He decided he needed another cup of coffee. He started the car and was about to head into Barleyville when Hardwick called again, sounding more shaken than before. “We’ve got a new situation. If what I just overheard is true, Lex Bincher may no longer be missing.”

“Oh, Jesus. What now?”

“One of the troopers with the BCI boys found a body in the water under Lex’s private dock. Just a body. A body with no head.”

“Are they sure it’s Bincher?”

“I didn’t hang around to find out. I got a bad feeling about the missing head. I backed out of the crowd and came back to my car. I gotta get outta here before I puke, or before some BCI guy recognizes me and puts two and two together—with me and Bincher and the Spalter case—and I end up in an interview room for the next two weeks. I can’t afford that. Not with this kind of shit going down. I got to be able to move, got to be able to do whatever the fuck we have to do. Gotta go. Call you later.”

Gurney sat there by the reservoir for another few minutes, letting the new situation sink in. His gaze drifted back out over the water to the piece of driftwood that had reminded him of the body snagged on the rocks at the edge of the Hudson. As he stared now at the bare, twisted wood, the configuration reminded him not just of a body, but of a headless body.

He shivered, restarted the car, and headed for Walnut Crossing.

Chapter 39

Terrible Creatures

Thinking about Hardwick’s anxious departure from the crime scene—in fear of being recognized and having the reason for his presence questioned—pushed to the front of Gurney’s mind an issue he’d been avoiding: Where did the right to conduct a private investigation in the interest of a client end … and obstruction of justice begin?

At what point did he have an obligation to share with law enforcement what he’d learned about the hit man who called himself Petros Panikos and his probable involvement in the lengthening string of homicides associated with the Spalter case? Did the fact that Panikos’s involvement was only “probable” rather than certain make a difference? Surely, Gurney concluded with a feeling an inch shy of comfort, he had no obligation to share speculative scenarios with the police, who no doubt had plenty of their own. But how honest was that argument, really?