“It came to me via osmosis,” he said. “I could’ve listened to the same tapes you have. Who gives a shit? I know what I know, and what I know is the billionaire club chose the spot with great specificity. Gerry holds a wacky point of view when it comes to man’s place in the cosmos. Wackier than I ever realized, maybe. Once he mentioned how we were all happier before the advent of industry. How we were safer when we were playing with sticks and trying to figure out fire.”

I didn’t want him to elaborate. He elaborated.

“He didn’t confide in me his master plan. What I deduced? The richies were burying that supercollider in the Valley for the same fucked-up reason the Mesoamericans built ziggurats to align with celestial bodies. They didn’t care diddly about measuring tiny particles or mass production of radioisotopes. There won’t be a sane explanation at the bottom of the rabbit hole. This is about blood, not science.”

Blood, not science.

That last bit knocked over a domino in a chain of loosely organized suspicions strung across my waking thoughts, down into my subconscious. What if this was about superstition and not passion or materialism? I almost hoped the authorities were tuned in to this back-and-forth. I sardonically chuckled to consider the transcript getting passed around a briefing room full of starched shirts and constricted worldviews.

After we hung up, amusement faded fast, leaving a chilly unease that gnawed at me like rats.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

The day after Valentine’s Day, I saddled Lionel with a list of minor surveillance jobs. Two cases of spousal infidelity and an insurance scam. He’d snap photos of the subjects in compromising positions, show those photos to soon-to-be-aggrieved parties, and deposit the fat checks. These were perfect errands he could run between pitching horse manure and repairing the farm tractor at Hawk Mountain now that his collarbone had healed.

Meanwhile, I packed a suitcase for a trip west to interview Drs. Campbell and Ryoko. Linda Flanagan hadn’t seen fit to return Ted’s twice-weekly calls. The widow’s family claimed to be in sporadic touch. None had spoken to her since Christmas. Since she and the doctors resided in the same time zone, I decided to make a pilgrimage to the mountain, so to speak.

Over recent days, I’d put myself into a criminal frame of mind. The Mares of Thrace and the Redlicks hovered at the top of my suspect list, which skewed the question of motive into unknown territory. These people were twisted. Their motive could be almost anything.

Less glamorous, yet statistically probable, was a crime driven by either passion or money. At great effort, I’d located a recent photo of Sean Pruitt’s former schoolmate and work colleague, Danny Buckhalter. Damned if he wasn’t a spitting image of one of the guys who’d jumped me in Horseheads; the ducktail haircut dude who’d split while I tuned up his friends. Buckhalter, or Slick, as I’d dubbed him, was a member of the Mares of Thrace and Sean’s acquaintance since childhood. This led to the Lovers’ Triangle Theory: Buckhalter and Linda Flanagan conspired to murder Sean Pruitt for the insurance money. Who was to say she hadn’t taken a shine to Buckhalter at one of their get-togethers? While Sean was barbecuing, wifey and work buddy might’ve made eyes. Later, the cheating hearts hook up at a motel and hatch a plan that involves a million dollars in corporate payola. One dark night, Sean Pruitt and Buckhalter are at Shaft 40, smoking dope, roughhousing. Buckhalter pushes him and earns a cut of the corporate payout down the line after the dust settles. Buckhalter’s lack of profile suggested he was lying low in the hills, possibly canoodling with his equally scarce girlfriend, the Widow Pruitt.