“Who knows? Like I said, I just have some curiosity.” He paused. “On the other hand, this so-called curiosity of mine may be nothing more than mental indigestion. We’ll see. There’s an FBI agent I’d like to talk to.”

“How come?”

“I’m pretty confident that I know as much as the state police know, but our friends at the fed level have a habit of keeping the occasional tidbit to themselves—especially the individual who was running the case.”

“And you think you can get whatever it is out of him?”

“Maybe not, but I’d like to give it a shot.”

There was a sharp clatter of breaking glass.

“Damn!” cried Madeleine at the other end of the room, raising her hand from the sink and staring at it.

“You all right?” asked Gurney.

She tore a piece of paper towel off the roll that stood on the sink island. The roll toppled over and fell to the floor. She ignored it, along with the question, and began dabbing at the heel of her left hand.

“You need some help?” He got up and headed over to look at her hand. He picked up the towel roll and set it back on the countertop. “Let me see.”

Kyle followed him over.

“Why don’t you gentlemen return to your seats,” she said, frowning uncomfortably at the attention. “I think I can handle this. Just a little blood, nothing serious. All it needs is peroxide and a Band-Aid.” She flashed a chilly smile and walked out of the room.

The two men looked at each other, producing identical little shrugs.

“You want some coffee?” asked Gurney.

Kyle shook his head. “I was trying to remember … It became an FBI case because of the Massachusetts guy, right? The heart surgeon?” Gurney blinked. “How the hell did you remember that?”

“It was a giant homicide case.”

Something in Kyle’s expression suddenly got through to Gurney: the implication that of course Kyle would pay attention to something like that, because that was the world in which his father was an expert.

“Right,” said Gurney, feeling the small stab of an unfamiliar emotion. “You sure you don’t want any coffee?”

“Maybe I will. I mean, if you’re having some, too.”

As the coffee was brewing, they stood looking out through the French doors. The yellow afternoon sun was slanting across the stubbly pasture.

After a long silence, Kyle said, “So what do you think about this thing she’s involved in?”

“Kim?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s a big question. I guess everything depends on the final execution.”

“The way she explained it to me, it sounds like she really wants it to be an honest portrayal of the people involved.”

“What she wants it to be and what RAM turns it into may be two different things.”

Kyle blinked, looked worried. “They sure as hell did a job on the original events. Twenty-four/seven bullshit, week after week.”