“Me neither. I love it. You used to have a bike like that, right?”
“Not that sharp.”
“I hope I can keep it like that. I just got it two weeks ago at the Atlantic City Classic Motorcycle Show. Hadn’t planned on buying anything, but I couldn’t resist. Never saw one that nice-not even the one my boss has.”
“Your boss?”
“Yeah, I’m kind of half back on the Street, working part-time for some guys from the old firm that went under.”
“But you’re still at Columbia?”
“Sure, absolutely. First-year crunch. Tons of reading. Designed to weed out the unmotivated. I’m so busy I’m nuts, but what the hell.”
Kim came through the doorway into the kitchen with a cheery smile for Madeleine. “Thanks again for the jacket. I hung it up in the mudroom. Is that okay?”
“Fine. But I’m dying of curiosity.”
“About what?”
“I’m trying to imagine ‘the single sickest thing’ you ever heard.”
“What? Oh! You heard me say that? Kyle was telling me something. Yuck.” She looked at him. “You tell her. I don’t even want to say it.”
“It, uh… it’s about a peculiar disorder some people have. This might not be the best time to go into it. It takes some explanation. Maybe later might be better?”
“Okay, I’ll ask you again later. Now I’m
Kyle and Kim looked at each other, shook their heads.
“Not for me,” said Kyle.
“No thanks,” said Kim.
“Then just make yourselves comfortable.” Madeleine gestured toward the armchairs around the stone fireplace at the far end of the room. “I have to finish up a few things. We’ll be having dinner around six.”
Kim asked if she could help with anything, and when Madeleine said no, she excused herself and headed for the bathroom. Gurney and Kyle settled into a pair of wing chairs that faced each other over a low cherry coffee table in front of the hearth.
“So…” they began simultaneously, then simultaneously laughed.
Gurney had a strange thought. Apart from the fact that Kyle had his mother’s mouth and jet-black hair, looking at him was like looking in a magic mirror at a restored image of himself-with two decades of wear and tear sanded off.
“You first,” said Gurney.
Kyle grinned. It was his mother’s mouth but his father’s teeth. “Kim was telling me about this TV thing you’re involved in.”
“I’m not involved directly in the TV aspect. In fact, I’d like to stay as far away from that part of it as possible.”
“What other part is there?”
Such a simple question, thought Gurney, as he tried to think of a simple answer. “The case itself, I guess.”
“The Shepherd murders?”
“The murders, the victims, the evidence, the MO, the rationale presented in the manifesto, the investigative premise.”
Kyle looked surprised. “You have doubts about any of that?”
“Doubts? I don’t know. Maybe just some curiosity.”
“I thought all that Good Shepherd stuff was analyzed to death ten years ago.”
“Maybe I just have doubts about the basis for nobody’s having any doubts. Plus, some odd little things have been happening.”
“Like her crazy ex sabotaging the stairs?”
“Is that the way she described what happened?”
Kyle frowned. “There’s another way?”
“Who knows? Like I said, I just have some curiosity.” He paused. “On the other hand, this so-called curiosity of mine may be nothing more than mental indigestion. We’ll see. There’s an FBI agent I’d like to talk to.”
“How come?”
“I’m pretty confident that I know as much as the state police know, but our friends at the fed level have a habit of keeping the occasional tidbit to themselves-especially the individual who was running the case.”
“And you think you can get whatever it is out of him?”
“Maybe not, but I’d like to give it a shot.”
There was a sharp clatter of breaking glass.
“Damn!” cried Madeleine at the other end of the room, raising her hand from the sink and staring at it.
“You all right?” asked Gurney.
She tore a piece of paper towel off the roll that stood on the sink island. The roll toppled over and fell to the floor. She ignored it, along with the question, and began dabbing at the heel of her left hand.
“You need some help?” He got up and headed over to look at her hand. He picked up the towel roll and set it back on the countertop. “Let me see.”
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,
“So,” said Gurney quickly, “you remember the television coverage?”
“Stacey’s parents had the TV on all the time. RAM News,
