Читать книгу White River Burning - John Verdon - Страница 15

They said little during the drive home. Madeleine rarely spoke when they were in the car at night. For his part, he’d been making an effort not to be critical of social events she’d involved him in, and he could think of little positive to say about the party at the Gelters’. As they were getting out of the car by the mudroom door, Madeleine broke the silence.

“Why on earth would they keep that television on all evening?”

“Postmodern irony?” suggested Gurney.

“Be serious.”

“Seriously, I have no idea why Trish would do anything. Because I’m not sure who she is. I don’t think the packaging is particularly transparent. Marv might like to keep the TV on to keep himself angry and right about everything. Bilious little racist.”

“Trish says he’s a financial genius.”

Gurney shrugged. “No contradiction there.”

It wasn’t until they were in the house and Gurney was starting to make himself a cup of coffee that she spoke again, eyeing him with concern. “That moment . . . when the officer . . .”

“Was shot?”

“Were you . . . all right?”

“More or less. I knew it had happened. So the video wasn’t a total shock. Just . . . jarring.”

Her expression hardened. “News, they call it. Information. An actual murder on-screen. What a way to grab an audience! Sell more ads!” She shook her head.

He assumed that part of her fury was indeed provoked by the profit-based hypocrisy of the media industry. But he suspected that most of it arose from a source closer to home—the horror of seeing a police officer, someone like her own husband, struck down. The price of her deep capacity for empathy was that someone else’s tragedy could easily feel like her own.

He asked if she’d like him to put on the kettle for some tea.

She shook her head. “Are you really planning to get involved in . . . all of that?”

With some difficulty he held her gaze. “It’s like I told you earlier. I can’t make any decision without knowing more.”

“What kind of information is going to make—” The ringing of his cell phone cut her question short.

“Gurney here.” Though he’d been out of NYPD Homicide for four years, his way of answering the phone hadn’t changed.

The raspy, sarcastic voice on the other end needed no identification, nor did it offer any. “Got your message that you’re looking for insider shit on White River. Like what? Gimme a hint, so I can direct you to the type of shit you have in mind.”

Gurney was used to Jack Hardwick’s calls beginning with bursts of snide comments. He’d learned to ignore them. “Sheridan Kline paid me a visit.”

“The slimebag DA in person? Fuck did he want?”

“He wants me to sign on as a temporary staff investigator.”

“Doing what?”

“Looking into the cop shooting. At least, that’s what he says.”

“There some reason the regular White River PD detective bureau can’t handle that?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Why the hell’s he getting involved in the investigation? That’s not his turf. And why you?”

“That’s the question.”

“How’d he explain it?”

“City on the verge of chaos. Need to make solid arrests fast. Pull out all the stops. No time for turf niceties. Full assets into the breach. The best and the brightest. Et cetera.”

Hardwick was silent for a bit, then cleared his throat with disgusting thoroughness. “Odd pitch. Distinctive odor of horseshit. I’d be careful where I stepped, if I were you.”

“Before I step anywhere, I want to know more.”

“Always a good idea. So what do you want from me?”

“Whatever you can find out fast. Facts, rumors, anything at all. About the politics, the shot cop, the department, the city itself, the old incident with Laxton Jones, the Black Defense Alliance. Anything and everything.”

“You need all this yesterday?”

“Tomorrow will do.”

“You don’t ask for much, do you?”

“I try not to.”

“Very fucking kind of you.” Hardwick blew his nose about an inch from the phone. Gurney wasn’t sure whether the man had a perpetual sinus problem or just enjoyed producing unpleasant sound effects.

“Okay, I’ll make some calls. Pain in my ass, but I’m a generous soul. You free tomorrow morning?”

“I’ll make myself free.”

“Meet me in Dillweed. Abelard’s. Nine thirty.”

Ending the call, Gurney turned his attention back to Madeleine, recalling that she’d been in the middle of asking him something.

“What were you saying before the phone rang?”

“Nothing that won’t wait till tomorrow. It’s been a long day. I’m going to bed.”

He was tempted to join her, but the questions on his mind about the situation in White River were making him restless. After finishing his coffee, he got his laptop from the den and set it on the table in the breakfast nook. He pulled up a chair and typed “White River NY” into the browser. As he scrolled through the results, looking for articles he might have missed earlier in the day, a few items caught his eye:

An article in the Times, emphasizing the ongoing nature of the problem: “Police Officer’s Death Deepens Upstate Racial Divide.”

A shorter, punchier Post article: “Cop Gunned Down at BDA Rally.”

A muted approach in the White River Observer: “Mayor Shucker Calls for Calm.”

And then there was the all-out RAM promotional screamer: FIRST BLOOD DRAWN IN RACE WAR? COP SHOT DEAD AS ACTIVIST INCITES CROWD. SEE IT ALL ON BATTLEGROUND TONIGHT—STREAMING LIVE AT RAM-TV.ORG.

After skimming the articles attached to these headlines and finding nothing that he didn’t know already, he scrolled on. When he came to a link to the official White River municipal website, he clicked on it. It was a predictable presentation of city departments, budget data, upcoming events, area attractions, and local history. A section on “Career Opportunities” listed a job opening for a part-time waitress at the Happy Cow Ice Cream Shoppe. A section titled “Community Renewal” described the conversion of the defunct Willard Woolen Socks Factory into the Winter Goose Artisanal Brewery.

There were pictures of clean but deserted streets, redbrick buildings, and a tree-shaded park named after Colonel Ezra Willard, of the sock-manufacturing family. The first of the two Willard Park photos showed a statue of the eponymous colonel dressed in a Civil War uniform astride a fierce-looking horse. A biographical note below the photo described him as “a White River hero who gave his life in the great war to preserve the Union.”

The second park photo showed two smiling mothers, one white and one brown, pushing their giddy toddlers on adjacent swings. Nowhere on the website was there any reference to the fatal shooting or the hate-driven violence tearing the city apart. Nor was there any mention of the correctional facility that provided the area with its main source of employment.

The next item that attracted Gurney’s attention was a section devoted to White River on a site called Citizen Comments Unfiltered. The site seemed to be a magnet for racial attacks posted by individuals with IDs like Truth Teller, White Rights, American Defender, and End Black Lies. The posts went back several years, suggesting that the city’s overt racial animosities were nothing new. They brought to mind a wise man’s comment that few things on earth were worse than ignorance armed and eager for battle.

He returned for a moment to the section of the White River website that showed the park and the statue of Colonel Willard, wondering if that might be the statue that Madeleine had told him was one of the objects of the current protests. Finding nothing there that answered the question, he decided to do an internet search—trying various combinations of terms: “Ezra Willard,” “Civil War,” “statue,” “New York State,” “White River,” “racial controversy,” “Correctional Facility,” “Willard Park,” “Union,” “Confederacy.” Finally, when he added the term “slavery” to the mix, he was led to the answer in the journal of one of the Civil War historical societies.

The article was about the federal fugitive slave laws that legalized the capture in the North of slaves fleeing from slave owners in the South. Among the examples given of this practice was the “establishment in 1830 by the mercantile Willard family of upstate New York of a detention facility to house captured runaway slaves while payments were negotiated for their return to their Southern owners.”

A footnote indicated that this lucrative practice ended when the war began; that at least one family member, Ezra, ended up fighting and dying on the Union side; and that after the war the former detention site became the core of what was gradually rebuilt and expanded into a state prison, now the White River Correctional Facility.

Pondering the ugly nature of the seed from which the institution had grown, Gurney could understand the impulse to protest the memorialization of a Willard family member. He searched the internet for more information about Ezra but could find nothing beyond brief news references to BDA demands for the removal of his statue.

Putting the historical issue aside, he decided to return his focus to getting as up to date as he could on the current turmoil. He revisited the RAM website in the hope that he might be able to extract some useful information from the opinionated noise they retailed as “news and analysis.”

The site was slow in loading, giving him time to consider the irony of the internet: the world’s largest repository of knowledge having become a megaphone for idiots. Once it appeared, he clicked his way through a series of options until he reached the page titled “Battleground Tonight—Live Stream.”

He was puzzled at first by what he saw on the screen—a close aerial view of a police car with siren blaring and lights flashing, speeding along a thoroughfare. The angle of the shot indicated that the camera was above and behind the cruiser; when the cruiser made a fast right at an intersection, so did the camera. When it came to a stop in a narrow street behind three other cruisers, the camera slowed and stopped, descending slightly. The effect was similar to a tracking shot in a movie chase scene.

He realized that the equipment involved must be a sophisticated drone equipped with video and audio transmitters. As the drone maintained its position, its camera slowly zoomed in on the scene the cruiser had been racing to. Helmeted cops were standing in a semicircle around a black man who was leaning forward with his open hands against the wall of a building. As the two cops from the cruiser joined the others, the man was handcuffed. A few moments later, after he was pushed into the back of one of the original cruisers, a line of text crawled across the bottom of the screen: 10:07 PM . . . DUNSTER STREET, GRINTON SECTION, WHITE RIVER . . . CURFEW VIOLATOR TAKEN INTO CUSTODY . . . SEE DETAILS ON NEXT RAM NEWS SUMMARY.

As the cruiser pulled away, the video switched to a new scene—a fire engine in front of a smoldering brick building, two firemen in protective gear holding a hose and directing its powerful stream through a shattered ground-floor store window. A worn sign above the window identified the burned-out remains as Betty Bee’s BBQ.

The camera’s elevated point of view was similar to that of the first camera, indicating that its source was a similar high-end drone. It would seem, Gurney noted with interest, that RAM was applying significant resources to its coverage of White River.

The next video segment was a street interview between a mic-wielding female reporter and a large fireman whose black helmet displayed in gold letters the word CAPTAIN. The reporter was a slim dark-haired woman whose expression and voice projected great concern. “I’m Marilyn Maze, and I’m talking to Fire Captain James Pelt, the man in charge of the chaotic scene here on Bardle Boulevard.” She turned toward the big man, and the camera zoomed in on his jowly, ruddy-skinned face. “Tell me, Captain, have you ever seen anything like this before?”

He shook his head. “We’ve had worse fires, Marilyn, worse in terms of the heat and the combustion of toxic materials, but never in conditions like this, never this wantonness of destruction. That’s the difference here, the wantonness of it.”

She nodded with professional concern. “It sounds like you’ve concluded that these fires are the intentional work of arsonists.”

“That’s my preliminary conclusion, Marilyn—subject to analysis by our arson investigator. But that’s what I would say the conclusion would be.”

She looked appropriately appalled. “So what you’re telling us, Captain, is that these people—some of these people, I should make that clear right now, that we’re talking about just a percentage, the law-breaking percentage of the population—some of these people are burning down their own neighborhood, their own stores, their own homes?”

“Doesn’t make a darn bit of sense, does it? Maybe the whole idea of sense isn’t part of the thinking here. It is a tragedy. Sad day for White River.”

“All right, Captain, we thank you for taking the time to talk to us.” She turned to the camera. “Interesting comments from Captain James Pelt on the insanity and tragedy of what’s happening in the streets of this city. I’m Marilyn Maze, reporting live for Battleground Tonight.”

The scene shifted back to the earlier talking-heads format. As before, the video was partitioned into three sections. A female newsperson now occupied the center position. She reminded Gurney of a certain kind of girl on a cheerleading squad—blond hair, straight nose, wide mouth, and calculating eyes—every word and gesture a tactic for success.

She spoke with a cool smile. “Thank you, Marilyn, for that thought-provoking exchange with Captain Pelt. I’m Stacey Kilbrick in the RAM News Analysis Center, with two high-powered guests with colliding points of view. But first, these important messages.”

The video went black. With key words flashing in bold red type against the dark background, an ominous voice intoned over the rumble of distant explosions, “We live in dangerous times . . . with ruthless enemies at home and abroad. As we speak, conspirators are plotting to strip us of our God-given right to defend ourselves from those out to destroy our way of life.” The voice went on to offer a free booklet revealing imminent dangers to American lives, values, and the Second Amendment.

A second commercial promoted the unique importance of gold bullion—as the most secure medium of exchange “as our debt-ridden financial system approaches collapse.” An ancient anonymous authority was quoted: “Wisest of all is the man whose treasure is in gold.” A free booklet would explain it all.

The commercial faded out and the video cut back to Stacey Kilbrick, in the center section of the screen. On one side was a thirtysomething, strong-featured black woman with a short Afro. On the other side was a slightly wall-eyed, middle-aged white man with short sandy hair. Kilbrick’s voice projected an artful balance of confidence and concern. “Our subject tonight is the growing crisis in the small city of White River, New York. There are conflicting points of view on what it’s all about.” A bold line of type moved across the bottom of the screen:

WHITE RIVER CRISIS—PERSPECTIVES IN COLLISION

She continued, “On my right is Blaze Lovely Jackson—the woman who was in the car with Laxton Jones one year ago when he was killed in a confrontation with a White River police officer. She’s also a founding member of the Black Defense Alliance and a forceful spokesperson for the BDA point of view. On my left is Garson Pike, founder of ASP, Abolish Special Privileges. ASP is a political action group promoting the repeal of special legal protections for minority groups. My first question is for Ms. Jackson. You’re a founding member of the Black Defense Alliance and an organizer of the demonstrations in White River—demonstrations that have now led to the death of a police officer. My question: Do you have any regrets?”

Since they were evidently in different studios and responding to each other via monitors, each participant was addressing the camera head-on. Gurney studied Blaze Lovely Jackson’s face. Something inside her was radiating an almost frightening determination and implacability.

She bared her teeth in a hostile smile. “No surprise that you have that a little back to front. Nothing new in that, with young black men getting killed all the time. Streets are full of black men’s blood, going back forever. Poison water, rats biting babies, rotten houses full of their blood. Right here in our own little city, there’s the big nasty prison, full of black men’s blood, even back to the blood of slaves. Now one white cop is shot, and that’s the question you have? You ask how much regret I have? You don’t see how you have that all back to front? You don’t think to ask which came first? Was it black men shooting white cops? Or was it white cops shooting black men? Seems to me you have a little sequence problem. See, my question is, where’s the regret for Laxton Jones? Where’s the regret for all them black men shot in the head, shot in the back, beat to death, year after year, forever and ever, hundreds of years, for no good reason on God’s earth? Hundreds of years and no end in sight. Where’s the regret for that?”

“That may be a subject for a larger discussion,” said Kilbrick with a patronizing frown. “Right now, Ms. Jackson, I’m asking a reasonable question raised by the senseless assassination of a community servant trying to maintain public safety at the BDA rally you organized. I’d like to know how you feel about the murder of that man.”

“That one man? You want me push aside hundreds, thousands, of young black men murdered by white men? You want me push them aside so I can fill up with regret about this one white boy? And then tell you all about that regret? And maybe how much I regret being responsible for a shooting I didn’t have nothing to do with? If that’s what you want, lady, I’ll tell you something—you have no idea what world we’re living in. And there’s something else I’ll tell you right here to your pretty face—you have no damn idea how damn crazy you are.”

Along with Stacey Kilbrick’s ongoing frown there was satisfaction in her eyes—perhaps the satisfaction of achieving the RAM goal of maximizing the controversy in every situation. She moved on with a brief smile. “Now, for a different perspective, Mr. Garson Pike. Sir, your viewpoint on the current events in White River?”

Pike responded with a shake of his head and a long-suffering smile. “P-perfectly predictable tragedy. Cause and effect. Chickens coming home to roost. It’s the p-price we all p-pay for years of liberal permissiveness. P-price for political correctness.” His accent was vaguely country. His gray-blue eyes blinked with each small stutter. “These jungle attacks on law and order are the p-price of cowardice.”

Kilbrick urged him on. “Could you elaborate on that?”

“Our nation has been on a p-path of reckless accommodation. Giving in again and again to the demands of every minority race—black, brown, yellow, red, you name it. Lying down like doormats for invading armies of mongrel freeloaders and terrorists. Giving in to the demands of the cultural saboteurs—the atheists, the abortionists, the sodomites. It’s the terrible truth, Stacey, that we live in a country where every vile p-perversion and every worthless segment of society has its champions in high places, its special legal protections. The more detestable the subject, the more protection we give it. The natural result of this surrender is chaos. A society turned upside down. The maintainers of order are attacked in the street, and their attackers pretend to be victims. The inmates, Stacey, have taken over the asylum. We’re supposed to be politically correct while all they do is complain about their minority disadvantages. Hell, like what? Like being p-put front of the line for jobs, promotions, special minority protections? And now they complain that they’re disproportionately represented in p-prisons. Simple reason is that they’re disproportionately committing the crimes that put them there. Eliminate black crime, and we’d have pretty much no crime in America at all.”

He concluded with an emphatic little nod and fell silent. The emotional momentum that had been increasing through his speech left little tics tugging at the corners of his mouth.

Kilbrick limited her reaction to a thoughtful pursing of her lips. “Ms. Jackson? We have about a minute left, if you’d care to offer a brief response.”

Blaze Lovely Jackson’s gaze had hardened. “Yeah, I’ll be brief. That Pike babble’s the same fascist crap you RAM folks been feeding all these years to your trailer-trash fans. I’ll tell you what it really is—what you’re doing is disrespectful. The white man is always making the black man feel small, feel like he’s got no power at all, feel like he’s no kind of man. You don’t give him any decent job, then you tell him he’s worthless cause he ain’t got a decent job. I tell you what that is. That’s the sin of disrespect. Hear me now, even if you don’t hear another thing. Disrespect is the mother of rage, and rage is the fire that’s going to burn this country down. Laxton Jones had no drug, no gun, no warrant. Hadn’t broken any law. Hadn’t done any crime. The man hadn’t done nothing to nobody. But he got shot anyway. Got shot dead in the face. How often do police do that to a white face? How often do they kill a white man who hasn’t done a crime? You want to understand the true place we’re at, you want to understand what BDA is all about, you think on that.”

Kilbrick’s eyes were alive with excitement. “Well, there you have it! Two sides of the White River crisis. In head-on collision. On Battleground Tonight. We move now to our cameras on location—your eyes on the tense streets of White River. I’m Stacey Kilbrick, on the watch for breaking news. Stay with us.”

The studio scene was replaced by an aerial shot of the city. Gurney could see smoke pouring from the roofs of three buildings. Orange flames shot up from one of them. On the main boulevard he noted a procession of police cars, a fire engine, and an ambulance. The aerial camera was picking up the sounds of sirens and bullhorns.

Gurney eased his chair back from the table, as if to distance himself from what he was seeing on his computer screen. The cynical conversion of misery, anger, and destruction into a kind of reality TV show sickened him. And it wasn’t just RAM. Media enterprises everywhere were engaged in the continual promotion and exaggeration of conflict, a business model based on a poisonous insight: dissension sells. Especially dissension along the fault line of race. It was an insight with an equally poisonous corollary: nothing builds loyalty like shared hatreds. It was clear RAM and its host of vile imitators had no qualms about nurturing those hatreds to build loyal audiences.

He realized, however, that it was time to put aside grievances about which he could do nothing and focus on questions that might have answers. For example, might Blaze Lovely Jackson’s rage at the police have been sufficient to involve her in actions beyond staging protests? Actions such as planning, abetting, or executing the sniper attack? And why hadn’t Kline gotten back to him? Had the query he’d left on the man’s voicemail concerning the missing ingredient in their conversation scared him off? Or was the potential answer sensitive enough to demand long consideration or perhaps even discussion with another player in the game?

That thought led by a crooked route to another question that had been in the back of his mind ever since Marv Gelter had abandoned his party to take a call from Dell Beckert. What sort of relationship did the racist billionaire have with the White River police chief?

“Do you know if the upstairs windows are closed?”

Madeleine’s voice startled him. He turned and saw her standing in her pajamas in the hallway that led to the bedroom.

“The windows?”

“It’s raining.”

“I’ll take a look.”

As he was about to shut down his computer, an announcement appeared on the screen in bold type:

CRISIS UPDATE

LIVE-STREAMING PRESS CONFERENCE—9:00 AM TOMORROW

WITH CHIEF BECKERT, MAYOR SHUCKER, DISTRICT ATTORNEY KLINE

He made a mental note of the time, hoping the event would be concluded before he had to leave for his meeting with Hardwick.

Upstairs he found only one window open, but it was enough to fill the room with the flowery aroma of the spring night. He stood there for a while breathing in the soft, sweet air.

His racing thoughts were replaced by a primitive sense of peace. A phrase came to mind, something he’d once read—just the phrase, emerging from an unrecalled context and attaching itself to the moment: a healing tranquility.

Once again, as so often in the past, a pleasant and totally unanticipated consequence had followed from his doing a simple thing Madeleine had asked him to do. He was sufficiently logic-driven to avoid attributing any mystical significance to these experiences. But their occurrence was a fact he couldn’t ignore.

When the wind shifted and the rain began to spatter lightly on the sill, he closed the window and went downstairs to bed.