“Five was James Brewster, a big cardiac surgeon. The man’s skill, hot rep, and workaholic schedule made him rich, ended his first two marriages, and turned his son into a bitter, off-the-grid recluse who hadn’t spoken to him for years and seemed happy that he was dead. On that final night, he was heading from the Albany Medical Center to his home in the gently rolling, genteelly moneyed hills outside Williamstown, Massachusetts. With the cruise control on his Mercedes AMG coupe set precisely at the speed limit, the doctor was dictating his response to an invitation to keynote an Aspen meeting of cardiac surgeons. The shards of the recording device he was using were spattered with his brains all over the passenger seat of the car. The fact that it happened a couple of miles over the Massachusetts state line was what finally brought the FBI circus to town.”

“BCI didn’t see that as a big plus?”

This time the laugh sounded tubercular. “Which brings us to the grand finale. Number six. Harold Blum, Esquire, was far from the top of the law profession and, at the age of fifty-five, wasn’t about to rise any higher. Harold was the kind of guy who strove to give the impression that all his striving was paying off. According to his wife, Ruthie, who had a lot to say, Harold was the perfect consumer, always making purchases beyond his means, as though those possessions might make a difference—or at least attract a better class of clients. She seemed pretty fond of him. He was on his way that night from his office in Horseheads to his home on Lake Cayuga, driving his gleaming new Mercedes sedan, whose lease payment, the wife said, was already choking him. According to the accident reconstruction, the Good Shepherd, true to form, came up on his left side and fired a single shot. Harold’s visual cortex was probably blown to pieces before it could even register the muzzle flash.”

“And that’s when Max Clinter enters the picture?”