Let the Devil Sleep

“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.

Lost in the miasma of depression, might he be planning to end it all? Or, God forbid, perhaps he already had? Perhaps that’s why the calls went into voice mail?

Or what if Gurney had it all backward? What if the purpose of the Desert Eagle wasn’t suicidal but homicidal?

What if it had always been homicidal? What if…

Jesus Christ! What if. What if. What if. Enough! The man had a legal permit to possess a legal handgun. There were millions of depressed people in the world who never came close to harming themselves or anyone else. Yes, the brand name of the handgun raised obvious questions, but these questions could be asked and answered when Mellani called back, which he surely would. Strange coincidences usually had pedestrian explanations.

Chapter 30

Showtime

When Gurney arrived home at 2:02 P.M., Madeleine was out. Her car was still parked by the side door, which meant she was probably hiking one of the forest trails that radiated out from the high pasture.

During the final few miles of the drive, his obsession with Paul Mellani’s gun had subsided-only to be replaced by the echo of Hardwick’s Big Question: If the Good Shepherd murder spree wasn’t the psycho mission described in the manifesto, then what was it?

Gurney got a pad and pen and sat down at the breakfast table. Putting things on paper was the best way he knew to minimize mental overload. The next hour produced the beginning of an investigatory premise and a short list of “starter” questions that might open up avenues worth exploring.

PREMISE: There are irreconcilable differences in thought processes and style between the efficient, machinelike planning and execution of the murders and the sententious, fake-biblical pronouncements of the manifesto. True personality is revealed by behavior. Brilliance and efficiency can’t be faked. The disconnect between the killer’s way of acting and his emotional psycho-mission-based explanation of that action suggests that the explanation may be false and designed to distract attention from a more pragmatic motive.

QUESTIONS:

If not because of their “greed,” why were these victims chosen?

What is the significance of the similar vehicles?

Why did the murders occur when they did, in the spring of the year 2000?

Was the sequence in which they occurred significant?

Were they all equally important?

Were any of the six necessitated by any of the others?

Why such a dramatic weapon?

Why the little plastic animals at the shooting sites?

What lines of inquiry did the arrival of the manifesto cut off?

Gurney looked over what he had written, knowing that it was the barest beginning and not expecting an immediate breakthrough insight. He knew that “Aha!” moments never occurred on demand.

He decided to share his list with Hardwick to see what kind of response it would provoke. And with Holdenfield, for the same reason. He wondered about giving a copy to Kim and decided not to. Her goals were different from his, and his questions would only upset her again.

He went to his computer in the den, wrote separate introductions on e-mails to Hardwick and to Holdenfield, and sent them. After he printed a copy to show to Madeleine, he stretched out on the den couch and fell asleep.

“Dinner.”

“Hmm?”

“Dinnertime.” Madeleine’s voice. Somewhere.

He blinked, gazed blearily up at the ceiling, thought he saw a pair of spiders gliding across the white surface. He blinked again, rubbed his eyes, and the spiders disappeared. His neck hurt. “What time is it?”

“Nearly six.” She was standing in the den doorway.