“I think it’s possible enough that I should take a closer look.”
“A look that involves breaking and entering?”
“There’s a key. At the most, that makes it trespassing.”
“No concerns about security cameras?”
“If they have a camera, they’ll get a picture of a guy in a ski mask.”
“Sounds like your decision’s been made.”
“Unless you can talk me out of it.”
“I said it all at Abelard’s. There’s a hole in your hypothesis the size of an elephant’s anus. It’s called ‘motive.’ You’re claiming that a major law-enforcement figure and his deputy are running around killing people for no goddamn reason. The thing is, they’d need one giant motherfucker of a reason to justify that murder spree. And that vague crap about all the victims being potential threats to Beckert’s political ambitions doesn’t cut it.”
“You’re forgetting the little bit of static that got us involved to begin with.”
“The fuck are you talking about?”
“The text on Steele’s phone. The warning that someone on his side of the fence might want to get rid of him and then blame the BDA. And that’s exactly what Beckert did—the blaming part, anyway.”
Hardwick uttered a derisive little laugh. “You think Beckert took that shot at you?”
“I’d like to find out.”
“You figure he left a signed confession in his cabin?”
Gurney ignored the comment. “You know, the motive may not be as big a mystery as you think. Maybe there’s more at stake in the upcoming election than we know about. Maybe the victims posed bigger threats than we’ve imagined.”
“Christ, Gurney, if every politician with hopes for a big future started exterminating everyone who might get in the way, Washington would be dick-deep in dead bodies.” Hardwick lifted his Grolsch bottle and took a long, thoughtful swallow. “You by any chance catch the Carlton Flynn show before you got shot at?”
“I did.”
“What’d you think of Biggs?”
“Decent. Caring. Authentic.”
“All the qualities that guarantee defeat. He wants to take an honest, nuanced approach to interracial problems. Beckert just wants to lock the troublemaking bastards up and throw away the key. No fucking contest. Beckert wins by a landslide.”
“Unless—”
“Unless you manage to come up with a video of him deep-frying live kittens.”
Gurney had set the alarm on his phone for 3:45 AM, but he was awake before that. He used the tiny upstairs bathroom next to the spartan bedroom where Hardwick put him up for the night. He dressed by the light of the bedside lamp, strapped on his ankle-holstered Beretta, and quietly descended the stairs.
The light in the kitchen was on. Hardwick was sitting at a small breakfast table, loading a Sig Sauer’s fifteen-round magazine. A box of cartridges was open next to his cup of coffee.
Gurney stopped in the doorway, his questioning gaze on the Sig.
Hardwick flashed one of his glittery grins as he inserted a final round in the magazine. “Figured I’d ride shotgun on your trip to the cabin.”
“I thought you considered it a bad idea.”
“Bad? It’s one of the worst fucking ideas I’ve ever heard. Could easily produce a hostile confrontation with an armed adversary.”
“So?”
“I haven’t shot anybody in a long time, and the opportunity appeals to me.” The glittery grin came and went. “You want some coffee?”
With the full moon lower in the sky now and a thin fog creating a reflective headlight glare, the trip from Dillweed to the Clapp Hollow trailheads took nearly an hour. Gurney drove the Outback. Hardwick followed in the GTO so they’d have a backup vehicle, just in case. In case of what, exactly, hadn’t been discussed.
When they arrived at the trailheads, Hardwick backed his GTO into the one that led to the quarries, far enough to be out of sight from the road, then joined Gurney in the Outback.
Gurney checked his odometer, dropped the transmission into low, and drove slowly into the gun club trail.
It was half an hour before dawn. There was no hint of moonlight in the thick pine forest. The tree trunks cast eerily shifting shadows in the foggy headlight beams as the car crept along the rutted surface. Gurney lowered the front windows, listening, but heard nothing beyond the sounds made by his own vehicle and the occasional scrape of a low-hanging bough against the roof. The air flowing in was cool and damp. He was glad he’d accepted the offer of one of Hardwick’s light windbreakers.
They arrived at the first two forks at the odometer readings predicted by Torres’s map. At the third fork, he purposely turned onto the wrong branch of the trail and kept going until he was sure the car could no longer be seen from the branch leading to the gun club.
“We’ll leave it here and walk in,” said Gurney, donning a ski mask and gloves. Hardwick pulled a wool hat down over his head, added sunglasses, and wrapped a scarf around the exposed portion of his face. Activating the flashlights on their phones, they got out the car, walked back to the trail intersection, and proceeded along the correct side of the fork. They soon came to a large printed sign nailed to the trunk of a trailside tree.
