Gurney said nothing for a while, just gazed at the excited, anxious face across from him. He found himself far more uncomfortable with this suddenly raw and earnest version of Jack Hardwick than he’d ever been with the perennial cynic.

For a few moments the only sound in the house was the sharp-edged melody of an early-twentieth-century cello piece that Madeleine had been struggling with for the past week.

Almost imperceptibly, Hardwick’s mouth twitched again.

Seeing this a second time, and waiting for it to happen a third time, was getting to Gurney. Because, to him, it suggested that the payment about to be demanded for the debt incurred months earlier was going to be substantial.

“You plan on telling me what you’re talking about?”

“What I’m talking about is the Spalter murder case.” Hardwick enunciated those last three words with a peculiar combination of importance and contempt. His eyes were fixed on Gurney’s, as if searching for the appropriate reaction.

Gurney frowned. “The woman who shot her rich politician husband up in Long Falls?” It had been a sensational news item earlier in the year.

“That’s the one.”

“As I recall, that was a slam-dunk conviction. The lady was buried under an avalanche of evidence and prosecution witnesses. Not to mention that special little extra—her husband, Carl, dying during the trial.”

“That’s the one.”

The details began coming back to him. “She shot him in the cemetery as he was standing at his mother’s grave, right? The bullet paralyzed him, turned him into a vegetable.”

Hardwick nodded. “A vegetable in a wheelchair. The vegetable the prosecution wheeled into court every day. God-awful sight. Constant reminder for the jury while his wife was being tried for doing it to him. Until, of course, he died halfway through the trial and they had to stop wheeling him in. They went on with the trial—just switched the charge from attempted murder to murder.”

“Spalter was a wealthy real estate guy, right? Had just announced a third-party run for governor?”

“Yep.”

“Anticrime. Anti-mob. Ballsy slogan. ‘Time to get rid of the scum of the earth.’ Or something like that.”

Hardwick leaned forward. “Those were the precise words, Davey boy. In every speech he managed to talk about ‘the scum of the earth.’ Every goddamn time. ‘The scum of the earth have risen to the top of our nation’s cesspool of political corruption.’ The scum of the earth this, the scum of the earth that. Carl liked to stay on message.”

Gurney nodded. “I seem to recall that the wife was having an affair, and that she was afraid he might divorce her, which would end up costing her millions, unless he should happen to die before he changed his will.”

“You got it.” Hardwick smiled.