Hardwick theorized that Jimi could have killed his father out of pure hatred for him and the materialistic priorities embodied in his choice of car, and killed the other five because they, with their similar cars, were just like his father. In that way there would have been one primary and five secondary victims.

However, although there was something tantalizing about the theory, it didn’t really jibe with Gurney’s knowledge of pathological killers. They tended to kill either the primary object of their hatred or a series of substitutes, not both. So the primary-secondary motivation structure didn’t quite …

Or did it?

Suppose …

Suppose the killer did have one primary target. One person he wanted to kill. And suppose he killed the five others not because they reminded him of the primary—but because they would remind the police of the primary.

Suppose he killed those other five people simply to create the impression of a different kind of crime. At the very least, those extra victims would clutter the field so thoroughly that it would make it impossible for the police, or anyone else, to see clearly who among the six the primary really was. And, of course, the way the Good Shepherd murder scheme had been engineered, the police would never even get to the point of asking that question.

Why would it occur to them that the six were really the sum of one and five? Why would they even start down that road? Especially if they had, from the very beginning, a solid theory of the case that made all six targets equally important. Especially if they’d received a mission killer’s manifesto that made all the murders make equal sense. A manifesto that explained everything. A manifesto so cleverly constructed and so reflective of the details of the crimes that the best and the brightest swallowed it whole.

Gurney had the feeling that finally he might be seeing something clearly—a sense that the fog was starting to lift. It was his first vision of the case that seemed, at least at first glance, coherent.

As with most of the insights in his career, his immediate thought was that it should have occurred to him sooner. After all, this way of looking at the murders was only a small turn of the dial from Madeleine’s description of that pivotal scene in The Man with the Black Umbrella. But sometimes a millimeter makes all the difference.

On the other hand, not every idea that feels right is right. Gurney knew from experience how dangerously easy it is to overlook logical flaws in one’s thinking. When the product of one’s own mind is the subject, objectivity is an illusion. We all believe we have an open mind, but no one really does. A devil’s-advocate process is essential.