White River Burning полностью

“Are they Turlock’s or Beckert’s? Or could she tell?”

“Turlock’s. She could tell by the size. Looks like he was the Loomis shooter. So this is coming together in a way that—sorry, hold on again.”

After another background conversation, Torres returned. “Shelby says that Cory Payne’s fingerprints are on all those cartridges you found with the rifle.”

“That’s consistent with Cory’s story of helping his father with the reloading process. Any other news?”

“Just that the DA will be appearing this evening on NewsBreakers.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s the lead-in program to RAM’s Battleground Tonight. Should be interesting to watch Kline explaining how his godlike hero turned into a devil overnight.”

Gurney agreed. Since Kline couldn’t keep the media at bay forever, he’d evidently decided to jump in with both feet in a desperate effort to shape the narrative.

Just before 6:00 PM Gurney opened his laptop and went to the RAM website. As it was loading, something caught his eye through the window next to his desk—a spot of fuchsia moving along the top of the high pasture. He realized it was Madeleine in her bright windbreaker mowing the grass swath that separated the pasture from the woods. He watched as she turned the riding mower onto a path that led down to the house. Then he went to the “Live Stream” page and clicked on View Now. A moment later the screen was filled with bright-blue words flashing against a black background:

RAM NEWSBREAKERS

SPECIAL EARLY EDITION

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW NOW

The words exploded into pieces, then the pieces flew back together to form new words:

THE HUNTER BECOMES

THE HUNTED

IN STUNNING REVERSAL

Those words in turn exploded, only to be immediately reconstituted in another headline:

TOP COP

NOW PRIME SUSPECT

IN SENSATIONAL WHITE RIVER MURDERS

On a final drumbeat the scene switched to a shot of a male and female news team, making a show of jotting down last-minute notes at their RAM-TV news desk. The female member was the first to put down her pen and look directly into the camera.

“Good evening. I’m Stacey Kilbrick.”

Gurney noted that her default expression of serious professional concern had been ratcheted up into a grim intensity. He was momentarily distracted by the ringing of his phone. He saw that it was Thrasher and he let it go to voicemail.

The male on the screen put down his pen. Neat and petulant, he looked like a flight attendant with a grievance. “Good evening. I’m Rory Kronck. We have a big story for you tonight—a NewsBreakers exclusive report on the mind-boggling developments in White River, New York. Lay out the facts for our viewers, Stacey.”

“As you were saying, Rory, those facts are nothing short of amazing. The hunter has become the hunted. Disturbing new evidence is linking Dell Beckert, former White River police chief and nationally known law-and-order advocate, to four shocking murders that his own department was investigating. And now it appears that he’s taken off for parts unknown, under a heavy cloud of suspicion.” She turned toward Kronck. “We’ve covered our share of wild stories over the years, Rory, but I’ve never seen the likes of this. Have you?”

“Never, Stacey. And the vanishing chief is just part of it. The deputy chief, we’ve just learned, has turned up dead. And we’re talking about the kind of grisly murder that’s usually reserved for horror movies.”

Kilbrick produced a theatrical look of revulsion. “Apart from the gory details, the real shocker to me is the way the whole case has been flipped upside down. Don’t you agree?”

“Totally.”

“I understand a lot of the credit goes to the district attorney and to a very special homicide detective attached to his department.”

“That’s absolutely true. In fact, just before this program I had a revealing conversation with DA Kline.”

“Great, Rory. Let’s run that tape right now.”

Gurney heard the side door out by the mudroom open and close. A minute later Madeleine came into the den.

She peered at his laptop screen. “What are you watching?”

“Live interview with Kline.”

She pulled a chair over and sat down.

The scene on the screen had shifted to a bare-bones interview setting. Kline and Kronck were sitting in chairs facing each other with a bookcase in the background. Kline appeared to have just gotten a haircut.

Kronck was leaning forward, in the middle of a sentence. “. . . a word that’s on everyone’s mind: ‘shocker’! Top cop becomes top suspect. And his son, who was your top suspect, has essentially been declared innocent. Our heads are spinning. Let me ask you the obvious question. If your view of the case today is right, how could you have been so wrong yesterday?”