White River Burning
(Dave Gurney #6)
by John Verdon
PREVIOUS BOOKS IN THE DAVE GURNEY SERIES
Wolf Lake
Peter Pan Must Die
Let the Devil Sleep
Shut Your Eyes Tight
Think of a Number
For Naomi
I
HIDDEN FURY
1
Dave Gurney stood at the sink in his big farmhouse kitchen, holding one of Madeleine’s strainers. He was carefully emptying into it what appeared to be several dirt-encrusted brown pebbles from a very old tinted-glass jar.
As he washed away the soil, he could see that the pebbles were smaller, lighter in color, and more uniform than they’d first appeared to be. He laid a paper towel on the sink-island countertop and eased the contents of the strainer onto it. With another paper towel he carefully patted the pebbles dry, then carried them along with the glass jar from the kitchen to his desk in the den and placed them next to his laptop and large magnifying glass. He started the computer and opened the document he’d created with the archaeological graphics program he’d acquired a month earlier—shortly after discovering the remnants of an old laid-stone cellar in the cherry copse above the pond. What he’d found in his examination of the site so far led him to believe that the cellar may have served as the foundation of a late-seventeenth- or early-eighteenth-century structure—perhaps the home of a settler in what then would have been a wild frontier area.
The archaeology program enabled him to overlay a current photograph of the cellar area with a precisely scaled grid, and then to tag the appropriate grid boxes with identifying code numbers for the items he’d found at those locations. An accompanying list linked the codes to verbal descriptions he’d provided along with photos of the individual items. Those items now included two iron hooks that his internet research told him were used for stretching animal hides; a tool fashioned from a large bone, probably a flesher for scraping hides; a knife with a black handle; the rusted remains of several iron chain links; and an iron key.
He found himself viewing these few objects, barely illuminated by his scant knowledge of the historical period with which they seemed to be associated, as the first tantalizing bits of a puzzle—dots to be connected with the help of dots yet to be discovered.
After recording the location of his newest find, he then used his magnifier to examine the bluish, slightly opaque glass jar. Judging from the pictures on the internet of similar containers, it seemed consistent with his estimate of the foundation’s age.
He turned his attention to the pebbles. Taking a paper clip from his desk drawer, he unbent it into a relatively straight wire and used it to move one of the pebbles around, turning it over this way and that under the magnifier. It appeared relatively smooth except for one facet that consisted of a tiny hollow spot with thin, sharp edges. He went on to a second pebble, in which he saw the same structure; and then on to a third, a fourth, and the remaining four after that. Close examination revealed that all eight, while not quite identical, shared the same basic configuration.
He wondered about the significance of that.
Then it occurred to him that they might not be pebbles at all.
They could be teeth.
Small teeth. Possibly human baby teeth.
If that’s what they were, some new questions came immediately to mind—questions that made him eager to get back down to the site and dig a little deeper.
As he stood up from the desk, Madeleine came into the den. She gave the little objects spread out on the paper towel a quick glance along with that slight flicker of distaste that crossed her face whenever something reminded her of the excavation now blocking the little trail she liked so much. It didn’t help that his approach to the site reminded her of the way he would have approached a murder scene in his days as an NYPD homicide detective.
One of the persistent sources of tension in their marriage was the gap between her desire for a clean break with their past lives in the city, an unquestioning embrace of their new lives in the country, and his inability or unwillingness to shed his career-long mindset, his persistent need to be investigating something.
She put on a determinedly cheerful smile. “It’s an absolutely glorious spring morning. I’m going to hike the quarry trail. I should be back in about two hours.”
He waited for the next sentence. Usually, after informing him that she was going out, she would ask if he wanted to come along. And usually he would make some excuse, involving something else that needed doing. The simple fact was that walking in the woods never gave him the same sense of inner peace it gave her. His own sense of peace, a sense of strength and self-worth, came not so much from enjoying the world around him as from trying to figure out what exactly was going on and why. Peace through investigation. Peace through discovery. Peace through logic.
This time, however, she didn’t offer him an invitation. Instead, she stated with a conspicuous lack of enthusiasm, “Sheridan Kline called.”
“The district attorney? What did he want?”
“To talk to you.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That you were out. He called just before you came back up to the house with those things.” She pointed at the pebble-teeth. “He refused to leave a message. He said he’d call again at eleven thirty.”
Gurney looked up at the clock on the den wall. It was now a quarter to eleven. “He didn’t give you any hint of what he wanted?”
“He sounded tense. Maybe it’s about the trouble over in White River?”
He thought about that for a moment. “I can’t imagine how I could help him with that.”
Madeleine shrugged. “Just guessing. But whatever he really wants from you, he’ll probably be less than truthful about it. He’s a snake. Be careful.”
2
While Madeleine was lacing up her hiking boots in the mudroom, Gurney made himself a cup of coffee and took it out to one of the Adirondack chairs on the bluestone patio next to the asparagus patch.
The patio overlooked the low pasture, the barn, the pond, and the little-used town road that dead-ended into their fifty acres of woods and fields. It was a long time since the place had been a working farm, and what he and Madeleine liked to refer to as “pastures” were now really just overgrown meadows. Disuse had made them, if anything, more naturally beautiful—especially now in the early days of May with the first burst of wildflowers spreading across the hillside.
Madeleine emerged from the French doors onto the patio wearing a fuchsia nylon windbreaker half open over a chartreuse tee shirt. Whether it was the exuberant sense of life in the spring air or the anticipation of her outing, her mood had brightened. She leaned over his Adirondack chair and kissed him on the head. “Are you sure you’ll hear the phone out here?”
“I left the window open.”
“Okay. See you in a couple of hours.”
He looked up at her and saw in her soft smile the woman he’d married twenty-five years earlier. He was amazed at how rapidly the tenor of their relationship could shift—how fraught small events and gestures could be and how contagious were the feelings they generated.
He watched as she made her way up through the high pasture, her jacket shining in the sun. Soon she disappeared into the pine woods in the direction of the old dirt road that connected a series of abandoned bluestone quarries along the north ridge. He suddenly wished that she had invited him along, wished that Kline’s call would be coming to the cell phone in his pocket rather than to the landline in the house.