Payne spoke, still facing the window. “I think so, I don’t think so. I’m sure, not sure. I think, sure, of course he’d frame me, why not, he has no feelings other than ambition. Ambition is sacred to him. Success. Sacred to him and his horrible second wife. Haley Beauville Beckert. You know where her money comes from? Tobacco. Her great-great-grandfather Maxwell Beauville owned a huge slave plantation in Virginia. One of the biggest tobacco growers in the state. Jesus. You know how many people tobacco kills every day? Fucking greedy murdering scumbags. And then I think, no. My father? Frame me for murder? That’s impossible, right? Yes, no, yes, no.” He let out a small gasping sound that might have been a stifled sob. “So,” he said finally, taking a deep breath, “I don’t know a single fucking thing.”
Gurney decided to change the subject. “How close are you to Blaze Jackson?”
Payne turned from the window, calmer now. “Blaze
“Is she the one who gave you Devalon Jones’s Corolla?”
“She lets me use it whenever I need it.”
“Are you staying with her now?”
“I’m moving around.”
“Probably not a bad idea.”
There was a silence.
Coolidge came back into the room with Gurney’s coffee. He laid the mug on a side table by the arm of Gurney’s chair, then, with a concerned glance in the direction of Payne, retreated behind his desk.
Payne looked at Gurney. “Can I hire you?”
“As a private investigator. To find out what the hell is going on.”
“I’m already trying to do that.”
“For the cops’ wives?”
“Yes.”
“Are they paying you?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Because you’re bound to have expenses. Investigations can be expensive.”
“What’s your point?”
“I’d like to make sure you have the resources to do whatever you have to do.”
“You’re in a position to supply those resources?”
“My grandparents left their money to me, not to my mother. They locked it up in a trust fund that only I could access, and only after I turned twenty-one. Which was last year.”
“Why did they do that?”
Payne paused, gazing at the ashes in the fireplace. “My mom had a serious drug problem. Giving someone with a drug problem a pile of money is like a death sentence.” He paused again. “Besides, they hated my father and wanted to make sure he wouldn’t get his hands on it.”
“They hated him? Why?”
“Because he’s a horrible, heartless, controlling bastard.”
The meeting ended with Gurney declining to be “hired” but leaving open the possibility of billing Payne for any extraordinary expenses—if they happened to result in the discovery of facts that exonerated him. With Payne leery of providing Gurney with his cell number—a new one, anonymous and prepaid—for fear of the police getting hold of the number and tracking his location, Coolidge had nervously agreed to act as a middleman.
Now, thirty-five minutes later, Gurney was finishing a quick lunch in an empty coffee shop on one of White River’s main commercial avenues, playing back in his mind everything he remembered Payne saying, how he said it, his expressions, gestures, apparent emotions. The more he thought about it, the more inclined he was to accept the feasibility of Payne’s narrative. He wondered how Jack Hardwick, ultimate skeptic, would react to it. He was sure of one thing. If it was all just a performance by a clever murderer, it was one of the best—maybe
He took a final bite of his ham-and-cheese sandwich and went to the cash register to pay. The apparent owner, a middle-aged man with a sad Slavic face, stood up from a nearby booth and came over to take his money.
“Nuts, huh?”
“Excuse me?”
The man gestured toward the street. “Lunatics. Wild. Smash. Burn.”
“Even in this part of town?”
“Every part. Maybe not burning yet. But could be. Just as bad, almost. How can you sleep, thinking how crazy? Burning, shooting, crazy shit.” He shook his head. “No waitresses today. Afraid, you know. Okay. I understand. No matter, maybe. No customers. They afraid, too, so everybody stay home. Hide in closet maybe. What good is this shit? They burn down their fucking house, right? For what? For what? What we supposed to do now? Buy guns, all of us, we shoot each other? Stupid. Stupid.”
Gurney nodded, took his change, and headed for his car on the nearly deserted street.
By the time he got to it his phone was ringing.
“Gurney here.”
“This is Whit Coolidge. After you left, Cory was thinking about something you said—about video footage of him driving to and from the places where the shots were fired?”
“Yes?”
“He says—and I agree—the traffic cameras along those routes are pretty obvious. Anyone who’d ever driven around White River would know they were there.”
“So?”
“If the killer knew they were there, wouldn’t he avoid them?”
“It’s a reasonable question.”
“So what we’re thinking is, maybe it would make more sense to be looking for someone who
“That did occur to me.”
