“I told you already.”

“Tell me again.”

“You’re part of the strategy team. Part of the firepower. Part of the ultimate solution.”

“That so?”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“If you want me to contribute, you need to let me do it my way.”

“What are you, Frank fucking Sinatra?”

“I can’t help you if you want me to put the tenth step ahead of the first.”

Hardwick uttered what sounded like a bad-tempered sigh of surrender. “Fine. What do you want to do?”

“I need to start at the beginning. In Long Falls. In the cemetery. In the building where the shooter stood. I need to be where it happened. I need to see it.”

“What the fuck? You want to reinvestigate the whole goddamn thing?”

“Doesn’t seem like such a bad idea.”

“You don’t need to do that.”

He was about to tell Hardwick that there was a bigger issue involved here than the pragmatic appeal goal. An issue of truth. Truth with a capital T. But the pretentious ring of that sentiment kept him from stating it. “I need to get grounded, literally.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Our focus is on Klemper’s fuck-ups, not the fucking graveyard.”

They went back and forth for another ten minutes.

In the end, Hardwick capitulated, shaking his head in exasperation. “Do whatever you want to do. Just don’t waste a shitload of time, okay?”

“I don’t plan to waste any time.”

“Whatever you say, Sherlock.”

Gurney got out of the car. The heavy door closed with a louder impact than he’d heard from a car door in decades.

Hardwick leaned over toward the open passenger-side window. “You’ll keep me informed, right?”

“Absolutely.”

“Don’t spend too much time in that graveyard. That is one seriously peculiar place.”

“Meaning what?”

“You’ll find out soon enough.” Scowling, Hardwick revved his obnoxiously loud engine, stirring it up from a bronchial rumble to a full roar. Then he eased out the clutch, turned the old red GTO around on the yellowing grass, and headed down the pasture trail.

Gurney looked up again at the hawk, gliding with elegant ease above the ridge. Then he went into the house, expecting to see Madeleine or to hear the sound of cello practice upstairs. He called her name. The interior of the house, however, communicated only that odd sense of emptiness it always seemed to have when she was out.

He thought about what day of the week it was—whether it was one of the three days she worked at the mental health clinic, but it wasn’t. He searched his memory for any trace of her mentioning one of her local board meetings, or yoga classes, or volunteer weeding sessions at the community garden, or shopping trips to Oneonta. But nothing came to mind.