“He’s not really unprincipled. Just … aggressive. Knows how to use his elbows. And no, you wouldn’t just be a ‘front man’ for anyone. You’d be a player. Part of the team. Part of the reason Kay Spalter should hire us to reinvestigate the case, engineer her appeal, and get her bullshit conviction reversed.”

Gurney shook his head. “I’m not following this at all. If there wasn’t any money for a hotshot attorney to begin with, how come there is now?”

“To begin with, looking at the surface strength of the prosecution’s case, there wasn’t much hope that Kay would prevail. And if she couldn’t prevail, there’d be no way for her to pay a significant legal bill.”

“But now—?”

“But now the situation is different. You, me, and Lex Bincher are going to make sure of that. Believe me, she will prevail, and the bad guys will bite the dust. And once she prevails, she will be entitled to inherit a huge chunk of cash as Carl’s primary beneficiary.”

“Meaning this Bincher guy is working on a contingency fee in a criminal case? Isn’t that semi-illegal, or at least unethical?”

“Don’t sweat it. There’s no actual contingency clause in the agreement she’ll sign. I guess you could say that Lex getting paid will sort of depend on the success of the appeal, but there’s nothing in writing that makes that connection. If the appeal fails, technically Kay will just owe him a lot of money. But forget about all that. That’s Lex’s problem. Besides, the appeal will succeed!”

Gurney sat back, stared out through the door at the asparagus patch at the far side of the old bluestone patio. The asparagus ferns had grown much taller than in either of the previous two summers. He reckoned a tall man could stand in their midst and not be seen. Normally a soft bluish green, now, under an unsettled gray sky, they appeared colorless.

He blinked, rubbed his face roughly with both hands, and tried to refocus his mind on reducing the tacky mess being placed before him to its essentials.

The way he saw it, he was being asked to launch Hardwick in his new PI business—by helping to ensure his first major client commitment. And this was to be the repayment for the regulation-skirting favors Hardwick had done for him in the past, at the cost of Hardwick’s career with the state police. That much was clear, as far as it went. But there was a lot more to consider.