Let the Devil Sleep

with my remaining interviews?”

He gave her a shrewd look. “Just keep doing what you’re doing. You’ve got that natural innocent thing going for you. Don’t overthink it. That’s for now. Long-term I smell an extension opportunity and a spin-off opportunity. The Orphans concept has strong emotional appeal. It’s got legs that take it way beyond the six Good Shepherd victim families. It extends easily to families of other murder victims. It’s a natural franchise, so maybe we can run with it. But it also leads to a second concept-the unsolved angle. Right now we’ve got both those things wrapped up together. You got the pain of the families, right? But you also have an escaped murderer, the lack-of-closure thing. So I’m thinking if Orphans runs out of juice, we could switch the emphasis. I’m thinking of a spin-off deal-In the Absence of Justice- new show, we just shift the slant to the injustice of unsolved crimes. The lingering injustice.”

Getz sat back, watching her absorb this.

She looked uncertain. “That… could work… I guess.”

Getz leaned forward. “Look, I understand where you’re coming from-the emotional angle, the pain, the suffering, the loss. Just a matter of adjusting the balance. Series one, we have more pain-and-loss emphasis. Series two, we have more unsolved-crime emphasis. And now I just got a whole other idea. Came to me out of the blue, just looking at this guy here.” He pointed at Gurney, with the glint of discovery in his hooded eyes.

“Listen to this. I’m just thinking out loud here, but… how would you two like to be America’s hot new reality team?”

Kim blinked, looked simultaneously excited and baffled.

Getz elaborated. “I see some natural dramatic chemistry here. A juicy personality conflict. The emotional kid who cares only about the victims, the heartache-locked in a love-hate partnership with the steely-eyed cop who only cares about making the collar, closing the case. It’s got life. It’s visceral!”

Chapter 9

A Reticent Orphan

“What are you thinking?” asked Kim, glancing nervously over at Gurney as she made another adjustment in the speed of her wipers.

They’d just crossed the Ashokan Reservoir causeway and were heading south toward Stone Ridge. It was a little after two. The afternoon had remained gray and sporadically misty.

When he didn’t answer, she added, “You look pretty grim.”

“Listening to your business associate brought back some memories of how RAM handled the Good Shepherd case. I’m sure you don’t remember. I doubt you were watching much TV news at the age of thirteen.”

She blinked, stared ahead at the wet road. “How did they cover it?”

“Overheated fear pieces, twenty-four/seven. Kept putting different names on the shooter-Mercedes Madman, Midnight Madman, Midnight Murderer-until he sent his manifesto out to the media, signed ‘The Good Shepherd.’ After that, that’s what they called him. RAM zeroed in on the anti-greed message in the manifesto and started whipping up a panic that the shootings were the start of some kind of revolution-a socialist guerrilla campaign against America, against capitalism. It was loony stuff. Twenty-four hours a day, they had their talking-head ‘experts’ ranting about the horrible possibilities, the things that might happen, the conspiracies that might be behind it all. They had ‘security consultants’ saying it was time for every American to be armed-a gun in your house, gun in your car, gun in your pocket. The time had come to stop coddling anti-American criminals. The time had come to put an end to ‘criminal rights.’ Even when the shootings stopped, RAM just kept going. Kept talking about class warfare-how it had gone underground, how it was sure to break out again in a more horrendous way. They beat that drum for another year and a half. The ultimate RAM mission was clear: generate maximum anger and maximum panic in the service of audience numbers and ad revenue. Sad thing is, it worked. RAM coverage of the Good Shepherd case created the ultimate trash model for cable news: mindless debates, amplification of conflict, ugly conspiracy theories, the glorification of outrage, blame-based explanations for everything. And Rudy Getz seems perfectly happy to take credit for it.”

Kim’s hands were tight on the steering wheel. “What you’re saying is, this is not someone I should be dealing with?”

“I’m not saying anything about Getz that wasn’t obvious in the meeting we just had.”

“If you were in my position, would you deal with him?”

“You’re smart enough to know that’s a meaningless question.”

“No it’s not. Just imagine you were in the same situation I’m in.”

“You’re asking me what kind of decision I’d make if I weren’t me-with my background, my feelings, my thoughts, my family, my priorities, my life. Don’t you see? My life couldn’t possibly put me in your position. It’s a nonsensical statement.”

She blinked, looked perplexed. “What are you so angry about?”

That question took him by surprise. She was right. He was angry. It would be easy to say that amoral reptiles like Getz made him angry, that the transformation of the news media from relatively harmless information sources into cynical engines of polarization made him angry, that turning murder into “reality” entertainment made him angry. But he knew enough about himself to know that external reasons for his anger were often excuses for internal ones.

A wise man had once told him, Anger is like a buoy on the surface of the water. What you think you’re angry about is only the tip of the issue. You have to follow the chain all the way down in order to discover what it’s attached to, what’s holding it in place.

He decided to follow the chain. He turned to Kim. “Why did you bring me to that meeting?”

“I explained that to you.”

“You mean I was there to look over your shoulder? To observe?”

“And to give me your perspective on what you saw, on how I handled things.”

“I can’t evaluate your performance if I don’t know what your goal was.”

“I didn’t have a goal.”

“Really?”

She turned toward him. “Are you calling me a liar?”

“Watch your driving.” His voice was stern, parental.

When she looked back at the road, he continued. “How come Rudy Getz doesn’t know you only hired me for one day? How come he thinks I’m more involved in this thing than I really am?”

“I don’t know. It’s not because of anything I said.” Her lips tightened.

Gurney had the impression she was trying not to cry. He said calmly, “I want to know the whole story. I want to know why I’m here.”

She nodded almost imperceptibly, but at least another minute elapsed before she replied. “After my thesis adviser submitted my proposal and initial interviews to Getz, things started moving very fast. I never thought he’d actually buy it, and when he did, I sort of panicked. This huge thing was being offered to me, and I didn’t want it to be taken away. I thought, suppose the RAM people suddenly wake up and say to themselves, ‘This is just a twenty-three-year-old kid. What does she know about murder cases? What does she know about anything?’ Connie and I thought that if someone with real experience was involved, a real-life expert, it would make everything more solid. We both thought of you. Connie said that nobody knew more than you did about murder, and that the article she’d written about you had made you sort of famous. So you’d be perfect.”

“Did you show the article to Getz?”

“When I called him yesterday to tell him about your agreeing to help me, I think I did mention it.”

“And what about Robby Meese?”

“What about him?”

“Were you hoping I might help you deal with him, too?”

“Maybe. Maybe I’m more scared of him than I said.”