“Not in this lifetime, at least not the way he described it,” said Dave. He coughed, cleared his throat. “Any chance I can get a refill?” As he spoke, he pointed at her cell phone.

She nodded and picked it up. “You are thirsty.” She stood noisily, giving her glass a sharp whack with her hand, knocking it over. “Shit! What a mess!” She stomped out of the room.

The glass was empty, there was no mess, but anyone listening in would be picturing one of those awkward moments in unrehearsed real life. Gurney smiled. The young lady had real talent.

A few moments later his phone rang. He picked it up and began his fictitious conversation.

“Max? … Sure, go ahead.… What do you mean? … Why are you asking? … What? … You’re serious? … Yes, yes, of course.… Right.… No, no, the Facebook message was a fake.… Ah, good point.… How sure are you? … Look, what you’re saying makes perfect sense, but that ID needs to be nailed down—I mean nailed down one hundred percent, no loose ends.… That’s absolutely incredible, but, Jesus Christ, I think you’re right.… Sure.… When? … Yeah, I’ll bring everything.… All right.… Yeah.… Be very careful.… Midnight tomorrow night.… Absolutely!”

Gurney went through the motions of pressing the button to end the call, then laid his phone on the table.

Kim came back into the room. “Here’s your refill,” she said, as though she were handing him a glass. “Who was that call from? You look pretty excited about something.”

“That was Max Clinter. It seems that the Good Shepherd finally made a major mistake—in addition to the ones at Ruth Blum’s and at the auto-body shop up the road. Those I already knew about, but Max just made another discovery, and … now we know who he is.”

“Oh, my God! You’ve identified the Good Shepherd?”

“Yes. At least I’m about ninety percent sure. But I want to make it a hundred percent. It’s too big a thing for there to be any open question.”

“Who is it? Tell me!”

“Not yet.”

“What do you mean, not yet?”

“I can’t take any chance of being wrong about it. Way too much at stake. I’m getting together with Clinter tomorrow night at his cabin. He has something I need to look at. If it matches what I’ve got, it’ll close the loop—and the Shepherd is history.”

“Why do you have to wait till tomorrow night? Why not right now?”

“Clinter’s been staying out of the area ever since he got a text message from the Shepherd tricking him into driving around Ruth’s neighborhood in Aurora. He got spooked. Doesn’t even want to be in Cayuga County in the daylight. He said midnight tomorrow was the soonest he could get to his cabin.”