Let the Devil Sleep (23 page)

Kyle followed him over.

“Why don’t you gentlemen return to your seats,” she said, frowning uncomfortably at the attention. “I think I can handle this. Just a little blood, nothing serious. All it needs is peroxide and a Band-Aid.” She flashed a chilly smile and walked out of the room.

The two men looked at each other, producing identical little shrugs.

“You want some coffee?” asked Gurney.

Kyle shook his head. “I was trying to remember … It became an FBI case because of the Massachusetts guy, right? The heart surgeon?” Gurney blinked. “How the hell did you remember that?”

“It was a giant homicide case.”

Something in Kyle’s expression suddenly got through to Gurney: the implication that of course Kyle would pay attention to something like that, because that was the world in which his father was an expert.

“Right,” said Gurney, feeling the small stab of an unfamiliar emotion. “You sure you don’t want any coffee?”

“Maybe I will. I mean, if you’re having some, too.”

As the coffee was brewing, they stood looking out through the French doors. The yellow afternoon sun was slanting across the stubbly pasture.

After a long silence, Kyle said, “So what do you think about this thing she’s involved in?”

“Kim?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s a big question. I guess everything depends on the final execution.”

“The way she explained it to me, it sounds like she really wants it to be an honest portrayal of the people involved.”

“What she wants it to be and what RAM turns it into may be two different things.”

Kyle blinked, looked worried. “They sure as hell did a job on the original events. Twenty-four/seven bullshit, week after week.”

“You remember that?”

“It was all that was on. The shootings happened right after I moved out of Mom’s to live at Stacey Marx’s house.”

“When you were … fifteen?”

“Sixteen. When Mom started going with Tom Gerard, the big real-estate guy.” A bright, brittle emotion flashed in his eyes as he added with antic emphasis,
“Mom ’n’ Tom.”

“So,” said Gurney quickly, “you remember the television coverage?”

“Stacey’s parents had the TV on all the time. RAM News,
all the time
. God, I can still picture the reconstructions.”

“Of the shootings?”

“Right. They had an ominous-sounding announcer delivering a dramatic voice-over narration, based very loosely on the facts—while some actor was shown driving a shiny black car on a lonely road. They’d go through the whole thing like that—right up to the gunshot and the car careening off the road—with a tiny one-word ‘reenactment’ disclaimer flashed on the screen for half a second. It was like reality TV without the reality. Day after day. They got so much mileage out of that crap they should’ve been paying the Shepherd.”

“I remember now,” said Gurney. “All part of the RAM carnival.”

“Speaking of the carnival, you ever watch
Cops
? That was pretty big on TV around that same time.”

“I saw part of one episode.”

“I don’t think I ever told you this, but there was an asshole in junior
year of high school who knew you were with the NYPD, and he always used to ask me, ‘Is that what your cop dad does for a living—busts down doors in trailer parks?’ Complete asshole. I used to tell him, ‘No, asshole, that’s
not
what he does. And by the way, asshole, he’s not just a cop, he’s a homicide detective.’ Detective first class, right, Dad?”

“Right.” Kyle sounded so young to him right then, like such a kid, it brought a tightness to his chest. He looked away, down the hill at the barn.

“I wish that
New York
magazine article about you had come out back then. That would have shut him up fast. That article was fantastic!”

“I guess Kim told you that her mother wrote that article?”

“Yeah, she did—when I asked how she knew you. She really likes you.”

“Who?”

“Kim. At least Kim, maybe her mother, too.” Kyle grinned and looked sixteen again. “That gold detective shield dazzles them, right?”

Gurney managed a small laugh.

A cloud passed slowly in front of the sun, and the pasture faded from golden tan to grayish beige. For a wrenching second, something about it reminded Gurney of the skin of a corpse. A particular corpse. A Dominican hit man whose sunny complexion had drained away with his blood on a Harlem sidewalk. Gurney cleared his throat, as if to dispel the image.

Then he became aware of a low thumping in the air. It grew louder, soon becoming recognizable as a helicopter. Half a minute later, it passed, visible only partially and only briefly behind the treetops along the ridge. The distinct, heavy thudding of the rotor faded away, and all was silent again.

“You have a military base up here?” asked Kyle.

“No, just reservoirs for the city.”

“Reservoirs?” He seemed to be considering this. “So you think the helicopter is some kind of Homeland Security thing?”

“Most likely.”

T
hey were sitting at the Shaker-style cherry trestle table that separated the kitchen area of the long room from the sitting area by the fireplace. They’d started eating, and Kim and Kyle had complimented Madeleine enthusiastically on her spiced shrimp-and-rice dish. Gurney had offered a preoccupied echo of their comments, after which they ate for a while without speaking.

Kyle broke the silence. “These people you’ve been interviewing—do they have much in common?”

Kim chewed thoughtfully, swallowing before she spoke. “Anger.”

“All of them? After all these years?”

“In some it’s more obvious, because they express it more directly. But I think the anger is there in all of them, in some form or other. It would have to be, wouldn’t it?”

Kyle frowned. “I thought anger was a stage of grief that eventually passed.”

“Not if there’s no emotional closure.”

“Because the Good Shepherd was never caught?”

“Never caught, never identified. And after the crazy Max Clinter car chase, he just evaporated into the night. It’s a story without an ending.”

Gurney made a face. “I think the story may lack more than an ending.”

There was a brief silence around the table as everyone looked at him expectantly.

Kyle finally prompted him. “You think the FBI got part of it wrong?”

“That’s what I want to find out.”

Kim looked baffled. “Got what wrong? What part of it?”

“I’m not saying for sure that they got
anything
wrong. I’m just saying it’s a
possibility
.”

Kyle’s expression became more excited. “What part might they have gotten wrong?”

“From what little I know at the moment, it’s just possible they got it
all
wrong.” He glanced at Madeleine. There was a flicker of conflicting emotions on her face, too subtle for him to identify.

Kim looked alarmed. “I don’t understand. What are you saying?”

“I hate using words like this, but the whole thing has kind of a
wobbly
look. Like a very big building on a very small foundation.”

Kim was shaking her head rapidly in a kind of reflexive disagreement. “But when you say they may have gotten it all wrong, what on earth …?”

Her voice trailed off as the phone in Gurney’s pocket began ringing.

He took it out, glanced at the ID, and smiled. “I have a feeling I’m going to get asked that question again in about five seconds.” He stood up from the table and put the phone to his ear. “Hello, Rebecca. Thanks for getting back to me.”

“ ‘A fatal flaw in the FBI construct’?” There was a cutting edge of anger in her voice. “What was that message all about?”

Gurney stepped away from the table in the direction of the French doors. “Nothing conclusive. I just have questions. There may or may not be a problem, depending on what the answers are.” He stood with his back to the others, looking out toward the western hills and the purple remnants of the sunset without really registering the beauty of what he was seeing. He was focused on one objective: getting invited to a meeting with Agent Trout.

“Questions? What questions?”

“Actually, I have quite a few. You have time to listen?”

“Not really. But I’m curious. Go ahead.”

“The first is the biggest. Did you ever have any doubts about the case?”

“Doubts? Like what?”

“Like what it was really all about.”

“You’re not making sense. Be more specific.”

“You, the FBI, the forensic-psych community, criminologists, sociologists—just about everyone but Max Clinter—all seem to agree on everything. I’ve never seen such a cozy level of consensus around what is essentially an unsolved series of crimes.”

“Cozy?”
There was acid in her voice.

“I’m not implying anything corrupt. It just seems as if everyone—with the conspicuous exception of Clinter—is perfectly happy with the existing narrative. All I’m asking is whether this agreement is as universal as it seems and how
certain
you are about it personally.”

“Look, David, I don’t have all evening for this conversation. Cut to the chase and tell me what’s bothering you.”

Gurney took a deep breath, trying to defuse his irritation at her irritation. “What’s bothering me is that there are a lot of elements in the case and they all have to be interpreted in a particular way in order to support the overarching narrative. And I get the impression that it’s the narrative that’s driving the interpretation of its elements, rather than the other way around.”
Rather than the way a sane, objective, reliable analysis should be conducted
, he was tempted to add but didn’t.

Holdenfield hesitated. “Be more specific.”

“There are obvious questions raised by each data point, each bit of evidence, each fact. The answers to all of them appear to be coming from the investigative premise instead of the investigative premise coming from the answers to the questions.”

“You call that being more specific?”

“Okay. Questions. Why only Mercedeses? Why stop at six? Why a Desert Eagle? Why more than one Desert Eagle? Why the little plastic animals? Why the manifesto? Why the combination of cool rational argument with hot religious language? Why the rigid repetition of—”

Holdenfield broke in, sounding exasperated. “David, each of those issues has been examined and discussed in detail—every one of them. The answers are clear, they make perfect sense, they form a coherent picture. I really don’t understand your point at all.”

“So you’re telling me that there was never a competing investigative premise?”

“There was never any basis for one. What the hell is your problem here?”

“Can you picture him?”

“Picture who?”

“The Good Shepherd.”

“Can I
picture
him? I don’t know. Is that a meaningful question?”

“I think so. What’s your answer?”

“My answer is that I don’t agree that it’s meaningful.”

“It sounds to me like you can’t picture him. Neither can I. Which makes me think there may be contradictions in the profile that are screwing up the gut-level process of imagining a face. Of course,
he
might be a woman. A woman strong enough to handle a Desert Eagle. Or
he
might be more than one person. But we’ll put that aside for now.”

“A woman? That’s absurd.”

“No time to argue that right now. I have one last question for you. Amid all the professional consensus, did you or any of your forensic-psych colleagues or anyone at the Behavioral Analysis Unit ever disagree among yourselves about
anything
in the case hypothesis?”

“Of course we did. There are always diverse opinions, differences in emphasis.”

“For example?”

“For example, the concept of pattern resonance emphasizes the transference of energy from an original trauma into a current situation—which makes the current manifestation essentially an inanimate vehicle that is given life by the past. The application of the imitation-instinct paradigm would give the current situation a greater validity of its own. It’s a repetition of a past pattern, but it does have life and energy of its own. Another concept that might apply is the transgenerational transmission of violence theory, which is a traditional learned-behavior model. There was ample discussion of all those ideas.”

Gurney laughed.

“What’s funny?”

“I can picture you guys staring out at a palm tree on the horizon and debating the number of coconuts on it.”

“Your point being?”

“What if the palm tree itself is a mirage? A group delusion?”

“David, if anyone in this conversation is delusional, it’s not me. Is that it for the questions?”

“Who benefits from the existing hypothesis?”

“What?”

“Who benefits from the—”

“I heard you. What the hell do you mean?”

“I have this sense of a sticky synergy connecting the facts of the case with the weak points of FBI methodology and the career dynamics of the professional forensic community.”

“I can’t believe you said that. I really can’t. It’s so insulting. Look, I’m about to hang up on you. I’ll give you one chance to explain yourself before I do. Speak to me. Quickly.”

“Rebecca, we all fool ourselves from time to time. God knows I do. There’s no insult intended in my observation about this. When
you
look at the Good Shepherd case,
you
see a simple story of a brilliant psycho whose buried rage has found tragic expression in his attacks on symbols of wealth and power. When I look at the same case, I’m not sure what I see—maybe a case that people shouldn’t be as sure about as they seem to be. That’s all. I just think too many conclusions have been reached—and embraced—too quickly.”

“And where does that take you?”

“I don’t know where it takes me. But it does make me curious.”

“Curious like Max Clinter?”

“Is that a real question?”

“Oh, definitely a real question.”

“At least Max understands that the case isn’t nearly as sewn up as you and your FBI buddies think it is. At least he understands that there could be another connection among the victims beyond the fact of Mercedes ownership.”