Clinter looked thoughtful, then recited the names in a kind of rapid rhythmic litany: “Mellani, Rotker, Sterne, Stone, Brewster, Blum.” The thoughtful look deepened into a frown. “Plenty of oddities. Connections are more elusive. I spent weeks, years on the Internet. Followed names to news stories, news stories to more names, organizations, companies, back and forth, one thing leading to ten other things. Bruno Mellani and Harold Blum went to the same high school in Brooklyn, different years. Ian Sterne’s son had a girlfriend who was one of the victims of the White Mountain Strangler. She was a senior at Dartmouth at the very same time that Jimi Brewster was there as a freshman. Sharon Stone may once have shown a house to Roberta Rotker, whose Rottweilers came from a kennel in Williamstown two miles down the road from Dr. Brewster’s estate. I could go on. But you get my point? Connections of a sort, with significance yet to be determined.”

A cold gust swept across the pasture, bending the stiff, dry weeds.

Gurney stuffed his hands into his jacket pockets. “You never found a thread that connected them all?”

“Not a thing, except the fucking cars. Of course, I was the only one looking. I know what my colleagues were thinking: The cars are the obvious connection, so why look for a second connection?”

“But you think there is one, don’t you?”

“I don’t think there is. I’m sure there is. A bigger scheme that no one’s figured out. But we’re past that now.”

“Past it?”

“The Shepherd’s on the move. Setting me up. To finish me off. All coming to a head. So much for thinking and weighing and figuring. The time for thinking’s behind us. It’s time for combat. Got to go. Time’s running out.”

“One last question, Max: Does the statement ‘Let the devil sleep’ mean anything to you?”

“Not a thing.” His eyes widened. “It’s an eerie kind of saying, though, isn’t it? Pushes one’s mind in a peculiar direction. Where’d you hear it?”

“In a dark basement.”

Clinter stared at Gurney for a long moment. “Sounds like a good place for it.” He adjusted his black helmet, revved his engine, gave a small military salute, pivoted the bike in a rapid one-eighty, and made his way down the hill.

When bike and rider were out of sight, Gurney trudged back up to the house, mulling over the odd little “links” Clinter had found among the families. It brought to mind the six-degrees-of-separation concept and the related likelihood that any significant probing of people’s lives might turn up a surprising number of places where their paths had crossed.

The elephant in the room continued to be, as Clinter had put it, “the fucking cars.”

Back in the kitchen, Gurney had another cup of coffee. Madeleine came into the house through the mudroom and asked mildly, “Friend of yours?”