Gurney was already familiar with the basic topography, structures, angles, and distances. All of that had been documented in the case file. But actually seeing the building, and then pinpointing the window, from which the fatal bullet was fired—fired toward the area where he was now standing—had a jarring effect. It was the effect of reality colliding with preconception. It was an experience he’d had at countless crime scenes. That gap between the mental picture and the actual sensory impact was what made being there so important.

A physical crime scene was concrete and unfiltered in a way that no photo or description ever could be. It held answers you could find if you looked with open eyes and an open mind. If you looked carefully, it could tell you a story. It gave you, quite literally, a place to stand, a place from which you could survey the real possibilities.

After conducting a preliminary 360-degree examination of his general surroundings, Gurney focused on the details of the Spalter plot itself. More than twice the size of the next largest he’d come upon, he estimated the dimensions of the central mowed area as fifty by seventy feet. A low border of well-kept rosebushes surrounded it.

He counted eight flat marble grave markers lying just below the height of the grass, arranged in rows that allocated a space of approximately six feet by twelve feet for each burial. The earliest date, 1899, appeared on marker that bore the name Emmerling Spalter. The most recent date, 1970, was on a marker that bore the name Carl Spalter. The edges of the letters on the glossy surface of the marble were distinctly sharp and freshly carved. But obviously the date was not of his death. His birth, then? Probably.

As Gurney gazed down at the marker he saw that it was next to one for Mary Spalter, the mother at whose funeral Carl had been fatally wounded. On the other side of Mary Spalter’s grave was a marker bearing the name Joseph Spalter. Father and mother and murdered son. A peculiar family gathering, in this thoroughly peculiar cemetery. Father and mother and murdered son—the son who hoped to be governor—all reduced to nothing at all.

As he was pondering the sad smallness of human lives, he heard a low mechanical hum behind him. He turned to see an electric golf cart coming to a silent stop at the rose border of the Spalter plot. The driver was Paulette Purley, smiling inquisitively.

“Hello, again, Mr.…? Sorry, but I don’t know your name.”

“Dave Gurney.”