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Cody opened another window on the browser and Googled the name “Gary Shulze.” In addition to his participation on various literature councils and a personnel listing for the U of M faculty, there were death notices in both the Minneapolis Star Tribune and the Western Itasca Review.

“Same total crime scene devastation as Geraghty,” Larry said. “No traces of evidence have been found that point to anything other than an accident involving a single victim.”

Larry sighed. “The last one before Hank Winters is the one we know about, the close one in terms of time and mileage.”

Cody said, “Karen Anthony.”

“Yeah, her,” Larry said. “Forty-six-year-old hospital consultant living in Jackson Hole and Boise. She’s a little different because her place in Jackson-actually Wilson, Wyoming, outside of town-was some kind of historic home she’d refurbished. Like Geraghty’s, the place is pretty remote and only accessible by a two-track through the trees. A neighbor saw a vehicle come down their shared road about a half hour before he noticed the flames up on the hill and called the fire department. The Teton County Sheriff told me they got a partial on the vehicle: dark blue or black SUV, single driver, light-colored license plates, which apparently means out-of-state but the witness couldn’t tell which.”

“That’s no help,” Cody said. “Finding an SUV in Wyoming is like looking for a fly at the dump-they’re everywhere.”

“I know,” Larry said.

“So,” Cody said, opening another window and typing in Karen Anthony’s name, “we’ve got three victims who basically died the same way, burned in their homes long before the fire could be put out. And the victims are all roughly middle-aged and professional. And alone. That’s a string of similarities but really not much to build on.”

“Exactly,” Larry said. “I spent half the day reading and rereading all of the police reports, trying to find something that linked them beyond the obvious and trying to find a connection to Hank Winters.”

“And?” Cody said.

“Nada,” Larry said. “The cops I talked to couldn’t come up with anything either. When I told them about the other cases, they were surprised there were similar incidents. So nobody has been looking into this as a pattern, including the FBI.”

“So,” Larry said, “I took a flyer and called Geraghty’s wife in Falls Church. I told her who I was and what I was investigating, and you know how that goes. She was falling all over herself trying to help. My guess is she hadn’t heard from the locals since shortly after the fire because they didn’t have anything to tell her. So she was excited I was working it.”

Cody nodded, then said, “Hmmm,” so Larry would know he was listening.

“I asked the usual. Any enemies, ex-wives, business problems or rivals, financial problems, et cetera.”

“Hmmm.”

Larry said, “What she told me was almost too good to be true. She said they’d had some real rough patches in their marriage but that Geraghty had straightened up in the last few years and everything was fucking wonderful. She said that was the worst part about it all-that things were going so well when it happened.”

Cody felt a jangle in his chest. He said, “Didn’t Shulze’s wife say kind of the same thing?”

“That hit me, too,” Larry said. “So I kept asking Mrs. Geraghty questions. She was a little reluctant at first, but she finally spilled the beans. Geraghty was a big drinker for a long time. A good-time-Charlie type who spent a lot of time on the road with other political types. Between the lines, I got the vibe he was abusive to her when he was on a toot. But she said after he got a DUI he finally entered a twelve-step program and cleaned up his act. She said he’s been stone-cold sober for the last two and a half years.

“So I called Pat Shulze,” Larry said. “After a while, I got the same story. Shulze had checked himself into rehab three years before because the university made him, and it took. She said it was like having the guy she married back. He was writing a book about his recovery and doing speaking engagements at faculty association meetings around the country, I guess. He even had a Web site on recovery where he answered questions and such.”

“Damn,” Cody said. “So what about Karen Anthony?”

Larry said, “I called her sister in Omaha. Same deal. She said Anthony was a hard partier all her life until the last five years, when she found Jesus and AA. So it looks like our guy is targeting ex-alcoholics.”

“Christ,” Cody said, thinking of Hank. “That’s just wrong.” Then: “For the record, there’s no such thing. But we can talk about that later.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Larry said.

Cody paused. “I’m trying to wrap my mind around this. So we’ve got a guy traveling the country and setting up rendezvous with recovering alcoholics, then bushwhacking them in their homes. I see a pattern but not a motive.”

“Me neither,” Larry said. “I’ve been racking my brain. Who would want to go after people who’d straightened out their lives? What’s the point of that?”