Detective Burton questions Burke about the murders

Detective Burton’s questioning of Burke Devore turns a seemingly casual visit into a near exposure: two men killed by Burke are linked by a job application, and ballistics links their deaths to the same gun. As Burton searches for a connection, Burke must perform innocence while privately understanding how narrowly the investigation has missed him—and how one more victim could have transformed coincidence into a pattern.

The Visit and Its Opening

Burton meets Burke at the Devore home, where a framed image of a stormy sea provides the first point of contact. Burton says that he grew up on boats, and Burke regrets that he cannot claim a similar background; instead, he explains that his wife loved the picture. The exchange briefly offers the possibility of ordinary rapport, but Burton turns from the print, takes a notebook from his jacket, and asks whether Burke knows Herbert Everly.

Burke immediately understands the danger. He recognizes that Burton is after him, yet answers with feigned uncertainty, pretending not to know Everly. Burton asks about Kane Asche next. Burke’s apparent ignorance is especially precarious because he knows both men not as acquaintances but as victims in his own campaign against competing job applicants. The detective does not yet state an accusation; the threat lies in the questions and in what Burke knows they may uncover.

The Job-Application Link

Burton clarifies that Everly and Asche had worked at paper mills different from Burke’s. He explains that the police began investigating after receiving a strange call from the personnel officer at Willis and Kendall, where Burke had applied for a position several weeks earlier and been interviewed. Burke supplies a plausible account of his own connection: he had not received a callback and assumes he did not get the job.

Burton says that four applicants were called for a second interview and that two of them had since been shot to death. Those two were Everly and Asche. The crucial link is not that the men knew one another; Burton says the police have found no evidence that they did. So far, their shared connection is that both applied for the same position. When Burke asks whether the killer might have been someone they worked with, Burton’s answer leaves the field of suspicion open rather than narrowing it to a known associate.

Burton also reveals the forensic connection: ballistics indicates that the same gun killed both men. That fact changes the meaning of the job link. Two apparently separate deaths now share both a narrow employment circumstance and a weapon, while the police are still trying to determine whether the overlap is coincidence or evidence of a common motive. Burton says the investigators are canvassing everyone connected in any way to either victim, because they do not yet know where the meaningful connection lies.

Burke’s Performance Under Questioning

Burke describes his connection as slight: like the victims, he applied for the same job. He maintains that he does not think he ever met either man. When Burton shows him photographs from the notebook, however, Burke recognizes them as his first and fourth résumés—the men whose faces he had seen before firing bullets into them. The photographs preserve their faces as ordinary job applicants, not as abstractions in a private ranking of competitors.

Burke reports feeling a wave of sadness and says the men look like decent, ordinary people. Burton interprets the response as identification: the deaths seem especially shocking because they happened to people like them. Burke’s emotion does not end the questioning or expose him. He hands the photographs back, apologizes for being unable to help, and receives Burton’s assurance that he has helped by speaking with him. The encounter allows Burke to remain, for the moment, one more person in a broad canvass rather than the answer to it.

Before leaving, Burton gives Burke his card and asks him to call if he remembers anything or if something strange happens nearby over the next week or so. Burke answers with a nervous joke about being shot. Burton says he does not think there will be a third victim and believes Burke is safe. His reassurance is intended to calm an innocent witness; to Burke, it reveals the investigative threshold he has narrowly avoided crossing.

The Close Call and Its Consequences

After Burton leaves, Burke explains the visit to Marjorie and continues discussing the murders with her longer than he wants to. Back in his office, he shakes as he recognizes the danger of what has just happened. Two deaths might still be treated as coincidence, he reasons, but three would be much harder to explain away. The distinction is not abstract: if he had found Garrett Blackstone and killed him during either of his recent visits, the detectives would have had three paper-mill managerial applicants shot in the same state with the same weapon.

Burke sees that he had underestimated ballistics. He had considered the gun anonymous because it had not been fired for more than fifty years, had never been fired in North America, and had no known record of existence. Burton’s disclosure corrects that confidence: even an anonymous gun can leave a trail. Burke also considers the limits of the comparison the police might make. A shooting in Massachusetts has already been solved, so he thinks that bullet will not be compared with the Connecticut murders; he did not use the gun on Everett Dynes, and he concludes that he will not be able to use it on the last résumé either.

The visit therefore produces no arrest, but it changes Burke’s understanding of his own exposure. The police have connected Everly and Asche through their application to Willis and Kendall and through the same gun, while Burton has directly questioned a third applicant who concealed his relationship to the victims. The scene’s suspense comes from that imbalance: Burton believes he is following an uncertain lead, while Burke knows the apparent coincidence is the visible edge of a deliberate series.