you all this insight, all this clarity, but that’s not always a good thing, is it.” It wasn’t a question.
• • •
Emerging from Paul Mellani’s dreary office half an hour later into the sunny parking lot gave Gurney the jarring feeling he got coming out of a dark movie theater into daylight-a shift from one world to another.
Kim took a deep breath. “Wow. That was…”
“Dismal? Desolate? Morose?”
“Just sad.” She looked shaken.
“Did you notice the dates on the magazines in the reception area?”
“No, why?”
“They were all from years ago, nothing current. And speaking of dates, you realize what time of year this is?”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s the last week of March. Less than three weeks to April fifteenth. These are the weeks every accountant should be crazy busy.”
“Oh, jeez, you’re right. Meaning he has no clients left. Or not very many. So what’s he doing in there?”
“Good question.”
The drive back to Walnut Crossing in their separate cars took nearly two hours. Toward the end the sun was low enough in the sky to produce a hazy glare on Gurney’s dirty windshield-reminding him for the third or fourth time that week that he was out of wiper fluid. What irritated him more than the absence of the fluid was his increasing dependence on notes. If he didn’t write something down…
The ring of his phone interrupted his brooding over the state of his mind. He was surprised to see Hardwick’s name on the screen.
“Yes, Jack?”
“The first one was easy. But don’t think that reduces your debt.”
Gurney thought back to the request he’d made that morning. “The first one being the history of Mr. Meese- Montague?”
“Actually, Mr. Montague-Meese, but more about that anon.”
“Anon?”
“Yeah, anon. It means ‘soon.’ One of William Shakespeare’s favorite words. Whenever he meant ‘soon,’ he said ‘anon.’ I’m expanding my vocabulary so I can speak with greater confidence to intellectual dicks like you.”
“That’s good, Jack. I’m proud of you.”
“Okay, this is a first take. Maybe we’ll have more later. The individual of whom we speak was born March twenty-eighth, 1989, at St. Luke’s Hospital in New York City.”
“Huh.”
“What’s the ‘huh’ about?”
“That means he’s about to turn twenty-one.”
“So fucking what?”
“Just an interesting fact. Proceed.”
“There is no father’s name indicated on the birth certificate. Little Robert was surrendered for adoption by his mother, whose name, incidentally, was Marie Montague.”
“So little Robert was actually a Montague before he was a Meese. Very interesting.”
“It gets more interesting. He was adopted almost immediately by a prominent Pittsburgh couple, Gordon and Celia Meese. Gordon, it so happens, was filthy rich. Heir to an Appalachian coal-mining fortune. Guess what comes next.”
“The excitement in your voice tells me it’s something horrible.”
“At the age of twelve, Robert was removed from the Meese home by Child Protective Services.”
“Were you able to find out why?”
“No. Believe me, that is one seriously sealed case file.”
“Why am I not surprised? What happened to Robert after that?”
“Ugly story. One foster home after another. No one willing to keep him for more than six months. Difficult young man. Has been prescribed various drugs for a generalized anxiety disorder, borderlinepersonality disorder, intermittent-explosive disorder-gotta love that one.”
“I guess I shouldn’t ask how you got access to-”
“Right. So don’t. Bottom line, it adds up to a very insecure kid with a shaky grip on reality and a major anger problem.”
“Then how did this paragon of stability-”
“End up at the university? Simple. Right in the center of that screwed-up mind there lurks a sky-high IQ. And a sky-high IQ, combined with a troubled background, combined with zero financial resources, is the magic formula for a full college scholarship. Since entering the university, Robert has excelled in drama and has earned fair to lousy marks in everything else. He is said to be a natural-born actor. Movie-star handsome, fantastic onstage, able to turn on the charm, but basically secretive. He recently changed his name back from Meese to Montague. For a few months, he cohabited, as you may know, with little Kimmy. Apparently that ended badly. Currently lives alone in a three-room rental in a subdivided Victorian house on a nice street in Syracuse. Sources of income for rent, car, and other nonuniversity expenses are unknown.”
“Any employment?”
“Nothing obvious. That’s the story for now. If more shit turns up, I’ll drop it on you.”
“I owe you.”
“You got that right.”
Gurney’s mind was swimming with so many free-floating facts that when Madeleine commented that evening over coffee on the spectacular sunset that had occurred an hour earlier, he had no recollection of having seen it. In its place was a mass of disquieting images, personalities, details.
The Humpty-Dumpty cookie baker, not wanting to think of his all-powerful mother as a “victim.” The mother who “ruffled feathers, stepped on toes.” Gurney wondered if the man was ever told about her earlobe on the sumac bush, the earlobe with the diamond stud in it.
Paul Mellani, a man whose rich father gave all his money, therefore all his love, to someone else. A man whose career had lost its meaning, whose life had turned gray, whose thoughts were grim and sour-and whose language, demeanor, and lifeless office were the equivalent of a suicide note.
Jesus… suppose…
Madeleine was watching him across the table. “What’s the matter?”
“I was just thinking about one of the people Kim and I visited today.”
“Go on.”
“I’m trying to go back over what he said. He sounded… pretty depressed.”
Madeleine’s gaze grew more intense. “What did he say?”
“That’s what I’m trying to remember. The thing that comes to mind was a comment he made. He’d just told us his sister was dead. Then he said, ‘Dead isn’t so bad.’ Something like that.”
“Nothing more direct? No expression of any intention to do anything?”
“No. Just… a heaviness, a… lack of… I don’t know.”
Madeleine looked anguished.
“The guy at your clinic, the patient who killed himself? Was he specific about…?”
“No, of course not, or he would have been taken to a psych ward. But he definitely had that…
Gurney sighed. “Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter what we think someone
“Jack, I want to increase my enormous indebtedness to you by asking for one more tiny favor. There’s an accountant down in Orange County by the name of Paul Mellani. Happens to be the son of Bruno Mellani, the first Good Shepherd victim. I’d like to know if he has any guns registered. I have a concern about him, and I’d like to know how much I should worry. Thanks.”
