He took it out, glanced at the ID, and smiled. “I have a feeling I’m going to get asked that question again in about five seconds.” He stood up from the table and put the phone to his ear. “Hello, Rebecca. Thanks for getting back to me.”

“ ‘A fatal flaw in the FBI construct’?” There was a cutting edge of anger in her voice. “What was that message all about?”

Gurney stepped away from the table in the direction of the French doors. “Nothing conclusive. I just have questions. There may or may not be a problem, depending on what the answers are.” He stood with his back to the others, looking out toward the western hills and the purple remnants of the sunset without really registering the beauty of what he was seeing. He was focused on one objective: getting invited to a meeting with Agent Trout.

“Questions? What questions?”

“Actually, I have quite a few. You have time to listen?”

“Not really. But I’m curious. Go ahead.”

“The first is the biggest. Did you ever have any doubts about the case?”

“Doubts? Like what?”

“Like what it was really all about.”

“You’re not making sense. Be more specific.”

“You, the FBI, the forensic-psych community, criminologists, sociologists—just about everyone but Max Clinter—all seem to agree on everything. I’ve never seen such a cozy level of consensus around what is essentially an unsolved series of crimes.”

“Cozy?” There was acid in her voice.

“I’m not implying anything corrupt. It just seems as if everyone—with the conspicuous exception of Clinter—is perfectly happy with the existing narrative. All I’m asking is whether this agreement is as universal as it seems and how certain you are about it personally.”

“Look, David, I don’t have all evening for this conversation. Cut to the chase and tell me what’s bothering you.”

Gurney took a deep breath, trying to defuse his irritation at her irritation. “What’s bothering me is that there are a lot of elements in the case and they all have to be interpreted in a particular way in order to support the overarching narrative. And I get the impression that it’s the narrative that’s driving the interpretation of its elements, rather than the other way around.” Rather than the way a sane, objective, reliable analysis should be conducted, he was tempted to add but didn’t.

Holdenfield hesitated. “Be more specific.”

“There are obvious questions raised by each data point, each bit of evidence, each fact. The answers to all of them appear to be coming from the investigative premise instead of the investigative premise coming from the answers to the questions.”

“You call that being more specific?”