“The fact that Jimi’s alibi sounded more like a motive—at least in the case of his father. Jimi was in county lockup on the dates of the first four attacks because he couldn’t make bail on an LSD-possession charge and his father refused to help—let him sit in a cell for a couple of weeks. Jimi finally got some ex-girlfriend to come up with the bail money, and he was released—seething with anger—about three hours before his father was killed.”

“Was he ever considered a suspect?”

“Not really. The MO on Dr. Brewster was a perfect match with the others. And Jimi couldn’t have copied it, because at that point none of the details had been publicized.”

“So we can forget about Jimi.”

“Seems so. Too bad, in a way. He could have fit nicely into one of those possibilities on that list of yours.”

“What do you mean?”

“That question you had about whether all the Good Shepherd victims were equally important. Well, if there was some way Jimi could have killed them all, his father would have been the one that mattered the most, and the others would have been like some kind of emotional spillover—people who drove his father’s kind of car, which might have made them equally despicable, equally killable in his warped little mind. Duplicate targets. Guilt by association.” He paused. “Oh, fuck that. What am I talking about? That’s all psychobabble.”

Chapter 39

Blood and Shadows

When she got home from her clinic meeting, exhausted and indignant, Madeleine seemed to be on her own wavelength. After a few comments about the miseries built into bureaucracies, she headed for bed, War and Peace tucked under her arm.

Shortly after that, Kim said something about wanting to be fresh and rested for the following day’s meeting with Rudy Getz, said good night, and went upstairs.

Then Kyle followed.

When Gurney heard Madeleine click off her reading light, he closed up the woodstove, checked that the doors and windows were locked, washed a few glasses that had been left in the sink, found himself yawning, and decided it was time to go to bed himself.

As weary and overloaded as he felt, however, going to bed was a very different thing from going to sleep. The main effect of lying there in the dark was to create a limitless space in which the elements of the Good Shepherd case could whirl around, untethered to the real world.

His feet were sweating and cold at the same time. He wanted to put on warm socks but couldn’t muster the motivation to get out of bed. As he gazed gloomily out the large, curtainless window nearest him, it struck him that the silver moonlight was covering the high pasture like the phosphorescence of a dead fish.