“Angry, bitter guy,” he said. “Loses his entire family to violence, moves out to the boonies with a stash of firepower heavy enough to outfit a militia. Maybe he’s in a militia— one of those survivalist yahoos. Am I overreaching if I use the term ‘high risk’?”

“If he intended to murder someone, why would he register his weapons?”

“Who says he registered all of them?” He fumbled in a desk drawer, pulled out a wooden-tipped cigar, rolled it between his palms.

“The way Rand was shot,” he said. “Contact wound, left side of the head, the killer at approximately the same height. Taken by surprise like you suggested. That conjure up an image?”

“The killer was sitting to his left,” I said. “Close to him. As in the driver’s seat of a vehicle.”

He pointed the cigar at me. “That’s the channel that switched on in my head. In terms of premeditation, maybe Malley didn’t think it out. Maybe he started out wanting to talk to Rand. To confront the guy who’d ruined his life. We both know victims’ families sometimes crave that.”

I said, “Malley had eight years for that, but perhaps Rand’s release triggered old memories.”

“Malley picks him up, drops him off, drives around and finds out he’s still got unfinished business with Rand. They drive up somewhere in the hills and something goes wrong.”

“Rand wasn’t articulate. He said the wrong thing to Malley and triggered big-time rage.”

“ ‘I’m a good person,’ ” he said.

“I can see that coming out wrong.”

He bolted up, tried to pace the tiny office, took a single, attenuated step, reached my chair, and sat back down. I was an obstruction. My thoughts drifted to New York on a crisp, snowy day. Gallivanting.

I said, “If Malley came armed, on the other hand, there might’ve been premeditation.”

“He was meeting up with his daughter’s murderer. Like you said, he’d have good reason to be careful.”

“A good lawyer could make a pretty good case for self-defense.”

He tossed the cigar onto the desk. “Listen to this, we’re psychoanalyzing the poor bastard and neither of us has ever met him. For all we know, he’s a pacifist Zen Buddhist vegan transcendental meditator living out in the woods in the name of serenity.”

“With thirteen guns.”

“There is that minor sticking point,” he said. “Man, I’d love to have the techies go over that black truck of his. Love to have grounds for it— Alex, how about we scotch lunch. For some reason my appetite’s waning.”

I said, “Sure.”

He turned away and I left.

When I was ten feet up the hall I heard him call out, “Eventually, we’ll do the tandoori bit. I’ll have my people call your people.”

* * *

He phoned that evening at seven-forty.

I said, “What happened to your people?”