” said Gurney. “You’ll find Beckert in the house in whatever room the television is in. He’ll be watching RAM-TV. And you won’t need the battering ram.” Gurney reached into his pocket and handed the cop the key he’d been given at the real estate office that morning. “Don’t go into the
house until I give you the word. I need to locate something first.”
The SWAT cops looked as baffled as Torres.
“Just wait till I give you the go-ahead,” said Gurney, “and everything will be fine.”
He turned to Torres. “We need to find a missing phone.”
“The BlackBerry?”
“No. Payne’s iPhone.”
Gurney led the way down the row of cars to the beige Camry. Payne was down on his hands and knees, peering and feeling underneath it.
“You haven’t found it yet?” asked Gurney.
Payne looked up, wincing. “No. With this grit in my eyes—”
Gurney cut him off. “Is there something in particular you need it for?”
“I want to try to reach my father.”
“I didn’t think you were on speaking terms.”
“We’re not. At least, we weren’t. But I thought . . . maybe . . . if he was responsible for that explosion . . . maybe I could find out what’s happening.”
Gurney made his way around the car. Then again. And once again, in widening circles. The fourth time around he finally spotted a shiny rectangle about ten feet back from the side of the car, close to the edge of the clearing. He picked it up and saw that it was indeed an iPhone. He went over to Torres and said matter-of-factly, “Go tell the team in the van to proceed immediately.”
Torres nodded and left.
Gurney held the phone up so Payne could see it. “This what you were looking for?”
“Yes, that’s it!” Payne scrambled to his feet, reaching out for it. “I must have been confused about where I was standing when that blast went off.”
Gurney regarded the phone curiously. “Mind if I take a look at it?”
Payne said nothing.
Gurney studied the screen and pretended to press one of the program icons.
“Don’t do that,” said Payne sharply. “I have things set up a certain way. Just the way I want them.”
Gurney nodded. “Do you think your father set off that explosion?”
“I . . . well . . . it’s possible, right? I mean, his message to me did sound pretty crazy.” He hesitated, squinting toward the wreckage and bodies on the ground in front of the house. “You said that people were injured. Was anyone killed?”
