Let the Devil Sleep

Chapter 14



A Strange Visit to an Agitated Man





After ending his conversation with Hardwick, Gurney finished what was left of his cold coffee, entered the address Kim had given him for Robby Meese into his GPS, pulled out onto the county route, and headed for Syracuse. He used the drive time to consider ways of approaching the young man—the various interview personas he might adopt. In the end he settled on a semifactual way of presenting himself and the purpose of his visit. Once they were talking, he’d follow the lay of the land and maneuver however he needed to.

The western approach to the city, as much as he could see from the car, was depressing. The area was scarred by dead, dying, and generally ugly industrial and commercial enterprises. Zoning seemed an iffy matter, a patchwork quilt at best. The voice of his GPS directed him off the main route through a neighborhood of small, poorly tended houses that seemed to have had the color, life, and individuality drained out of them long ago. It reminded Gurney of the neighborhood he’d grown up in—a defensive place of narrow achievement, ignorance, racism, and an insular sort of pride. How small a place it had been, small in so many ways, sad in so many ways.

Another instruction from his GPS brought Gurney back to the task at hand. He made a left, went a block, crossed a major thoroughfare, went another block, and found himself in a different sort of neighborhood—one with more trees, bigger houses, neater lawns, cleaner sidewalks. Some of the houses had been divided into apartments, and even these had a well-kept appearance.

The GPS announced his “arrival at destination” as he drove past a large multicolored Victorian. He continued another hundred yards to the end of the block, turned around, and parked on the opposite side of the street in a position from which he could see the porch and the main door.

As he started to get out of the car, his phone emitted its text ring. He stopped and checked it, saw that it was from Kim: PROJECT IS A TOTAL GO!! NEED TO TALK ASAP!! PLEASE!!

Gurney considered “ASAP” a flexible concept, stretchable at least to sometime after his meeting with Meese. He got out of the car and walked down the block to the big Victorian.

The front door opened from the wide porch into a tiled foyer with two more doors. Two mailboxes were mounted on the wall between them. The box on the right was labeled “R. Montague.” Gurney knocked on the door, waited, knocked again more firmly. There was no response. He took out his phone, found Meese’s number, and called it—putting his ear to the door to see if he could hear a ring. There was no detectable sound. When the call went into voice mail, he broke the connection and returned to his car.

He reclined the seat a few inches and relaxed. Then he spent the next hour skimming through the lengthy incident reports and supplementary annexes describing the movements of the victims in the hours prior to the shootings. He was immersing himself in the details, instinctively scanning for anything striking, anything the original investigators might have missed in that mass of data.

Nothing jumped out. There were no conspicuous connections among the victims, nor any conspicuous similarities beyond a certain level of financial ability, a shared preference for the Mercedes brand, and a primary or secondary residence within a certain fifty-mile-by-two-hundred-mile rectangle. Beyond their occupational facts, next of kin, and movements the night of each shooting, not much background information had been gathered on the victims themselves—understandably, in a case in which the obvious victim-selection criterion turned out to be their vehicle. If the Mercedes badge was the shooter’s target, it mattered little who wore it or where they’d gone to high school.

But what did I expect to find? And what is it about the Good Shepherd murders that’s making me so damn itchy?

Not only was he itchy, he was thirsty. Gurney remembered seeing some kind of store a block or two back on the main drag. He locked the car and headed for it on foot. It turned out to be a shabby grocery store with high prices, no customers, dusty shelves, and an unpleasant odor. The drinks cooler smelled of sour milk, although there was no milk in it. Gurney bought a bottle of water, paid the bored counter girl, and got out of there as quickly as possible.

Back in the car, as he was opening the water, his phone rang. It was another text from Hardwick: CHECK YOUR E-MAIL. TGS PROFILE. NOTE REFERENCE TO THE BEAUTIFUL BECCA.

He retrieved the e-mail, opened the attachment, and read slowly.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation

Critical Incidents Response Group

National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime

Behavioral Analysis Unit-2

ACCESS: RESTRICTED, NCAVC, CODE B-7

Criminal Investigative Analysis Service Category: Offender Profile

Date: April 25, 2000

Subject: Unknown

Alias: “The Good Shepherd”

Conclusions based on inductive and deductive profiling methodologies, employing factual, physical, historical, linguistic, and psychological analyses of unsub’s “Memorandum of Intent”; forensic study of crime-scene evidence, photographic documentation, timing, and organization; and victim-selection criteria.

SUMMARY OPINION REGARDING UNKNOWN SUBJECT

Unsub is a white male, mid-twenties to late thirties, college graduate with possible postgraduate education, exceptional intelligence. Excellent cognitive functioning.

Unsub is polite, introverted, formal in his manner and social interactions. He is controlling in relationships, with a low capacity for intimacy. He is a compulsive perfectionist with no close friends.

He is well coordinated, with good reflexes. He may exercise regularly in a private setting. He would be seen as self-contained and methodical. He is skilled in the use of a handgun and may be a gun collector or target shooter.

His vocabulary is subtle and precise. Syntax and punctuation are flawless, with no ethnic or regional traits. This may be the result of a cosmopolitan education or broad cultural exposure, or the result of an effort to obliterate the evidence and memories of his upbringing.

Noteworthy are the employment of biblical cadences and avenging imagery in his condemnation of greed, his choice of “The Good Shepherd” as his form of identification, and the placement of the Noah’s Ark animals at attack locations. The religious context—in which white (light) represents good and black (darkness) represents evil—may explain the targeting of black vehicles, underscoring the equivalence of wealth with evil.

His preparation and execution are highly organized. The attack locales indicate careful reconnaissance—all situated on roads commonly used as connecting arteries between main highways and upscale communities (i.e., promising areas for him to find his target victims). The roads are all unlit, thinly populated, with no tollgate or other surveillance-camera positions.

All attacks were carried out on leftward curves. All of the victim vehicles, subsequent to the shootings, exited the pavement on the right side. The evident reason being driver incapacitation resulting in the relaxation of purposeful leftward pressure on the steering wheel, resulting in the car’s tendency to drift from the direction of the turn back to a straighter line of movement. The further consequence would be for the disabled (unsteered) vehicle to move away from the shooter’s vehicle (which would be in the lane to the left of the target at the moment of the shot), thus minimizing the chance of a collision. The level of foresight and timing in this process would place our unsub among the most organized of killers.

MOTIVATION LEVEL-1: Unsub’s stated rationale for attacks is the injustice inherent in the unequal distribution of wealth. He claims that the cause of this inequity is the vice of greed and that greed can be eliminated only by eliminating the greedy. He conflates greed with the ownership of a super-luxury vehicle and has chosen Mercedes as the archetype of that vehicle, making it the identifying characteristic of his target victims.

MOTIVATION LEVEL-2: The Good Shepherd case appears to be one in which a classic psychoanalytic formulation may apply: an underlying oedipal rage against a powerful and abusive father. Throughout his Memorandum of Intent, the unsub repeatedly conflates greed, wealth, and power. Also supporting the psychoanalytic interpretation, the unsub’s choice of weapon (one of the world’s largest handguns) has unavoidable phallic implications and is an obvious marker for this type of pathology.

NOTE: An objection might be raised to the father-hatred motivation, based on the inclusion of a woman among the victims. However, Sharon Stone was exceptionally tall for a woman, had her hair styled in a unisex crew cut, and was wearing a black leather jacket. Viewed at night through her vehicle’s side window with only faint dashboard illumination outlining her face, she may have presented a visual impression that appeared more male than female. It may also be that the unsub’s single criterion was the luxury vehicle itself, making the gender of the driver irrelevant.

The document concluded with a list of related journal articles in fields such as forensic linguistics, psychometrics, and psychopathology. That was followed by a list of professional books by heavily credentialed Ph.D. authors: The Sublimation of Rage, Sexual Repression and Violence, Family Structure and Societal Attitudes, Pathologies Fostered by Abuse, Societal Crusades as Expressions of Early Trauma, and, last on the list … Mission-Driven Serial Murder by Rebecca Holdenfield, Ph.D.

After staring for a long moment at that final familiar name, Gurney scrolled back to the beginning of the document and read the whole thing through one more time—doing his best to keep an open mind. It was difficult. The less-than-scientific conclusions wrapped in scientific language, and the overall academic smugness of the writing, triggered the same argumentative feelings in him that were triggered by every profile he read.

In his over two decades of homicide experience, he’d discovered that profiles were occasionally dead-on, occasionally dead wrong, but mostly a mixed bag. You never knew until the game was over whether you had a good one, and, of course, if the game never ended, you ended up never knowing.

But it wasn’t just the fallibility of profiles that bothered him. It was the failure of many of their creators and users to recognize that fallibility.

He wondered why he’d been so eager to read this one, why it couldn’t wait till later, seeing that he had so little faith in the art. Was it just the combative mood he was in? The desire to pick holes in something, to argue about something?

He shook his head, disgusted with himself. How many pointless questions could he come up with? How many angels could dance on the head of a pin?

He sat back and closed his eyes.

He opened them with a start.

The dashboard clock said it was 5:55 P.M. He looked down the street at the house where Meese lived. The sun was low in the sky, and the house was now in the shadow of the giant maple in front of it.

He got out of his car and walked the hundred yards or so to the house. He went to Meese’s door and listened. Some kind of techno music was playing. He knocked. There was no response. Again he knocked, again no response.

He took out his phone, blocked the ID, and called Meese’s number. To his surprise, it was picked up on the second ring.

“This is Robert.” The voice was smooth, actorish.

“Hello, Robert. This is Dave.”

“Dave?”

“We need to talk.”

“Sorry? Do I know you?” The voice had tightened a bit. “Hard to say, Robert. Maybe you know me, maybe you don’t. Why don’t you open your door and take a look at me?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Your door, Robert. I’m outside your door. Waiting.”

“I don’t understand. Who are you? Where do I know you from?”

“We have friends in common. But don’t you think it’s kind of stupid to be talking on the phone when you’re right there and I’m right here?”

“Wait a second.” The voice was confused, anxious. The connection was broken. Then the music stopped. A minute later the door was opened tentatively, not quite halfway.

“What do you want?” The young man who asked the question was standing partly behind the door, using it as a kind of a shield or, Gurney thought, as a way of concealing whatever he was holding in his left hand. He was about the same height as Gurney, just under six feet. He was slim, with finely cut features, tousled dark hair, and shockingly blue movie-star eyes. Only one thing marred the picture of perfection: a sour look around the mouth, a hint of something nasty, something spiteful.

“Hello, Mr. Montague. My name is Dave Gurney.”

There was an infinitesimal tremor in the young man’s eyelids.

“Is that a familiar name to you?” asked Gurney.

“Should it be?”

“You looked like you recognized it.”

The tremor continued. “What do you want?”

Gurney decided to follow a low-risk strategy, one that he found particularly useful when he was uncertain how much a target subject knew about him. The strategy was to stick to the facts but play with the tone. Manipulate the undercurrents.

“What do I want? Good question, Robert.” He smiled meaninglessly, speaking with the world-weariness of a hit man whose arthritis was acting up. “That depends on what the situation is. To start with, I need some advice. You see, I’m trying to decide whether to accept a job I’ve been offered, and if I do, what the terms ought to be. You familiar with a woman by the name of Connie Clarke?”

“I’m not sure. Why?”

“You’re not sure? You think maybe you know her, but not definitely? I don’t get that.”

“The name is familiar, that’s all.”

“Ah. I see. Anything come to mind when I tell you her daughter’s name is Kim Corazon?”

He blinked rapidly. “Who the hell are you? What’s this about?”

“Can I come in, Mr. Montague? This is pretty personal stuff to be talking about in a doorway.”

“No, you can’t.” He shifted his weight slightly, his left hand still out of view. “Please get to the point.”

Gurney sighed, scratched his shoulder in a vaguely absent way, and fixed a dead stare on Robby Meese. “The thing is, I’ve been asked to provide personal security for Ms. Corazon, and I’m trying to decide how much to charge.”

“Charge? I don’t … I mean … I don’t see … What?”

“The thing is, I want to be fair. If I don’t really have to do anything—if I just have to hang around, keep my eyes open, be ready to handle what comes along—then that’s one kind of fee schedule. But if the situation requires, shall we say, preemptive action, then that’s another kind of fee schedule. You get my question here, Bobby?”

The eyelid tremor seemed to be getting worse. “Are you threatening me?”

“Am I threatening you? Why would I do that? Threatening you would be against the law. As a retired police officer, I have great respect for the law. Some of my best friends are police officers. Some of them are right here in Syracuse. Jimmy Schiff, for example. You might know him. Anyway, the thing is, I always like to do a fee analysis before I commit to a job. You can understand that, right? So let me ask you again: Do you know of any reason why my provision of personal security services to Ms. Corazon would require me to charge anything more than my normal fee?”

Meese started getting a shaky look in his eyes. “What the hell am I supposed to know about her security problems? What’s this got to do with me?”

“You’ve got a good point there, Bobby. You look like a nice young man, very handsome young man, who would never want to cause anybody any trouble. Am I right?”

“I’m not the one causing trouble.”

Gurney nodded slowly, waited, feeling the current shifting.

Meese bit his lower lip. “We had a great relationship. I didn’t want it to end the way it did. These stupid accusations. False charges. Lies. Defamation of character. Bullshit complaints to the police. Now you. I don’t even understand what you’re here for.”

“I told you what I’m here for.”

“But it doesn’t make any sense. You shouldn’t be bothering me. You should be visiting the scumbags she brought into her life. If she has security problems, it’s because of them.”

“Who would these scumbags be?”

Meese laughed. It was a wild, caroming sound. A theatrical sound effect. “Did you know she’s f*cking her professor, her so-called academic adviser? Did you know she’s f*cking everybody who could possibly advance her trashy career? Did you know she’s f*cking Rudy Getz, the biggest scumbag in the whole f*cking world? Did you know she’s completely f*cking crazy? Did you know that?” Meese seemed to be riding an emotional horse that was getting away from him.

Gurney wanted to keep it going, see where it would lead. “No, I didn’t know any of that. But I’m grateful for the information, Robert. I didn’t realize she was crazy. And that’s the kind of thing that could affect my fee schedule, big-time. Providing security for a crazy woman can be a huge f*cking pain in the ass. How crazy would you say she is?”

Meese shook his head. “You’ll find out. I’m not saying another word. You’ll find out. You know where I was this afternoon? At my attorney’s office. We’re taking legal action against that bitch. My advice to you is to stay away from her. Far away.” He slammed the door.

The slam was followed by the sound of two locks snapping in place. It might all be an act, thought Gurney, but it sure as hell was an interesting one.