“Well, Dan, like any normal human being, I find that my feelings here run the gamut from horror to outrage. But I do believe that in God’s economy there is a purpose in every event, however dreadful that event may seem to our merely human way of seeing. ‘But, Reverend Prunk,’ someone might ask me, ‘what could be the purpose in this nightmare?’ And I would say to him that in the demonstration of so much evil there is much to be learned about the nature of evil in our world today. This monster has no respect for his victims. They are chaff to be blown away in the wind of his willfulness. They are nothing. A wisp of smoke. A piece of dirt. This is the lesson the Lord has placed before our eyes. He is showing us the true nature of evil. To extinguish life, to blow it away like a wisp of smoke, to trample it like a piece of dirt, that is the essence of evil! This is the lesson the Lord raises up for the righteous to see in the deeds of the devil.”

“Thank you, sir.” The anchor turned back to the camera. “As always, wise words from the Reverend Emmet Prunk. And now some important information from the good people who make RAM News possible.”

A sequence of loud, hyperactive commercials took the place of the talking heads.

“Jesus,” muttered Gurney, looking across the table at Bullard.

She met his gaze. “Tell me again that you’re not doing business with those people.”

“I’m not doing business with those people.”

She held his gaze a little longer, then made the kind of face she might make if one of the peppers were repeating on her. “Let’s back up to your point about certain lines of inquiry being aborted by the arrival of the manifesto. Have you given any thought to what they might be?”

“The obvious stuff. To start with, cui bono? The simple question of who might have profited in a practical way from all six murders has to top the list of things that were never pursued once the manifesto got everyone pointed in the mission-killer direction.”

“Okay, I hear you. What else?”

“A connection. Some background linkage among the victims.”

“Other than the Mercedes thing?”

“Right.”

She looked skeptical. “Problem with that is that it would make the cars secondary. If they weren’t the primary criterion for the attacks, then they must have been coincidental. Hell of a coincidence, don’t you think?”

Her objection was a direct echo of Jack Hardwick’s. Gurney had had no answer for it then, and he still didn’t.

“What else?” she asked.

“In-depth investigations of each individual case.”

“What do you mean?”

“Once the serial pattern was evident, it dictated the nature of the investigation.”

“Of course it did. How else—”