“I doubt it,” said Gurney. “He wasn’t the type. And even if he was, homicide would still make more sense.”

“You think the Syracuse cops are good enough to figure out what really happened?”

“Maybe with a little help.” He spent a few seconds weighing his options, then took out his phone and entered Hardwick’s number.

The call was picked up on the first ring. “Seren-fucking-dipity!” said the rough voice.

“Beg pardon?”

“I was in the act of reaching for the phone to call you, and here you are. Don’t tell me that ain’t fucking-dipity.”

“Whatever you say, Jack. The reason I’m calling is that I know something that could be of value to BCI, and you may be the only BCI person willing to talk to me.”

“Yeah, well, after I give you a certain piece of news, you may not give a fuck about—”

“Listen to me. Robby Meese is dead.”

“Dead? Dead, meaning whacked?”

“I’d say so, although it’s been set up as a suicide.”

“BCI is not yet aware of this corpse?”

“The Syracuse city police know about it. So you guys will find out soon enough. But that’s not the issue. Whoever ends up being responsible for the forensics, I want to make sure they take a close look at the computer keyboard that was used to type the purported suicide note. The smudges on the keys are likely to be very similar to those found on Ruth Blum’s computer.”

Hardwick paused as though he were trying to understand this. “Where is this corpse?”

“In Kim Corazon’s apartment.”

A longer pause. “The latex-glove smudges on Blum’s keyboard were caused by someone trying to type something in a way that would preserve her fingerprints on the keys, to make it look like she typed it. Right?”

“Right.”

“How does that work here? The preserved fingerprints on Corazon’s keyboard would be hers, not Meese’s. How would that make it look like he typed the note?”

“The killer could have asked Meese to type something else—an e-mail, who knows what—before he killed him. Then, with Meese’s prints on the keys, the killer put on gloves and typed the suicide note.”

“So what do you want me to do with this big insight?”

“When you see the CJIS homicide report on Meese, which with any luck will mention the computer note, it might suddenly occur to you—because of the Kim Corazon connection to Ruth Blum—that the computer keyboard imprints ought to be compared. You might want to mention it to Bullard over in Auburn. And to a Detective James Schiff in Syracuse.”

“You don’t want to do this yourself?”

“My name is not magic at the moment. Any suggestion from me will end up at the bottom of the pile, if it makes it into the pile at all.”