Let the Devil Sleep

or someone wants us to think so. Call me as soon as you can.”

He tried Kyle’s number, got his voice mail, and left the same message.

He stood staring out the north window of the den at the wet, gray hillside. The rain had stopped, but the eaves continued to drip. The new information from Hardwick was scattering rather than organizing his thoughts. So damn many bits and pieces. It was impossible to see the path through the maze. To take a step forward, one had to know where forward was. He was overcome by a sick feeling that time was running out, that the endgame was rapidly approaching, without even knowing what that might mean.

He had to do something.

For want of a better idea, he found himself in his car, setting out for Aurora.

Two hours later he was turning onto the state road that ran alongside Lake Cayuga, his GPS indicating he was just three miles from Ruth Blum’s address. The lake and its lakefront homes were visible through a border of bare trees on his left. On his right, separated from the road by a deep, grassy drainage swale, a pastoral mix of meadows and thickets sloped gradually up toward a high horizon of stubbled cornfields. Three commercial establishments on the upland side of the road were spaced out among a scattering of well-kept older homes. There was a gas station, a veterinary clinic, and an auto-body shop whose parking area held half a dozen cars in various stages of repair.

Not far past the body shop, Gurney rounded a long bend and saw ahead of him on the left side of the road the first indications of a major crime scene: an assortment of local, county, and state police cruisers. There were also four vans-two, presumably from regional media outlets, with satellite dishes on their roofs; one with the NYSP emblem, which Gurney assumed would contain the evidence team’s equipment; and one that was unmarked, probably the forensic photographer’s. There was no sign of a morgue vehicle, meaning someone from the ME’s office had already come and gone and the body had been transported from the scene.

As he drew closer, Gurney counted six uniformed officers with various jurisdictional insignias, a woman and a man in the conservative business attire favored by detective units, an evidence specialist in the white coveralls and latex gloves required by his occupation, and a fashionably dressed female TV type huddled with two ponytailed male technicians.

A uniformed trooper was standing in the middle of the road, aggressively waving along any car that seemed to be passing too slowly. As Gurney was coming abreast of the trooper and the Blum house behind him, he could see that POLICE LINE-DO NOT CROSS tape had been wrapped around the entire property from the edge of the lake up to the edge of the road. He reached into his glove box and pulled out a thin leather wallet, flipping it open to reveal a gold NYPD detective’s shield that bore in small letters at the bottom the word “Retired.”

Before the frowning trooper could examine it thoroughly, Gurney tossed it back in his glove box and asked if Senior Investigator Jack Hardwick was on the scene.

The trooper’s hat was tilted forward, its stiff brim shadowing his eyes. “Hardwick, BCI?”

“That’s right.”

“There some reason he should be here?”

Gurney sighed wearily. “I’m working on an investigation that could involve Ruth Blum. Hardwick’s aware of it.”

The trooper looked like he was having trouble deciphering that answer. “What’s your name?”

“Dave Gurney.”

The man eyed him with the combination of surface politeness and instinctive distrust with which most cops regard strangers. “Pull in right there.” He pointed to a space on the shoulder between the evidence van and one of the TV vans. “Stay in your car.” He turned away crisply and approached three figures engaged in an intense discussion next to the driveway. The individual to whom he spoke was a heavyset woman with short brown hair. She was wearing a navy blue jacket and matching pants. The gray-haired man on her right was in white coveralls. The younger man on her left wore a dark suit, white shirt, dark tie-the standard outfit shared by detectives, funeral directors, and Mormons. His heavily muscled shoulders, wide neck, and buzz cut made it clear which of those groups he belonged to.

As the traffic trooper was talking to them, the three looked over at Gurney in unison. The young man began grinning and speaking rapidly to the woman while gesturing in Gurney’s direction.

The grin rang a distant bell.

“Detective!” the woman called out, raising her hand to get his attention. “Detective Gurney.”

He got out of his car. As he did, he was greeted by the loud throb of a helicopter overhead. He looked up and through the treetops caught glimpses of the slowly circling craft. Giant white letters, RAM, painted on the bottom of the cabin caught his eye and provoked an involuntary grimace.

“Lieutenant Bullard wants to talk to you.” The trooper had come back over to Gurney and was lifting the police tape for him to enter the enclosed area. His tone made the tape gesture seem more proprietary than courteous.

Gurney bent forward to pass under the tape. As he did so, he couldn’t help noticing a deposit of roadway dirt that had settled into a long expansion crack separating the tarred driveway from the rougher composite pavement of the road shoulder. As he paused for a moment to take a closer look, the trooper let the tape drop on him and returned to his traffic duty.

When Gurney straightened up, the slightly familiar young man in the dark suit was walking toward him.

“Sir, you probably don’t remember me. I’m Andrew Clegg. We met during your investigation of-”

Gurney broke in warmly, “I remember you, Andy. Looks like you’ve been promoted.”

Again the grin. It turned him into a teenager. “Last month. Finally made it into BCI. You were one of my inspirations.” As he spoke, he was leading Gurney to the solidly built woman, who was talking to the departing tech in the white suit.

“If you want to bag the rug and bring it in, that’s fine, too. It’s up to you.” She turned toward Gurney. Her expression was alert and pleasantly businesslike. “Andy tells me that you and Jack Hardwick worked together on Piggert. Is that a fact?”

“That’s a fact.”

“Congrats. Big victory for the good guys.”

“Thank you.”

“His Satanic Santa case was even bigger,” said Clegg.

“Satanic…?” Now it was her turn to look as if a distant memory bell was ringing. “Was that the psycho who was cutting people up and mailing the pieces to the local cops?”

“In gift wrapping! As Christmas presents!” cried Clegg, clearly more captivated than horrified.

She stared at Gurney in amazement. “And you…?”

“Just happened to be in the right place at the right time.”

“That’s remarkable.” She extended her hand. “I’m Lieutenant Bullard. And you’re obviously a man who needs no further introduction. To what do we owe the pleasure?”

“This situation with Ruth Blum.”

“How so?”

“Did you see the program with her last night on RAM?”

“I’m aware of it. Why do you ask?”

“It might help you to understand what happened here.”

“How?”

“The program was the first of a series, dealing with the aftereffects of the six murders committed by the Good Shepherd back in 2000. What happened here was almost certainly the seventh Good Shepherd murder. And there may be more coming.”

Whatever cordiality had been in her expression had given way to cool assessment. “What exactly are you doing here?”

He began to consider his words carefully-but then thought to hell with that. “I’m here because I believe the FBI got the case backwards from day one, and what happened here may prove it.”

Her expression was hard to read. “Have you told them what you think?”

He gave her a quick smile. “It didn’t go over very well.”

She shook her head. “I’m not quite getting what you’re telling me. I don’t know on whose behalf or on whose authority you’ve come here.” She glanced at Clegg, who shifted uneasily from foot to foot. “Andy told me you were