The scene on the screen changed to the dimly lit interior of a moving vehicle at night, a driver and a passenger in the front seat, unrecognizable in the darkness. They were speaking, laughing softly. A few seconds later, the headlights of a vehicle behind them were visible. The approaching headlights grew brighter, moving to the left side of their car, suggesting that the pursuing vehicle was about to pass. Then there was a sudden flash of white light on the screen, with the simultaneous explosive sound effect of a gunshot, followed by the tire screech of a vehicle out of control, prolonged metallic crashing sounds, and the shattering of glass.

The narrator returned to the screen. He bent over and picked up a piece of twisted debris from the ground, brandishing it as though it were a significant piece of evidence from the crime he was describing. “The Mellani car flew off the road. It was so badly mangled that the first responders had trouble identifying the make and model. A third of Bruno Mellani’s head was blown away by the impact of a bullet from a huge handgun. Carmella Mellani’s injuries put her into a coma that she remains in to this day.”

Staring at the computer screen, Madeleine screwed up her face in disgust. She seemed to be finding the RAM approach more disturbing than the event it was depicting.

The narrator went on to give super-dramatic descriptions of the five other Good Shepherd shootings, culminating in a long description of the Harold Blum fiasco that led to the unraveling of Max Clinter’s career and life.

“God,” said Madeleine, “this stuff is way over the top.”

Gurney nodded.

The camera zoomed in to a medium shot of the narrator-turned-host, sitting in an interview environment with two men. “Ten years,” he said. “Ten years, and yet to some of us it seems so recent. You may be asking, why revisit that horror now? The answer is simple: because a ten-year anniversary is a natural stopping point, a point at which we often find it appropriate to pause and look back on triumphs and tragedies alike.”

The host addressed a dark-complected man in one of the chairs across from him. “Dr. Mirkilee, your specialty is forensic psycholinguistics. Could you explain that term to our audience?”

“Of course. It’s finding the thinking in the words.” His voice was small, quick, precise, very Indian. A subtitle appeared on the bottom of the screen: DR. SAMMARKAN MIRKILEE, PH.D.

“The thinking?”

“The person, the emotion, the background. The way the mind works.”

“So you’re an expert at the way words, grammar, style all come together to reveal the inner man?”

“This is true, yes.”

“All right, Dr. Mirkilee, I’m going to read you some excerpts from a document sent by the Good Shepherd to the media ten years ago, and I’m going to ask you for your insights into the author’s mind. Ready?”