Final Option Read online

  “Is that something that might have driven him to take his own life?”

  “I wouldn’t think so. It’s not even a criminal offense,” I replied, remembering the time that I’d heard Hexter refer to a twenty-five thousand dollar government fine as a “parking ticket.”

  “How long ago did you and Mr. Hexter schedule this meeting?”

  “Late Friday afternoon.”

  “Who else knew about it?”

  “I don’t know. His secretary. My secretary. I’d assume his wife since we were meeting at his home....“

  “Have you met Mrs. Hexter?” interjected Ruskowski.

  “Yes.”

  “Friendly with her?”

  “Not really. She’s more my mother’s generation.“

  “Do you own a gun?”

  “No,” I lied.

  “How long have you known Bart Hexter?”

  “He’d been my client less than a year.”

  “You didn’t know him before that? Perhaps socially?”

  “I knew of him, of course. I’d seen him at parties, but I didn’t really meet him until last spring. He had just fired his attorney and was shopping for new counsel.”

  “And you got the job.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why did he choose you?” inquired Ruskowski. There was something in his tone and the way his eyes raked over me that made my flesh crawl.

  “I’m sure he thought I’d do the best job,” I answered flatly.

  “There wasn’t some other reason?” Ruskowski leered.

  “Why don’t we stick to what’s relevant?” I snapped.

  “Miss Millholland,” barked Ruskowski, “I am a homicide detective, and you are standing at the scene of a crime. That means that on this little piece of earth, what I say goes. I ask the questions, and you answer them. I don’t have to explain myself to you. I don’t have to consider your feelings or your reputation. All I have to do is my job, which today means finding the dickhead who shot Bart Hexter. Now, if you don’t like my questions, I’d be happy to have you handcuffed and taken to the police station where you can wait around until I find the time to talk to you again.”

  “It really must be great,” I said, my temper rising to run roughshod over my judgment, “to have the kind of job where you can have an ego hard-on like this in public.”

  This time the silence lasted long enough for me to envision myself spending the rest of the day enjoying the hospitality of the Lake Forest Police Department, harvesting the fruits of my own big mouth.

  “Follow me,” Ruskowski snapped. Then he turned on his heel and headed briskly down the drive toward the gully.

  I followed him, scrambling a bit to catch up, as he made his way down the incline toward Hexter’s car. Already they had managed to string yellow police-line-do-not-cross tape around some trees, and a gaggle of policemen were milling around the perimeter.

  I faltered a bit as we approached, realizing what Ruskowski had in store for me. It was one thing to stumble on the body unawares, another to go back for a second look.

  “Did he kill himself?” I ventured as we ducked under the tape.

  “So far,” snapped the detective, “all I’ve got is one dead guy in one damned expensive car.”

  CHAPTER 2

  My mother had long ago pronounced Bart Hexter’s house to be the ugliest in Lake Forest. I had never been inside, but these edicts of hers were made with an acid accuracy. I had heard that it was modeled after a famous English manor house, but as I approached it on foot, accompanied by two policemen, it looked only enormous and forbidding. The long drive swept downhill and ended in a wide circle at the front door. In its center was a fountain of carved marble—an elaborate affair of twined dolphins and sea horses blowing high arcs of water into the thin April sunshine.

  The police had appropriated a dark and chilly room off the massive entrance hall. It had a stone fireplace that was big enough to stand in and the high ceiling beamed with black oak. The furniture was carved and Elizabethan, with chairs of dark wood upholstered in burgundy and black. An enormous tapestry hung on one wall, so worn I assumed it must be genuine. It was in this vaguely inquisitorial setting that I made my formal statement to Detective Ruskowski.

  He took me through it in agonizing detail—every encounter I’d ever had with the dead man, my impressions of him as a person and a businessman, as well as a detailed account of every minute of my last twenty-four hours. Through it all, Ruskowski maintained an attitude of belligerent suspicion, reminding me that policemen, even more than lawyers, live in a world where they expect to be lied to.

  When we were done he turned me over to a young woman from the County Crime Lab who cheerily swabbed my hands for a neutron activation test. The test was done to detect the presence of barium and antimony, two substances commonly left behind on the hand after a gun is fired. Then, with the uncomfortable sensation of being in a bad made-for-TV movie, I allowed myself to be fingerprinted.

  My business with the police concluded, I went to the powder room to wash my hands. There, in a fire-bowl of hand-painted French wallpaper, I scrubbed off the sticky fingerprint ink. Finished, I reached for a towel and found myself looking at three crisp, monogrammed linen hand towels, the kind people like to give as wedding presents. I stood, frozen in midmotion, hands dripping onto the tile.

  I have a whole life packed away in boxes: twenty-four place settings of china, crystal champagne flutes, and Waterford wine goblets. I have table linens and picnic baskets, kitchen gadgets and serving platters, picture frames, silver trays and crisp linen hand towels embroidered with initials that were mine for much too short a time.

  I was married once, not so long ago.

  Russell and I met in law school, mauling each other in moot court competition during the day and again— much differently—at night in his squeaky Murphy bed. He was everything I am not: self-made and supremely self-confident. He cruised through everything—law school, job interviews, encounters with my family—like a man with his hand firmly on the throttle. We married the summer after graduation and honeymooned on the isle of Crete. There we sailed and sunned and stayed up late, sipping retsina at an outdoor café, our heads bent together in the light of an oil lamp, making whispered plans for the future.

  When we got back to Chicago we reported for work, I as a first-year associate at Callahan Ross, Russell as a clerk for Federal Appeals Judge Myron Wertz. At first we were too busy to pay much attention to the slight limp that Russell had acquired in Greece. It seemed natural to assume that it was nothing—an old soccer injury come back to life—but eventually he was persuaded to see a doctor. Six weeks to the day after our wedding, Russell was diagnosed with brain cancer. I was a widow before my first wedding anniversary.

  That was three years ago, and every day I tell myself that the worst is behind me, but still my grief, the throbbing loss, is like a quiet soundtrack to my life. And there are days like this one, when something-—the disequilibrium of Hexter’s death, my raw encounters with the police, or the sight of an object as ordinary as a carefully pressed rectangle of Irish linen—is enough to let loose a flood of dark emotions.

  I looked in the mirror, sternly warning myself against tears, and carefully pulled the pins from my dark hair. I took it down and rewound it with automatic hands into its customary French twist. I splashed cold water on my face, blotting it with a piece of tissue—not trusting myself to touch the towels. Then I took a deep breath and deliberately composed myself back into the haro-working corporate attorney that I carefully presented to the world each day.

  The house was cavernous and confusing so I had to search to unearth a member of the Hexter household who was not fully occupied with the police. I finally came upon a sullen-looking young woman in a black maid’s uniform who agreed to see if Mrs. Hexter would be available to speak to me. While I awaited her return,

  I looked out through the leaded panes of a tall window at the front of the house in time to see two squad cars and an ambu
lance swing quickly around the circular drive—Bart Hexter leaving home for the last time.

  Pamela Manderson Hexter received me in a pretty upstairs sitting room in a distant wing of the house. It was a sunny, high-ceilinged spot filled with well-worn Queen Anne furniture upholstered in yellow and cerise—a marked contrast to the rest of the house. I guessed that this room, comfortable and separate, was her private retreat, decorated with cherished pieces from her parents’ house. The new widow greeted me from a high-backed armchair set in the wide bay window that overlooked a long, terraced garden.

  Pamela and Bart Hexter had shared a very public marriage. Not content to live quietly, Bart Hexter from the first had dragged his shy wife into the spotlight with him, and over time, it became clear that she grew more comfortable there. The couple were active in a number of charities, including a foundation bearing their name that aided families of seriously ill children. In addition, the couple were tireless partygoers, so that very few weeks went by without a mention of the Hexters on the society page.

  Pamela was a well-presented blonde of a certain age who had fought the battle of encroaching years with help from the plastic surgeon’s knife. Dressed in a simple gray Castelberry suit, her hair, which just grazed her shoulders, had been meticulously arranged and sprayed into immobility. Her face was pale, but her makeup remained undisturbed by tears.

  “Mrs. Hexter,” I said, crossing the room toward her, “I am so sorry to intrude at such a difficult time.”

  “Please, call me Pamela,” she replied in the clenched-jawed drawl of the upper classes. “After all, I’ve known your mother practically all my life. I was so surprised when Bart mentioned that you were coming to the house this morning—imagine, Astrid’s daughter working as a lawyer....” She motioned me into the chair opposite hers. On a low table between us lay a basket of needlepoint and a notepad. On it was a long list of names written in the loopy script that seems to be acquired at prep school and subsequently applied to a lifetime of invitations and thank-you notes.

  “I am so sorry for your loss,” I said, falling back upon convention. “This must be a terrible shock.”

  “I still can’t believe it,” she replied, her hands folded quietly in her lap, like a schoolgirl reciting a lesson, ankles crossed. “I always assumed... I mean, we always thought it would be his heart that would take him. Bart had a heart attack a few years ago—we almost lost him then. It left him with a serious heart condition, though I know I worried about it more than he did. This morning when he didn’t come back from getting the newspaper I was worried that he’d forgotten to take the medication for his heart. I went out in my golf cart to see if he was all right. When I saw his car... The shock...” Her face clouded over in recollection, and her voice trailed off. I had assumed that I had been the first one to discover Hexter’s body. Obviously, Pamela, coming upon him before me, had been the one to call the police.

  “Mrs. Hexter... Pamela,” I said. “I hate to have to bring this up at a time like this, but as I’m sure you know, futures is a very volatile, fast-moving business.

  I’d like your permission to contact the exchanges today. I’m certain they are going to want to take a look at your husband’s trading accounts to make sure there’s nothing there that might present a problem.”

  “Whatever you like.”

  “To your knowledge, was there anything in your husband’s business that was worrying him?” I prodded, I gently. “Anything that seemed to be causing him special concern?”

  “I have no idea,” she replied coldly. “As I told the police, I have never taken even the smallest interest in the day-to-day running of my husband’s business.” It was clear from her tone of voice that Pamela Hexter felt that the rough and tumble of futures was in some way beneath her.

  “So you had no reason to believe there was anything at Hexter Commodities that your husband seemed especially concerned about? He didn’t seem anxious or preoccupied?”

  “Absolutely not. We had a perfectly normal weekend. We had the children for dinner on Friday night. Saturday we hosted an all-day golf outing at the club. We’ve done it every year. We play eighteen holes of winter rules to kick off the spring season. It was great fun. Last night we went back to the club for a party. As I told the police, there was nothing unusual or out of the ordinary about our weekend. They need to stop prying into our private life and find the lunatic who did this terrible thing.”

  “Most people are killed by someone they know,” I said, gently. Pamela stiffened, and the light of friendliness went out of her eyes.

  “Bart was not most people,” she snapped. “It would be ludicrous to suggest that anyone we know would be capable of such a thing. It was obviously a madman, someone who stalks public figures, like that man who killed that singer, what was his name, one of the Beatles—Jack Lennon, wasn’t it?”

  “John Lennon,” I corrected her. Certainly she must realize that her private life was the first place the police were going to look for her husband’s killer. I changed the subject.

  “Do you have any idea how your husband left his business?”

  “Everything is divided among the children,” she replied. “Our son, Barton Jr., is the executor. I think it’s best if you discuss any business matters with him. I, frankly, couldn’t care less.”

  News of Bart Hexter’s death was going to send tremors through the financial world. It would move the markets from London to Tokyo. The assets of Hexter Commodities were worth hundreds of millions of dollars and represented the sum of her husband’s life’s work. What a legacy, a wife who couldn’t care less.

  “I was wondering if you’d like me to arrange for some extra security for you. As you say, your husband was a public figure.”

  “Do you think we’ll be bothered by reporters?” she asked, wide-eyed. “It hadn’t occurred to me. But, of course, if you think we’ll be troubled by trespassers...”

  “I’d be happy to make the arrangements,” I said. Once the story hit the papers it wouldn’t just be reporters she’d have to worry about. Parkland Road would be clogged with gawkers coming for a closer look at the house where Bart Hexter had been murdered. Her doorbell would ring with Realtors dropping by to inquire whether she planned to stay in this big house now that she was all alone. And if she was unlucky, enterprising burglars would pay her a call, hoping to hit the house while the family and staff were all safely at the funeral.

  “One more thing,” I asked. “Your husband was supposed to give me some business papers this morning, documents related to a potential lawsuit. Would you happen to know where he might have left them?”

  “They would be in his study. That’s where he kept all of his business things when he was at home. Bart liked to smoke a cigar when he worked. I don’t permit smok- ing in the rest of the house.”

  “Would you mind if I had a look through his study then?” I asked.

  “Go right ahead,” she said. “The police were in there already, looking for a suicide note.”

  “Do you know if they found one?” I ventured, fingers crossed.

  “Barton would never have killed himself,” replied his widow flatly.

  “Not even if he’d gotten himself into trading difficulties?” I pressed.

  “You didn’t know my husband very well, did you? Otherwise you’d understand what kind of person he was. If Bart had gotten himself into trouble trading, he’d have killed every person who had gotten him there before he’d ever think of killing himself.”

  Pamela Hexter rang the bell for Elena, the maid, to show me the way to her husband’s study.

  “I can’t imagine what could have become of that girl,” snapped Mrs. Hexter as we waited in vain.

  I could imagine any number of scenarios. Elena on the phone trying to sell her exclusive story to the Daily Enquirer. Elena in the garage flirting with a handsome policeman. Elena on the phone, calling friends, serving up the news of her employer’s death while it was still piping hot.

  In the end I a
ssured Mrs. Hexter that I would be able to find my own way, but once I got downstairs I regretted my optimism. The house was enormous and confusing, a warren of dimly lit hallways and pointlessly overdecorated rooms. Music room, trophy room, gun room, game room, I passed through them all in my quest for the dead man’s study. By the process of elimination, I found a hall that I thought would lead me back to the front of the house, but when I came to the end of it, I found myself, inexplicably, in the kitchen. Large and white, the room was as clean, scrubbed, and brightly lit as a surgical suite. At one end I saw a door to what I supposed must be a butler’s pantry. Surely, I thought, that must lead into the dining room, which must be in the main section of the house.

  But when I opened the pantry door I found my way blocked by the broad back of Detective Ruskowski. He appeared to be engaged in an argument with someone smaller and more soft spoken than himself. When he turned at the sound of my approach, I was surprised to find that that person was Ken Kurlander.

  Kurlander was a partner at my firm, a trust and estates attorney who had spent his long career serving his old-moneyed clients, sheltering their fortunes and shepherding their legacies from one generation to the next. Approaching the firm’s mandatory retirement age of seventy, Kurlander looked every inch a prince of the law. White-haired, firm-jawed, he was dressed, as always, in a plain black suit. It was a joke at the office that Kurlander’s closet was probably one of the darkest places in Chicago.

  To say that Ken Kurlander doesn’t like me is to tell only a small portion of the story. Ken has always taken my presence at Callahan Ross as a kind of personal affront. To Kurlander, I am nothing less than a traitor to my class. That I have chosen the frankly mercenary world of corporate law seems especially to gall him. It pains him that I spend my day structuring transactions, negotiating mergers, and representing the likes of Bart Hexter, when I should be at the country club, enjoying the sheer restfulness of my good breeding. I, on the other hand, find Kurlander to be a complete pain in the ass.