Madeleine looked interested, then frowned again. “So what’s the problem?”

“Nothing I can put my finger on. Maybe it’s just me. Like I said, I’m not in a great mood.”

Chapter 7

Ahab the Whale Chaser

The next morning, typical of spring in the Catskills, was cold and overcast, with occasional snowflakes blowing sideways past the Gurneys’ French doors.

At 8:00 A.M. Kim Corazon called with a revised plan. Instead of meeting with Jimi Brewster in Turnwell in the morning and then going on to a lunch meeting with Rudy Getz in Ashokan Heights, the first meeting was being scrapped in favor of an afternoon meeting with Larry Sterne at his Stone Ridge home, about twenty minutes south of the Ashokan Reservoir. The Getz lunch would remain in place.

“Any special reason for the change?” Gurney asked.

“Sort of. I set up the original schedule before I knew you’d be available. But Larry is more standoffish than Jimi, so I’d rather you were present for that. Jimi is a very opinionated leftist. So he’ll definitely participate—gives him a soapbox to attack materialism. But Larry’s not so easy. He seems disillusioned with media in general, because of the sensationalism surrounding a friend’s death years ago.”

“You understand I’m not helping you make a sales pitch, right?”

“Of course not! I just want you to listen, get a feel, tell me what you think. So I’ll be picking you up at eleven-thirty this morning instead of eight-thirty. Okay?”

“Okay,” he said, without enthusiasm. He had no specific objection to the new schedule, just a passing sense that something was off center.

As he was about to slip his cell phone into his pocket, it occurred to him that Jack Hardwick hadn’t returned his call, so he tapped in the number.

After just one ring, a raspy voice said, “Patience, Gurney, patience. I was about to call you.”

“Hello, Jack.”

“My hand is just barely healed, ace. You setting up another opportunity to get me shot?”

It was a reminder that six months earlier, at the climax of the Perry case, one of the three bullets that had struck Gurney passed through his side and lodged in Hardwick’s hand.

“Hello, Jack.”

“Hello your fucking self.”

Such was the routine of beginning any conversation with New York State Police Senior Investigator Hardwick. That combative man with pale blue malamute eyes, a razor-keen mind, and a sour wit seemed determined to make every communication with him an ordeal.

“I’m calling about Kim Corazon.”

“Little Kimmy? The kid with the school project?”

“I guess you could call it that. She has your name listed as a background source for information on the Good Shepherd case.”

“No shit. How’d you cross paths with her?”

“Long story. I thought maybe you could give me some information.”

“What did you have in mind?”

“Anything I’m not likely to find on the Internet.”