It was then that the SWAT team emerged from the house with a drawn, hollow-eyed Dell Beckert. He had three sticks of dynamite with a cell phone detonator duct-taped to his stomach. The team leader placed a call to the NYSP to make sure an explosives expert was among the troops on the way. In the meantime, Beckert’s semireunion with his wife was conducted at a distance with desperately fraught expressions on both faces.

Hardwick stepped into the clearing from the nearby woods, cradling his AK-47. When he got close enough, Gurney asked casually, “So what was that Western-movie show-off shit all about?”

Hardwick looked offended. “Beg pardon?”

“Shooting the gun out of Payne’s hand. Nobody does that.”

“I know.”

“So how come you tried it?”

“I didn’t. I was aiming for his head and I missed.”

Soon the sound of approaching sirens reached the clearing. They seemed to be coming from all directions. Hardwick grimaced. “The classic clusterfuck is about to begin.”

The sun had long since been blotted out by a lowering bank of clouds. There was a gust of cold air across the clearing, and then the rain began to fall, turning the pulverized petunia blossoms that covered the ground into a million crimson specks—as though the rain itself was turning to blood.

EPILOGUE

The classic clusterfuck predicted by Hardwick did indeed take place. In the narrative that subsequently took hold in the media, the White River case and its messy denouement had no clear heroes. “Colossal Law Enforcement Fiasco” was a typical headline. One of the punchier news blogs called it a “Fatal Fuckup.” Focusing on the bloody final events, the RAM-TV news shows spoke of “the Rapture Hill massacre.”

District Attorney Kline came out of it badly. He was widely portrayed as the man whose repeated mistakes led to the catastrophe. Uniformly negative press coverage, rumors that he’d suffered a breakdown at the crime scene, and a growing public outcry led to abandonment by his political allies and soon thereafter to his resignation.

Cory Payne’s ill-advised alliance with the Gort twins ended badly. His scattered remains, torn apart by the Gort pit bulls, were found in a pine thicket at the foot of Rapture Hill. In his manipulation of the twins to kill Turlock—and to provide him with the dynamite for his plan to blow his father and all his father’s enablers to kingdom come—he’d evidently overestimated the Gorts’ trust in him. Daytime TV psychologists opined for weeks on Payne’s wounded life and dark motivations. A book titled Blind Revenge was written about him. It was optioned for a film.

The Gorts and their dogs vanished. The unanswered questions surrounding their disappearance and their ill-fated relationship with Payne provided fodder for many tabloid articles. There were claims of occasional sightings by backwoods hikers, and stories about them could give overnight campers gooseflesh, but there was no tangible evidence of their presence. It was as though they had melded like a malignant force of nature into the wilderness that had always seemed so much a part of them.

The Rapture Hill death toll rose to four when Marvin Gelter died in the hospital a week later of a massive infection.

Members of the Black Defense Alliance, temporarily leaderless, declined to make any public statement. So did Carlton Flynn, who apparently couldn’t come up with a sufficiently provocative political slant on the case.

Gurney’s role in the affair was treated in a muted but generally positive way. His accurate final assessment of the situation and his fearless confrontation of Cory Payne were acknowledged. Haley Beckert in particular lauded his attempts to warn Kline of the truth of what was happening at Rapture Hill.

As Gurney was falling asleep one night, the déjà vu experience he’d had when he looked at Beckert’s CBIIWRPD license plate suddenly became clear. The CBII part, standing for Cordell Beckert II, had prompted the half-conscious recollection that Cory Payne’s real name was Cordell Beckert III. Which would make his equivalent initials CBIII. Which looked very much like “C13111.” A severely injured person on a stretcher trying to scribble a note might very well end up making a B that looked like 13. So Rick Loomis’s note, which said in its entirety “T O L D C 1 3 1 1 1,” was an effort to let Gurney know that he’d told Cory Payne something. It raised questions that Gurney knew he’d never get the answers to. But that wasn’t unusual in a murder case. Too often the only people who knew the entire truth were dead.

Lines of grief became a permanent part of Kim Steele’s face. The weight of sadness in her was palpable. But she kept functioning.