As Gurney resumed his trip home to Walnut Crossing, it seemed to him there was no end to the odd twists in the entangled White River cases—all reinforcing Cory Payne’s stated suspicion that it was really one case with multiple victims.
Torres’s video discovery of Turlock’s SUV in the vicinity of Bridge Street provided some support for the framing theory, although it fell far short of proving that Turlock was the actual shooter. The lack of video evidence that Turlock himself was in the vehicle that night didn’t help. It could have been Beckert. But Gurney was in no position to demand alibis from the people running the investigation.
Still, there were steps that could be taken. The relationship between Turlock and Beckert suggested their shared hunting cabin might be a place worth visiting.
He had a general idea where the gun club preserve was located. He decided to get in touch with Torres for directions to the cabin. He parked in his usual spot by the mudroom door. The call went to voicemail, and he left a message explaining what he needed.
He got out of the car and was stopped for a moment by the sweetness of the spring air. He took a few slow, deep breaths, stretched his back, and looked around at all the shades of green in the high pasture. The scene seemed to drain the tension out of his muscles. It also reminded him of the delphiniums in the Outback. He got them out of the back seat and placed them, still in their plastic pots, alongside Madeleine’s main flower bed.
He went into the house, took a quick shower, fixed himself a plate of scrambled eggs and ham, and washed it down with a large glass of orange juice.
By the time he’d washed his dishes it was a quarter past seven, the sun was just setting behind the western ridge, and the air coming in through the open French doors had become noticeably cooler.
He retrieved his laptop from the den, along with the USB drive containing the Mercy Hospital personnel list, and settled into an armchair by the fireplace.
Before getting into the list he decided to check his email. The server had been troublesome lately, and the items were downloading with painful slowness. He put his head back, closed his eyes, and waited.
He opened them with a start nearly an hour later. His phone was ringing. The time was 8:03 PM. The caller was Cory Payne.
“Maynard Biggs is on RAM-TV. Being interviewed by that scumbag Flynn. You have to watch.”
“Where are you calling from?”
“From a safe place in White River. Look, you need to listen to him
Gurney went to the “Live Stream” page of the RAM website, found
A moment later the video box on the website page came to life. Flynn, in his signature white shirt with rolled-up sleeves, sat opposite an athletic-looking brown-skinned man with gray eyes wearing a tan crewneck sweater. In contrast with Flynn’s projection of aggressive energy, he radiated stillness.
Flynn was in the middle of a sentence. “. . . feel about the uphill battle you’ll be waging against a man who’s come to symbolize law and order in a time of chaos, a man whose poll numbers have now passed yours and keep going up.”
“I believe that waging this battle, if you wish to call it that, is the right thing to do.” The man’s voice was as calm as his demeanor.
“Right thing to do? To try to defeat one of today’s greatest champions of law and order? A man who puts the law above all other considerations?”
“Lawfulness and orderly public behavior are desirable characteristics of a civilized society. They are natural signs of health. But making orderliness our top priority makes its achievement impossible. Like many good things in life, good order is the byproduct of something else.”
Flynn raised a skeptical eyebrow. “You’re a professor, am I right?” He made the title sound like an indictment.
“That’s correct.”
“Of psychology?”
“Yes.”
“Neuroses. Complexes. Theories. I’m sure there’s a place for all that. But we’re in the middle of a crisis. Let me read you something. This is a statement by Dell Beckert that lays out in simple terms the nature of the crisis we’re in right now.” Flynn took a pair of reading glasses out of his shirt pocket and put them on. He picked up a sheet of paper from the table and read:
