“Ten. Exactly ten years ago. His attacks all occurred in the spring of the year 2000.”

Gurney sat back in his chair, nodding thoughtfully, recalling the infamous series of six shootings that had half the Northeast afraid to drive at night. “Interesting. So the nature of the initiating event is the same in all six instances, elapsed time from the crime to the present is the same, same shooter, same motive, same level of investigative attention.”

“Right! And the same failure to bring the killer to justice—the same lack of closure, the same open wound. It makes the Good Shepherd case a perfect way to examine how different families react over time to the same catastrophe, how they live with the loss, how they deal with the injustice, what it does to them—especially what it does to the children. Different outcomes to the same tragedy.”

She stood and went to the filing cabinet next to the table-desk. She removed a shiny blue folder and handed it to Gurney. On the cover was a label with bold type that read, THE ORPHANS OF MURDER, A DOCUMENTARY PROPOSAL BY KIM CORAZON.

Perhaps because she noticed his gaze settle on “Corazon,” she said, “Did you think my name was Clarke?”

He thought back to the time when Connie had interviewed him for the New York magazine profile. “I think Clarke was the only family name I heard mentioned.”

“Clarke is Connie’s maiden name. She went back to it when she divorced my father, when I was a kid. His name was—is—Corazon. And so is mine.” Under the thin surface of this factual statement, there was an obvious resentment. He wondered if that resentment was the cause of her reluctance to refer to Connie as “Mom” or “Mother.”

Gurney had no desire to probe that area. He opened the folder, saw that it held a thick document, well over fifty pages. The cover page repeated the title. The second page provided a table of contents: “Concept,” “Documentary Overview,” “Style and Methodology,” “Case-Selection Criteria,” “The Good Shepherd Homicide Victims and Circumstances,” “Prospective Interviewees,” “Contact Summaries and Status,” “Initial Interview Transcripts,” “TGSMOI (Appendix).”

He went through the contents list again, more slowly. “You wrote this? Organized it this way?”

“Yes. Is there a problem?”

“Not at all.”

“What, then?”

“The way you spoke about this earlier showed a lot of passion. The organization shows a lot of logic.” What he was thinking was that her passion reminded him of Madeleine and her logic reminded him of himself. “This sounds like something I’d have written.”

She gave him a sly look. “I guess that’s a compliment, right?”

He laughed out loud for the first time that day, maybe the first time that month. After a pause he glanced back at the last item of the contents list. “I assume TGS stands for ‘The Good Shepherd.’ What about the MOI?”