He checked the ID screen. It was Paulette Purley. He’d exchanged cell numbers with her, but he hadn’t expected to hear from her so soon. “Sorry, Frank, I need to take this. Be with you in two seconds.” He pressed TALK. “Gurney here.”

Paulette’s voice sounded troubled. “I should have asked you this before, but I got so angry thinking about Carl, it slipped my mind. What I was wondering is, can I talk about this?”

“Talk about what?”

“Your investigation, the fact that you’re looking for a ‘fresh perspective.’ Is that confidential? Can I discuss any of this with Jonah?”

Gurney realized that whatever he would say needed to serve his purposes with both Paulette and Frank. It made choosing the right words tricky, but it also presented an opportunity. “I’ll put it this way. Caution is always a virtue. In a murder investigation it can save your life.”

“What are you telling me?”

“If Kay didn’t do it, someone else did. It could even be someone you know. You won’t end up saying the wrong thing to the wrong person if you don’t say anything to anyone.”

“You’re scaring me.”

“That’s my goal.”

She hesitated. “Okay. I understand. Not a word to anyone. Thanks.” She hung up.

Gurney continued speaking as though she hadn’t. “Right … but I need to take a look at the apartment … No, that’s okay, I can get a key from the local cops or from the Spalter Realty office … Sure … no problem.” Gurney burst into laughter. “Yeah, right.” More laughter. “It’s not funny, I know, but what the hell. You gotta laugh.”

Long ago he’d learned that nothing makes a fake conversation sound more authentic than unexplained laughter. And nothing makes a person more willing to give you something than his believing that you can get it just as easily somewhere else.

Gurney made a show of ending the call and announced, almost apologetically, as he headed purposefully for the stairs, “Got to go to the police station. They have an extra key for me. Be back in a little while.” Gurney went to the stairs and started down them in a hurry. When he was almost to the bottom, he heard Frank say the magic words:

“Hey, you don’t need to do that. I got a key right here. I’ll let you in. Just tell me what the hell’s going on.”

Gurney climbed back up to the gloomy little hallway. “You can let me in? You’re sure that’s not a problem? You need to check with anyone?”

“Like who?”

“Jonah?”

He unclipped a heavy set of keys from his belt and opened the apartment door. “Why would he care? As long as all the freeloading scumbags in Long Falls are happy, he’s happy.”

“He’s got a very generous reputation.”

“Yeah, another Mother fucking Teresa.”