Let the Devil Sleep

“Daker told me that your barn burned down under suspicious circumstances, that an arson investigator found your gas can hidden somewhere, and that I should exercise appropriate caution in dealing with you.”

“And what did that tell you?”

“That they don’t like you very much.”

“What a revelation!”

“Matthew Trout could be a troublesome enemy.”

“Into each life a little rain must fall.” Bullard nodded, almost smiled.

Then she got on her phone. “Andy? I need you to track down some handgun permit information… Paul Mellani… Yes, the same one… For a Desert Eagle… I’ve been told he has one, but the big question is when did he get it… The original permit date… Right… Thanks.”

They ate silently for a while, finishing their antipasti and most of the pizza, as a series of promos for grotesque RAM reality shows blared from the restaurant’s three TV screens.

One show was called Roller Coaster, and it apparently involved a contest in which four men and four women vied with one another to rack up the largest number of pounds lost or gained, or gained first and then lost, over a twenty-six-week period, during which they were forced to remain in one another’s constant company. A previous winner had gone from 130 pounds up to 261 pounds and back down to 129 pounds, thus earning both the Double-Up and the Half-Down bonus awards.

As Gurney was wondering if America owned a special patent on media insanity or if the whole world had lost its collective mind, his phone rang with a text message from Kim, telling him to check his e-mail for the video file of her conversation with Jimi Brewster.

Seeing her name on his ID screen reminded him of another logistics detail. He looked over at Bullard, who was gesturing to the waiter to bring the bill. “I assume you’ll want to run Kim Corazon’s copy of the Shepherd’s new message through the Albany lab. What do you want her to do with it?”

“Where is she now?”

“In my son’s apartment in Manhattan.”

She hesitated for a second or two, as if filing that fact for later examination. “Have her bring it to the state police liaison office at NYPD headquarters, One Police Plaza. When we get back to the unit, I’ll give you the routing instructions that need to go with it.”

Gurney was about to slip his phone back into his pocket when it occurred to him that Bullard might be interested in the Brewster video.

“By the way, Lieutenant, a while back Kim interviewed Jimi Brewster, one of the so-called Orphans. He’s the one who-”

She nodded. “The one who hated his surgeon father. I read about him in the background pile Daker dumped on me.”

“Right. Well, Kim just e-mailed me a video copy of her interview with him. You want it?”

“Of course I want it. Can you forward it to me right now?”

When they returned to the conference room, Trout, Daker, and Holdenfield were already at the table. Although Gurney and Bullard were just a minute late, Trout shot a sour glance at his watch.

“Got somewhere else you need to be?” asked Gurney, his casual tone and bland smile providing only thin cover for a dangerous level of hostility.

Trout chose not to answer, not even to look up, probing instead with a fingernail for a speck of something between his front teeth.

As soon as Bullard and Gurney had taken their seats, Clegg entered the room and placed a sheet of paper before the lieutenant, which she scanned with a curious frown. “Does this mean you’ve started making the warning calls?”

“Initial calls to establish contact,” said Clegg, “to find out quickly who’s reachable and who isn’t. We’re telling live contacts we’ll be getting back to them within the hour with information related to the case. With our voice-mail contacts, we’re asking for callbacks.”

Bullard nodded, her eyes running down the sheet again. “According to this you’ve spoken directly to Ruth Blum’s sister en route from Oregon to Aurora, to Larry Sterne in Stone Ridge, and to Jimi Brewster in Turnwell. What about the rest of the people on this list?”

“Callback requests have been left on the voice mails of Eric Stone, Roberta Rotker, and Paul Mellani.”

“Do we have their e-mail addresses?”

“I believe Kim Corazon supplied them for everyone on her contact list.”

“Then follow up your voice mails immediately with e-mails. Anyone we don’t hear back from within the next half hour, we follow up again. Tell Carly she’s got fifteen minutes to give me a draft. If we don’t get a response to the second message, we need to dispatch troopers to each physical address.”

After Clegg hurried out of the room, Bullard took a deep breath, sat back in her chair, and gazed thoughtfully at Trout. “Getting back to more difficult questions, do you have any ideas regarding the motive behind Ruth Blum’s murder?”

“It’s what I said before. Just look at the Shepherd’s message.”

“I have it memorized.”

“Then you know the motive as well as I do. The debut of The Orphans of Murder on RAM the other night hit his most sensitive nerve and brought the whole kill-the-rich mission back to life.”

“Dr. Holdenfield? You agree with that?”

Rebecca nodded stiffly. “In general, yes. More specifically, I’d say that the TV program brought his resentment back to life. It broke whatever dam had been holding the emotion in check for the past ten years. Then the rage began to flow again into his social-injustice fixation, and the murder was the result.”

“Interesting way of seeing it,” said Bullard. “Dave? How do you see it?”

“Cool, calculated, risk-averse-the opposite of Rebecca’s description. Zero rage. Total rationality.”

“And the totally rational motive for killing Ruth Blum would be…?”

“To stop the work being done on Orphans, because it posed a threat to him.”

“That threat being…?”

“Either something that Kim might discover as she continued the interviewing process or something that a viewer might realize while watching the series on TV.”

Bullard’s skepticism returned. “You mean a link that might connect the victims? Other than their cars? We just discussed the problem with-”

“Maybe it’s not a ‘link’ per se. Kim’s stated goal-widely advertised-was to reveal the effects of murder on the lives of the living. Maybe there’s something in the current lives of those families that the killer doesn’t want revealed-something that might point to his identity.”

Trout yawned.

Perhaps if he hadn’t, Gurney wouldn’t have felt compelled to add a final possibility. “Or maybe the murder, combined with the explanatory message, is an effort to make sure that everyone keeps thinking about the Good Shepherd attacks in the same old way. Maybe it’s an effort to head off the possibility of someone finally launching the kind of investigation that should have been conducted at the time.”

There was fury in Trout’s eyes. “What the hell do you know about what should have been done at the time?”

“What seems clear is that you viewed the case exactly the way the Good Shepherd wanted you to, and you acted accordingly.”

Trout stood up abruptly. “Lieutenant Bullard, as of now this case is coming under federal control. The chaos and crackpot theories you’re encouraging here don’t give me any alternative.” He pointed at Gurney. “This man is here at your invitation. He has no official standing. He has repeatedly voiced a stunning disrespect for the Bureau. He may very well become the central figure in a felony arson case. He may also be the recipient of illegally leaked materials from FBI and BCI files. He has suffered traumatic brain injury and may have physical and psychological impairments to his perception and judgment. I refuse to waste any more time debating anything with him, or in his presence. I’ll be speaking to your Major Forbes about the realignment of investigatory responsibility.”

Daker stood up next to Trout. He looked pleased.

“Sorry you feel that way,” said Bullard calmly. “My purpose in airing contrasting points of view was to test their