Let the Devil Sleep

Chapter 36

Because of the turmoil generated by the Good Shepherd’s message and the time required for the various initiatives that needed to be set in motion, their scheduled meeting began forty-five minutes late, with a rearranged agenda and burned-smelling coffee.

It was a typical windowless conference room with a pushpin cork-board affixed to one wall and a shiny whiteboard on the adjoining wall. The fluorescent lighting was both bright and bleak, a reminder of Paul Mellani’s claustrophobic office. A plain rectangular conference table with six chairs occupied most of the space. A small table with an aluminum coffee urn, Styrofoam cups, plastic spoons, powdered creamer, and a nearly empty box of sugar packets stood in a corner. It was the kind of room in which Gurney had spent countless hours, and the reaction it produced never changed. Whenever he entered a room like that, he immediately wanted to leave it.

On one side of the table sat Daker, Trout, and Holdenfield. On the opposite side sat Clegg, Bullard, and Gurney. It was an arrangement suited to confrontation. On the table in front of each of them, Bullard had placed a photocopy of the Good Shepherd’s new missive-which everyone had now read several times.

In front of Bullard herself, there was also a fat file folder-on top of which, to Gurney’s surprise, was the summary he’d e-mailed her of his thoughts regarding the original case.

Bullard was seated directly across the table from Trout, whose hands where folded before him. “I appreciate your making the trip here,” she said. “Beyond the obvious importance of this new communication, purportedly from the Good Shepherd, is there anything else top-of-mind that you’d like to address as we get started?”

Trout smiled blandly, turning his palms up in a traditional gesture of deference. “It’s your turf, Lieutenant. I’m here to listen.” Then he shot a less cordial glance at Gurney. “My only concern would be the inclusion of nonvetted personnel in an internal discussion of an investigation in progress.”

Bullard screwed up her face in bafflement. “Nonvetted?”

The bland smile returned. “Let me be more specific. I’m not referring to Mr. Gurney’s much-publicized past career in law enforcement, but to the unknown nature of his present entanglement with individuals who could become subjects of this investigation.”

“You mean Kim Corazon?”

“And her ex-boyfriend, to name just two that I’m aware of.”

Interesting that he would know about Meese, thought Gurney. Two possible sources for that: Schiff in Syracuse and Kramden, the arson man, who had asked Kim about threats and enemies. Or Trout may have started snooping into Kim’s life in other ways. But why? Another indication of his control mania? His hell-bent determination to circle the wagons?

Bullard was nodding thoughtfully, her gaze drifting to the blank whiteboard. “That’s a reasonable concern. My own position is probably less reasonable. More emotional. My feeling is that the perp is trying to push Dave Gurney away from the case, and that makes me want to pull him into it.” Suddenly there was steel in her voice and in the strong lines of her face. “See, whatever the perp is against, that’s what I’m for. I’m also willing to make some assumptions here about individual integrity-the integrity of every individual in this room.”

Trout leaned back from the table. “Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not questioning anyone’s integrity.”

“Sorry if I missed your point. A moment ago you used the word ‘entanglement.’ In my mind that word has definite connotations. But let’s not get bogged down before we get started. My recommendation is that we review first what we know about the Blum homicide, then go on to a discussion of the message received this morning, as well as the nature of the relationship between this homicide and the murders that occurred in the spring of 2000.”

“And, of course, the jurisdictional issue,” added Trout.

“Of course. But we can address that only in light of the facts on the ground. So facts first.”

A small smile came to Gurney’s lips. The lieutenant struck him as tough, smart, clear, and practical-in the right proportions.

She continued. “Some of you may have seen the detailed CJIS Update Number Three we posted last night? In the event that you haven’t, I have copies here.” She removed several printouts from her folder and passed them around the table.

Gurney scanned quickly through his. It was a concise summary of the Blum crime-scene evidence and the preliminary forensic conclusions. He was pleased by the validation of the guesses he’d made at the site, as well as by the frowns forming on the faces of Trout and his companions.

After giving them time to absorb the information and its implications, Bullard underscored some key points, after which she asked if there were any questions.

Trout held up the CJIS report. “What significance are you attributing to this confusion over where the killer parked his car?”

“I think ‘attempted deception’ would be more accurate than ‘confusion.’ ”

“Call it whatever you like. My question is, what significance does it have?”

“By itself not much, beyond indicating a certain level of caution. But combined with the Facebook message, I’d say it indicates an attempt to create a false narrative. Like the body being moved from the upstairs room where the attack took place to the entry hall where it was found.”

Trout raised an eyebrow.

“Microscopic scrape marks from the heels of her shoes on the stair carpets, consistent with dragging,” explained Bullard. “So we were being set up to buy into a version of the crime very different from what actually occurred.”

Holdenfield spoke for the first time. “Why?”

Bullard smiled like a teacher with a student who finally asked the right question. “Well, had we swallowed the deception-the scenario of the killer pulling into the driveway, knocking on the front door, stabbing the victim when she opened it, and driving off into the night-we’d have ended up believing that the Facebook message was the victim’s and that everything in it was true, including the description of the killer’s vehicle. Plus that the killer was probably someone she didn’t know.”

Holdenfield looked honestly curious. “Why someone she didn’t know?”

“Two reasons. First, the Facebook message indicates that it wasn’t a vehicle she recognized. Second, the misleading position of the body conveys the false message that she never let him into the house-when in fact we know that she did.”

“Pretty thin evidence for any of that,” said Trout.

“We have evidence that he was in the house and that he made an effort to mislead us on that point. There are several reasons he might want to do that, but a big one could be to conceal the fact that the victim knew him and invited him in.”

That seemed to take Trout by surprise. “You’re claiming that Ruth Blum knew the Good Shepherd personally?”

“I’m claiming that certain elements of the crime scene demand we take that possibility seriously.”

Trout looked at Daker, who shrugged as though he didn’t think it mattered one way or the other. Then he looked at Holdenfield, who appeared to be thinking that it mattered a great deal.

Bullard leaned back in her chair and let the silence build before adding, “The false narrative constructed by the Good Shepherd around the Ruth Blum murder has me wondering about his original murders.”

“Wondering?” Trout was agitated. “Wondering what?”

“Wondering if he had the same appetite for deception back then. What do you think, Agent Trout?”

Bullard, in her way, had dropped a small bombshell. It wasn’t a new bombshell, of course. It was what Gurney had been muttering for a week and Clinter for the past ten years. But now, for the first time, it had been tossed onto the table not by an outsider but by a ranking investigator with an arguable right to pursue the case to its conclusion.

She appeared to be inviting Trout to soften his insistence that the essence of the case was summed up by the manifesto and the offender profile.

Unsurprisingly, he stalled and sniped. “You spoke earlier about the importance of facts. I’d like a lot more of those before offering any opinion. I’m in no rush to rethink the most analyzed case in modern criminology, just because someone tried to fool us about where he parked his car.”

The sarcasm was a mistake. Gurney could see it in the set of Bullard’s jaw and in the extra two seconds she held the man’s gaze before she went on. She picked up her e-mail printout of Gurney’s questions.

“Since you folks at the FBI have been at the center of all that analyzing, I’m hoping you can illuminate a few points for me. This business with the little animals? I’m sure you saw in our CJIS report that a two-inch plastic lion had been placed on the victim’s mouth. What’s your take on that?”

Trout turned toward Holdenfield. “Becca?”

Holdenfield smiled meaninglessly. “That’s a speculative area. The source of the original animals-a Noah’s Ark play set-suggests a religious significance. The Bible describes the flood as God’s judgment on an evil world, just as the Good Shepherd’s actions represent his own judgment on that world. Also, the Good Shepherd used only one of each pair of animals at each attack site. There may be an unconscious significance for him in breaking up the pairs that way. His way of ‘culling the flock.’ From a Freudian perspective, it might reflect a childhood desire to break up his parents’ marriage, perhaps by killing one of them. I would emphasize again that this is speculative.”

Bullard nodded slowly, as if absorbing a profound insight. “And the very big gun? From the Freudian perspective, that would be a very big penis?”

Holdenfield’s expression became wary. “It’s not quite that simple.”

“Ah,” said Bullard, “I was afraid of that. Just when I think I’m catching on…” She turned to Gurney. “What’s your read on the big gun and the little animals?”

“I believe their purpose was to generate this conversation.”

“Say that again?”

“My read on the gun and the animals is that they’re purposeful distractions.”

“Distractions from what?”

“From the essential pragmatism of the whole enterprise. They’re designed to suggest an underlying layer of neurotic motivation, or even derangement.”

“The Good Shepherd wants us to believe that he’s deranged?”

“Under the surface rationale of a typical mission-driven killer, there’s always a layer of neurotic or psychotic motivation. It’s the unconscious source of the homicidal energy that drives the conscious ‘mission.’ Right, Rebecca?”

She ignored the question.

Gurney continued. “I believe that the killer is fully aware of all that. I believe that the gun and the animals were the final touches of a master manipulator. The profilers would expect to find things like that, so he provided them. They helped make the ‘mission’ concept believable. The one hypothesis the killer didn’t want anyone to propose or pursue was that he was perfectly sane and that his crimes might have a purely practical motive. A traditional murder motive. Because that would have led the investigation in a completely different direction and probably would have exposed him fairly quickly.”

Trout sighed impatiently, addressing himself to Bullard. “We’ve been through all this with Mr. Gurney before. And his assertions are still nothing more than assertions. They have no evidentiary basis. Frankly, the repetition is tiresome. The accepted hypothesis represents a totally coherent view of the case-the only rational, coherent view of the case that’s ever been put forward.” He picked up his copy of the new Good Shepherd message, gesturing with it. “Plus-this new communication is one hundred percent consistent with the original manifesto and offers a perfectly credible explanation for his attack on Harold Blum’s widow.”

“What do you think of it, Rebecca?” said Gurney, pointing to the paper in Trout’s hand.

“I’d like some more time to study it, but right now I’d say with a reasonable level of professional certainty that it was composed by the same individual who composed the original document.”

“What else?”

She pursed her lips, seemed to be weighing different ways of answering. “He’s articulating the same obsessive resentment, which has now been aggravated by the TV airing of The Orphans of Murder. His new complaint, the motivating factor that triggered his attack on Ruth Blum, is that Orphans is an intolerable glorification of despicable people.”

“All of which makes sense,” interjected Trout. “It reinforces everything we’ve been saying about the case from the very beginning.”

Gurney ignored the interruption, remaining focused on Holdenfield. “How angry would you say he was?”

“What?”

“How angry was the man who wrote that?”

The question seemed to surprise her. She picked up her copy and reread it. “Well… he employs frequent emotional language and images-‘blood… evil… stain… guilt… punishment… death… poison… monsters’-expressing a kind of biblical rage.”

“Is it rage we’re seeing in that document. Or a depiction of rage?”

There was a tiny twitch at the corner of her mouth. “The distinction being…?”

“I’m wondering if this is a furious man expressing his fury or a calm man writing what he imagines a furious man would write under these circumstances.”

Trout broke in again. “What’s the point of this?”

“It’s pretty basic,” said Gurney. “I’m wondering if Dr. Holdenfield, a very insightful psychotherapist, feels that the writer of this message was expressing an authentic emotion of his own, or was he, in a way, putting words in the mouth of a fictional character he’d invented-the so-called Good Shepherd.”

Trout looked at Bullard. “Lieutenant, we can’t spend the whole day on this kind of eccentric theorizing. This is your meeting. I’d urge you to exert some control over the agenda.”

Gurney continued to hold the psychologist’s gaze. “Simple question, Rebecca. What do you think?”

She took a long time before replying. “I’m not sure.”

Gurney sensed, finally, some honesty in Holdenfield’s eyes and in her answer.

Bullard looked troubled. “David, a couple of minutes ago, you used the phrase ‘purely practical’ in relation to the Good Shepherd. What kind of purely practical motive could prompt a killer to choose six victims whose main connection with one another is that they were driving extravagant cars?”

“Extravagant black Mercedes cars,” corrected Gurney, more to himself than to her-The Man with the Black Umbrella coming once again to mind. Referring to the plot of a movie during the discussion of a real crime was risky, especially in unfriendly company, but Gurney decided to go ahead. He recounted how the snipers were stymied in their pursuit of the man with the umbrella when he was immersed in a crowd of people with similar umbrellas.

“What the hell’s the connection between that story and what we’re here to talk about?” It was Daker’s first comment at the table.

Gurney smiled. “I don’t know. I just have the feeling that there is one. I was hoping someone in the room might be perceptive enough to see it.”

Trout rolled his eyes.

Bullard picked up the e-mail in which Gurney had listed his questions about the murders. Her eyes stopped halfway down the page, and she read aloud. “ ‘Were they all equally important?’ ” She looked around the table. “That strikes me as an interesting question in the context of the umbrella story.”

“I don’t see the relevance,” said Daker.

Bullard’s eyes were blinking again, as though clicking off possibilities. “Suppose not all the victims were primary targets.”

“And the ones that weren’t-what were they? Mistakes?” Trout’s expression was incredulous.

Gurney had already explored that avenue with Hardwick, and it had led to scenarios too unlikely to take seriously. “Not mistakes,” said Gurney. “But secondary, in some way.”

“Secondary?” repeated Daker. “What the hell does that mean?”

“I don’t know yet. It’s still just a question.”

Trout let his hands fall on the table with a bang. “I’ll only say this once. There comes a time in every investigation when we have to stop questioning the basics and concentrate on the pursuit of the perpetrator.”

“The problem here,” responded Gurney, “is that no serious questioning process ever got started.”

“Okay, okay,” said Bullard, raising her hands in a double “Stop” gesture. “I want to talk about action steps.”

She turned to Clegg, who was seated on her left. “Andy, give us a quick review of what’s happening.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He pulled a slim digital device out of his jacket pocket, tapped a few keys, and studied the screen. “Tech team has released the crime scene for general access. Physical evidence bagged, tagged, and entered in the system. Computer transported to computer forensics. Latent prints processed through IAFIS. Prelim ME report in hand. Autopsy report and full tox screens in seventy-two hours. Site and victim photos entered in the system, ditto incident report. CJIS report, third update, in the system. Status of door-to-doors: forty-eight completed, projected total sixty-six by end of day. Initial verbatims available, summaries to come. Based on two eyewitness observations of a Humvee or a Hummer-style vehicle in the vicinity, DMV is compiling ownership lists of all similar vehicles registered in central New York State.”

“Planned utilization of these lists being what?” asked Trout.

“A database against which we can run the names of any ID’d suspects, as they become available,” said Clegg.

Trout looked skeptical but said nothing more.

Gurney was uncomfortable with the fact that he already had the answer Clegg was chasing. Normally he favored maximum openness. But in this instance he feared that disclosure would only create a distraction and waste valuable time by diverting attention toward Clinter. And Clinter, after all, couldn’t be the Good Shepherd. He was peculiar. Possibly crazy. But evil? No, almost certainly not evil.

But he had another motive for silence, a less objective one. He didn’t want to appear too familiar with Clinter, too allied with him, too much on his wavelength. He didn’t want to be tarred by the association. Holdenfield had tossed that PTSD diagnosis into his lap during their lunch in Branville. At some point Max Clinter had also gotten a PTSD diagnosis. Gurney didn’t like the echo effect.

Clegg was winding up his report. “Tire-tread impressions made in the parking lot of Lakeside Collision are being processed, photos have been sent to vehicle forensics for original equipment and aftermarket matches. We got a decent side-to-side double impression. Crossing our fingers for a unique axle-width measurement.” He looked up from the screen of the device from which he’d been reading. “That’s as much as I’m aware of at the moment, Lieutenant.”

“Any promised callback time on the physical analysis of the Shepherd message-ink, paper, printer data, latents on the address form, inner envelope, et cetera?”

“They said they’d have a better idea within the next hour.”

Bullard nodded. “And the outgoing notifications?”

“Just starting that process. We have a preliminary list of family members in the background materials provided by Agent Daker. I believe Ms. Corazon is being contacted now for her own list of current phone numbers, per Mr. Gurney’s suggestion. Carly Madden in Public Information is helping to formulate an appropriate message.”

“She understands the communications objective-serious alert without panic-and the importance of getting it just right?”

“She’s been made aware of that.”

“Good. I’d like to see the draft before the live calls. Let’s move on that front ASAP.”

Gurney’s sense of the woman was firming up. She devoured stress like vitamins. Her job was probably her sole addiction. “ASAP” was almost certainly the way she wanted everything to happen. And adversaries should take care.

She looked around the table. “Questions?”

“You seem to have your fingers on a lot of buttons at the same time,” said Trout.

“So what else is new?”

“What I’m saying is that there’s a point beyond which we all need some help.”

“No doubt. Feel free to call me if you ever find yourself in that position.”

Trout laughed-a sound as warm and musical as a car starter with a dying battery. “I just wanted to remind you that we have some resources at the federal level that you may not have in Auburn or Sasparilla. And the fact is, the clearer the linkage between this new homicide and the old case becomes, the greater the institutional pressure will be on both of us to bring federal resources to the table.”

“That might happen tomorrow. But today is today. One day at a time.”

Trout smiled-a mechanical expression consistent with his laugh. “I’m not a philosopher, Lieutenant. Just a realist pointing out how things are and where this case is bound to end up. I suppose you can choose to ignore that, until the moment it occurs. But we do need to spell out some ground rules and lines of communication, starting now.”

Bullard glanced at her watch. “Actually, what’s starting now is a brief lunch break. Twelve noon on the dot. I suggest we reconvene at twelve forty-five to discuss those ground rules and lines of communication-and then do some actual work, ground rules permitting.” Her sarcasm was softened by a smile. “The coffee and the snack machines in this building are pretty awful. Would you Albany folks like a recommendation for a local lunch place?”

“No need for that. We’ll be fine,” Trout answered.

Holdenfield looked pensive, restless, far from fine.

Daker looked like he felt nothing at all-beyond a general desire to liquidate all the troublemakers in the world, painfully, one by one.

Bullard and Gurney were seated in a horseshoe-shaped booth in a small Italian restaurant with a bar and three inescapable television screens.

They each had a small antipasto and were sharing a pizza. Clegg had remained at the unit to monitor progress on the multiple initiatives that had been put in motion. Bullard had been quiet since they’d arrived. She was segregating the hot peppers on the rim of her salad plate. Once she’d uncovered and moved the last of them, her gaze rose to Gurney’s eyes. “So, Dave, tell me. What the hell are you up to?”

“Put a finer point on that question and I’ll be happy to answer it.”

She looked down at her salad, speared one of the hot peppers with her fork, popped it into her mouth, chewed it and swallowed it without a hint of discomfort. “I sense a lot of energy in your involvement. A lot. This is more than just a favor you’re doing for some kid with a hot idea. So what is it? I need to know.”

He smiled. “Did Daker by any chance tell you that RAM wants me to do a program of critical commentaries on failed police investigations?”

“Something like that.”

“Well, I have no intention of doing it.”

She gave him a long, appraising look. “Okay. Do you have any other financial or career interests in the current situation that you haven’t told me about?”

“None.”

“Okay. What is it, then? What’s the attraction?”

“There’s a hole in the case big enough to drive a truck through. Also big enough to keep me awake nights. And peculiar things have happened that I believe were designed to discourage Kim’s pursuit of her project and to discourage my participation. I have a perverse reaction to efforts like that. Pushing me toward the door makes me want to stay in the room.”

“I told you something similar about myself.” She said this so evenly that it was hard to tell if it was meant as a token of comradeship or as a warning not to try to manipulate her. Before he could decide which it was, she continued. “But I have a feeling there’s something else. Am I right?”

He was wondering how open he should be. “There’s more. I’m reluctant to tell you what it is, because it makes me look silly, small, and resentful.”

Bullard shrugged. “One of life’s basic choices, isn’t it? We can look hip, slick, and cool. Or we can tell the truth.”

“When I first started looking into the Good Shepherd case for Kim Corazon, I asked Holdenfield if she thought Agent Trout would be willing to listen to my views on the case.”

“And she said that he wouldn’t, because you were no longer an active member of law enforcement?”

“Worse. ‘You must be joking.’ That’s what she said. One little comment. One aggravating little comment. Must seem like a crazy reason for me to tighten my grip on this thing and refuse to let go.”

“Of course it’s a crazy reason. But at least now I know what’s behind all the tenacity.” She ate a second hot pepper. “Getting back to that hole in the case that keeps you awake nights. What questions do you find yourself struggling with at two A.M.?”

He didn’t have to think long about the answer. “Three big ones. First, the time factor. Why did the murders start when they did, back in the spring of 2000? Second, what lines of inquiry were aborted, or never initiated, because of the arrival of the manifesto? Third, what made ‘Killing the Greedy Rich’ the right cover story to conceal whatever was really going on?”

Bullard raised a challenging eyebrow. “Assuming that something was going on other than ‘Killing the Greedy Rich’-an assumption you’re a hell of a lot more committed to than I am.”

“It’ll grow on you. As a matter of fact-”

“The Good Shepherd is back!” The unnerving aptness of the announcement from the television above the bar stopped Gurney in midsentence. One of RAM’s melodramatic news anchors was sharing a split screen with a well-known gray-pompadoured evangelist, the Reverend Emmet Prunk.

“According to reliable sources, the dreaded upstate New York serial murderer is back. The monster is haunting the rural landscape once again. Ten years ago the Good Shepherd ended Harold Blum’s life with a bullet in the head. Two nights ago the killer returned. Returned to the home of Harold’s widow, Ruth. He entered her residence in the middle of the night and drove an ice pick through her heart.” The man’s overdone delivery was as attention-getting as it was repulsive. “This is so… so inhuman… so beyond the bounds… Sorry, folks, there are things in this world that just plain leave me speechless.” He shook his head grimly and turned toward the other half of the split screen, as though the TV evangelist were actually sitting next to him in the studio. “Reverend Prunk, you always seem to have the right words, the right insight. Help us out. What’s your perspective on this terrifying development?”

“Well, Dan, like any normal human being, I find that my feelings here run the gamut from horror to outrage. But I do believe that in God’s economy there is a purpose in every event, however dreadful that event may seem to our merely human way of seeing. ‘But, Reverend Prunk,’ someone might ask me, ‘what could be the purpose in this nightmare?’ And I would say to him that in the demonstration of so much evil there is much to be learned about the nature of evil in our world today. This monster has no respect for his victims. They are chaff to be blown away in the wind of his willfulness. They are nothing. A wisp of smoke. A piece of dirt. This is the lesson the Lord has placed before our eyes. He is showing us the true nature of evil. To extinguish life, to blow it away like a wisp of smoke, to trample it like a piece of dirt, that is the essence of evil! This is the lesson the Lord raises up for the righteous to see in the deeds of the devil.”

“Thank you, sir.” The anchor turned back to the camera. “As always, wise words from the Reverend Emmet Prunk. And now some important information from the good people who make RAM News possible.”

A sequence of loud, hyperactive commercials took the place of the talking heads.

“Jesus,” muttered Gurney, looking across the table at Bullard.

She met his gaze. “Tell me again that you’re not doing business with those people.”

“I’m not doing business with those people.”

She held his gaze a little longer, then made the kind of face she might make if one of the peppers were repeating on her. “Let’s back up to your point about certain lines of inquiry being aborted by the arrival of the manifesto. Have you given any thought to what they might be?”

“The obvious stuff. To start with, cui bono? The simple question of who might have profited in a practical way from all six murders has to top the list of things that were never pursued once the manifesto got everyone pointed in the mission-killer direction.”

“Okay, I hear you. What else?”

“A connection. Some background linkage among the victims.”

“Other than the Mercedes thing?”

“Right.”

She looked skeptical. “Problem with that is that it would make the cars secondary. If they weren’t the primary criterion for the attacks, then they must have been coincidental. Hell of a coincidence, don’t you think?”

Her objection was a direct echo of Jack Hardwick’s. Gurney had had no answer for it then, and he still didn’t.

“What else?” she asked.

“In-depth investigations of each individual case.”

“What do you mean?”

“Once the serial pattern was evident, it dictated the nature of the investigation.”

“Of course it did. How else-”

“I’m just listing paths not explored. I’m not saying they should have been explored-only that they weren’t.”

“Give me an example.”

“If the murders had been investigated as individual crimes, the process would have been totally different. In any case of premeditated murder without an obvious motive or suspect, you know as well as I do what would happen. The exploration would begin with the victim’s life and relationships-friends, lovers, enemies, criminal connections, criminal record, bad habits, bad marriages, ugly divorces, business conflicts, will and estate provisions, debts, financial pressures and opportunities. In other words, we’d root around in the victim’s life looking for situations and people of interest. But in this case-”

“Yes, yes, of course, in this case none of that happened. If someone is driving around shooting through random Mercedes windows in the middle of the night, you don’t spend time and money checking on each victim’s personal problems.”

“Obviously. A psychopathological pattern, especially with a simple trigger like a shiny black car, makes finding the psycho perp the sole focus. The victims are just generic components of the pattern.”

She gave him a hard stare. “Tell me you’re not suggesting that the Good Shepherd murders had six different motives arising from the individual lives of the six victims.”

“That would be absurd, right?”

“Yes. Just as absurd as the idea of the six similar cars being coincidental.”

“I can’t argue with you on that.”

“Okay, then. So much for the paths not taken. A little while ago, you mentioned the time factor as one of the questions on your restless mind. You have specific thoughts about that?”

“Nothing specific right now. Sometimes a close look at when something occurred can be a back door into understanding why it occurred. By the way, your reference to my restless nights reminded me of something I wanted to tell you. Paul Mellani, son of Bruno Mellani and a participant in Kim’s Orphans project, happens to have a permit for a Desert Eagle pistol.”

“When did he get it?”

“I don’t have access to that information.”

“Really?” She paused. “Speaking of your access to information, I believe Agent Trout has taken an interest in that subject.”

“I know. He’s wasting his time. But thank you for mentioning it.”

“He’s also taken an interest in your barn.”

“How do you know that?”

“Daker told me that your barn burned down under suspicious circumstances, that an arson investigator found your gas can hidden somewhere, and that I should exercise appropriate caution in dealing with you.”

“And what did that tell you?”

“That they don’t like you very much.”

“What a revelation!”

“Matthew Trout could be a troublesome enemy.”

“Into each life a little rain must fall.” Bullard nodded, almost smiled.

Then she got on her phone. “Andy? I need you to track down some handgun permit information… Paul Mellani… Yes, the same one… For a Desert Eagle… I’ve been told he has one, but the big question is when did he get it… The original permit date… Right… Thanks.”

They ate silently for a while, finishing their antipasti and most of the pizza, as a series of promos for grotesque RAM reality shows blared from the restaurant’s three TV screens.

One show was called Roller Coaster, and it apparently involved a contest in which four men and four women vied with one another to rack up the largest number of pounds lost or gained, or gained first and then lost, over a twenty-six-week period, during which they were forced to remain in one another’s constant company. A previous winner had gone from 130 pounds up to 261 pounds and back down to 129 pounds, thus earning both the Double-Up and the Half-Down bonus awards.

As Gurney was wondering if America owned a special patent on media insanity or if the whole world had lost its collective mind, his phone rang with a text message from Kim, telling him to check his e-mail for the video file of her conversation with Jimi Brewster.

Seeing her name on his ID screen reminded him of another logistics detail. He looked over at Bullard, who was gesturing to the waiter to bring the bill. “I assume you’ll want to run Kim Corazon’s copy of the Shepherd’s new message through the Albany lab. What do you want her to do with it?”

“Where is she now?”

“In my son’s apartment in Manhattan.”

She hesitated for a second or two, as if filing that fact for later examination. “Have her bring it to the state police liaison office at NYPD headquarters, One Police Plaza. When we get back to the unit, I’ll give you the routing instructions that need to go with it.”

Gurney was about to slip his phone back into his pocket when it occurred to him that Bullard might be interested in the Brewster video.

“By the way, Lieutenant, a while back Kim interviewed Jimi Brewster, one of the so-called Orphans. He’s the one who-”

She nodded. “The one who hated his surgeon father. I read about him in the background pile Daker dumped on me.”

“Right. Well, Kim just e-mailed me a video copy of her interview with him. You want it?”

“Of course I want it. Can you forward it to me right now?”

When they returned to the conference room, Trout, Daker, and Holdenfield were already at the table. Although Gurney and Bullard were just a minute late, Trout shot a sour glance at his watch.

“Got somewhere else you need to be?” asked Gurney, his casual tone and bland smile providing only thin cover for a dangerous level of hostility.

Trout chose not to answer, not even to look up, probing instead with a fingernail for a speck of something between his front teeth.

As soon as Bullard and Gurney had taken their seats, Clegg entered the room and placed a sheet of paper before the lieutenant, which she scanned with a curious frown. “Does this mean you’ve started making the warning calls?”

“Initial calls to establish contact,” said Clegg, “to find out quickly who’s reachable and who isn’t. We’re telling live contacts we’ll be getting back to them within the hour with information related to the case. With our voice-mail contacts, we’re asking for callbacks.”

Bullard nodded, her eyes running down the sheet again. “According to this you’ve spoken directly to Ruth Blum’s sister en route from Oregon to Aurora, to Larry Sterne in Stone Ridge, and to Jimi Brewster in Turnwell. What about the rest of the people on this list?”

“Callback requests have been left on the voice mails of Eric Stone, Roberta Rotker, and Paul Mellani.”

“Do we have their e-mail addresses?”

“I believe Kim Corazon supplied them for everyone on her contact list.”

“Then follow up your voice mails immediately with e-mails. Anyone we don’t hear back from within the next half hour, we follow up again. Tell Carly she’s got fifteen minutes to give me a draft. If we don’t get a response to the second message, we need to dispatch troopers to each physical address.”

After Clegg hurried out of the room, Bullard took a deep breath, sat back in her chair, and gazed thoughtfully at Trout. “Getting back to more difficult questions, do you have any ideas regarding the motive behind Ruth Blum’s murder?”

“It’s what I said before. Just look at the Shepherd’s message.”

“I have it memorized.”

“Then you know the motive as well as I do. The debut of The Orphans of Murder on RAM the other night hit his most sensitive nerve and brought the whole kill-the-rich mission back to life.”

“Dr. Holdenfield? You agree with that?”

Rebecca nodded stiffly. “In general, yes. More specifically, I’d say that the TV program brought his resentment back to life. It broke whatever dam had been holding the emotion in check for the past ten years. Then the rage began to flow again into his social-injustice fixation, and the murder was the result.”

“Interesting way of seeing it,” said Bullard. “Dave? How do you see it?”

“Cool, calculated, risk-averse-the opposite of Rebecca’s description. Zero rage. Total rationality.”

“And the totally rational motive for killing Ruth Blum would be…?”

“To stop the work being done on Orphans, because it posed a threat to him.”

“That threat being…?”

“Either something that Kim might discover as she continued the interviewing process or something that a viewer might realize while watching the series on TV.”

Bullard’s skepticism returned. “You mean a link that might connect the victims? Other than their cars? We just discussed the problem with-”

“Maybe it’s not a ‘link’ per se. Kim’s stated goal-widely advertised-was to reveal the effects of murder on the lives of the living. Maybe there’s something in the current lives of those families that the killer doesn’t want revealed-something that might point to his identity.”

Trout yawned.

Perhaps if he hadn’t, Gurney wouldn’t have felt compelled to add a final possibility. “Or maybe the murder, combined with the explanatory message, is an effort to make sure that everyone keeps thinking about the Good Shepherd attacks in the same old way. Maybe it’s an effort to head off the possibility of someone finally launching the kind of investigation that should have been conducted at the time.”

There was fury in Trout’s eyes. “What the hell do you know about what should have been done at the time?”

“What seems clear is that you viewed the case exactly the way the Good Shepherd wanted you to, and you acted accordingly.”

Trout stood up abruptly. “Lieutenant Bullard, as of now this case is coming under federal control. The chaos and crackpot theories you’re encouraging here don’t give me any alternative.” He pointed at Gurney. “This man is here at your invitation. He has no official standing. He has repeatedly voiced a stunning disrespect for the Bureau. He may very well become the central figure in a felony arson case. He may also be the recipient of illegally leaked materials from FBI and BCI files. He has suffered traumatic brain injury and may have physical and psychological impairments to his perception and judgment. I refuse to waste any more time debating anything with him, or in his presence. I’ll be speaking to your Major Forbes about the realignment of investigatory responsibility.”

Daker stood up next to Trout. He looked pleased.

“Sorry you feel that way,” said Bullard calmly. “My purpose in airing contrasting points of view was to test their relative strengths. You don’t think my purpose was achieved?”

“It’s been a waste of time.”

“Trout’s going to be famous,” said Gurney with a chilly grin. Everyone looked at him. “He’s going to go down in FBI history as the only supervising agent who ever took control of the same case twice and managed to screw it up twice.”

There were no farewells, no handshakes.

Thirty seconds later Gurney and Bullard were alone in the room. “How sure are you?” she asked.

“How sure are you that you’re right and everybody else is wrong?”

“About ninety-five percent.”

No sooner did he hear his own words than a profound doubt swept through him. To be that sure of anything in these shadowy circumstances suddenly seemed like manic overconfidence.

He was about to ask her how soon she expected actual control of the process to move to the FBI regional office when Clegg appeared in the doorway. His eyes were wide with the kind of distressed urgency you saw only on the faces of young cops.

Bullard looked up. “Yes, Andy?”

“Another murder. Eric Stone. Just inside his front door. Ice pick to the heart. A little plastic zebra on his lips.”