“So I’ve got an odd little mystery on my hands. I don’t suppose Agent in Charge Trout would be willing to talk to me?”

“Matt Trout? You must be joking.”

“Yeah, that’s me. Old laugh-a-minute Dave. Thanks for your time, Rebecca.”

The perplexed look was still on her face as she turned and went into the lobby.

Chapter 19

Making Waves

Three young boys in red T-shirts and shorts were kicking a soccer ball back and forth on the perfect lawn at the edge of the lake. They seemed not to care that the sun had disappeared behind an advancing cloud bank, pushing early spring back into late winter.

Gurney stood up from the table, rubbing the chill out of his arms. Just about every part of his body was aching now from his fall the night before. The tinnitus, of which he had been aware only sporadically, now seemed more intrusive. As he moved a little unsteadily toward the door that led to the lobby, it was opened for him by a conservatively uniformed young man with an automatic smile and an indistinct voice that blurred his words.

“Excuse me?” said Gurney.

The young man spoke louder, like an attendant in a nursing home. “Just asking, sir, is everything all right?”

“Yes, fine, thank you.”

Gurney made his way back to the parking area. A foursome of golfers in traditional plaid pants and V-neck sweaters were just getting out of an oversize white SUV that reminded him of an upscale kitchen appliance. Normally the thought that someone had paid seventy-five thousand dollars to ride around in a giant toaster would have made him smile. But now it struck him as just one more symptom of a degenerating world, a world in which acquisitive morons were conniving endlessly to amass the largest possible piles of crap.

Maybe the Good Shepherd had a point.

He got into his car, sat back, and closed his eyes.

He realized he was thirsty. He looked into the backseat, where he knew he had a couple of bottles of water, but they were nowhere in sight, which meant they’d rolled off the backseat and under the front seat. He got out, opened the rear door, and retrieved one of the bottles. He drank about half of it and got into the car again.

He closed his eyes once more, thinking he might clear his head with a five-minute nap. But one thing Holdenfield had said kept interrupting his desire for oblivion.

You must be joking.

He told himself it was just an offhand comment—that Holdenfield had been referring to Trout’s self-important pretense of inaccessibility, not to his own insignificance in the world of active law enforcement—or that it was simply her brusque way of deflecting what she interpreted as a request for an introduction. In either case, brooding over it would be a childish waste of time.