He made a decision. He drove slowly into the barn—as far as he could into its dark recesses. Then he took his file of Orphans data and police reports, got out of the car, and locked the doors. It was exactly noon. He was going to have a long wait, but he was prepared to make good use of it.

He proceeded on foot down through the tangled field and along the road to Clinter’s driveway. Walking in along the narrow causeway that traversed the beaver pond and adjacent swamp, Gurney was struck again by the godforsaken loneliness of the place.

As promised, the front door of the cabin was unlocked. The interior, which seemed to consist of one large room, had the musty smell of a place whose windows are rarely opened. The log walls contributed another smell, woody and acidic. The furniture looked like it had come from a store specializing in the “rustic” style. It was a man’s environment. A hunter’s environment.

There was a stove, a sink, and a refrigerator against one wall; a long table with three chairs against the adjacent wall; a low single bed against another wall. The floor was made of dark-stained pine boards. The outline of what appeared to be a trapdoor in the floor caught Gurney’s eye. There was a finger hole drilled near one edge, presumably as a way of lifting it open. Out of curiosity, Gurney tried it, but it wouldn’t budge. Presumably, at some time in the past, it had been sealed shut. Or, knowing Clinter, there might be a concealed lock somewhere. Perhaps that’s where he stored the “collectible” guns he sold to other “collectors” without the need for a federal firearms license.

There was a window that provided some illumination over the long table, as well as a view of the path outside. Gurney settled down there in one of the three chairs and tried to arrange his thick handful of papers in a practical sequence for the hours ahead. After making a few piles, shifting items from pile to pile, and moving the piles into various orders of priority, he abandoned his efforts at organization and decided to start wherever he felt like starting.

Steeling himself, he picked up the sheaf of ten-year-old autopsy photos and chose the ones that documented the head wounds. Once again he found them horrific—the way the massive traumas distorted the facial features of the victims into grotesque facsimiles of living emotions. Once again the gross violation of their personal dignity outraged him, renewing his resolution to give them the respect they deserved—to restore, by bringing their killer to justice, the dignity that had been stolen from them.

That sense of resolution felt good. It felt purposeful, uncomplicated, energizing. But the good feeling soon began to fade.