“Some messages have a huge impact,” said Gurney, glancing at his car windows to make sure they were closed and the woman inside wouldn’t hear him. “So imagine this message on every news site tomorrow morning: ‘Deputy Police Chief Stands between Pregnant Wife and Dying Husband.’ You think that’s the kind of message your boss has in mind? Think fast. Your career is circling the drain.”
Turlock’s mouth twitched into a hint of an ugly smile. “Okay,” he whispered. “We’ll do it your way. For now.”
He gestured to his driver, who moved the Explorer just far enough to allow Gurney room to turn around and head for Mercy Hospital.
With the help of his GPS, Gurney soon had the hospital in sight at the end of a long avenue, which seemed to calm his passenger just a little. He took the opportunity to ask if she’d actually seen what had happened.
Her voice was shaky. “He’d just gone out the front door. I heard a sound, like a rock hitting the house. I looked out . . . I . . .” She bit her lip and fell silent.
He assumed that what sounded like a rock was the impact of the bullet that had passed through the side of her husband’s head. He asked, “Do you know what a gunshot sounds like?”
“Yes.”
“Did you hear anything at all like that?”
“No.”
“When you came out, did you see anyone? A car driving away? Any movement at all?”
She shook her head.
When they arrived at the hospital, the EMTs already had the stretcher out of the ambulance and were rolling it toward the open doors of the emergency entrance.
As Gurney brought the Outback to a halt beside the ambulance, his passenger was already stepping out the door. Abruptly she stopped and turned toward him.
“Thank you for what you did back there,” she said. “Thank you so much. I don’t even know your name.”
“Dave Gurney. I hope your husband will be all right.”
“Oh my God!” Her hand went to her mouth, her eyes widening.
“What? What is it?”
“You’re the person Rick was on his way to meet!”
Heather Loomis’s frantic need to follow her husband into the hospital prevented any discussion of the unsettling revelation. Gurney decided that sitting there would be a waste of time and would risk another confrontation with Turlock, who’d likely be coming to the hospital to interview Heather. It would make more sense to return to the crime scene, which Kline had asked him to observe.
He retraced his route and was soon back on Oak Street. Clusters of curious neighbors were still in front of their homes. There was no sign of Turlock or his blue Explorer, and only one of the five police cruisers was still there, its lights no longer flashing. On the far side of the cruiser there was a black Ford Crown Victoria—the most common unmarked police vehicle in America. In the driveway there was a gray van with a WRPD logo on its door. Gurney parked next to the cruiser.
Yellow crime-scene tape extended from one corner of the house to a series of metal stakes about twenty feet out on the lawn and back to the far corner of the house. An evidence tech was standing in a flower bed next to the front door. He was probing a hole in the wood trim with a bright metal tool that looked like a surgeon’s pliers. He was wearing the latex gloves and Tyvek coveralls common to his occupation.
Gurney got out of his car, credentials in hand, and was heading across the lawn toward the taped-off area when he was stopped by a familiar voice.
“Hey! Dave! Over here!”
He turned around and saw Mark Torres gesturing with his phone through the open window of the Crown Vic. He walked over and waited until Torres concluded his call.
Getting out of the car, the young detective looked concerned. “I was afraid I’d missed you. Was there a problem here . . . after the shooting?”
Gurney shrugged. “Nothing major. Heather Loomis wanted to be with her husband. It could have been her last chance to see him alive. So I took her.”
“Ah. That makes sense.” Torres looked relieved, but not entirely so.
“Where’s Turlock?”
“I don’t know. I was at headquarters. He told me to get over here and find the location used by the BDA sniper.”
“
“Those were his words.”
“He was that sure about a BDA connection?”
“Absolutely positive. You have doubts about it?”
“I have doubts about everything connected with this case.”
“We’ll know more as soon as Garrett pulls the bullet out of the woodwork. It’s taking extra time because we’re trying to preserve as much of the entry channel as we can.”
Gurney looked over at the tech in the flower bed, his coveralls hanging loosely on his tall, gangly frame. He was up to his knees in purple alliums and evening primrose—which Gurney recognized as two of Madeleine’s favorites, along with bee balm and foxglove.
