In a better mood, Gurney might have enjoyed the trip, passing through a rolling landscape of woods and meadows, wide rushing streams, farm fields with black earth newly plowed for spring planting, iconic silos and red barns. But in his state of mind, these bucolic views were reduced to a damp, muddy expanse—a wasteland of agricultural decline and bad weather.

His first sight of the environs of Syracuse reinforced his bleak thoughts. He recalled reading somewhere that the city sat at the foot of Onondaga Lake, whose fame arose from having been one of the most polluted lakes in America. It triggered a memory from his Bronx childhood—a memory of Eastchester Bay, whose murky navigation channel was constantly churned by barges and tugboats. The bay was an oily extension of Long Island Sound, in which nothing seemed to live except filthy seaweed and hideous brown crabs—armored, inedible, primeval, scuttling things—the thought of which could still raise gooseflesh on his arms.

He followed Kim’s Miata off the interstate into a neighborhood that had a worn look and no obvious zoning restrictions. He drove past a haphazard sequence of small single-family houses, spacious older homes now fractured into multiple apartments, shabby convenience stores, dreary commercial buildings, and desolate open areas surrounded by chain-link fences.

At a corner take-out place—Onondaga Princes of Pizza—the Miata turned onto a smaller side street and came to a stop in front of an Archie Bunker house. It was separated by a narrow driveway from an identical house on each side. A patch of rough earth in front—not much larger than a double grave—was in desperate need of flowers or grass. Gurney parked behind Kim and watched as she emerged from the little car, locked and double-checked both doors. She looked up at the house and along the driveway—warily, it seemed to him. As he walked over to her, she gave him a nervous smile.

“Anything wrong?” he asked.

“No, everything … seems fine.” She climbed the three steps to the front door, which was unlocked. That door, however, provided entry only to a tiny vestibule with two more doors. The one on the right had two serious-looking locks, which she opened with separate keys. Before turning the knob, she looked at it suspiciously and gave it a couple of sharp yanks.

That door opened into a hallway. She led him into the first room on the right—a small IKEA-furnished living room with the bare essentials: a futon couch, a coffee table, two low wooden armchairs with loose cushions, two minimalist floor lamps, a bookcase, a two-drawer metal file cabinet, and a table being used as a desk with a straight-backed chair behind it. The floor was covered by a worn-looking earth-tone rug.

He smiled curiously. “What was that yanking on the doorknob all about?”

“There were a couple of times it came off in my hand.”

“You mean it was purposely loosened?”