The interior of the house was as uninviting as the outside. The furniture in the small front room was minimal and worn-looking. There was a colorless couch against one wall and a small rectangular table pushed against the opposite wall with a folding chair on each of its exposed sides.

There was a closed door on each side of the couch. A door in the rear of the room provided a glimpse of a narrow kitchen. The light was coming primarily from a wide window over the table.

As the camera panned around the cramped space, Kim’s voice could be heard. “Robby, turn that off until we get settled.” The camera continued to run, zooming in slowly on the slight, red-haired man, who was shifting his weight from foot to foot with a twitchy energy. It was hard to tell whether he was smiling or grimacing.

“Robby. The camera. Off. Please.” Despite Kim’s peremptory tone, the video continued for at least ten seconds more before fading to black.

When the picture and sound resumed, Kim and Jimi Brewster were sitting across from each other at the table. The picture angle and framing suggested that Meese was probably operating the camera from somewhere on the couch.

“All right,” said Kim with the kind of enthusiasm Gurney remembered seeing in her the day he met her. “Let’s get right into it. I want to say again, Jimi, how much I appreciate your willingness to take part in this documentary project. By the way, would you prefer that I call you Jimi or Mr. Brewster?”

He shook his head—a small, jerky movement. “Doesn’t matter. Whatever.” He began drumming his fingernails lightly in a staccato rhythm on the tabletop.

“Okay. If it’s all the same to you, I’ll call you Jimi. As I explained while we had the camera turned off, this conversation we’re having now is a preliminary run-through of some questions I’ll be asking you at a future date in a more formal—”

He stopped his drumming abruptly and broke in. “Do you think I killed him?”

“Excuse me?”

“That’s what everyone secretly wonders.”

“I’m sorry, Jimi, but I’m not following—”

Again he interrupted her. “But if I killed him, then I must have killed them all. Which is why they couldn’t arrest me, because I have an alibi for the first four.”

“I’m lost here, Jimi. I never thought that you killed—”

“I wish I had.”

Kim paused, looked stunned. “You wish … that you’d killed your father?”

“And all the others. Do you think I look like the Good Shepherd?”

“What?”

“I mean, like the way you imagine the Good Shepherd would look?”

“I never … I never really pictured him.”

Brewster started drumming his fingernails again. “Because he did everything in the dark?”

“The dark? No, I just … I just never pictured him, I don’t know why.”

“Do you think he’s a monster?”