Psycho-mission killings usually took one of two forms: There’s the Big Bang approach, where the shooter walks into the midst of multiple targets in the post office or the mosque and starts shooting, with no plan of escape. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, those guys (and they’re always guys) end up shooting themselves when there’s no one else left to shoot. Then there’s the other type—the guys who dribble out their bile for ten or twenty years. The guys who like to blow off somebody’s head or hand with a letter bomb every year or two but aren’t so eager to kill themselves.

The Good Shepherd murders didn’t seem to fit either category. There was a palpable coolness, a lack of emotion, in their crisp planning and execution. In any event that’s what Gurney was telling himself when the phone rang at nine-fifteen.

Once again it was Hardwick, but his tone was heavier than before.

“Whatever game is being played in whatever ballpark, it just got nastier. Ruthie Blum has turned up dead.”

Gurney’s first thought, one that made him instantly nauseous, was that she’d been shot in the head like her husband ten years earlier. The sickening image that leaped into his mind was of her perky Yorkshire-terrier hairdo blasted into a bloody, brainy mess.

“Oh, God, no. Where? How?”

“In her house. Ice pick to the heart.”

“What?”

“You expressing surprise or bad hearing?”

“An ice pick?”

“Single thrust, upward, under the sternum.”

“Jesus Christ. When?”

“Sometime after eleven last night.”

“How do they know that?”

“She posted a Facebook message at ten fifty-eight. Body was found at three-forty this morning.”

“This is the same house where she lived ten years ago when—”

“Right. Same house. Also the same house where little Kimmy interviewed her for that thing on RAM-TV.”

Gurney’s mind was racing. “Who found her?”

“Troopers out of the Auburn station in Zone E. Long story. Friend of Ruth’s from Ithaca, up late, read her Facebook message. Found it disturbing. Responded to it on Facebook, asking Ruthie if she was all right. Got no answer back. E-mailed her, got no answer to that either. Started phoning her, no answer, only voice mail. So the friend gets panicky, calls the local cops, gets passed on to the sheriff’s office, eventually gets passed on to Auburn. Auburn contacts a cruiser in the vicinity. Trooper comes by the house, everything looks peaceful, no problem, no signs of any disturbance, no—”

“Wait a second. You have any idea what Ruth Blum’s original message said that started all this?”

“I just e-mailed it to you.”

“How’d you manage that?”

“Andy Clegg.”

“Who the hell is Andy Clegg?”

“Young guy up in E Zone. You don’t remember him?”

“Should I?”

“The Piggert case.”

“Okay. Now the name rings a bell. But I can’t picture a face.”