Hardwick took a rumpled tissue out of his sweatpants pocket and blew his nose in it. “So what are you asking me?”

“Just for your gut sense of how much of that stuff fits into one big picture and how much is likely to be something else entirely.”

Hardwick made a clucking sound with his tongue. “I don’t know about the arrow. Maybe if someone shot an arrow up your ass, but … stuck in the ground out there with the turnips? That doesn’t mean much to me.”

“And the other stuff?”

“The other stuff would get my attention. Apartment bugging, barn burning, booby-trapping the staircase, the trapdoor in the young lady’s ceiling—that kind of shit requires an investment of time and energy, plus legal risks. So it’s serious. Meaning there’s something serious at stake. I’m not giving you any news here, right?”

“Not really.”

“You’re asking me, do I think it’s all tied together in a grand conspiracy?” He screwed his face up into an exaggerated mask of indecision. “Best answer is something you said to me a long time ago when we were working on the Mellery job. ‘It’s safer to assume there’s a connection that turns out to be false than to ignore one that turns out to be true.’ But there’s a bigger question.” He paused to belch. “If the Good Shepherd case wasn’t about the righteous slaughter of the evil rich, then what the fuck was it about? Answer that, Mr. Holmes, and you’ll have the answers to all your other questions. You want another Grolsch?”

Gurney shook his head.

“By the way, if you really try to demolish the case premise, you’ll be in the middle of a once-in-a-lifetime shit storm. Galileo at the Vatican. You understand that, right?”

“I started getting the message today.” Gurney pictured Agent Trout, baleful Doberman at his side, on his cheerless Adirondack porch. His references to “complications.” His allusion to the arson situation. And Daker, the assassin in a hundred films.

“Okay, my boy, just so you know. Because—” The ring of Jack’s cell phone interrupted him. He pulled it out of his pocket. “Hardwick.” He was quiet at first, his expression growing more interested, more perplexed. “Right … Right … What? … Holy shit! … Yeah … That was the only one? … You have the original application date? … Okay … Right … Thanks … Yeah … Bye.” When he ended the call, he continued to stare at the phone as though some additional clarification might emerge from it.

“The hell was that about?” asked Gurney.

“Answer to your question.”

“Which one?”

“You asked me to find out if Paul Mellani had any registered guns.”

“And?”

“He has one handgun. A Desert Eagle.”