“I do. If you want to know what it is, you can buy me breakfast tomorrow.”
“You want to give me a hint?”
“The phrase would be ‘toxic clusterfuck.’ Everyone working on the Sonny Lerman case has their own personal objectives, and your best interests are not on anyone’s top ten list. You want to know more, be at Dick and Della’s Diner at 8:00 a.m. By the way, I saw a promo for that bullshit RAM-TV show,
When he looked up from his phone, he saw Madeleine watching him from the sink island.
“Hardwick?” she said.
He nodded.
“And?”
“He’s managed to extract some information about the Blackmore investigation. He wants to discuss it at breakfast. In the meantime, he suggested I watch a RAM-TV show tonight at eight o’clock.”
Madeleine pointed at the antique Regulator clock on the kitchen wall. It was 7:45 p.m.
Fifteen minutes later, they were sitting in the den in front of Gurney’s open laptop. On the screen the red and blue RAM logo exploded, the spinning shards of color flying back together to form the words CONTROVERSIAL PERSPECTIVES. Underscored by a driving drumbeat, a subtitle marched across the screen: TOUGH QUESTIONS—SHOCKING ANSWERS. Those words in turn flew off the screen, revealing the stage set of a typical TV news program. Two desks were set at a forty-five degree angle to each other, allowing the co-anchors to turn easily from the camera to each other.
A name plaque in front of the anchor on the left identified her as Tarla Hackett. A carefully constructed coif, makeup-enhanced facial contours, and predatory eyes a bit too small for her other features created the impression of a beauty-contest winner morphing into a weasel. The name plaque in front of the anchor on the right identified him as Jordan Lake. With an up-to-the-minute haircut and eyes gleaming with a shallow intensity, he reminded Gurney of a bachelor contestant on a reality show.
As the camera moved in on both anchors, he was the first to speak. “Good evening! I’m Jordan Lake.”
“And I’m Tarla Hackett. Tonight on
“At the top of my list, Tarla, is the Blackmore Mountain mystery.” He turned to the camera. “At first, it looked like just another road-rage tragedy—flaring tempers leading to a collision between two vehicles, followed by a fatal shooting.”
“It barely made the local news,” interjected Hackett. “But now I gather there may be more to it.”
“A lot more. It turns out that the two drivers weren’t your typical road-rage strangers. We discovered that earlier in the week they had an argument on a street in Winston, an argument that included serious threats.”
“Wow—that definitely gives it another dimension.”
“The man who was murdered on Blackmore Mountain was Sonny Lerman. His father, Lenny Lerman, was murdered one year earlier, almost to the day. And get this—the driver involved in the incident with Sonny is retired NYPD detective David Gurney, who’s been looking into the year-old murder of Sonny’s father. Our sources tell us he’s been trying to get Ziko Slade, the celebrity drug dealer convicted of killing Lenny Lerman, out of prison.”
Tarla Hackett’s expression tightened with disapproval. “Sounds like too many coincidences involving this retired detective.”
Jordan Lake nodded. “Too many coincidences, and too many unanswered questions. Starting with, why hasn’t Gurney been arrested and charged? When only two people are present and one of them is shot dead, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out who the shooter was. Besides, we’ve been told that the murder weapon has Gurney’s prints on it.”
“But they haven’t brought him in. So, what the heck is going on?”
“That’s what we keep asking, Tarla. The state police keep referring us to the DA’s office, and the DA’s office keeps giving us their standard ‘ongoing investigation’ brush-off.”
“Meanwhile Gurney is free as a bird. Any idea what his secret power is?”
“A smart detective can accumulate a lot of dirt on a lot of people. And a lot of dirt can provide a lot of leverage.”
“Enough leverage to avoid a murder charge?”
“Who knows, Tarla? But that’s a real possibility.”
“Sounds like this could be shaping up to be the political scandal of the year. We’ll be back in just a minute with some wise words from RAM’s legal analyst, Maldon Albright. But first, these important announcements.”
Madeleine sat glaring at the screen, her arms folded.
After a commercial touting investment opportunities that required immediate action, Lake and Hackett were back on the screen, reprising their furrowed-brow expressions of indignation at cover-ups in high places.
