“Seems like you’re involved in your stuff, and Madeleine’s involved in her stuff.”

Gurney nodded slowly. “I guess you could say that. My stuff and her stuff. Generally separate, but mostly compatible.”

“You like it that way?”

He found the question oddly difficult to answer. He finally said, “It works.” But he was uncomfortable with the mechanical tone of that. “I don’t mean it to sound so gray and pragmatic. We love each other. We still find each other attractive. We enjoy living together. But our minds work differently. I get into something and just sort of stay in it. Madeleine has a way of changing her focus, of paying total attention to whatever’s in front of her—adapting to the moment. She’s always present, if you know what I mean. And, of course, she’s a hell of a lot more outgoing than I am.”

“Most people are.” Kyle took the negative edge off the comment with a big grin.

“True. So, most of the time, we end up doing different things. Or she ends up doing things and I end up thinking about things.”

“You mean she’s outside feeding the chickens while you’re sitting in here figuring out who chopped up the body in the town dumpster?”

Gurney laughed. “That’s not exactly it. When she’s at the clinic she deals with what’s there—some pretty horrific stuff—and when she’s here she deals with what’s here. I tend to be inside my head, obsessed with some ongoing problem, regardless of where I am. That’s one difference between us. Also, Madeleine spends a lot of time looking, learning, doing. I spend a lot of time wondering, hypothesizing, analyzing.” He paused, shrugged. “I suppose each of us does what makes us feel most alive.”

Kyle sat for a while with a thoughtful frown, as if trying to align his mind with his father’s to better understand his thoughts. Finally he turned back to his computer screen. “I better get started on this, in case it turns out to be harder than I thought.”

“Good luck.” Gurney went into the den and opened his email. His eye ran down through the two dozen or so items that had arrived since that morning. One item caught his attention. The sender was identified simply as “Jonah.”

The email text appeared to be a personal response to Gurney’s request for a meeting to discuss the status of the investigation.

I would be interested in having the proposed discussion as soon as possible. My location, however, would make a physical meeting at this time impractical. My suggestion is that we meet via Internet video-phone tomorrow morning at 8:00 a.m. If you would like to proceed this way, please email me your video-phone service name. If you do not already have this in place, you can download the software from Skype. I look forward to your response.