“You’ll do it? You’ll come with me? Oh, God, thank you, thank you! Actually, they’re not too far from you. I mean not really close, but not too far. One is in Turnwell—Jimi Brewster, son of one of the victims. And Rudy Getz’s place is about ten miles from there, on the top of a mountain overlooking the Ashokan Reservoir. We’ll be meeting with Brewster first, at ten, which means that I should pick you up around eight-thirty A.M. Is that okay?”

The reflexive response forming in his mind was to decline the ride and take his own car. But it made more sense to use the drive time with her to ask the questions that were sure to occur to him between now and then. To get a better sense of what he was walking into.

“Sure,” he said. “That’s fine.” Already he was regretting his decision to get involved, even for one day, but he felt unable to refuse.

“There’s a consultancy line item in the preliminary budget I worked out with RAM, so I can pay you seven hundred and fifty dollars for your day. I hope that’s enough.”

He was about to say that she didn’t need to pay him, that wasn’t why he was doing it. But something about her businesslike earnestness made it clear she wanted it this way.

“Sure,” he said again. “That’s fine.”

A little while later, after some desultory conversation about her life at the university, and about Syracuse’s all-too-typical drug problems, he got up from his chair and reiterated his commitment to see her the following morning.

She saw him to the door, shook his hand firmly, thanked him again. As he descended the steps to the cracked sidewalk, he heard the two heavy door locks clicking into place behind him. He glanced up and down the dismal street. It had a dirty, salty look—the dried residue, he assumed, of whatever had been sprayed on it to melt the last snow accumulation. There was a hint of something acrid in the air.

He got into his car, turned the key, and plugged in his portable GPS for directions home. It took a minute or so for it to acquire its satellite signals. As it was issuing its first instruction, he heard a door bang open. He looked up and saw Kim rushing out of the house. At the bottom of the steps, she fell, sprawling onto the sidewalk. She was pulling herself up with the help of a garbage can as Gurney reached her.

“You all right?”

“I don’t know … My ankle …” She was breathing hard, looked frightened.

He was holding her by the arms, trying to support her. “What happened?”

“Blood … in the kitchen.”

“What?”

“Blood. On the kitchen floor.”

“Is anyone else inside?”

“No. I don’t know. I didn’t see anyone.”

“How much blood?”