On Harrow Hill

Two minutes later a gravelly male voice said, “Who is this?”

Gurney explained who he was and what he wanted.

“That guy you’re looking for isn’t here anymore.”

“Do you know where I can find him?”

“Died years ago.”

“I see. Do you happen to know how he died?”

“Look, I don’t really know who you are.”

Gurney repeated his name and affiliation.

“Look, buddy, anybody can say anything on the phone. You say you’re a detective. How do I know that? I got a call from somebody yesterday, said he was the IRS, and I should give him my credit card number to avoid being arrested for fraud.”

“Perhaps you can just give me the name or phone number for the building’s owner?”

“I’m the building’s owner.”

“Is it still a rooming house?”

“Not a rooming house. Never was. It’s rental apartments. Very nice.”

“And you are . . . ?”

“George Flacco.”

“All right, George, I understand your desire to be sure who you’re talking to. But let me ask you simple question. Is there something in particular about Hanley Bullock’s death that makes it a sensitive issue?”

“Maybe there is, maybe there isn’t. Like I told you, I’m not saying things on the phone without some identifying corroboration.”

“That’s fine, George. I respect that. I’m going to drive down to Crickton later today with appropriate police identification. After you’re satisfied, we can talk about your former tenant. We can do it at your place of business or at the Crickton police station, if you’d feel more comfortable there.”

Never in Gurney’s recollection had anyone opted for the greater comfort of a police station.

“My deli is okay,” said Flacco with a resounding lack of enthusiasm. “I’m here until six. Then I’m gone.”

“That’s fine, George. I’ll be there at five.”

Most of Crickton turned out to look exactly like the street-view photo of the rooming house on Haze Street. An old river town, conspicuously ungentrified, it had numerous old redbrick buildings that once housed mills, manufacturing businesses, and implement suppliers to the mom-and-pop dairy farms that no longer existed.

On the far side of Trudy’s Antique Treasures there was an abandoned nineteenth-­century building whose dark brick facade was the color of smoke. A decrepit sign hanging below the boarded-up second-floor windows proclaimed, BEST FURNITURE AND COFFINS FOR ALL BUDGETS.

A bell over the deli’s door produced a jangly ring as Gurney entered. The place smelled of dampness and cats. There was a white metal-and-glass case of cold cuts and salads to his right; a wall-long case of beers, sodas, and caffeine drinks to his left; four tables with chairs in the middle space; and a row of shelves across the back, full of candy and chips. There were no customers.

One of the fluorescent lights in the ceiling was buzzing. He heard a toilet flushing in a back room. A moment later a small dark-haired man—presumably George Flacco—and a heavyset redheaded woman emerged from a doorway behind the cold-cuts counter and came around it into the table area.

“You’re the one that called me?” said the man.

“That’s right.” Gurney took out his Larchfield ID and held it up.

The redheaded woman peered at it, looking back and forth several times between Gurney’s face and the picture of his face.

“You’re a detective?” She made it sound like a trick question.

“Yes. For twenty-five years in New York City. Right now I’m working up in Larchfield.”

“They have crime up there, do they?” She said it with a nasty sense of triumph, as though she’d caught the town in a lie.

“Yes, they do.”

She folded her heavy sunburned arms and gave Gurney a challenging look. “When that Bullock fellow came here, we didn’t know the first thing about him abusing that young girl up there in that fancy school.”

“No way you could have,” said Gurney.

“We heard the story later. After he was gone.”

“I’m just interested in learning what you thought of him while he was here, what he was like, what finally happened to him.”

With a small nod of satisfaction she turned to the small dark man, who seemed to take that as an okay to proceed.

“So, Detective,” he said in his gravelly voice, “what do you want to know?”

“Anything at all you can remember about him. Friends? Visitors? What he talked about? How he spent his time? How he died?”

“The ‘friends’ part is easy. He didn’t have any. Ditto for visitors.”

“Until the end,” corrected the redhead.

“I’m coming to that, Clarice. Don’t rush me.” He turned back to Gurney. “What else did you ask me?”

“What he talked about.”

“Another easy one. Nothing. He didn’t talk to nobody. Not a word.”

“Until the end,” said Clarice.

“Yeah, but not much even then. And we don’t know what he said. Why do you keep interrupting me?”

She ignored the question.

He turned to Gurney. “What else?”

“How did he spend his time?”

“He watched TV.”

“We don’t know that,” said Clarice.

“Yeah, we do. His TV was on eighteen hours a day.”

“How can you be sure he was watching it, George?”

“Why else would he have the fucking thing on?”

“Some people just like it. The voices. It’s company.”