“Holy hell.” Cord rubbed the back of his neck again.

“We have no absolute evidence of blackmail-” the detective interjected, but Ferrell interrupted him again, his voice quiet and sure.

“No one expected your brother’s death. No one knew for sure how far your brother’s…activities…had gone, or how many women were involved. But right now it’s a tangled mess. A lot of people could be hurt if this is handled the wrong way.”

Cord wished his thermos wasn’t empty. His throat was dryer than the Sahara. They kept heaping on more bad news. “Maybe we’d better get a few things straight before you say any more,” he told both men. “I did a stint in the Air Force, donated some years to the State Department-easy enough for you to check my background, and I’m guessing you already have. But being a patriot doesn’t mean I have any use for politics and politicians. I don’t. I don’t spy and I don’t lie. So if that’s what you’re asking me-”

“It’s not, Mr. Pruitt. But we are asking for your discretion, and your help. We absolutely want to bring whoever did this to justice. But we believe that it’s in everyone’s best interests to keep this under the media radar as much as possible-”

Bassett was long-winded and careful. Ferrell cut to the chase. “It’s too soon to draw conclusions. We all know that. But as an initial strategy, it makes good sense to publicize your brother’s death as an accidental fall. Temporarily, not forever. There’s no question, at least in my mind, that this was a murder-”

“Although we won’t know that until the results of an autopsy. We know very few specifics this soon.”

Ferrell rolled his eyes. “It was murder,” he repeated to Cord. “But the reason we want the media calling it accidental is to gain an advantage. The murderer wouldn’t be on her guard.”

“We don’t positively know that it’s a ‘her,’” the detective piped up again, but Ferrell ignored him.