“Course not.” Gurney moved a bit to make more room.

“Man, this is really dark out here.” There was the sound of something falling in the woods on the other side of the pond. “Oh, shit! What the hell was that?”

“No idea.”

“You sure there are no animals in those woods?”

“The woods are full of animals. Deer, bears, foxes, coyotes, bobcats.”

“Bears?”

“Black bears. Generally harmless. Unless they have cubs.”

“And you really have bobcats?”

“One or two. Sometimes I’ll see one in my headlights as I’m coming up the hill.”

“Wow. That’s pretty wild. I’ve never seen a bobcat, not a real one.” He fell silent for a minute or so. Gurney was about to ask him what was on his mind when he continued. “You really think there’s more to the Shepherd case than people realize?”

“Could be.”

“You sounded pretty sure on the phone. I think that’s why Kim got so bothered.”

“Yeah, well …”

“So what do you think everybody’s missing?”

“How much do you know about the case?”

“Like I told you before dinner—everything. At least everything that was on TV.”

Gurney shook his head in the dark. “It’s funny—I don’t recall you as being that interested at the time.”

“Well, I was. But there’s no reason you’d remember that. I mean, you were never really there.”

“I was around when you came on weekends. Sundays anyway.”

“You were there physically, but you always seemed … I don’t know, like, mentally you were always tied up in something important.”

After a pause Gurney said, a little haltingly, “And … I guess … after you got involved with Stacey Marx … you weren’t coming every weekend.”

“No, I guess not.”

“After you broke up, did you stay in touch with her?”

“Didn’t I ever tell you about that?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Stacey got all fucked up. In and out of rehabs. Kinda fried, actually. Saw her at Eddie Burke’s wedding. You remember Eddie Burke, right?”

“Sort of. Redheaded kid?”

“No, that was his brother Jimmy. Anyway, no matter. Basically, Stacey is fried.”

A long silence fell between them. Gurney’s mind felt empty, unfocused, uneasy.

“It’s kind of chilly down here,” said Kyle. “You want to come back up to the house?”

“Yeah. I’ll be up in a minute.”

Neither of them moved.

“So … you never finished saying what it is about the Good Shepherd case that’s getting to you. You seem to be the only person who has a problem with it.”

“Maybe that’s the problem.”

“That’s way too Zen for me.”