Let the Devil Sleep (37 page)

She nodded and sampled her chowder. “It’s good. Try it before it gets cold.”

He took his first spoonful and agreed it was very good indeed.

She broke off a chunk of garlic bread. “While you were napping, I read that thing you left on the coffee table by the couch, with your questions about the case.”

“I wanted you to.”

“You’re sure that the murders aren’t about what everyone thinks they’re about?”

“Sure enough.”

“You’re coming at the case like it was brand-new?”

“A brand-new case that just happens to be ten years old.”

She studied her spoon. “If you’re starting back at square one, I guess the most basic question would be, why do people murder other people?”

“Apart from sacred-mission delusions, the main motives are sex, money, power, and revenge.”

“Which do you think it is?”

“Given the range of victims, it’s hard to imagine it being sex.”

“I bet it’s about money,” said Madeleine. “A lot of money.”

“Why?”

She gave a little shrug. “Luxury cars, expensive guns, rich victims—just seems like that’s what it’s all about.”

“But not about hating it? Hating the power of money? Or eliminating greed?”

“Oh, gosh, no. Probably just the opposite.”

Gurney smiled. He had the feeling that Madeleine might be onto something.

“Finish your chowder,” she said. “You don’t want to miss the first episode of
The Orphans of Murder
.”

T
hey didn’t have a television, but they did have a computer, and RAM News, in addition to putting the program on its cable channels, had advertised a simultaneous webcast.

As they sat in front of the iMac in the den, Gurney navigated through the RAM website. He was always appalled by new evidence of how trashy the media world had become. And it kept getting worse. Moronic sensationalism was like a ratchet that turned in only one direction. And RAM’s toxic programming was leading the descent into the pit.

A home page consisting mainly of a huge red, white, and blue logo—“RAM NEWS NETWORK: THE WORLD WITHOUT THE SPIN”—was followed by a page that featured their most popular offerings. He scrolled quickly through the listings in his search for
Orphans
.

Gurney pressed on grimly to the next page of the website, where, at the top of a list of news specials, he found
The Orphans of Murder
.
Under the title was a short promotional teaser: “What happens to the survivors when a killer tears out the heart of a family? Shocking true stories of grief and rage. Premier Episode Tonight at 7:00
P.M
. EDT.”

T
en minutes later, at 7:00
P.M
. precisely, the first episode began. The screen was almost completely dark. The eerie cry of an owl suggested that the viewer was looking at a country road at night. A man walked out of the darkness into a narrow area of illumination cast by the headlights of a car parked on the grassy shoulder. The bone structure of the man’s face in the angled headlights created the sharp shadows of a face in a thriller film.

He started to speak in a slow, portentous voice. “Exactly ten years ago, in the spring of the year 2000, in the rural hills of upstate New York, on a lonely road like this one, on a moonless night, with the chill of winter still in the air, the horror began. Bruno and Carmella Mellani were returning to their country home from a christening party in the city, perhaps discussing the happy events of the day, the dear friends and relatives they hadn’t seen for so long, when another car came rapidly up behind them, then began to pass them on a long, dark curve. But when that strange, speeding car came abreast of Bruno and Carmella Mellani …”

The scene on the screen changed to the dimly lit interior of a moving vehicle at night, a driver and a passenger in the front seat, unrecognizable in the darkness. They were speaking, laughing softly. A few seconds later, the headlights of a vehicle behind them were visible. The approaching headlights grew brighter, moving to the left side of their car, suggesting that the pursuing vehicle was about to pass. Then there was a sudden flash of white light on the screen, with the simultaneous explosive sound effect of a gunshot, followed by the tire screech of a vehicle out of control, prolonged metallic crashing sounds, and the shattering of glass.

The narrator returned to the screen. He bent over and picked up a piece of twisted debris from the ground, brandishing it as though it were a significant piece of evidence from the crime he was describing. “The Mellani car flew off the road. It was so badly mangled that the first responders had trouble identifying the make and model. A third
of Bruno Mellani’s head was blown away by the impact of a bullet from a huge handgun. Carmella Mellani’s injuries put her into a coma that she remains in to this day.”

Staring at the computer screen, Madeleine screwed up her face in disgust. She seemed to be finding the RAM approach more disturbing than the event it was depicting.

The narrator went on to give super-dramatic descriptions of the five other Good Shepherd shootings, culminating in a long description of the Harold Blum fiasco that led to the unraveling of Max Clinter’s career and life.

“God,” said Madeleine, “this stuff is way over the top.”

Gurney nodded.

The camera zoomed in to a medium shot of the narrator-turned-host, sitting in an interview environment with two men. “Ten years,” he said. “Ten years, and yet to some of us it seems so recent. You may be asking, why revisit that horror now? The answer is simple: because a ten-year anniversary is a natural stopping point, a point at which we often find it appropriate to pause and look back on triumphs and tragedies alike.”

The host addressed a dark-complected man in one of the chairs across from him. “Dr. Mirkilee, your specialty is forensic psycholinguistics. Could you explain that term to our audience?”

“Of course. It’s finding the thinking in the words.” His voice was small, quick, precise, very Indian. A subtitle appeared on the bottom of the screen:
DR. SAMMARKAN MIRKILEE, PH.D
.

“The thinking?”

“The person, the emotion, the background. The way the mind works.”

“So you’re an expert at the way words, grammar, style all come together to reveal the inner man?”

“This is true, yes.”

“All right, Dr. Mirkilee, I’m going to read you some excerpts from a document sent by the Good Shepherd to the media ten years ago, and I’m going to ask you for your insights into the author’s mind. Ready?”

“Of course.”

As the host read a long screed about the way to “eradicate greed” and “exterminate human carriers,” thereby freeing the earth of “this
ultimate contagion,” Gurney recognized the words as the introduction to the Good Shepherd’s Memorandum of Intent—otherwise known as the “manifesto.”

The host put the paper down on the table. “Okay, Dr. Mirkilee—what kind of individual are we dealing with here?”

“In layman terms? Very logical, yet very emotional.”

“Expand on that. Please.”

“Many tensions in the writing, many styles, attitudes.”

“Are you saying he has multiple personalities?”

“No, that is a silly thing—no such disorder. It is for stories, movies.”

“Ah. But I thought you said—”

“There are many
tones
. First one, then another, another. Very unstable man.”

“And I take it you would characterize such a man as dangerous?”

“Yes, of course. He killed six people, no?”

“Good point. One last question. Do you think he’s still out there, lurking in the shadows?”

Dr. Mirkilee hesitated. “Well, I’ll say this: If he
is
out there, I would make a large bet that he is watching this program right now. Watching and considering.”

“Considering?” The host paused, as if grappling with the significance of that statement. “Well, that’s a chilling thought. A murderer walking our streets. A murderer who at this very moment may be
considering what to do next
.”

He took a deep breath, as if to settle his nerves before announcing, as the camera zoomed in on him, “It’s time now for some important messages …”

Gurney grabbed the computer mouse and slid the volume icon to zero, a reflexive response to commercials.

Madeleine looked at him sideways. “We haven’t even seen
Kim
come on yet, and I’m already losing my patience with this.”

“Me, too,” said Gurney, “but I need to at least watch Kim’s interview with Ruth Blum.”

“I know,” said Madeleine. She gave a small smile.

“What is it?”

“There’s a silly irony in this whole situation. When you were injured, when the aftereffects didn’t disappear as quickly as you might
have liked, you sank into a hole. The deeper you sank, the less you did. The less you did, the deeper you sank. It was painful to see you like that. Doing nothing was killing you. Now all the craziness that’s going on, all the danger, is bringing you back to life. You used to sit at the breakfast table on a gorgeous morning, running your finger up and down your arm, checking the numb spot, checking to see if it had changed, if it had gotten worse. You know what? You haven’t done that all week.”

He didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing.

On the screen the last in the series of commercials faded to black and the scene switched back to the interview table.

Gurney slid the volume icon up in time to hear the host ask a question of the other guest at the interview table.

“Dr. Monty Cockrell, so good to have you with us as well. America knows you as an expert on rage. Tell us, Doctor, what was the Good Shepherd murder spree really about?”

Cockrell paused dramatically before answering. “Quite simply—war. The shootings and the manifesto explaining them were an attempt to initiate class warfare. It was a delusional attempt to punish the successful for the failings of the unsuccessful.”

With that the host and his two guests launched into a freewheeling discussion that lasted for five full minutes—a lifetime in television—and left all three men agreeing that the right to bear arms was, at times, the only defense against such poisonous thinking.

Gurney lowered the volume again and turned to Madeleine.

“What?” she asked. “I can see your wheels turning.”

“I was thinking about what the little Indian guy said.”

“That your killer would be watching this moronic program?”

“Yes.”

“Why would he bother?”

It was a rhetorical question, to which Gurney didn’t respond.

It took several more minutes of painful viewing before Kim’s interview with Ruth Blum finally came on. The two women were sitting across from each other at an outdoor table on the rear deck of a house. It was a sunny day. They were both wearing lightweight zippered jackets.

Ruth Blum was a plump, middle-aged woman whose facial features appeared weighed down by sadness. Her hairdo struck Gurney
as touchingly silly—a tousled little pile of golden-brown curls that resembled a Yorkshire terrier perched on her head.

“He was the best man in all the world.” Ruth Blum paused, as if to give Kim time to appreciate this great truth before continuing. “Warmhearted, kind, and … always trying to do better, always trying to improve himself. Did you ever notice how the best people in the world always try to do better? That was Harold.”

Kim’s voice was shaky. “Losing him must have been the worst thing that ever happened to you.”

“My doctor told me I should take an antidepressant.
An antidepressant
,” she repeated, as though it had been the single most inconsiderate piece of advice she’d ever received.

“Has anything changed with the passing of time?”

“Yes and no. I still cry.”

“But you continue to live.”

“Yes.”

“Do you know anything about life now that you didn’t know before your husband was killed?”

“I know how temporary everything is. I used to think that I’d always have what I had, that I’d always have Harold, that I’d never lose anything that mattered. Stupid to think that, but I did. The truth is, if we live long enough, we lose everything, everybody.”

Kim took a handkerchief out of her jacket pocket and wiped her eyes. “How did you two meet?”

“We met at a school dance.” During the next few minutes, Ruth Blum recounted the emotional highlights of her relationship with Harold, eventually circling back to her theme of a gift given and a gift taken away. “We thought it would last forever. But nothing does, does it?”

“How did you get through it?”

“The main thing was the others.”

“The others?”

“The support we were able to give each other. We’d each lost a loved one the same way. We had that in common.”

“You formed a support group?”

“For a while we were like family. Closer than some families. Everybody was different, but we had that one strong bond. I remember Paul, the accountant, so quiet, hardly ever said anything. Roberta,
the tough one, tougher than any man. Dr. Sterne, he was the voice of reason, the one who had a way of calming people down. There was the young man who wanted to open a fancy restaurant. And who else? Oh, Lord, Jimi. How could I ever forget Jimi? Jimi Brewster hated everyone and everything. I often wonder what happened to him.”

“I found him,” said Kim, “and he agreed to speak to me. He’s going to be part of this.”

“Good for him. Poor Jimi. So much
anger
. You know what they say about people who are that angry?”

“What?”

“That they’re angry at themselves.”

Kim let a long silence pass before asking, “How about you, Ruth? Aren’t you angry about what happened?”

“Sometimes. Mostly I’m sad. Mostly …” Tears started coming down her cheeks.

The video interview segment faded to black, and then the scene cut back to the studio, to a shot of the host at the table with Kim. Gurney assumed that this was the interview segment she’d gone to the city that day to record.