As he began working his way through the implications of each option, a backlog of other issues kept intruding. He decided to get rid of them, at least temporarily, with a phone call.

It was 11:30 P.M., and the chances of Hardwick’s picking up were slim, but leaving a message would serve Gurney’s mind-clearing purposes. As expected, the call went to voice mail.

“Hey, Jack, more pain-in-the-ass questions for you. Is there an easily accessible state database of ten-year-old traffic citations? Specifically, I’m wondering about obscured-plate citations issued in the upstate counties during the period of the Good Shepherd murders. Also, any progress yet with the White Mountain Strangler details?”

After he ended the call, he went back to pondering the GPS-locator situation. The fact that it was hardwired to the car’s electrical system meant that, unlike a battery system with a limited transmission life, it could have been installed quite some time ago and still be operational. The installation questions were when?, why?, and by whom? No doubt it was the same person who was monitoring the bugs in Kim’s apartment. It could be her obsessed ex-boyfriend stalker, but Gurney had a feeling the situation might be more complicated than that.

In fact, it was entirely possible that …

He went to the mudroom, put his barn jacket back on, and went out again to the parking area.

He moved the ramps from the front of the Miata to the front of the Outback. Having forgotten his keys and flashlight, he returned to the house and got them, then started his car and repeated the earlier process.

Half expecting to find a similar tracking device, he searched the front undercarriage thoroughly, but he found nothing. He opened the hood and searched the engine compartment. Still nothing. He traced the battery wiring to its various connections and found nothing out of place.

As a final bit of reassurance, he moved the ramps around from the front to the back and reversed the car up onto them. He slid under the elevated rear end with his flashlight.

And there it was. A second black box, slightly larger than the first to accommodate a battery, was magnetized to the top of one of the rear bumper supports. The brand and general specs printed on the side of the device indicated it was from the same manufacturer and functionally equivalent to the one on Kim’s car, except for the power source.

The reason for the difference could have a number of explanations, but an obvious one was the different installation time required—at least half an hour for the wired version and virtually no time at all for the battery version. All things being equal, wired power was preferable—which suggested that whoever had installed them might have had more extended access to Kim’s car than to the Outback. Which, of course, brought Meese again to mind.