“Around you?”
“Yes. Or my image. Using my arrest statistics.”
Trout glanced curiously at Daker, who shrugged but said nothing.
“They seem to be overly impressed by the fact that I had the highest homicide-clearing rate in the history of the department.”
Trout’s mouth opened, but he closed it again without speaking.
“They want me to review famous unsolved cases and offer my opinion on where I think the investigations went off the tracks. Starting with the Good Shepherd case. They plan to call the series In the Absence of Justice. Catchy, eh?”
Trout examined his steepled fingers for a long minute, concluding with another sad shake of his head. “Everything keeps bringing me back to the problem of leaked documents, unauthorized access, transmission of confidential information, violations of regulations, violations of federal and state laws. Endless unpleasant complications.”
“Small price to pay. After all, as you said before, the main thing is justice. Or was it truth? Something like that, right?”
Trout gave him a cold stare and repeated with slow emphasis, “Endless … unpleasant … complications.” His gaze traveled to the mounted wildcats on the mantel. “Not such a small price. Not something I’d want to be in your shoes for. Especially not right now. Not on top of having to deal with that arson business.”
“Excuse me?”
“I heard about your barn.”
“How does that relate to what we’re talking about?”
“Just another kind of pressure in your life, that’s all. Another complication.” He made a show of consulting his watch again. “We’re definitely out of time.” He stood up.
So did Gurney. So did Holdenfield.
Trout’s mouth widened into an empty smile. “Thank you for sharing your concerns with us, Mr. Gurney. Daker will get you back to your car.” He turned to Holdenfield. “Can you stay for a few minutes? I have a few items I need to discuss with you.”
“Certainly.” She stepped between Trout and Gurney and extended her hand. “Nice to see you again. Someday you’ll have to tell me more about your barn problem. First I’ve heard of it.”
When he took her hand, he felt a folded piece of paper being pressed against his palm. He accepted it, keeping it out of sight.
Daker was watching him but showed no sign of noticing the transfer. He pointed at the front door. “Time to go.”
Gurney didn’t take the paper out of his pocket until he was in his car, the engine was running, and Daker had disappeared back up the trail in the Kawasaki.
Unfolded, it was barely two inches across. There was one sentence on it: “Wait for me in Branville at the Eagle’s Nest.”
He’d never been to the Eagle’s Nest. He’d heard it was a new restaurant, part of Branville’s struggling renaissance from rural slum to quaint hamlet. It was convenient enough, located on a route he’d be taking anyway.
The main street of Branville was at the bottom of a valley next to a picturesque stream that provided the place with its sole source of charm, as well as occasional ruinous floods. The county road that connected Branville with the interstate made a long, winding descent from a line of hills and teed into the main street just a block from the Eagle’s Nest. Although it was close to noon when Gurney walked in, only one of its dozen tables was occupied. He sat at a table for two by a bay window looking out on the street and ordered—a rarity for him—a Bloody Mary. He was still surprised by his choice when the server delivered it a few minutes later.
It was a generous drink, in a tall glass. It tasted exactly the way he expected it would. It brought a pleasant smile to his lips—another rarity in recent months. He savored it slowly, finishing it at 12:15.
At 12:16 Rebecca walked in. She sat down immediately. “Hope you weren’t waiting too long.” The way she smiled emphasized the taut contours of her mouth. Everything about her was controlled and alert.
“Just got here a few minutes ago.”
She glanced around the room with that cool assessment with which she always greeted her surroundings. “What are you drinking?”
“Bloody Mary.”
“Perfect.” She turned and waved to the young female server.
When the girl arrived with a pair of menus, Holdenfield gave her a skeptical look. “Are you old enough to be serving drinks?”
“I’m twenty-three,” she announced, sounding baffled by the question and depressed by the number.
“That old?” said Holdenfield with unappreciated irony. “I’ll have a Bloody Mary.” She pointed at Gurney’s glass with a question mark in her eyes.
“No more for me.”
The server departed.
Holdenfield, as usual, didn’t waste any time getting to the point. “How come you were so aggressive with our FBI friends? And what was all that stuff about sniper goggles, the disposing of the guns, problems with the profile?”
“Just trying to nudge him off balance.”
“Nudge? More like an elbow in the face.”
“I’m a little frustrated.”
“And where do you think your frustration is coming from?”
“I’m getting sick of explaining it.”
“Humor me.”
“You’re all treating the manifesto like holy writ. It’s not. It’s a pose. Actions speak louder than words. The actions of this killer were super-rational, steady as a rock. The planning was patient and pragmatic. The manifesto is another matter altogether. It’s a work of fiction, an effort to create a persona and a set of motivations that you and your buddies in the Behavioral Analysis Unit could analyze and regurgitate into that sophomoric profile.”
“Look, David—”
“Just a second, I’m still ‘humoring’ you. The fiction took on a life of its own. There was something in it for everyone. Endless articles in the American Journal of Theoretical Bullshit. And now no one can back down. You’re all desperate to shore up the house of cards. If it collapses, careers collapse with it.”
“Finished?”
“You asked me to explain my frustration.”
She leaned toward him and spoke softly. “David, I don’t think I’m the one who’s ‘desperate’ here.” She paused and sat back up straight as the server arrived with her Bloody Mary. When the young woman retreated to the back of the room, she continued. “I’ve worked with you before. You were always the calmest, most reasonable person in the room. The Dave Gurney I remember wouldn’t have threatened a senior FBI agent this morning. He wouldn’t be claiming that my professional opinions are bullshit. Accusing me of dishonesty and stupidity. It makes me wonder what’s really going on in your head. To be perfectly honest with you, this new Dave Gurney worries me.”
“Is that so? You think the bullet that creased my brain knocked out a few logic circuits?”
“All I’m saying is that your thought process is being driven by a bigger emotional component than it used to be. Do you disagree with that?”
“What I disagree with is your effort to make my thought process the issue when the real problem is that you and your colleagues attached your names and reputations to a crock of shit that allowed a mass murderer to escape.”
“That’s colorful, David. You know who else speaks about the case in colorful terms? Max Clinter.”
“Is that supposed to be a devastating criticism?”
She sipped her drink. “Just popped into my mind. Free association. So many similarities. Both of you seriously injured, both incapacitated for at least a month, both intensely distrustful of others, both with your official police days behind you, both obsessed with proving that the accepted view of the Good Shepherd case is wrong, both natural-born hunters who hate being marginalized.” She took another sip. “Have you ever been evaluated for PTSD?”
He stared at her. The question took him by surprise, although it shouldn’t have, not after her comparing him to Clinter. “Is that what you’re doing here? Checking off diagnostic boxes? Did you and Trou
t discuss my emotional stability?”
She returned the stare. “I’ve never felt this kind of hostility from you before.”
“Let me ask you something. Why did you want to meet me here?”
She blinked, looked down at the table, took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “Our phone conversation the other day? It was very disturbing. Frankly, I’m concerned about you.” She picked up her Bloody Mary and drank down more than half of it.
When their eyes met again, she spoke in a softened voice. “Being shot is a shock. Our minds keep reliving that moment, the threat, the impact. Our natural reactions are fear and anger. Most men would rather be angry than afraid. They find it easier to express anger. I think the discovery of your own vulnerability, the fact that you’re not perfect, not superman … has made you absolutely furious. And the slowness of your recovery is stoking that fury.”
Was this earnest psychologist as authentic as she sounded at that moment? Was she offering him her honest and caring opinion? Did she actually give a damn? Or was this another step in an increasingly ugly effort to make him question himself rather than the case theory?
Searching for the answer, he looked into her eyes.
Her intelligent gaze was steady, unblinking.
He started to feel the fury she had mentioned. It was time to get the hell out of there before he said something he’d regret.
Prologue
It had taken time to get the wording right, more time than he’d expected. There had been so much going on, so much to manage. But he was finally satisfied. The message finally said everything it needed to say:
Greed spreads in a family like septic blood in bathwater. It infects everyone it touches. Therefore the wives and children you hold up as objects of sorrow and pity shall also be cut down. The children of greed are evil, and evil are those whom they embrace. Therefore they, too, shall be cut down. Whomsoever you hold up for the fools of the world to console, they all shall be cut down, whether related by blood or by marriage to the children of greed.
To consume the product of greed is to consume its stain. The fruit leaves its mark. The beneficiaries of greed bear the guilt of greed, and they must bear its punishment. They will die in the spotlight of your praise. Your praise shall be their undoing. Your pity is a poison. Your sympathy condemns them to death.
Can you not see the truth? Have you gone blind?
The world has gone mad. Greed masquerades as laudable ambition. Wealth pretends to be proof of talent and worth. The channels of communication have fallen into the hands of monsters. The worst of the worst are exalted.
With devils in pulpits and angels ignored, it falls to the honest to punish what the mad world rewards.
These are the true and final words of the Good Shepherd.
He printed two copies to be sent by overnight mail. One to Corazon, one to Gurney. Then he carried the printer out in back of the house and smashed it with a brick. He gathered the pieces, even shards of plastic as small as fingernail clippings, and put them in a garbage bag, along with the remaining printer paper, to be buried in the woods.
An investment in caution was always wise.
Chapter 29
Too Damn Many Bits and Pieces
As he drove out of Branville into the rolling hills and scrubby pastures of northeastern Delaware County, Gurney’s mind was swirling. His natural facility for organizing data into meaningful patterns was stymied by the volume of it all.
It was like trying to make sense out of a heap of tiny puzzle pieces without knowing whether every piece was present—or even how many puzzles the pieces were part of. One minute he would be certain that all the debris was the result of a single central storm; the next minute he would be certain of nothing. Maybe he was too damn eager to come up with one explanation, one elegant equation.
Passing a roadside sign welcoming him to Dillweed suggested a modest next step. He pulled over and called the one Dillweed resident he knew personally. An undiluted face-to-face dose of Jack Hardwick could be a good antidote to fanciful thinking.
Ten minutes later, four miles up a succession of twisty dirt roads, he arrived at the unimposing rented farmhouse, much in need of paint, that Hardwick called home. The man answered the door dressed as usual in a T-shirt and cutoff sweatpants.
“You want one?” he asked, holding up an empty Grolsch beer bottle.
First Gurney said no, then he said yes. He knew he’d have alcohol on his breath when he got home, and he’d be more comfortable attributing it to a beer with Jack than to a Bloody Mary with Rebecca.
After getting Gurney a Grolsch and himself another, Hardwick sank down into one of two overstuffed leather chairs, motioning Gurney toward the other. “So, my son,” he said in a harsh whisper that pretended a level of inebriation that was belied by his sharp gaze, “how long has it been since your last confession?”
“Thirty-five years, more or less,” said Gurney, humoring the man from whom he wanted help. He sampled the beer. It wasn’t bad. He looked around the little living room. Like Jack’s attire, the painfully bare space was the same as it had been on Gurney’s last visit. Not even the dust had moved.
Hardwick scratched his nose. “You must be in a great deal of trouble to be seeking the solace of Mother Church after such a long time. Speak freely, my son, of all your blasphemies, lies, thievings, and adulteries. I’d be most interested in the details of the adulteries.” He produced an absurdly salacious wink.
Gurney leaned back in the wide soft chair and took another swallow of beer. “The Good Shepherd case is getting complicated.”
“Always was.”
“The problem is, I’m not sure how many cases I’m dealing with.”
“Too much shit for one latrine?”
“Like I said, I’m not sure.” He recounted, in as much detail as he could, the long litany of facts, events, oddities, suspicions, and questions on his mind.
Hardwick took a rumpled tissue out of his sweatpants pocket and blew his nose in it. “So what are you asking me?”
“Just for your gut sense of how much of that stuff fits into one big picture and how much is likely to be something else entirely.”
Hardwick made a clucking sound with his tongue. “I don’t know about the arrow. Maybe if someone shot an arrow up your ass, but … stuck in the ground out there with the turnips? That doesn’t mean much to me.”
“And the other stuff?”
“The other stuff would get my attention. Apartment bugging, barn burning, booby-trapping the staircase, the trapdoor in the young lady’s ceiling—that kind of shit requires an investment of time and energy, plus legal risks. So it’s serious. Meaning there’s something serious at stake. I’m not giving you any news here, right?”
“Not really.”
“You’re asking me, do I think it’s all tied together in a grand conspiracy?” He screwed his face up into an exaggerated mask of indecision. “Best answer is something you said to me a long time ago when we were working on the Mellery job. ‘It’s safer to assume there’s a connection that turns out to be false than to ignore one that turns out to be true.’ But there’s a bigger question.” He paused to belch. “If the Good Shepherd case wasn’t about the righteous slaughter of the evil rich, then what the fuck was it about? Answer that, Mr. Holmes, and you’ll have the answers to all your other questions. You want another Grolsch?”
Gurney shook his head.
“By the way, if you really try to demolish the case premise, you’ll be in the middle of a once-in-a-lifetime shit storm. Galileo at the Vatican. You understand that, right?”
“I started getting the message today.” Gurney pictured Agent Trout, baleful Doberman at his side, on his cheerless Adirondack porch. His references to “complications.” His allusion to the arson situation. And Daker, the assassin in a hundred films.
“Okay, my boy, just so you know. Because—” The ring of Jack’s cell phone interrupted him. He pulled it out of his pocket. “Hardwick.” He was quiet at
first, his expression growing more interested, more perplexed. “Right … Right … What? … Holy shit! … Yeah … That was the only one? … You have the original application date? … Okay … Right … Thanks … Yeah … Bye.” When he ended the call, he continued to stare at the phone as though some additional clarification might emerge from it.
“The hell was that about?” asked Gurney.
“Answer to your question.”
“Which one?”
“You asked me to find out if Paul Mellani had any registered guns.”
“And?”
“He has one handgun. A Desert Eagle.”
For most of Gurney’s half-hour homeward drive from Dillweed to Walnut Crossing, he could think of little else. But as startling as the discovery was, it was more troubling than actionable. Rather like discovering that an ax murderer and his victim, previously believed to be unconnected, had shared a desk in kindergarten. Attention-getting, but what the hell did it mean?
It would be important to know how long Mellani had owned the gun. However, the record accessed by Hardwick’s colleague, showing a currently valid concealed-carry permit, did not indicate the original application date. Calls to Mellani’s office number and cell number had both gone into voice mail. Even if the man chose to return the calls, he was under no obligation to explain his unusual choice of sidearm.
Obviously this curious new fact exacerbated Gurney’s original concern: that depression and easy access to a firearm could be a high-risk combination. But “concern” was all it was. There was no hard evidence that Paul Mellani was a credible danger to himself or others. He had said nothing—uttered none of the key phrases, none of the psychiatric alarm words—that would justify notifying the Middletown police, nothing that would justify any intervention beyond the personal calls that had been made.
But Gurney kept thinking about it—imagining the probable content of Kim’s contacts with the man prior to their Saturday meeting, her letter and phone call explaining her project. These reminders of his father’s death—reminders of his father’s apparent lack of concern for him—may have focused him on the emptiness of his life, the sinking ship of his career.