“That’s my question to you.”

Holdenfield sighed impatiently, then spoke very quickly. “Max Clinter is a furious narcissist who believes that the Good Shepherd case is all about him. He’s full of conspiracy theories that make no sense. He’s also a self-indulgent drunk who screwed up his own life and his family’s life in the course of one calamitous evening—and ever since then he’s been trying to connect the dots in any weird way he can to blame everybody but himself.”

“Why do you think he’s dead?”

“What?”

“You said the Good Shepherd might be dead.”

“That’s right. Might be.”

“So why else would he have stopped?”

She uttered another impatient sigh, more theatrical than the last. “Maybe one of Clinter’s wild bullets came too close for comfort or even hit him. Maybe he had a breakdown, a psychotic decompensation. He could be in a mental hospital or even prison, for events unrelated to the shootings. There could be any number of reasons he dropped out of sight. There’s no point in speculating without additional evidence.” Holdenfield stepped away from the table. “Sorry. Got to go.” She gave Gurney a quick farewell nod and started to head for the door that separated the veranda from the hotel lobby.

Gurney spoke to her back. “Is there any reason someone would want to prevent a reexamination of the case?”

She turned and stared at him. “What are you talking about?”

“The young woman who’s making the documentary I mentioned earlier? Strange things have been happening to her. Things that could be interpreted as threats. Or, at the very least, as hostile suggestions that she back away from the project.”

Holdenfield looked perplexed. “Like what?”

“Unauthorized entries into her apartment, personal objects moved, kitchen knives missing and reappearing in places they shouldn’t be, drops of blood, flipped circuit breakers cutting off the lights, a sawed step in the cellar stairs rigged to break …” He was about to mention the whispered warning, but his insecurity about it stopped him. “There’s a chance she’s being harassed for another reason, that the threats are not directly related to the case—but I think they are. Let me ask you something: In the event that the Good Shepherd is still out there somewhere, do you think he’d want to keep the case from being discussed on television?”

She shook her head definitively. “Just the opposite. He’d love it. You’re talking about someone who wrote a twenty-page manifesto and then mailed it to every major media outlet in the country. These psychopaths with societal grudges want an audience. They crave it. They want the importance of their mission to be recognized. By everyone.”

“Can you think of anyone else who might want to get in the way?”

“No, I can’t.”