Murder Saves Face

A Reuben Frost Mystery

Haughton Murphy

MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM

Since the New York law firm where I worked for almost thirty years recently moved from Wall Street to midtown Manhattan, I must emphasize that any resemblance between my old firm and the beleaguered Chase & Ward is a matter of coincidence.

This novel is affectionately dedicated to my former partners.

—H.M.

CHAPTER

1

Fort Bliss

Tom Henderson, a lanky string bean only months out of law school, realized that he was alone in the Chase & Ward library. His isolation was not surprising, considering that it was 3 P.M. on Friday, December 30, the last business day of the year.

The partner for whom Henderson worked had summoned him earlier in the day and, after perfunctory apologies, had announced that he needed a survey of the bulk sales and vendor-in-possession laws in Arizona and five other southwestern states.

“There’s a department store chain down in Phoenix that’s about to run out of cash,” the partner had explained. “First Fiduciary is trying to put together a package to keep the outfit alive and I’ve got to be out there Tuesday morning. One of the things they’re talking about is a sale-and-leaseback on the stores, so I need to know if we’ve got any showstoppers that would keep the bankers from doing a deal right away. Is there anything in the state laws that could trip them up?”

With four states done and two to go, it now looked as if he should be finished in time to meet two classmates at M.K. when the club got rolling that evening. Not that he could really complain, given his $80,000 salary (which even he had to admit was probably—probably—overpayment), if his research kept him at Fort Bliss.

Fort Bliss. The nickname, presumably coined by an older lawyer who remembered the venerable Texas army post, referred to Chase & Ward’s state-of-the-art quarters in a new skyscraper in the West Fifties of Manhattan. For over a hundred years identified as a “Wall Street law firm” (usually preceded by the adjective “prominent” or “distinguished”), Chase & Ward had finally outgrown its offices in the financial district and had moved, the previous February, to Clinton Plaza, a complex consisting of a commercial tower, two adjacent apartment buildings and a movie theater.

The Plaza’s neighborhood was marginal at best, bordering not only the solid, blue-collar Clinton district—once known as Hell’s Kitchen—but also the porn theaters and bookshops that had spread north from Times Square. Human and electronic security at Chase & Ward’s private entrance and elevators formed a defensive cordon—the Fort—separating its personnel from the hurly-burly outside.

Henderson, who had never worked anywhere else, had assumed that the high-tech precautions at Clinton Plaza were typical of the world of work; they didn’t bother him at all. From his point of view, the luxurious spaciousness of the firm’s quarters more than compensated for any fancied danger.

He was now working in comfort in a corner of the law library, his papers and books spread out before him, his long legs wound in a pretzel knot as he read. Arizona polished off, he decided to tackle New Mexico and got up to go into the stacks adjoining the reading room. He turned on the lights and smiled as he noticed the familiar sign, posted above the switch:

HOW TO STAY ALIVE

IN THE

COMPACT SHELVING SYSTEM

1.  Go to the opened stack.

2.  Look for people, stepladders or books on the floor.

3.  Remove obstacles.

4.  Push red STOP/RESET button.

5.  Go to section that you want to open.

6.  Push green OPERATE button.

7.  While in the stacks, hum, whistle or sing.

8.  Keep your foot close to the kickbar which will brake the system instantaneously if somebody shouldn’t follow steps 1 through 3.

The new shelves were ingenious. Each row of them was on a track and could be moved by starting a motor. Precious floor space was saved since one aisle could now serve four rows, rather than the customary two.

Henderson found the precise stack he was looking for. It was flush with the adjoining one, so he pressed the green and red buttons, as instructed. Hurrying along, he entered the newly opened aisle, then backed off in horror at what he saw.

“Holy shit!” he shouted to the world as he spotted the fully clothed body of Juliana Merriman, a senior associate in the corporate department on a bottom shelf. He was going to flee, but instead examined the apparition confronting him more closely.

There was no need to think of first aid. There were visible strangulation marks on Merriman’s neck; her face was a dreadful shade of blue and outlined by her flowing hair, messily disarranged around her. He rushed out, grabbed the phone outside the head librarian’s office, and dialed 2222, the extension of Joe Conklin, the office security director. There was no answer but, from the endless series of directives that had been circulated on office security, he knew a beeper would alert Conklin to the call.

Henderson slumped in the nearest chair to wait for Conklin to ring him back. And to contemplate the horrid reality that a murderer had gotten inside Fort Bliss.

BEFORE

CHAPTER

2

A Merger Made in Heaven: I

It was just before nine on the Monday morning after Thanksgiving. Juliana Merriman looked around Conference Room B on the thirtieth floor of Chase & Ward’s offices at Clinton Plaza.

She was pleased that the janitorial staff had gotten its instructions straight—for once. The custodians had opened the sliding door running down the middle of the space, turning two rooms into one. They had pushed together the conference tables from the two parts to form one long, formidable surface. Supplies of yellow pads, pencils and paperclips were spread at intervals along the newly combined table and, wonder of wonders, the water in the two carafes was fresh. Juliana’s complaints about the slovens in the maintenance department, lodged after recently bringing a group into a pigsty of a conference room, apparently had been heeded.

Juliana sighed quietly to herself as she counted the chairs around the table. There were twenty-four, which ought to be enough, but one could never predict how many would show up for the meeting that was about to begin. The only certainty was that, since everyone would be together for the first time, there would be much posturing, speechifying and general cheerleading.

She also found herself yawning. Normally she came to work just before ten o’clock and, as a resident of one of the brand-new Clinton Plaza apartments less than a block away, did not get up until a little before nine.

The previous night she had been unable to sleep, perhaps anticipating the transaction she was about to immerse herself in, the proposed merger of On-Line Distribution Corporation into Applications Unlimited, Inc. In addition, Harvey Rawson, the hotshot investment banker from Schoonmaker & Co., had insisted that the meeting start at nine. There was no good reason to begin so early. The purpose of the kickoff session was for all parties to get acquainted, to set a time schedule and to parcel out work responsibilities. It would take two hours at most and could have begun much later and still been over by lunchtime. But Rawson had been adamant, even though it meant that his clients, the Wylie brothers, would have to leave their homes in New Jersey very early.

Merriman was also apprehensive because this was her transaction, the first large deal on which she would be working almost on her own. Two weeks earlier, an old friend from Stanford Law School days, Alan Lovett, had called and asked if she could represent him, and Applications, in the merger.

Lovett had told her that his investment bankers, Harrick, Millstein & Co., had advised him to get experienced counsel, preferably in New York or New Jersey, since On-Line, the company being acquired, was located in Madison, New Jersey. Lovett had immediately thought of Juliana.

She had explained to him that she was only an associate at Chase & Ward but would be delighted to take on the job if the firm approved. She had gone to Charles Parkes, the Executive Partner, who told her she could go ahead if William Richardson, the partner to whom she was assigned, would supervise the matter.

Richardson, then involved on a nearly full-time basis representing the prospective junk-bond lenders in a complicated takeover of a Detroit steel fabricator, was cool to the idea when Parkes broached it.

“I’m up to my ears, Charlie, with this Argosy thing,” he had told Parkes. “I’ll be lucky to get home for Christmas.”

“Well, Bill, from what Juliana tells me, I don’t think a whole lot of supervision is going to be required. It’s a pretty straightforward deal, if I understand it right. Besides, from all I’ve heard about Juliana Merriman, she ought to be able to handle it pretty much by herself.” Parkes had cast a friendly glance at Juliana as he made his pitch.

“I suppose,” Richardson had said, neither smiling nor joining in the praise of his associate. “If she’ll do all the work, I guess we can manage it.”

Merriman had been delighted. She was independent by nature and enjoyed having responsibility. Richardson’s busy schedule seemed to guarantee her autonomy in running the transaction. She also thought that working with Lovett should be agreeable, even though in the California past she had turned aside his tentative, short-lived attempt to become her lover.

Occasionally, when she came upon favorable news coverage of Lovett’s prospering business, Juliana almost regretted having turned him down. She had known him when she was a law student at Stanford. Lovett, then a recent engineering Ph.D. from Berkeley, had come to live in Palo Alto, where he had worked for a computer software company. Soon he had gone out on his own and formed Applications.

Applications’ success had been quick. The software Lovett designed competed with the most advanced products of Microsoft and Lotus; his graphics-assistance program was a must for those preparing tables and illustrated material, and his financial spreadsheet was a significant rival to Lotus 1–2–3.

Merriman had not seen Lovett in person for several months before the previous evening, when she had gone to discuss the deal with him over drinks at the Park Lane. Years before, his appearance had matched his status as a computer nerd—mildly good-looking (very mildly), but not especially prepossessing. Now his appearance had metamorphosed as befitted a multimillionaire: he was tan, somehow more handsome and dressed in an elegant Gianfranco Ferre suit.

This morning, as Juliana waited, she was curious about the Wylie brothers who, with their family foundation, owned On-Line. Lovett had described them hilariously Sunday night, referring to the three New Jersey entrepreneurs as the “low-tech” end of the computer business. But they had something that Applications badly needed—a distribution network capable of getting products into computer stores throughout the country, including those in the smallest towns and cities. According to Lovett, distributing computer software was for the Wylies no different from selling embalming fluid or rug shampoo, both of which they had done before their newest marketing discovery.

The first arrival was Beth Locke, a Chase & Ward paralegal who had been working with Juliana for several months. A Vassar graduate, she was awaiting (and, with abundant overtime, was well-paid while she did so) inspiration, in the form of a concrete notion of a course of graduate study or, perhaps, in the form of a husband.

Ms. Locke was a bespectacled young woman with short dark hair. There was nothing unpleasant about her looks, but there was nothing spectacular, either. She looked even plainer alongside Juliana Merriman, who was almost startlingly beautiful. Of medium height, Merriman had pronounced and striking features: an ample, sensuous mouth; long, tapered fingers; and wide, expressive eyes that were a soft, almost liquid blue. And her hair. No one who had met her could forget her brown-red hair, parted in the middle and cascading down her back. The total effect was not at all contemporary, but harked back to the enigmatic beauties of Rossetti and Burne-Jones. Juliana’s only evident physical imperfection was a tiny scar on her upper lip, the result of a childhood operation to repair a cleft palate. The flaw was hardly disfiguring; in an odd way it served as an offset that highlighted her beauty.

“Where is everybody?” Locke asked. “It’s two minutes to nine and no one’s here.”

“Don’t worry, they will be soon enough,” Juliana replied. “Can you check on the breakfast order? It should be here by now. I ordered enough coffee and Danish and orange juice for the Panama occupation forces.”

As she spoke, Ed Sharett, a vice president, and Jeanne Horan, an assistant treasurer, of First Fiduciary Bank arrived, with their lawyer, Angelica Post, a partner in the firm of Rudenstine & Fried. Juliana greeted Sharett and Horan cordially. First Fiduciary was normally a client of Chase & Ward, and Juliana, in her first assignment as a young associate, had worked on its problems. She had gotten to know Sharett, an amiable and able loan officer whose rubicund face concealed that he was approaching fifty. His short companion with the ready smile and freckles, Jeanne Horan, had begun work at the Bank about the same time that Merriman had started at Chase & Ward. They had entered an unspoken mutual defense pact, less out of some kind of feminine bonding than a shared realization that they were both profoundly ignorant about commercial banking.

The bankers were present as potential acquisition lenders to Applications, Chase & Ward’s new client. Because of the conflict, the Rudenstine firm had been retained by First Fiduciary for the transaction. The irony was that Sharett and Horan knew Merriman much better than they did their own lawyer.

“Where do you want us, Julie?” Sharett asked.

“Well, I guess you’ve got more in common with us than with them,” she replied. “How about down at the end on this side?”

The next wave of newcomers made a noisy whirl as they entered. It was the Wylie brothers, their investment bankers and their lawyers together, indicating that they were coming from a preliminary caucus of their forces. The only member of the contingent Julie knew was Harvey Rawson, from the mergers and acquisitions department at Schoonmaker & Co. She had met him in her first assignment under Bill Richardson when she had been part of a team representing the lenders to Steadfast, Limited, in its hostile takeover of Merlin Industries.

Merriman knew that Rawson was still an underling, albeit a highly ambitious one, in the Schoonmaker M&A group. But she had not really expected one of the firm’s wheeling-and-dealing superstars, since the combined assets of Applications/On-Line were a mere $460 million, far less than the multibillion-dollar threshold the firm’s big players were used to. On the other hand, the financial press had been full of stories about an impending “bloodletting” at Schoonmaker, with large cuts in staff predicted, so that Rawson might be eager to enhance his reputation with his employer by bringing off the On-Line transaction successfully.

Rawson, who typically looked in the mood for an argument, was prematurely bald, with only an ever-shrinking fringe of brown hair around the back and sides of his head. He wore the conventional M&A specialist uniform, including an Hermès tie, a striped shirt with white collar and cuffs and (as would soon be apparent when he stripped off his suit jacket for action) red suspenders. His voice was surprisingly high-pitched, though the lack of timbre was compensated for by the general rudeness, and often mean-spiritedness, of what he said.

If Rawson was a model of yuppie fashion, his colleague, Jim Lewis, was not. His reputation had preceded him—Juliana had heard colleagues talk about the legendary “Fats” Lewis often. He was messily obese, his necktie loose at his neck, his pants loose at his stomach. Even before he was introduced to Juliana, he demanded to know where the coffee was.

Rawson presented the Wylie brothers: Herbert, the eldest and the chairman of the board of On-Line; Glenn, the president; and Ian, the youngest and On-Line’s executive vice president. The three were obviously brothers, but even on first look differences were apparent. Herbert, or Herb, as he asked to be called, tugged at his necktie and not only took off his coat but rolled up his shirtsleeves, ever so uncomfortable in city clothes. Glenn wore a three-piece brown suit and kept both his vest and jacket firmly buttoned. Ian, or Skip, wore a wide-striped, tightly cut suit, much more luxurious than the raiment of either of his brothers, set off with a large gold ring on his right hand, a Rolex watch on one wrist and an elephant-hair bracelet on the other. He was taller and, though fleshy, more athletic-appearing than his older siblings; he gave the impression of wanting to burst out of his clothes and into swim trunks, with gold chains around his neck (which was, in reality, exactly what he did want to do).

The Wylies were uncertain where to sit until one of their lawyers, Frank Martin, directed them to seats across from where Juliana was standing. Martin, a senior partner in the Hoboken firm of Greene, Reed, Martin, Shea & Poletti, passed out his business card to those around the table, joking that you needed the card to remember the name of his firm. He was a jaunty bantam of a man, wispy white hair shooting off at odd angles from the top of his head.

“We change our name every couple of weeks,” he said. It was an exaggeration, but not too much of one. He had been the Wylies’ lawyer for many years and had today brought with him an associate from his firm, Craig Webber. Webber was very young, his youth underscored by an unfortunate case of acne.

Martin’s gesture set off a flurry of card exchanges. As they took place, Juliana wondered nervously where her client was.

Mercifully, the breakfast order arrived and time was taken up as everyone queued up to help themselves. Including Fats Lewis, who loaded up a paper plate with three Danish pastries.

Herbert Wylie, who turned out to have the geniality of a successful salesman, tried to liven things up as the group drank coffee and waited for Lovett.

“Where’s our new boss?” he asked.

“I’m sure he’ll be here soon,” Merriman said. “He was having breakfast over at Harrick, Millstein, across town. But he knew this meeting was at nine.”

“We don’t need him anyway,” Herb said, smiling paternally at Juliana. “We’ve got the bankers here. Why don’t they just give us the money and we can all go home? No legal fees, no investment banking fees. Very simple.”

The others laughed weakly.

“Say, Mr. Sharett. That is the name isn’t it?” Herb asked, turning toward the Fiduciary vice president. “You look like Phil Spitalny and his all-girl orchestra over there!”

Juliana looked around quickly. Sharett was indeed the only man on what had become the Applications side of the table. Was Herb Wylie’s remark deliberately sexist? Juliana had sensitive antennae, finely tuned by experience. She knew real sexism when she heard it—naughty big boys who raised the count of four-letter words in meetings when a woman was present, for example. She did not think this was the real, ugly thing, but rather a benign observation on the unusual coincidence that the girls, temporarily, outnumbered the boys on one of the merger teams. But Herb would bear watching.

The vamping ended as Lovett, his banker, Lawrence Bonner, and Applications’ in-house lawyer, Harold Lane, appeared, full of apologies. The cast was now complete, since Applications’ accountants, Price Waterhouse, had already been dispatched to New Jersey to start conferring with On-Line’s CPAs and to begin the process of examining On-Line’s books.

Merriman knew there was no point in waiting for Bill Richardson. He was scheduled to fly to Detroit that afternoon and had called her over the weekend to tell her that he had much homework to do before he left. He had said that he would try to drop by the meeting for the sake of goodwill, but had warned that it would be a “cameo appearance.”

Juliana was about to call the group to order when Harvey Rawson did it for her. “I want to thank you all for coming here this morning. I guess this meeting was my idea. Jim Lewis,” he said, turning to his colleague, still wolfing down his second breakfast, “and I thought it would be good for everybody to get acquainted. We’ve also got a time constraint, as I think most of you know. On-Line has substantial tax-loss carryforwards that expire at the end of the calendar year so we have to do the deal before then. Otherwise, we’re told, it’s just not attractive enough to Mr. Lovett at the price we’re talking about. Correct?”

“That’s right,” Lovett said from across the table, looking to Lawrence Bonner for confirmation as he did so.

“Okay. So today’s November twenty-eighth and we’ve got to do this by Friday, December thirtieth, the last day of the year the banks are open.” Rawson took out his pocket engagement calendar as he spoke. “Now, we all know what a pain in the butt it is to try and close anything the week between Christmas and New Year’s. And the days right before Christmas are just as bad. So I propose that we try to wrap this deal up and close it on Thursday, December fifteenth. That’s almost three weeks from now and we’ll get the whole thing done before the holidays get in the way.”

“Harvey, that’s impossible,” Juliana Merriman said. “We can’t do our due diligence in that time—”

“Due diligence? What due diligence? The price is already set,” Rawson countered.

“Come on, Harvey, you know better than that. This isn’t one of your hostile tender offers where you plunge ahead blind and take your chances. We’ve got a friendly deal—no public stockholders, no Securities Act, no Williams Act—only the people right here in this room. The exchange ratio my client’s been talking about is predicated upon the On-Line business being what we think it is. We’re only going to know that if we send our people in and have a look—if we do our due diligence.”

“Julie, I don’t want to start off with a big debate, but I thought the price was cast in stone. A three-for-one exchange for the On-Line stock the brothers own, and eight dollars cash for each share held by the Wylie Foundation—”

“Subject to our exercising due diligence. Applications is not going to sign a merger agreement until we’re satisfied. Period.”

Alan Lovett tried to maintain an impassive expression as his lawyer sparred with Rawson, but his irregular eye movements betrayed his nervousness. The On-Line merger was important to him; he did not want it to flounder on technicalities.

“That’s not how we understood the situation at all,” Rawson said, glumly.

“Besides, Harvey, don’t forget we’ve got Hart-Scott-Rodino to worry about,” Merriman said.

“In this deal?”

“Sure. On-Line’s got more than a hundred million in sales, so we have to make a pre-merger filing with Justice and the Federal Trade Commission.”

“Christ, they haven’t turned down a merger since before Reagan.”

“I agree with that, but the law still says you have to make the filing.”

“You mean statistics on the industry, lines of business, all that crap?”

“All that crap,” Merriman said. “It may be ridiculous, at least while the Republicans are down there, but you still have to do it.”

“What’s the timing on Hart-Scott?” Lawrence Bonner asked.

“It’s real tight, Larry,” Merriman said. “The normal waiting period is thirty days from the date of filing, which the Feds can extend if they want more information.”

“Jesus, that practically sinks us right there,” Rawson said. “We’d have to file by Wednesday to make December thirtieth.”

“Relax, Harvey, I think we’ve got the problem under control,” Merriman told him. “There’re people working on the application right now, out in Palo Alto and over in Jersey. They hope to have the stuff to Washington to file tomorrow or at the latest Wednesday.”

Harold Lane, Applications’ house lawyer, got up from his place near the end of the table and went over to confer in a whisper with Merriman. He had never worked for a law firm, but had always been employed inside the bureaucracy at a succession of corporations, Applications being the most recent and the first where he had been the chief (and in Applications’ case, only) lawyer. It had never troubled him that he had not achieved success in private practice. The undemanding routine duties he performed in his lowly corporate positions, and the humiliations that often went with them, were fine with him, since he was fundamentally lazy.

Lane was out of his depth in a merger transaction, especially one being done in such a hurry, and he knew it. Although twenty-two years older than Merriman, who was thirty-two, he was perfectly happy to defer to her. Chase & Ward would get paid plenty for representing Applications; let them take the responsibility—and do the work. If he was left out of the negotiations, and operated as a fifth wheel, well, so be it.

“Mr. Lane just told me they were almost finished with the Applications part when he left on Saturday,” Merriman explained. “How is On-Line coming?”

“I think we’re on target,” Frank Martin said, though, in reality, preparing a Hart-Scott filing was a black legal art he knew little about and the work was actually being done by a Chase & Ward associate.

“We can check that later,” Merriman said. “Meanwhile, take a look at this. It’s a time schedule that assumes we make the Hart-Scott filing in time to close on Thursday, December twenty-ninth.”

“I thought you could apply for early termination of the Hart-Scott period,” Rawson said, an accusing note in his voice.

“You can, and we’ll do that,” Merriman replied. “We fully expect it will be granted, but I wanted to make our schedule conservative to allow for the possibility we don’t get it—and to enable us to finish our due diligence.”

“I should think a better way would be to assume we get early termination by, say, the twentieth and close on the twenty-first.”

“Right in the middle of the Chase & Ward Christmas party,” Merriman said, laughing.

“I think this deal is more important than your Christmas party,” Rawson snapped. “Why not plan on the twenty-first and push the date back if we have to?”

“Look, if we spend all our time debating when the closing will be, we’ll never have one,” Lawrence Bonner said to Rawson. “Let’s find out what has to be done and get on with it.”

“All right, all right,” Rawson answered, petulantly. “Just don’t come crying to me when the year runs out and the deal craters.”

“Before we go any further,” Jim Lewis interrupted, “let me pass around this pad so I can get everybody’s address and phone number.” Lewis was carrying on the tradition that one of the junior investment bankers on a transaction like the On-Line merger prepares the so-called working party list. It was a mechanical and non-controversial task that enhanced the impression the bankers were earning their fee.

“Here’s another handout,” Merriman said, once Lewis had put his yellow pad in motion. “I’ve tried to draw up a schedule of who’s supposed to do what. Beth, do you have the copies?”

The paralegal passed the three-paged document around the table. Conversation stopped as the group looked it over.

“Looks to me like Chase & Ward’s doing everything,” Rawson observed.

He exaggerated only slightly. Merriman had made sure that the firm—that is, Merriman herself—was in charge of those arrangements that might get scrambled or not done on time, such as the pre-positioning of the merger documents for filing in Delaware, where both corporations were incorporated, and drafting the Agreement of Merger and employment agreements with the Wylie brothers. (Merriman’s list magnanimously allowed Rudenstine & Fried to do the first draft of the loan agreement between First Fiduciary and Applications. She knew that the Bank, as a lender, would insist on this prerogative, so there was no point in fighting over it.)

“What about a letter of intent?” Rawson asked. “Your timetable and this schedule show that a merger agreement won’t be signed until sometime in mid-December. What have we got to go on until then? You’re going to have your people crawling all over On-Line, poking into its secrets, learning everything about it. What if you decide to walk? What protection does On-Line have?”

“I don’t think there’s any problem with a letter,” Lawrence Bonner said. “As long as Applications has the customary outs.”

“Nuclear war? Acts of God? That what you mean?” Rawson asked.

“That goes without saying,” Bonner replied. “No, that isn’t what I mean,” he went on, slowing down his delivery for emphasis. “What I mean is an out if we go in and find a business that’s materially different—or its financials are materially different—from the one that’s been peddled to us.”

“Can I ask a question?” Herb Wylie asked. When no one replied, he went ahead anyway. “You mention a letter of intent, Harvey. What I’m hearing is that such a letter would have all kinds of outs. So what’s the point? I’ve met Mr. Lovett, my brothers have met Mr. Lovett. He seems like an honorable gentleman. We have a handshake and I don’t think he’s going to renege unless he finds something terribly wrong with our company. I know there isn’t, so that doesn’t worry me. Let’s just go ahead on our handshake. We’ll save time and we’ll save money, too, since I’m sure the lawyers could negotiate for days over a letter of intent, which doesn’t mean anything anyway. Right, Frank?”

“It’s up to you, Herb,” Martin replied, noncommittally.

“Look, we’ve never done a deal like this before,” Herb continued. “We’re just a bunch of salesmen that got lucky. All I know is my friends at the golf club tell me that letters of intent aren’t worth the paper they’re written on. Is that right or wrong?”

“A little of both, Herb,” Martin said. “If you want to proceed without one, I don’t think you’re losing much.”

“Losing much?”

“Okay, losing anything.”

“Thank you,” Herb Wylie said, satisfied that he had pinned his lawyer down to a position.

“One thing we’ve been wondering about,” Merriman said, bringing up a new subject. “This thirty-million-dollar bank loan on your balance sheet. I know Alan Lovett’s been over this with you, Mr. Wylie, but let me make sure we understand it. The loan is from Machikin Bank in Tokyo?”

“Right,” Glenn Wylie confirmed.

“But it’s in U.S. dollars, not yen?”

“Also correct.”

“And the maturity’s eight years from now, at a fixed interest rate of seven and a half percent?”

“That’s right.”

“Pretty sweet deal,” Lawrence Bonner observed.

“Yes, it is,” Herb Wylie agreed. “It’s better than anything we could do with the U.S. banks. Right, Mr. Banker?” he asked, turning to Ed Sharett.

“I’m sorry, what was the question?” Sharett asked, obviously wool-gathering at his end of the table.

“On-Line’s Japanese loan,” Bonner said. “Seven and a half percent fixed for eight years. Could your bank beat that?”

“No way,” Sharett said. “We’d like to borrow on those terms.”

“What we’re getting at, Harvey,” Bonner said, “is that Applications regards this cheap loan as a valuable asset, which was taken into account in pricing the deal. We assume it will continue after the merger. And we also assume that Machikin’s consent to the merger will be required. Is that correct?”

“That is correct,” Rawson said. “We’ve already started work on getting it, and the preliminary report is there won’t be any difficulty.”

“Who’s working on it?”

“Our Tokyo office. Schoonmaker arranged the loan in the first place so it makes sense for us to get the consent,” Rawson said.

“And it looks like there’s no problem?”

“That’s what Tokyo tells us.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Lovett said. “That loan’s important to us.”

“We understand,” Rawson said.

After a discussion of the logistics of deploying accountants and lawyers to press the due diligence examination of On-Line forward, Merriman asked if there was anything else anyone wanted to bring up.

Before anyone could answer, Merriman’s boss entered the room. “Bill Richardson,” he said heartily, as he shook hands with the outsiders—paying no attention to the names he heard back—and took an empty seat two down from Merriman’s. Tall, with a patrician bearing, he looked every inch the self-confident, middle-aged Yale man that he was.

“How’s it going?” he asked.

“Pretty well,” Merriman answered. “We’ve just—”

Cutting her off in mid-sentence, Rawson interrupted to “express his concern” about the proposed timing. He made his pitch all over again for a closing on the twenty-first. “If we get early termination of the Hart-Scott waiting period, which even Ms. Merriman seems to think is in the cards, don’t you think the twenty-first is doable, Mr. Richardson?” he asked. “Can’t all the lawyers’ nitpicking be done by then?”

Merriman, furious at Rawson’s attempt to go over her head, slipped a copy of her draft time schedule to Richardson.

“I’m not sure I like to think of our legal work as ‘nitpicking,’ sir, but—”

“Harvey, we’ve been all through this,” Merriman said. “We—”

“I know your views, Julie,” Rawson said, cutting her off again. “I’m interested in what Mr. Richardson has to say.”

Richardson, veteran of a hundred such arguments over timing, did not need an explanation of the dispute. He put on his half-glasses and judiciously looked over Merriman’s work product.

“I think the twenty-first would be a little tight, sir,” Richardson said, still uncertain of Rawson’s name. “Ms. Merriman’s schedule looks like a prudent one to me.”

Rawson looked disgusted, his appeal to a higher authority denied.

“Any other burning issues?” Richardson asked.

“Not yet,” Merriman said.

“Good. For my sins, I have to catch a plane to the snowbelt this afternoon, so I’ll leave you to get on with your important business. I’m glad to meet you all, and I’m sure Ms. Merriman will look after you with her usual skill.”

Richardson stood, waved perfunctorily at the group and left quickly, before he could get caught in the middle of any other ruckus.

“Julie, is there a room here I can use?” Lovett asked, once Richardson had departed. “I want to talk to the Wylies about some operating stuff while we’re all here together.”

“You can use this one. I’m going back to my office to begin work on the merger agreement.”

“I’d just like to say one thing,” Harvey Rawson said, raising his high voice to be heard over the bustle caused by papers being packed up and Jim Lewis’ efforts to get back the pad with the participants’ addresses and telephone numbers. “This is a merger made in heaven. The fit between Applications and On-Line is fantastic. I know we’re on a tight timetable, but it’s to everybody’s advantage to get this one done. So go to work, guys!”

Julie Merriman walked up the fire stairs to the thirty-first floor, Beth Locke at her side. “I think we’ve got everything on track,” she said, with satisfaction. Harvey Rawson and his ridiculous time schedule had been faced down—twice—and she had established hegemony over the important details of the merger.

“It’s going to be rough, Beth,” she said. “But with a little of the old Chase & Ward do-or-die, we’ll get it done.”

CHAPTER

3

A Merger Made in Heaven: II

The next three weeks were busy ones for Juliana Merriman. Not only did she have to supervise—if from a distance—the small investigative army of lawyers and paralegals that descended on the headquarters of On-Line in New Jersey, and then collect and analyze the results in a “due diligence” memorandum for her client, but she also had to draft the basic merger documents. And then sit, as she had done the previous week, for two interminable days (and one night past two in the morning), negotiating them with the Wylies and their bankers and lawyers. Plus an added half-day with the First Fiduciary people, hammering out the terms and covenants of Applications’ loan agreement.

The activity had been welcome. As the three weeks went by, she had become more and more confident that the On-Line transaction would be a “star in her diadem” (a phrase that Chase & Ward associates derisively used among themselves to describe a triumph; it had been the highest encomium bestowed by a long-deceased Executive Partner, if one seldom accompanied by a raise or a bonus).

Bill Richardson, still tied up with the Argosy financing, only appeared rarely at the On-Line meetings and made no pretense that he, rather than Merriman, was in charge. When he was around, Rawson continued to treat him as a court of last resort, reraising points already negotiated. Merriman had been glad Richardson’s time for her transaction was limited.

The previous Saturday she had worked until very late, pulling together the “due diligence” memorandum for Lovett, finishing it in time to have it delivered to the Park Lane just prior to his arrival from L.A.

Then yesterday, Sunday, she had gone to dinner with Lovett and her live-in boyfriend, Marshall Genakis. Genakis, another émigré from Palo Alto, was the owner of a trendy restaurant, called Marshall’s, located not far from Clinton Plaza. The restaurant was closed that night, so they had met at Orso, where Genakis had been warmly received by his fellow restaurateur, Joe Allen, and the maître d’ of the evening, Ted McGee.

Genakis and Merriman had first become lovers in Palo Alto and, with Lovett, had been an inseparable trio while they all lived there. Lovett and Genakis were then best friends, so close that Lovett’s ineffectual try at stealing Juliana away from Genakis had not caused lasting damage to the friendship. Gently rejected by Juliana, Lovett had concentrated his emotional energies on his growing business and never seemed to feel the need to find a substitute for her. As for Genakis, once he had come to New York and developed his plan for a restaurant, Lovett had made him a substantial loan on easy terms that only a friend (and a rich one at that) would provide.

Lovett now saw his old pals once or twice a year, usually when he called unexpectedly on whirlwind business trips to New York. Together once again at Orso, they had eaten pizzas and recalled escapades from California days. Merriman had declared a moratorium on talking about the merger: “I’ve lived and breathed the Wylie brothers for three weeks now. Tonight I want to relax and enjoy myself for not less than forty-five minutes.”

Shortly after ten, she had excused herself to return to Chase & Ward to make sure everything was in order for a meeting the next day at which the Agreement of Merger would be signed.

“You two can talk the night away if you like,” she had said. “Just be at Conference Room B at ten, Alan. I’ve got a dog and pony show all lined up for you. We’re going to snow you with the results of our due diligence, though I can’t say there are any big surprises. Your friends the Wylies will be along at noon to sign up.”

Genakis had been asleep when Merriman got home, and remained so when she left early Monday morning for the office, so she did not know how late he and Lovett had been up. Judging by Lovett’s appearance when he arrived, the evening had not been an early one.

“You boys behave last night?” she said to him in a voice too low for Beth Locke, arranging documents on the conference table, and Harold Lane to hear. “It doesn’t look as if you did.”

“I’ve felt better,” Lovett said, abruptly. Merriman attributed his gruffness to a hangover and thought nothing of it, especially since he soon relaxed and got down to business.

“Alan, you read the memo I sent over to the hotel on Saturday. That was my attempt to put down in one place everything we learned about On-Line. As I said last night, there aren’t any real land mines. Nothing that would affect the value of the business, or the price you’re paying. I gather Price Waterhouse comes out the same way.”

“Yeah. The accountants have quibbles over some personal items the brothers charged to the business, but nothing important. I must say those boys have taught me a thing or two about deductible expenses.”

“There were one or two things we did want to go over with you personally,” Merriman explained. In succession she summoned the participants in her “dog and pony” show—firm experts on insurance, pension plans, litigation and real estate, as well as a young corporate associate who reported on what he had found in the minutes of the meetings of On-Line’s board of directors.

Their report raised only three items that Lovett found worthy of attention: a series of arrangements under which On-Line’s warehouse space was leased to it by a partnership owned by the Wylie brothers and their wives; leases of chauffeur-driven Cadillacs for each of the brothers; and a company apartment in the Sherry-Netherland in New York.

“How long are the warehouse leases for?” Lovett asked the Chase & Ward real estate lawyer who had read them.

“There are three leases, one in Jersey, one in Des Plaines, Illinois—that’s right near O’Hare Airport—and one in Oakland, California. The Wylie partnership’s the landlord. The leases are all alike and run for another ten years.”

“What’s the rent?” Lovett asked.

The lawyer produced the figures and said they did not seem out of line to him, but he was not an expert on rents in the three locations.

“Are they standard leases?” Lovett asked. “Or sweetheart family deals?”

“They’re good leases. They wanted them to stand up for tax purposes, so they didn’t fool around.”

“If we’ve got firm leases for ten years, and it’s a fair-market rent, I don’t give a damn who owns the property. Isn’t that right?” He looked at the real estate lawyer and Merriman for confirmation. They agreed.

“I’m more worried about the cars. Limousines with drivers, that’s pretty fancy. And expensive. How long do those agreements run?”

“They’re cancelable on ninety days’ notice,” Merriman said.

“Then I think we can forget them for now. Make a note to give a cancellation notice the day we take over. But I don’t see any need to debate this one with the Wylies. We’ll just terminate.”

“They may not like that, Alan,” Merriman said.

“Tough. Those boys are getting a good deal and they don’t have to have that kind of sweetener. They don’t need that company apartment, either. Hell, they all live in New Jersey, why is there a fancy set-up in New York?”

“That one’s a little tougher,” Merriman said. “The lease with the Sherry-Netherland has another fifteen months to run.”

“We’ll talk to the hotel. It may cost us something, but I’m sure we can get out of it. Or maybe I could use it myself. I’ll bet it’s a palace compared with the broom closet they managed to put me in at the Park Lane this time.”

“So you don’t want to bring the apartment up?” Harold Lane asked.

“Right. Let sleeping dogs lie. Where are the sleeping dogs, anyway? It’s twelve-fifteen. Before they get here, let me repeat—I don’t want to talk about the cars or the apartment today. And I also don’t want to get maneuvered into having lunch with the Wylies. I’ve got a couple of errands I have to do this afternoon, and I’m getting the four-thirty American to L.A. So no fooling around with lunch.”

He’s probably too hung over to eat, Merriman thought.

“Here they come now,” Lane said, as the Wylie brothers and Frank Martin came into the room, accompanied by a woman Merriman at first assumed must be the Wylies’ mother. She turned out to be Mavis Zimmerman, the secretary of On-Line and the guardian of the embossing device that would be used to imprint the company’s corporate seal on the merger documents about to be signed.

The Wylie party was followed in short order by Ed Sharett and Angelica Post. She was struggling to manage a dozen copies of the final version of the loan agreement between Applications and First Fiduciary. They were still warm, having just been snatched by Post from the Rudenstine & Fried reproduction room as she had dashed to meet her client. Beth Locke took the copies and put them down next to the other documents at the end of the table.

“Now that we’re all here—I assume the investment bankers aren’t coming today—maybe I should explain where we’re at,” Merriman said. “Bill Richardson apologizes for not joining us. He had to be in Detroit again today. Now, except for a few loose ends, which I’m sure we can button up in the next few days, even with the holidays, our due diligence review is finished. And so is Price Waterhouse’s. Alan Lovett may want to say something more about that when I get through.”

Glenn and Herbert Wylie, sitting in the same chairs where they had placed themselves at the first meeting and all the negotiating sessions since, looked at each other in alarm. What did Lovett have in mind? their looks seemed to be asking. Merriman saw this and laughed.

“Don’t worry, fellows, I don’t think there’ll be any bombshells,” she said. “So let me go on and describe what we have here to be signed. First is the basic Agreement of Merger, which we’ve all now been over about fifteen times and on which I think everybody’s signed off. It provides for the merger to take place next week, if all the conditions precedent are met.”

“You still hope to close on the twenty-ninth?” Ed Sharett asked.

“Thursday, the twenty-ninth, that’s right,” Merriman answered. “That gives us one day’s grace, if we need it. Here’s the Certificate of Merger, which will be filed in Delaware on the twenty-ninth. And, of course, your employment agreements.”

“I’ve got a question about them,” Skip Wylie said. “They don’t say anything about our limousines. I think they should.”

“Limousines? I don’t understand you,” Lovett said, disingenuously.

“Yeah, well, Herb, Glenn and I all have company cars, cars and drivers that On-Line pays for.”

“Skip, as far as I’m concerned, that’s a detail,” Lovett said. “It’s not part of the big picture, which is to get this deal done by year end. Save it till we’re married.”

“It may be a detail for you, Mr. Lovett, but it’s important to us. Frank, shouldn’t the cars be covered?” Skip Wylie asked, turning to Frank Martin, the family lawyer.

“Skip, you can put anything you want in your contract,” Martin said, uneasily. “If you want to cover the cars, we should cover the cars. Or you can wait, as Mr. Lovett says, and talk about them later.”

“What do you recommend?” Skip asked him.

Martin shifted uncomfortably, but Lovett saved him from further embarrassment. “Look, I thought I made myself clear. We’re not going to discuss a lot of trivial stuff now. The cars can wait.”

“Herb? What do you think?” Skip asked his elder brother, plaintively.

“Of course the cars are important, Skip, but I have faith that Mr. Lovett will be fair when we talk about them later,” Herb said. He had detected the steel in Lovett’s tone and was not going to prolong the debate. Merriman had caught it too and marveled, as she had more than once doing the negotiations, at Lovett’s capacity for toughness, a new veneer to his laid-back, California-mellow persona that his business experience must have given him.

“And what about the apartment?” Skip Wylie persisted. “That’s important, too.”

“I know about the apartment,” Lovett said. “My answer’s the same on that. We’ll evaluate it in due course.”

“The apartment, the apartment,” Herb Wylie mumbled. “You know I’ve never even been there? Some people use it though,” he said, looking pointedly at Skip.

Seeing that glance, Juliana Merriman thought that it was just possible that the On-Line corporate apartment doubled as Skip Wylie’s trysting spot. Her suspicion was not allayed as she saw Glenn Wylie’s sudden uneasiness and his peremptory statement that there were “more important things to get crossed off the list” than the future of the Sherry-Netherland apartment.

“You brought the new loan agreements, Angelica?” Merriman asked First Fiduciary’s lawyer. “That’s the last document that will get signed today.”

“I put copies there on the table,” Angelica Post replied. “One is red-lined to show the changes.”

“The only changes are the ones we talked about yesterday, I assume,” Merriman said.

“Yes.”

“I’ll look at the red-lined copy in a minute. Let me explain that also here on the table is a draft memorandum of closing for the twenty-ninth. It lists all the documents that will be exchanged next week, and at the back is a list showing who is responsible for producing each one, and the quantities we’ll need. Please look it over before you leave and let me know if you have any problems.”

“Can we begin signing now?” Glenn Wylie asked.

“In just a minute,” Merriman replied. “I have one question. When I was getting up the list of closing papers, I put in a consent from Machikin Bank. We haven’t seen anything on that yet. What do you know about it, Mr. Martin?”

“Nothing. The Schoonmaker people in Tokyo are taking care of it, as Harvey Rawson’s already told you. I checked with Rawson yesterday and he assures me everything’s going forward. But I haven’t seen anything, either.”

“Well, can you be a committee of one to keep after Rawson? The consent’s very important for all the reasons we’ve mentioned and I don’t want it to fall through the crack.”

“Fine,” Martin said, making a penciled note to himself.

Guided by Merriman and Beth Locke, Alan Lovett signed multiple copies of the basic documents on behalf of Applications, as did Harold Lane, as the company’s secretary. He affixed the corporate seal to each, and a young Chase & Ward secretary, who was a notary public, completed the notarial acknowledgments.

“Who signs for your side?” Merriman asked the Wylies.

“Herb and I together,” Glenn Wylie replied. “And Miss Zimmerman, our secretary, will, too.” Merriman began handing the documents across the table to Frank Martin, who hovered over his clients as they signed their names. Skip Wylie, not participating in the process, watched his brothers uneasily.

When the signing was done, and Merriman had exhorted everyone to take—and look at—a copy of her closing memorandum, Herb Wylie spoke up.

“I think we should have a round of applause for Mavis Zimmerman. Today is her sixty-seventh birthday and she was supposed to go to a lunch with the girls from the office. But we made her come here instead.” Herb began clapping and the others in the room dutifully followed. “In fact you’re all invited to lunch and we’ll celebrate Mavis’ birthday in style.”

In the face of Mavis’ lifelong loyalty to On-Line, Alan Lovett couldn’t refuse, in the interest of future labor relations with his about-to-be-acquired new employees. As they headed off for Bellini (Skip Wylie, clearly the high-liver in the family, had already made a reservation), Merriman reflected on the morning. The deal had been signed, even though the three things her client had not wanted to occur had: discussions of the Wylies’ cars and their company apartment, and being trapped for lunch. Oh, well, he still should be happy, she thought; he won all the big things, and certainly none of the details remaining was likely to cause much trouble.

CHAPTER

4

A Merger Made in Heaven: III

After steady work for over a month, Juliana Merriman had looked forward to an extra-long New Year’s weekend, extended to four days by tacking on Friday, December 30, but the elements had conspired against her. The eastern seaboard had been hit with a fierce blizzard the previous Tuesday, shutting down all the airports and postponing Alan Lovett’s and Harold Lane’s arrival in New York by a full day.

The delay and the remaining open items were enough to make Merriman decide that the closing should be put off until Friday, with the pre-closing on Thursday. She realized that this pushed the consummation of the merger perilously near to the last business and banking hours of the year, but it seemed the safer course. She did have enough doubts about her decision that she had consulted Bill Richardson, catching him before he flew to Detroit once again on Wednesday. He had agreed with her reasoning, though he cautioned her that “your friend Rawson won’t be happy.”

“Another word of warning,” Richardson said. “I’m taking Friday off, come hell or high water. If this damn snow doesn’t interfere, I’ll be back here late tomorrow and can sign the opinions for your Friday closing. Then I’m off to East Hampton. Brian Heyworth will be here if I get stuck tomorrow, or if you need anything Friday.” Richardson was referring to one of his partners who was “under-utilized,” as the expression went, and for whom a major role seemed to be acting as a substitute for his busier colleagues.

As the result of the postponement, Merriman was now, at two o’clock on Thursday, the twenty-ninth, staring at the enormous table in Conference Room B, on which sixty-four blue sheets had been laid out, each bearing a description of the closing document that would (she hoped) be placed on top of it. Harold Lane, who had arrived on the crowded and late overnight “red-eye” from Los Angeles, and Beth Locke worked their way through the three large boxes of documents that had arrived from his office by Federal Express that morning. They processed and examined each one methodically and then placed it on its proper blue sheet. Progress had been slow because almost all the documents, while prepared from drafts supplied by Merriman, required changes of one sort or another. Stripped down to his short-sleeved nylon shirt and light-gray slacks, Lane dutifully made the pen-and-ink fixes requested by Locke, unfazed that a paralegal was correcting the papers that he, a lawyer, had produced.

The sea of blue before Merriman was discouraging, though she knew it would, if all went well, magically turn to a blanket of white by the time the afternoon was over. She recalled with amusement having read in an early Louis Auchincloss novel, given to her by an aunt when she entered law school, a description of the pristine, balletic beauty of a closing. Auchincloss must have operated in a neater legal world, she thought. The floor along the wall was filling up with superseded pages that had been replaced with corrected versions. And the table at the end was littered with Styrofoam coffee cups and half-eaten containers of Chinese food, ordered up by Locke that morning in excessively large quantities, since she had not been sure how many people would be around at lunchtime. The room was a slum, and a rancid-smelling one.

Merriman had cleverly kept down the size of the crowd, telling the investment bankers on both sides that they could come over late in the afternoon, if they liked, but that they would be wasting their time to arrive earlier. She had even dismissed her own client, Alan Lovett, encouraging him to take Ed Sharett from First Fiduciary to lunch at “21.” Lovett had not required much persuasion; in his rise to executive status he had settled on the bar of “21” as one of his favorite spots in the City, apparently unaware that its cachet was not what it had been in the days of the tycoons of old. And she knew Sharett would enjoy the change from the calorie-free alfalfa served in the officers’ dining room of his bank.

Just as she was about to call and check up on his whereabouts, Frank Martin and his associate, Craig Webber, entered Conference Room B, Martin straining to heft one litigation bag of papers, and the acne-faced Webber wrestling with two others.

“Julie, I sure wish we were getting paid by the pound,” Martin said, as he put his down and wiped his sweaty brow. “Over in Jersey, we make two copies of things—one for each side. But you New Yorkers just love paper.”

“Oh, come on, Frank,” Merriman teased. “We need copies for Applications, On-Line and the Bank, and three sets for the lawyers. That’s six. And one for the cat, just to be safe. That’s not so bad.”

“Well, here they are. But if young Craig here gets a hernia, we’ll be seeking workman’s compensation from Applications.” Webber grinned and blushed, but did not say anything.

“Have you got everything that you’re supposed to produce, Frank?”

“I sure hope so.”

“How about the Machikin consent? Has that come in?”

“I touched base with Harvey Rawson yesterday and he said it would be coming in by fax from Japan this afternoon or tomorrow morning.”

“A fax? Don’t we get the original?”

“You better talk to Rawson. He was very definite that it would be a fax from Tokyo. Isn’t that good enough?”

“I would have thought we’d get a signed original. And what does it say? Have we seen the text?”

“Look, Rawson’s your man on this.”

“I’m going to call him. Excuse me, I’m going up to my office to do it. I’ll be right back. Meanwhile, Beth can show you and Craig where things go, and you can start laying out your papers.”

Merriman went upstairs to her office. It was now in disarray, a product of her frantic efforts to grind out material for the closing. Pushing aside two sheets of paper that covered her telephone, she called Rawson, only to be told that he was “out of the office at a meeting” and would not be back, though his secretary did add that he expected to be at Chase & Ward after four o’clock.

She was sure that Frank Martin was right, that the crucial Machikin consent would only be a fax, showing a copy of an indecipherable Japanese signature. Was this satisfactory? she asked herself. If Martin had been the one dealing with Machikin, she thought that it would be; he was neither very swift nor experienced, but he had seemed perfectly straight and honest during their recent dealings.

Rawson was something else. She thought back to her observation of him in the Merlin takeover when his conduct had been shifty, to put it most charitably. He had been adept at the investment banker’s all too common technique of obscuring differences by telling each side what it wanted to hear, knowing that the more time and effort people invested in a transaction, the less likely they were to call a halt when the deferred problems reappeared. Rawson had raised the technique to a fine art, and the result had been a series of angry flare-ups as the exhausted parties patched up their disputes at the last minute.

She also remembered an ingenious housing bond financing, dreamed up by Rawson and his colleagues at Schoonmaker, in which the lawyers had been worried about the U.S. Government guarantees that were a part of the package. Rawson pressed all involved into forging ahead, promising over and over that an eminent Washington law firm, experienced in the ways of Housing and Urban Development, would give a “clean,” unqualified legal opinion that the guarantees were “full faith and credit” obligations of the United States. Weeks of effort had been expended by the time the opinion was delivered; far from being “clean,” the Washington lawyers’ legal conclusions were hedged by pages of qualifications, questionable legislative history and unworkable assumptions. The financing had collapsed amid much acrimony, which could have been avoided if Rawson had been up front about the opinion problem.

Merriman realized that she must not be harsh, not let her emotions conquer her judgment; after all, her own client, Alan Lovett, had been less than candid with the Wylies about his intended plans for their limousines and the On-Line corporate apartment, and she did not think him a dishonest person (though she had been a bit taken aback by his dissembling). Rawson had annoyed her with his overbearing manner since the first On-Line meeting back in November. Even leaving that annoyance aside, her instincts told her to proceed with caution on the Machikin consent. Feminine instincts, Rawson would undoubtedly say. Well, so what? If they existed, why not take advantage of them? And she remembered the advice of Pat Brannigan, an old-timer in the firm’s real estate department. In a transaction they had worked on together when Merriman had been a brand-new associate, Brannigan had told her, “Follow your nose, Julie, not your heart or even your head. If you detect a smell, try to find the cause, even if everybody else says the air is pure and clear.”

She called her friend Jeanne Horan at First Fiduciary. She knew that the Bank had a Tokyo office, which Chase & Ward did not. Was it possible, Merriman asked Horan, that someone from the Bank could go over to Machikin and pick up the original, signed consent? Horan was sure that it would be and, after consulting the Bank’s worldwide directory, said that she actually knew one of the junior executives in the Tokyo branch, Vincent Ames, who had been in the First Fiduciary training program with her.

“I hope he’ll be around,” Merriman said. “I guess we won’t know until seven or eight o’clock when he comes to work.”

“Nonsense, Julie,” Horan said. “If you think it’s important, I’ll call him at home. Let’s see, three o’clock plus fourteen hours—it is fourteen, isn’t it?—that’s five A.M. in Tokyo. He won’t be delighted, but that’s what they get premium pay for over there.”

Merriman returned to Conference Room B and retrieved her hardcover composition notebook, in which she had written her private checklist of things yet to be done. Beth Locke handed her a sheaf of phone messages, which she took to the telephone at the side of the room and where she dealt with the callers’ problems one by one. The clerks at First Fiduciary couldn’t find the signature cards for Applications’ new bank account; Merriman told them to send over another set right away and she would have Alan Lovett sign them. Corporate Services, Inc., wanted to know if the Certificate of Merger could be filed in Dover, Delaware, before the scheduled hour of ten-thirty Friday morning because of the heavy load of year-end filings. Merriman said she would do her best to be ready earlier, but she couldn’t promise it; nor was she very sympathetic to the request, since performing routine tasks for high fees was Corporate Services’ business.

Merriman, returning to her notebook, glanced at the closing papers assembled on the table. She noticed that all those prepared by Frank Martin were dated the original closing date of the twenty-ninth, not the new date of the thirtieth.

“Beth,” she called to her paralegal, motioning her over. “The dates are wrong on all the On-Line papers.”

“Oh, my God, you’re right. I’m sorry, Julie.”

“Never mind,” Merriman said, in a low voice only Locke could hear. “When you get a chance, get Tom Cruise over there”—she nodded to the hapless Craig Webber—“to go around and change the dates.”

“Gosh, I’m sorry I didn’t see the mistake.”

“Forget it. Just get it fixed.”

Frank Martin was beseeching her as soon as she appeared free. “Julie, I was just looking at my opinion.”

Merriman was not pleased to see that Martin was referring to a draft of opinion for the Greene, Reed firm that she had drawn up and sent to him more than a week earlier. It was clear that Martin had not prepared the document in final form for delivery the next day.

“You have us saying that once the Certificate of Merger is filed in Delaware, the merger of On-Line into Applications will be valid and effective. That’s a matter of Delaware law. I can’t say that. I’m only a member of the New Jersey bar.”

Merriman wanted to ask why, if he had a problem, he hadn’t raised the matter earlier, but she realized there was now only time to talk him out of his position.

“I know it’s Delaware law, Frank,” she said. “But we say the same thing in our opinion, and we’re New York lawyers.”

“What’s the theory, Julie? I’ve always thought that if you give a legal opinion on the laws of a jurisdiction where you’re not admitted, you’ve got absolute liability for the conclusions.”

“I’m not so sure of that, Frank, but as I understand it we give Delaware opinions if they’re straight bread-and-butter items. I know Bill Richardson takes that position on this deal—we don’t have any public shareholder vote, any dissenters, any problem that would lead us to get an opinion of local Delaware counsel.”

“I don’t know, Julie. I’m going to have to take it up with my partners.”

“Frank, you’ve got two alternatives. One is to give the opinion, the same way we are. The other is to get a backup opinion of Delaware counsel on the point. All I can say is, if you’re going to do that, you’d better get busy if you hope to finish this up tomorrow.”

“You’re giving the opinion?”

“The firm is, yes.”

“Then I guess we can probably live with it. But, as I say, I want to check with my partners.”

“Now’s the time to do it, Frank. And, by the way, did you bring some of your letterhead so we can get the opinion ready here?”

“I was going to have my secretary type it up over in Hoboken.”

“Whichever you think is fastest,” Merriman said. “We’ve got to get going. We have to start tying up the loose ends or we’ll never get this thing closed.”

Having put out the latest fires, Merriman had hoped to retreat to her office for a few minutes of solitude to contemplate her list of unfinished tasks. Her hope was a vain one, defeated by the arrival not only of Harvey Rawson and Fats Lewis, but the Wylie brothers as well.

She had tried to keep the Wylies away until later, just as she had gotten rid of Alan Lovett; principals could only get in the way of the mechanical dog-work that had to be done.

“We didn’t want to miss the fun,” Herbert Wylie explained and, once she’d thought about it, she couldn’t blame them. It wasn’t every day your company was merged out of existence, and the Wylies were naturally curious to see how it was done.

Then Lovett and Ed Sharett came in, Sharett sitting down beside her and patting her gently on the back, signaling that there had been a round of drinks included with lunch (though she knew that he was too careful a banker to have more than one on such an important afternoon).

Since the whole closing cast had assembled, or at least nearly all of it, Merriman convened the group to order (but not before Fats Lewis had disengaged Beth Locke from what she was doing to send her off in search of a sandwich—“anything will do” he had told her; Merriman was irritated but did not make an issue of the disruption.)

“Let’s review where we are and what has to be done,” Merriman said. “I know it’s clumsy, but please, try not to disturb the papers in front of you on the table.” As she spoke, she noted with satisfaction that the tide had turned: there were now more white piles than blue spaces, showing that progress was being made.

“As far as I can see, the biggest open item is the Machikin consent. Harvey, what can you tell us about that?”

“Okay, Julie, sure. I talked to our office in Tokyo on their Thursday and they said everything’s all set. Mr. Hiseo, the senior vice president of Machikin in charge of U.S. dollar loans, will sign the consent first thing Friday morning and fax it to you here. That should be about seven or eight o’clock our time tonight.”

“Do we know what it will say?”

“I’m sure it will meet your high standards,” Rawson said.

“And what about the original? I’d sure like to get that in our hands—or friendly hands, at least—before we close.”

“I wish we’d known that a week ago. I don’t see how we’re going to do that now,” Rawson said.

“You did know it a week ago. The draft closing memorandum I circulated last week, which I urged everyone to read, called for delivery of a signed Machikin consent at the closing here in New York. So don’t tell me this is a big shock, Harvey.”

“Be that as it may, I certainly assumed a fax would be good enough. We are in the twentieth century, you know.”

Merriman ignored the crack and said there was a way to satisfy her. “Jeanne Horan’s been in touch with Vincent Ames, an officer in First Fiduciary’s Tokyo branch. He’s going to be standing by and can arrange with your man in Tokyo to pick up the original from Mr. Hiseo.”

Rawson was visibly annoyed at Merriman. “I don’t understand the reason for all the Mickey Mouse. What the hell’s the matter with a fax from Machikin? To try and arrange anything else at this point is crazy. Don’t be such an old maid, Julie.”

Now she was mad. There was no excuse for the sexist dig, which she realized was a relatively polite epithet, as opposed to the anatomical obscenity she was sure he would use behind her back.

“You may call it Mickey Mouse. I call it prudence. No one on this side of the table has had any contact with Machikin. We’re taking it on faith that Mr. Hiseo exists and has the authority to sign—”

“Oh, come off it, Julie—”

“And as far as we’re concerned we’re not closing until an independent party has gotten the consent.”

“Schoonmaker isn’t independent?”

“I should hardly think so. You’re getting a fee if this deal is successful, I believe.”

“Of course we are, but that’s none of your business,” Rawson snapped.

“Maybe not. I suggest, however, that you be here at eight o’clock tonight and that you have your contact at Schoonmaker in Tokyo available, too. I’m supposed to talk to Vincent Ames then, so it would be helpful if you two were plugged in.”

“I don’t believe what I’m hearing,” Rawson said. Lewis, finishing the ham sandwich Locke had procured for him, shook his head in vigorous agreement. “Do you agree with this, Alan? And how about you, Ed? It’s chickenshit!” Rawson turned pleadingly to Lovett and Sharett.

“She’s my lawyer, I do what she says,” Lovett replied.

“My lawyer isn’t here yet, but I’m not going to contradict what Ms. Merriman proposes,” Sharett added.

“What about Bill Richardson? Where is he? He’s supposed to be running this show and he’s not even here!” Rawson whined, in his high voice.

“Harvey, I can assure you Bill Richardson has been kept up to date on everything. He’s in Detroit today.”

“Can you get hold of him and ask him about this, this foolishness? Better yet, can I talk to him?”

“Harvey, if we’re going to close tomorrow, you’re going to have to leave that to me. Of course I’ll talk to him,” Merriman said. She did not say that Richardson was expected back that afternoon. “Just make sure you’re here at eight o’clock tonight.”

“Julie, I’ll try anything if it’ll get this deal done,” Rawson said. “But I’ve got to warn you, we’re halfway around the world from Tokyo and we just may not be able to pull off what you want. So I think everybody should be prepared to go ahead with the fax, if we can’t work it out.”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Merriman replied, trying to cut off the argument. “I think those of you who aren’t going to be in on the call can leave if you like, unless you want some cold Chinese. Please be here by nine-thirty tomorrow.”

“Before we go, I’ve been thinking about our limousines and the company apartment,” Skip Wylie said. “We should have a letter from Mr. Lovett saying what he intends to do about them.”

Lovett sat impassively as Skip spoke, though Merriman, sitting next to him, glanced over and saw a vein in the side of his forehead throbbing. Speaking of chickenshit, Merriman thought; all they needed was a time-consuming down-to-the-wire row over the Cadillacs.

“Skip, as I’ve said over and over, I appreciate your concerns,” Lovett said, straining to remain patient. “But there’s not going to be a letter about this or anything else. Understand?”

Skip Wylie looked crestfallen, but did not argue.

“We finished?” Herb Wylie said, quickly. “If so, we’ll see you tomorrow.”

Just after five o’clock, he and the others were packing up to leave when Mary Coward, Merriman’s secretary, brought in two new phone slips. Marshall Genakis had called with an “urgent” message. And Bill Richardson, back from Detroit, wanted to know where the Chase & Ward opinions were.

AFTER

CHAPTER

5

General Confusion

Reuben Frost stretched out contentedly on his bed, looking forward to scanning the latest New Yorker and drifting off into his afternoon nap. At seventy-seven, the retired lawyer was as spry as ever, but (even he had to admit, if only to himself) a solid nap was a necessary part of his regimen.

Earlier he had been at the Gotham Club where, in accordance with custom at the last luncheon of the year, drinks had been on the house. He had consumed his usual Gotham martini (the equivalent of two drinks in any bar) and then, carried away with the holiday bonhomie, a normal-sized one. (Experience had taught him that he was too old, if indeed he had ever been young enough, to drink two Gotham martinis at one sitting.)

After lunch he had dashed off in a foul snowfall to Brooks Brothers to buy a new black tie to wear to Anne Clifton’s on New Year’s eve, and then hurried home. Here the warmth of the silk paisley dressing gown his wife, Cynthia, had given him for Christmas, and the down comforter on his bed, were very welcome. He started reading an article in the magazine, a history of the helicopter by his old friend, Anthony Deere, but was soon fast asleep, not through any fault of Deere’s prose but rather the Gotham Club’s gin.

Frost had not been asleep long when the telephone rang, just before four-thirty. He answered it groggily and was surprised to hear the voice of Charles Parkes, Chase & Ward’s Executive Partner, calling from the office.

“Reuben, I’m sorry to disturb you so late on a Friday afternoon, but we’ve got a little crisis down here.”

“That’s all right, Charlie. What is it?”

“There’s been a murder.”

“At Chase & Ward? Who, for God’s sake?”

“An associate named Juliana Merriman,” Parkes said, going on to describe Henderson’s discovery of her body. “I’d already left for the day, but they caught me at the airport on my way to Palm Beach. I just now got back and decided to call you at once.”

Frost shared Parkes’ horror at the news he’d been given, yet he couldn’t deny that he took satisfaction from the call. As a former Executive Partner, he always sympathized with his successors in the job, though in at least one case his feelings had not been reciprocated. He recalled with some bitterness the shabby, condescending treatment he had received at the hands of George Bannard during the investigation of the murder of Graham Donovan, their partner at Chase & Ward. How nice to be called while the body was still warm.

“Could you come down here, Reuben?” Parkes asked. “The place is crawling with police. It’s a madhouse. We—I—need the benefit of your experience.”

Frost sighed, but his adrenalin was already running. There was no way he would be kept away from Fort Bliss.

“Of course, Charlie, I doubt that my ‘experience,’ as you call it, will be of much help, but I’ll be there as soon as I can get a cab. At this hour it may take a while, especially in this rotten weather.”

“Come as soon as you can.”

“Did I know her, Charlie. Merriman did you say?”

“That’s right. You might have. She was quite senior. Been with us for over five years. And, I might say, very pretty. She was a lovely person and had a great future with us.” The Executive Partner sounded like he meant what he was saying and was not merely rehearsing for a future memorial service. “She was working for Bill Richardson at the end.”

“I’m pretty sure I met her. I’ll be there as fast as I can.”

Frost got a taxi outside his house on East Seventieth Street with surprising ease, even though it was still snowing. He directed the driver to go through Central Park—“this place is practically in the Hudson River and it’s easiest to cross the park”—and tried to think when he had met Juliana Merriman. He thought that he probably had done so at the recent Christmas party and one or two times before that; if she was the person he had in mind, she was indeed good-looking, with distinctive long hair. He shuddered to think of her corpse in the shelves of the firm’s library.

Frost nodded to the long-time receptionist in Chase & Ward’s lobby at Clinton Plaza; her face pale and her eyes red from recent tears, she had obviously heard about Merriman. The forbidding desk behind which she sat and the high vaulted atrium, with its massive pillars and high walls encased in green marble, still daunted Frost; the idea of such a grandiose entry in a giant skyscraper would never have occurred to those running the firm back before he retired as a partner. (But, then, neither would having an office within blocks of Times Square.)

Frost had hurried into the building and was still out of breath as he started up the escalator to the mezzanine, grasping the railing firmly. A young man he took to be an associate was riding in front of him. Unlike the receptionist, he seemed unaware of the horrifying discovery that had been made upstairs and attempted to make cheerful small talk with Frost.

“Working right up to the end of the year, sir?” he asked jovially.

Frost, who did not know his companion, replied, “I could say the same for you.”

“You seem out of breath, Mr. Frost. You should get a key for the elevator and save the climb.” He gestured toward the remote ground-floor elevator, which bypassed the ride up the escalator to the regular elevator bank.

“You mean the handicapped elevator?” Frost said.

“Yessir.”

“That’s for the lame, the halt and the blind,” Frost said. “I’m none of those, so I couldn’t get a key even if I wanted one. Which I do not, thank you,” Frost said, a bit grumpily.

“Only kidding, sir.”

“Well, happy New Year to you anyway.”

Getting off the escalator, Frost slipped his personal magnetic identification card into the slot by the narrow turnstile and headed for Chase & Ward’s private elevators. Though he did not come to the new offices that often, and when he did it was to the retired partners’ enclave on the thirty-fourth floor, the receptionist on thirty-eight recognized him and greeted him almost with relief. She, too, had been crying.

“Mr. Parkes is expecting you, Mr. Frost. Go right in.”

Reuben hesitated, uncertain in which direction to go.

“To the right, all the way to the end,” the receptionist said, pointing him in exactly the opposite direction from the one where he would have headed on his own.

“Reuben!” Parkes called out, after Frost had negotiated the long, narrow and slightly forbidding corridor leading to the Executive Partner’s suite. “Thank God you’re here! This is one of the blackest days in the firm’s history. Can you believe it? One of our associates murdered right in our office? One of our better ones, at that. It’s absolutely ghastly! The police are tearing the place apart and everyone’s panicked. Or terrified.”

“Tell me what you know,” Frost said, steadily. He was not without disturbed feelings himself, but felt that a business-like approach would calm his agitated successor.

“Yes, yes, I’ll do that. Let me get Brian Heyworth up here. He knows part of the story.” Parkes got him on the telephone as he motioned Reuben to a seat on a long sofa.

“Okay,” Parkes said, sitting down in a chair next to Frost. “One of our brand-new associates, fellow named Tom Henderson, was working in the library this afternoon—you know, there’s always somebody who has to have some grab-ass research done on Christmas Day, or the end of the year—and Henderson was stuck. About three o’clock he found Merriman’s body in the stacks—those new high-density ones, you know about them?”

“Yes, one of the librarians gave me a demonstration a couple of months ago. I’d be afraid to go in them, for fear of being crushed.”

“They tell me that’s impossible,” Parkes said. “All kinds of fail-safe releases. Anyway, Julie Merriman wasn’t crushed. The police say she was strangled and then dumped into those damned shelves. Right under the New Mexico Statutes Annotated, for God’s sake.”

“When did this happen?”

“No idea. We do know she didn’t show up for a closing this morning. Brian Heyworth can tell you about that—he had to close the deal for her. She was around yesterday, and last night, preparing for it. They alerted Joe Conklin, our security director, when she couldn’t be located, but he hadn’t turned up a trace of her before young Henderson found the body.”

“She must have been killed sometime last night,” Frost said. “Even on a slow day before a holiday, I don’t think you choke somebody to death and drag the corpse around the office in broad daylight.”

“That’s what the police think.”

“What do we know about Merriman?” Frost asked.

“I got her file just before you came. It’s right here somewhere. The police made everyone—or such few as were still around—leave their offices and go to the cafeteria. There was hell to pay to extricate somebody who knew where the personnel files were. But anyway, here it is.” Parkes leafed through the dark-brown manila folder, seemingly relieved to shift from the grisly facts of Merriman’s death to the more neutral details of her biography.

“She was thirty-two. Born in Portland, Oregon. Class of eighty-one at UCLA, graduated from Stanford Law School with high honors three years later. She came east in eighty-four and clerked for Ramsey Kendall on the Second Circuit. She joined us after her clerkship. First assigned to Bernie Straus and the bank group, then worked for Brian, then for Bill Richardson. Here’s her picture.”

Parkes handed across a print of the ID picture of Merriman taken on her first day of work. “She was very beautiful, Reuben,” Parkes said. “Now, for Christ’s sake, she’s dead!”

“Yes, I do remember her. Was she married?”

“No. But Conklin’s already found out that she lived with a fellow named Marshall Genakis. Runs a restaurant a few blocks from here. Very original name, it’s called Marshall’s. Ever hear of it?”

“I think so.”

“If you’ve heard of it, Reuben, it must be very smart. Merriman and this Genakis apparently lived in one of those apartments next door.”

While Parkes was speaking, Brian Heyworth came into the office. The two men were both around sixty, and had been admitted to partnership in Chase & Ward at the same time. This meant that they were in the same “class” and received exactly the same percentage of the firm’s profits; there the similarities ended. Parkes was the respected leader of the firm; he was slightly bumbling, which was endearing but deceptive, since it was conceded by even the most egotistical of his partners that he had a brilliant, incisive mind. Heyworth, on the other hand, was a marginal producer and required watching, and “respect” was not a word that came to mind when his partners discussed him.

Frost thought the differences between Parkes and Heyworth were now evident in their appearances: Parkes tall and healthy-looking, Heyworth short and stocky; Parkes greeting all comers with a friendly, open countenance, Heyworth, with his turned-down mouth, facing the world with suspicion.

“What a mess!” Heyworth exclaimed, once he had greeted Frost and sat down beside him. “I’ve never had such a day.”

Frost assumed he was talking about Merriman’s death. As he chattered on, it became clear that the “mess” he was referring to was a combination of the necessity for him to close the transaction on short notice and having to stay around the office as the New Year’s weekend was beginning.

“What happened, Brian?” Frost asked him.

“Let me start at square one. Bill Richardson got hold of me earlier this week and said he might need some help on the On-Line transaction Juliana Merriman was working on. He said he was going to be in and out—traveling to Detroit—and wanted very much to take today off. He thought I was the logical choice because Merriman had worked for me before she switched over to him. My schedule wasn’t that full, so I told Bill I’d help out if necessary.

“Then, this morning, about ten o’clock, I got a panicked call from Bill, out in East Hampton. He’d been called by Beth Locke, the paralegal working on the deal, who’d told him that Merriman hadn’t shown up this morning. Locke had tried her at her apartment and was told—I guess by the guy she lived with—that she wasn’t there. He said he’d assumed she’d been here all night getting ready for her closing.”

“She hadn’t gone home to bed? Even though her apartment was less than a block away?”

“That’s what he said.”

“When had he last seen her?”

“Dinnertime last night. He said they ate at home and then she came back to work. Since he didn’t know where she was, and since no one else had a clue, I was stuck trying to glue the damn closing together.”

“It had to be done today, I suppose?” Frost asked.

“Oh, yes. There were tax-loss carryforwards that would expire if we didn’t close.”

“Just what was the On-Line deal?”

Parkes and Heyworth filled him in and Parkes explained how the firm had come to represent Alan Lovett and Applications Unlimited.

“Pretty good, Charlie, having new business brought in by your associates,” Frost commented when they had finished. “You did get it closed, I assume?” he asked, turning to Heyworth.

“Yes, Julie and Beth Locke had all the papers laid out in a conference room downstairs. The merger documents were pre-positioned in Delaware, so we were in good shape there. But it was still bloody confusion. We barely made the fund transfer cutoff of two o’clock. The usual bankers’ screwup.” Heyworth recounted his “war story” of getting the “dumb bankers” to transfer the funds involved to the right account at the right time. Reuben tuned out to contemplate the career of Brian Heyworth.

He reflected that, in the years he had seen it operate, the system for selecting new partners at Chase & Ward had worked pretty well, consistently producing a flow of new blood to uphold the firm’s top-drawer reputation. But no system was perfect, he reasoned, and Brian Heyworth was living proof of that.

Heyworth had been sponsored for partnership back in the late fifties by old Phineas Ward, one of the founders of the firm. He had served as Ward’s bag-carrier in the latter’s declining years and, out of gratitude, Ward had pushed hard for his admission. Because of Ward’s possessiveness, Heyworth as an associate had not had the broad “exposure”—working for and being Judged by a series of partners—that was customary in the selection process. Out of deference to Ward, Frost and his colleagues had elected Heyworth to their ranks largely on the old man’s say-so.

The decision had been wrong. The qualities for being a sycophantic aide-de-camp did not translate into making Heyworth an independent partner with sound judgment. It was not that he couldn’t make up his mind—he could and did, free of all doubt; the problem was that the end product was often impractical, shortsighted or poorly reasoned.

As his partners discovered Heyworth’s shortcomings, through veiled hints from clients or lawyers from other firms who had dealt with him, and through his own voluble and assured descriptions of his work at the “training table” where the partners gathered for lunch, he became more and more isolated in the firm. Most of his time was spent working on the affairs of two or three traditional clients whose legal problems were of the most routine sort. Or filling in for others, as he had done that day at the On-Line closing. He had become a timeserver, giving minimal attention to the problems that came his way. And, to the annoyance of Charlie Parkes and others, there was no sign that he planned to leave before reaching the mandatory retirement age, of seventy, a decade hence. Notwithstanding this, neither Parkes nor his colleagues had the stomach to attempt to force Heyworth out.

Frost’s attention was redirected to Heyworth’s narrative when he changed the subject. “There was another screwup, too, which I’m afraid was of Julie’s making,” he said.

“What was that?” Frost asked.

“Merriman was a very good and usually very practical lawyer, at least she was back when she’d worked for me. But in this deal she’d gotten up on her high horse about getting the original copy of a consent from Machikin Bank in Tokyo. On-Line has a damned attractive long-term loan from Machikin, and Lovett, when he priced the deal, assumed it would stay in place. Under the loan agreement, Machikin’s consent to the merger was required. A fax of it came in last night, but it turns out Julie had been insisting that the signed original be turned over to someone acting for Applications. A guy from the First Fiduciary branch in Tokyo was supposed to pick it up and then call Julie to tell her he had his hands on it.”

“That didn’t happen?”

“No. Everything got tangled up with the New Year’s holiday. The V.P. at Machikin who signed the consent left for the long weekend—in Japan they tell me it’s really long—before he’d turned the thing over. He apparently thought sending it over the fax was good enough.”

“What did you do?”

“I talked to Bill Richardson in the country. He said Julie had told him Thursday night about her arrangements to get the original consent delivered in Tokyo and he’d gone along with that. He thought the way to save the situation was to get Schoonmaker, who’d been honchoing the consent with the Japanese, to guarantee the fax. I took that idea back to the meeting and almost got my head chopped off by Harvey Rawson, from Schoonmaker. He screamed at me that Schoonmaker wasn’t in the business of giving guarantees and wasn’t about to start and that it was damned insulting for anyone to question the authenticity of the fax. He also made it clear that the only person at Schoonmaker who could authorize such a thing was Tom Hanford, who’s the little tin god over there as we all know. He was at that very moment en route to St. Bart’s, so there was no way we could get his approval by our deadline. Rawson really abused me—said he’d been putting up with Julie’s crap for a month and now he wasn’t going to take any more from me.”

“What did you do?” Frost asked.

“I reported back to Bill. We got Lovett on the call with us and he finally agreed to take the fax. The deal he had was too good to blow away over a risk that was really far-out. I must say I agreed with him and was a little sorry Julie had tried to brainwash them all—Lovett and the First Fiduciary bankers, too—into thinking there was some big exposure they had to worry about. I don’t know what got into her. I’m afraid women lawyers are like that. Afraid somebody’s going to put one over on them, afraid someone’s going to take their pants off.”

Frost recoiled at his former partner’s sexism. He had in his day often been involved in transactions where stupid, or stubborn, lawyers had made impractical or senseless demands. He had not found such demands the exclusive province of either sex; he doubted that there was some latent fear of being violated, as Heyworth suggested, that made women any more intransigent or unrealistic than their male counterparts. And from what little he had heard about Juliana Merriman’s ability, he wasn’t at all sure that her position regarding the Machikin document was in the senseless category.

The problem never would have arisen in his day, Reuben thought. A signed consent on such an important matter would have to have been on the table before the merger closed as a matter of course. Or, if the deal was hurriedly being stitched together with baling wire (as it often was), with the possibility of a guarantee eliminated, perhaps one would have settled for a telex and a confirming telephone conversation with the signer.

Had the fax changed all this? Did the wonder of having a physical reproduction in New York of a document existing 6,700 miles away in Tokyo obscure the fact that the original was not in hand? Who was right? Juliana Merriman, proceeding cautiously, perhaps too cautiously? Or Brian Heyworth, assuming perhaps too easily that the fax copy gave Applications all the protection that was needed? The wonders of modern telecommunications, Reuben thought. The wonders and the complications.

CHAPTER

6

Probing

“What do you suggest we do now, Reuben?” Parkes asked, as he, Frost, and Heyworth sat in his office.

“Is Bill Richardson coming back to town?” Frost asked.

“I talked with him after I called you,” Parkes said. “He said he’d come back if I thought he should. I didn’t see any reason for it, so I told him to stay put. You disagree?”

“No, I was just asking. I guess the next thing is to see where the body was found. I’d like to do that.”

“Why don’t you go down there with Joe Conklin?” Parkes said.

“Good idea.”

Conklin was located through his beeper and appeared at Parkes’ office several minutes later.

“Do you need me anymore?” Heyworth asked, as Conklin and Frost started for the elevators.

“What do you think, Reuben?” Parkes asked.

“I think that’s up to you,” Frost said, turning to Heyworth. “If you leave, you ought to keep in touch with the switchboard.” Frost didn’t say that he thought most people, when a valued employee had been brutally murdered, would be concerned enough to stay around and find out as much as they could.

“One thing, Brian,” Frost said. “Was there a closing memo for this On-Line transaction? And a working party list?”

“Sure.”

“I want to be certain that I fully understand the deal and I also want to get a fix on who was here for your closing, and the pre-closing yesterday.”

“If Beth Locke is still here, I’ll have her bring up a copy.”

“What a tragedy, Mr. Frost,” Conklin said, as they took the elevator to the floor of the crime scene. “This is some way to end the old year, let me tell you. Everybody who was here when the news went around is petrified. And they’re all going to make me the fall guy.”

“I don’t follow you,” Frost said.

“They’re unanimous that the murder must have been committed by an outsider. Nobody from Chase & Ward could possibly have done such a thing.”

“Hmn. I would have thought it’s a trifle early to rule anybody in or out.”

“If an outsider did it, it was the security system that was at fault. Or more precisely, me, sir.”

“Now I catch your meaning. But even if it were an outsider, it could be one who had gotten into the office legitimately. Such as one of those people who was here for Ms. Merriman’s closing. Besides, this office isn’t exactly a quiet little private home. What do we have now, a hundred and fifty lawyers? And four hundred secretaries, messengers, file clerks and all the rest?”

“About that.”

“So there’s a vast crowd that’s authorized to be here. And then the people who come to see them—clients, other lawyers, wives, husbands, children.”

“Right. Absolutely right.”

“Plus, I’m sure, one or two bad apples who manage to get through the security net, however tight you make it, Mr. Conklin.”

“I wish Mr. Parkes and the others had your perceptiveness, Mr. Frost.”

At the thirty-first floor, a uniformed policeman blocked their way and told them they could not enter.

“I understand what you’re saying, patrolman, but could I see the detective supervisor?” Reuben said, with authority. His use of the NYPD term for the officer-in-charge impressed the rookie cop, who hesitated and then consulted with a colleague standing nearby. Soon the second cop went off and returned with a plainclothesman.

Frost introduced himself and found out that the man was Detective David Petito of Manhattan Homicide South. A short, barrel-chested, middle-aged man in a blue suit, he asked what Frost wanted.

“I’d like to see where Ms. Merriman’s body was found,” Reuben answered.

“Can I ask why?”

“I’m trying to help the Executive Partner of this firm clear this thing up. Ms. Merriman was a valued associate here, and we’re determined to find out who killed her.”

“What’s that got to do with visiting the crime scene?”

“I thought perhaps … Look, as it happens I’ve had some experience in these matters. One of my partners was murdered some years ago, and I worked with your people quite closely then. Especially with a fellow named Luis Bautista.”

“Who?”

“Luis Bautista. He was a homicide detective until a few months ago, when he left your Department to go into law practice.”

“Don’t know him.”

“Well, we had a number of dealings over the years. The Tobias Vandermeer murder last year. And Flemming Andersen, the head of Andersen Foods—”

“Sorry, I’m not familiar with those cases,” Petito said, cutting Reuben short. “Besides, this is a sealed crime scene. No one’s allowed on this floor except police and authorized medical personnel. Okay?”

“If that’s the way you want it, officer, fine,” Frost said. “We do have a common objective, but we can pursue it independently. Sorry to bother you.”

Petito turned and went back through the entry doors.

“So much for that,” Frost muttered to Conklin as he rang for the elevator. “The people who worked down here are in the cafeteria, are they? Let’s head up there.”

“I wouldn’t recommend it, sir. It’s sort of a police detention room. They’re questioning everybody one by one, then sending them home. If you go up there, they may hold you for questioning, too.”

“But I wasn’t even here when the murder happened.”

“That might or might not persuade them.”

“All right, I’ll take your advice,” Frost said, curtly. “Let’s go back up and see Charlie Parkes.”

“We struck out,” Frost told Parkes. “The police won’t let me into the library and Conklin, here, says the police will detain me if I go to the cafeteria. So let’s just sit down for a few minutes and review the bidding,” Frost said.

“If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen …” Conklin said.

“No, no, stay for a minute, Mr. Conklin,” Frost said. “Let me see if I have the facts straight. You told me on the way downstairs that Merriman was strangled. From the size and depth of the ligature on her neck, the police think with a necktie, right? And since there were no obvious signs of a struggle, they think she was taken unawares.”

“That’s about it. That’s all they’ve told me.”

“Do they have any idea where it happened?”

“No. They don’t think it was in the stacks, where they found her. Everything was too neat. They’re working on her office, which was on the same floor as the library and not too far from where she was found.”

“Where was the closing she was working on?” Frost asked.

“In a conference room on thirty, one floor down from her office.”

“And the pre-closing was there, too, I suppose?”

“Yes. She’d reserved it for two days.”

“Oh, Reuben, by the way, here’s the On-Line memorandum of closing and the working party list,” Parkes said. “Ms. Locke brought them in while you were downstairs.”

“Thanks.” Frost took the documents, folded them in half and stuffed them in the pocket of his suitcoat. “Do the police have any theory about who the killer is? Someone in the office? An outsider?” he asked Conklin.

“As far as I know, they’re as much in the dark as we are.”

“Excuse me, gentlemen, nature calls. I’ll be right back,” Parkes said, getting up and leaving the room while the other two men continued talking.

“While Charlie—your employer—is out of the room, let me ask you something,” Frost said. “How good is the security here? I know this place is called ‘Fort Bliss,’ but is it?”

“We’ve got a very sophisticated setup. But no system is perfect. You know how it works, or how it’s supposed to work? Everybody at the firm has a magnetic ID card that they have to put in a turnstile slot downstairs. I seem to remember that you got an ID.”

“Yes. They even issued them to supernumeraries like me.”

“The whole system’s computerized so I can delete your ID number from the list and your card won’t work anymore. That way we keep up to date on who’s authorized to be in here and who isn’t. When your card is used in the turnstile, the computer makes a record of your serial number.”

“It does?”

“Yes. Normally there’s no reason to look at it—it’s just another bell and whistle that comes with the system.”

“That may be, but this time it may be crucial. How long are the records kept?”

“Several days. It depends on the volume of people coming in. When the system gets to the end of a cycle, it starts recording over the old records.”

“It doesn’t automatically keep the information, then?”

“No. If you want to keep it, you have to print it out.”

“Don’t you think you’d better do that for yesterday?” Frost asked.

“You’re right,” he said, getting up to leave.

Charlie Parkes returned and asked what had happened to Conklin.

“He went to save the computer records on those gates downstairs.”

“There’s something you should know about him, Reuben. He’s an awfully nice guy, but a pretty dim bulb. We hired him from the company that put in our security system. He seems to know the electronic business inside out, but he’s pretty dense otherwise.”

“Thanks for the warning. He did seem to explain the system pretty well. What interested me was that it doesn’t rule out an inside job by someone authorized to be in the office. Perhaps even a lawyer. Perhaps even a partner!”

“Now, Reuben, let’s not get carried away,” Parkes said. “Of course, it could have been anyone. But I hope and trust you’re wrong when you suggest it could be one of us.”

“Look, we may as well go home,” Frost said. “There’s nothing more to be done here, and the police aren’t going to tell us anything.”

“I’ve called off Palm Beach,” Parkes said. “I couldn’t possibly enjoy the weekend after this.”

“Then let’s talk in the morning,” Frost replied. “Incidentally, I assume someone notified her boyfriend.”

“Yes. Conklin said the police went over to their apartment as soon as they found out about him. I’ve got to call him myself, but I’m going home to have some Dutch courage first.”

“What about her family?”

“The file lists her mother in Portland, Oregon, as the next of kin to be notified,” Parkes said. “Conklin apparently called her when they couldn’t locate her this morning, and the detective in charge was supposed to call her, too, now that the body’s been found.” Parkes sighed. “I guess I’ve got to do the same,” he said, making a note of the Portland number from Merriman’s records.

“After some more Dutch courage, no doubt,” Frost said. “I don’t envy you, Charlie.”

“Thanks. Can I drop you, Reuben?” Parkes asked. “You don’t want to be walking outside Fort Bliss this late.”

“Excellent. Thank you.”

On the way uptown, Parkes asked Frost if he really believed Merriman’s killer might be someone from the firm.

“Charlie, anything’s possible.”

“Who could it possibly be?”

“Damned if I know. Let me call you in the morning when I’ve had a chance to digest what I’ve learned,” Frost said.

“It’s a pretty light meal so far.”

“I have an idea there may be more courses to it than we imagine.”

CHAPTER

7

The Boyfriend

Reuben’s wife, Cynthia, bundled her husband off to a favorite neighborhood restaurant, Sette Mezzo, as soon as he got home. She announced that she was starving after a long day of reviewing grant applications at the Brigham Foundation, where she was in charge of awards to the arts.

Despite her slim dancer’s figure, kept in shape even years after her retirement as a leading ballerina with the National Ballet, that night she had an insatiable appetite and ate, as Reuben observed, as if it were her last meal.

Once he had told her about Juliana Merriman, Cynthia had an even bigger appetite—for details about the young woman’s death. Her husband was not helpful in sating her curiosity; he had really not obtained very much information on his visit to Clinton Plaza.

“It’s frivolous of me to bring it up, but this latest trouble reminds me of a mystery novel I once read,” Cynthia said. “I forget the name of it, but it was about a body found in a will box in a law office. I think it was written by a London solicitor, and I remember that it was very good.”*

“You know I don’t read mysteries,” Reuben answered. “They’re a waste of time.”

“I know, dear, you just live them.”

Saturday morning, as he ate breakfast, Reuben himself realized how little he knew about the situation. He had called the delivery service to get all the papers and was relieved to find that only the Times carried news of the murder, in a chaste and unsensational article. The tabloids had not caught up with the story; economic stringency might endanger their vitality, but in this instance he was grateful for the result.

Frost also read with interest the distillation of the Applications press release in the Times, remembering as he did so that he had brought home copies of the closing memorandum and the working party list. After breakfast, burping comfortably from the fresh orange juice his wife had prepared for him, he retrieved the documents from his desk and read through them. There were no surprises in the memorandum, which set forth precisely the steps that had been taken the day before to merge On-Line into Applications. It seemed to Reuben a perfectly routine transaction—“plain vanilla,” as the saying went.

Frost then called Beth Locke at home to determine who among those on the working party list had been present on Thursday and Friday. Locke was barely coherent when she answered and Frost did his best to calm her. Eventually she was able to go over the list and, as Frost had suspected, the number was well over a dozen. Had one perhaps lingered behind on Thursday and strangled Merriman? He hoped that the police had been given the list so that they could begin working down it. But unless and until there was more to go on, Frost saw no point in trying to investigate the participants himself.

What could he usefully do this morning? The weather was still bad. Friday’s snow had turned to a soft drizzle, which would make for a treacherous New Year’s eve if the temperature dropped during the day. He wasn’t keen on going out. And, anyway, who or what could he see?

The boyfriend, perhaps? He pulled down his copy of Mimi Sheraton’s restaurant guide. Marshall’s was not listed. The Zagat guide, which Frost did not fully trust, gave it a “15” across the board (for food, decor and service)—a middling rating.

He wondered what Genakis was like. Why not go see him? But on what excuse? Reuben turned the problem over in his mind for several minutes. Perhaps he could make a condolence call on behalf of the firm, like the visits to next of kin the Navy made, back when he was in the service, after a sailor had been killed in action. Genakis was almost a relative, he reasoned, and Merriman, if not necessarily killed in action, had certainly met her fate on Chase & Ward’s premises.

Frost called Charlie Parkes at home and learned that he had talked with Genakis the previous evening.

“How did he react?” Frost asked.

“He was surprisingly calm, but seemed a bit disoriented. I guess I can’t blame the poor devil for that.”

“Hardly.”

“He told me both Merriman’s parents were alive and that he’d talked to her father. I spoke to the father after that. It was a damned painful conversation, Reuben, but the guy’s either a stoic or the reality hasn’t sunk in yet. He and his wife are flying in today. I offered to arrange things for them here, but he declined. Genakis is apparently taking care of everything. The father didn’t exactly say it, and maybe I was just overly sensitive, but I had a hunch he felt his daughter would still be alive if she hadn’t been working at Chase & Ward.”

“He may be right, you know. Any other news, Charlie?”

“Nothing. And only that little item in the Times, thank God.”

“Don’t worry, that will change. Match a pretty girl, murder and our stuffy old law firm, and the tabloids won’t be able to resist.”

“Thanks.”

Finished with his call to Parkes, Frost looked in the Chase & Ward office directory and dialed the home number he found under Juliana Merriman’s name.

A hoarse, groggy voice answered. Once he had confirmed that he was talking to Genakis, Frost expressed condolences for himself and the firm and asked if he might drop by to convey them in person. Genakis did not oppose the idea.

Frost said that he could come downtown any time. “Give me an hour,” Genakis replied, so that, shortly after eleven, Frost retraced the taxi ride he had taken the night before.

The Genakis/Merriman apartment was in the larger of the two residential buildings in the Clinton Plaza complex. It was on a low floor but, facing across to the office tower, it was quiet and did not pick up the noise from the street.

In keeping with the fashion in new Manhattan apartment buildings, a “concierge” greeted Reuben when he entered the lobby. Standing behind a counter surrounded by an array of closed-circuit television sets and other high-tech equipment, the woman punched the name “Genakis” into a computer and told Frost that he lived in Apartment 3-C. (Did she really need a computer to retrieve that simple bit of information about one of the tenants? Frost wondered.) Once she had called upstairs to announce his arrival, Frost took the elevator to the third floor, where Genakis was standing in front of an open door.

“Mr. Genakis?” Frost asked.

“That’s me,” the younger man said, warily shaking his visitor’s hand. Genakis, slightly built, had a gaunt, and not necessarily friendly, face. His hair was uncombed and he had not shaved.

“How about some coffee?” he asked, leading Frost down a narrow hallway to a living room. “I didn’t get up until after your call and made some then. It’s fresh.” He looked haggard and worried, but the tone of his voice was even.

“Sorry if I woke you.”

“That’s all right. It’s just that I was up all night—the police, calling Julie’s parents—and didn’t get to sleep until about six this morning. Did you say you wanted coffee?”

“If it’s no trouble.”

“Cream and sugar?”

“Yes.”

Frost looked around the room carefully once his host had gone to the kitchen. He had counted on finding a sleek, modern apartment, with spare, minimalist furniture, perhaps because he expected all young people in New York to have such quarters. The lines of the room he was in, including a large picture window overlooking the plaza, were quite grand, but the furniture was without distinction and seemed worn, even shabby. The only aspect of the decor that met Reuben’s expectations were the prints on the wall—a cool Richard Diebenkorn abstract, which Reuben liked enormously, and an Ed Ruscha that included the painted word “S-T-R-E-S-S,” which he did not like at all. Merriman, and presumably Genakis, were loyal Californians, Reuben decided.

“Sorry this place is so cramped,” Genakis said. He was almost frenetic as he handed Reuben the coffee mug he was carrying, then hurried back to the kitchen for a spoon and a paper napkin. “When Julie and I went in on my restaurant, we used up every cent we had. There wasn’t anything left to buy furniture for this place. So we moved in the old stuff we’d been using. I know it looks like a thrift shop, but we had to make do with it. Now I guess it doesn’t matter any more.” Frost waited, thinking Genakis might elaborate, might speak more directly about the murder. When he did not, Frost launched into the condolences he had rehearsed in his mind on the trip downtown.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Genakis. As I told you on the telephone, I want to express to you the sympathy of everyone at Chase & Ward at this ghastly occurrence—”

“Everyone?” Genakis cut in.

“Why, yes, I think so. Everyone I’ve talked to liked Ms. Merriman and those who matter thought she was doing fine work.”

Genakis laughed bitterly. “Everyone liked her, did they? Except somebody at Chase & Ward mad enough to strangle her.”

“You think someone from the firm murdered her?”

“I wish I knew. One of the reasons I was up all night was trying to figure out who it could have been. I drew a blank. But it must have been somebody from that frigging office. It’s guarded so tight a killer couldn’t just walk in off the street.”

“I take it you’ve been there?”

“Sure. Julie was real proud of the place and used to invite me up once in a while.”

“Do you have any suspicions? Any hunches?” Reuben asked.

“No, I don’t. As far as I know, Julie didn’t have an enemy in the world.”

“Did she talk much about her work?”

“Oh, yes. She loved what she was doing and couldn’t help but talk about it. She used to get disgusted with people—mostly outsiders she had to deal with. And she’d get bored sometimes. But I never heard her mention anybody that she thought was her enemy. There were a couple of young guys she thought were too ambitious, were trying too hard. But she just laughed at them and I doubt they knew how she felt.”

“So you don’t think there were any contemporaries, rivals for becoming a partner, that might have done this?”

“Maybe there were, but I don’t know who they are. And I don’t think she did.”

“What about the partners she worked for?”

“She’d joke about them. I don’t remember anything negative, except a few times when she thought they were working her too hard.”

“How about secretaries and what we call service staff? Did she ever have a fight with any of them? Cost any of them their jobs? Complain about them?”

“Not that I know of. She thought her own secretary was terrific.”

“Who was that? Do you remember the name?”

“Mary Coward.”

“Oh, good heavens. I know her. She’s been around almost as long as I have. A nice person.”

“Julie liked her a lot.”

“How long had you known Ms. Merriman?” Frost asked.

“We’ve been together a long time. I can tell you the story if you want, but it’ll take a while.”

“Go ahead. I’m curious.”

“We met out in Palo Alto,” Genakis said, speaking fast. “I’m from Chicago and drifted west around nineteen seventy-eight. I ended up in Palo Alto, took a course or two at Stanford and supported myself doing odd jobs—roofing, bookshelves, all kinds of stuff. Then I got a job as a short-order cook, and what do you know? I liked it. I went to work in a real restaurant with a serious chef, and then went to culinary school for a year, up with Alice Waters in Berkeley. By eighty-two, I was a chef in a place myself. That’s when I met Julie, who was finishing her first year of law school.”

“How did you meet?”

“You mean, how did a lowly cook meet the lady lawyer? Well, the place I was working was pretty fancy. California French, if you know what I mean.”

“Yes, I do.” Frost tried not to let his features express his feelings about “California French.”

“You wouldn’t exactly say it was a students’ hangout. Julie came there one night with her parents. It was part of my thing to walk around the dining room—you know, in my whites and my toque—and greet each table. When I saw Julie, I flipped. She was beautiful in about the most far-out way I’d ever seen. I made small talk with the Merrimans longer than I should, looking at Julie the whole time. By the end of it, I knew her name was Juliana and that she was in the law school. Her old man paid the check with a credit card, so I figured I was searching for Juliana Merriman—unless her old lady had remarried—and, sure enough, I found her through the law school.

“I think she was excited when I went to the trouble of looking her up,” Genakis went on, still talking rapidly, but calmly. “I’m a pretty single-minded guy. If I’m making tonight’s dinner, I concentrate on tonight’s dinner. If I’m chasing the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen, I zero in on that. Julie didn’t know what hit her, and in three weeks she’d moved out of the law school dormitory into my apartment. It was great. We were so different it was funny, but that made our lives together even better.

“That’s the way it went for two years. I did well at the restaurant, even got cut into owning a small piece of it. Julie kept plugging through law school. The good news was she made the law review, the bad news that this kept her so busy that I saw less of her. But we juggled our time as best we could and had as much of a ball as our schedules allowed.

“Julie originally wanted to go up to San Francisco to work. She was offered jobs all over the place, but she got suspicious. She decided the firms were all too in-bred—too much nepotism, too much hiring of client’s sons. And too many men and not enough women.

“Then she got this invitation to clerk for a judge here in New York. Name of Kendall. Ramsey Kendall. You know him?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I do. He’s an excellent judge.”

“She wanted to take it, but she was a little afraid of coming here, and she kept saying she didn’t want to leave me. I told her she should go for it, and she finally did.”

“You stayed in California?” Reuben asked. He was finding Genakis, despite the California clichés, very articulate. He had overcome his earlier wariness and seemed eager, even relieved, to be talking to Frost and was not at all as disoriented as Charlie Parkes had described.

“That’s right. I was doing real good and, besides, it was only supposed to be for a year. Then she got a job with your firm and decided to stay on. We became another bicoastal couple. It was rough. Julie could really only get away on the weekends—the busiest times for me at the restaurant. Why doesn’t the law business have the equivalent of Monday nights?”

“We do, Mr. Genakis. But our Monday nights can be anytime. And we never know when they’re going to occur.”

“After two years, we decided the bicoastal commuting was too much. And too expensive. Julie persuaded me to come to New York and give the restaurant business here a try.

“I’d wanted to open my own place in Palo Alto—the partnership deal I had there wasn’t working out too great. So I thought, why not New York? ‘King of the hill, top of the heap’—you know the line. I had some savings, and Julie had her good salary, and we were lucky to get a bank loan. Julie had worked on First Fiduciary stuff when she first came to your firm, so she had some contacts there, which was a big help. So we took the plunge and I started Marshall’s.”

“How’s it doing?”

“Okay. Okay. It was real popular after it opened, but business is off a little now. Still okay, though. Ever been there?”

“No, I’m afraid not. But I’ve heard of it.”

“You’ll have to come for dinner some night.”

“Thank you, I’d like to do that. May I ask you a personal question?”

“Sure.”

“Were you and Juliana married?”

“No. Neither of us wanted that entanglement. Our arrangement was just fine. Oh, maybe if we’d decided to have kids, we’d have thought differently about it. The subject would come up every so often, and we’d discuss it for about ten seconds.”

“I’m curious. With all your joint arrangements, the loan on the restaurant, for example, I would have thought it would have been simpler to be married.”

“Maybe so, but it would have been more complicated to get divorced.”

“An interesting point of view, Mr. Genakis.”

“Well, that’s the way it was, okay?” Genakis said coolly. He was getting restless, and Frost took the hint.

“Let me say just one thing before I go. Although I’m retired from Chase & Ward, Charles Parkes, the Executive Partner, has more or less put me in charge of the investigation of Juliana’s death. The police, of course, will be involved. I assume they’ve talked to you.”

“Oh, yes. They’re the ones that brought me the good news and then stayed around for about two hours,” Genakis said, bitterly.

“What did you tell them?”

“About what I’ve told you.”

“For two hours?”

“There were a lot of repeats.”

“In any event, I will be following the investigation for the firm. So, if there’s anything else you’d like to tell me, or if anything of interest comes to your attention, please call me. Here’s my card.”

“Thanks. And drop by the restaurant some evening. Just call an hour or so ahead and we’ll take care of it.”

“Mrs. Frost and I will do that,” Reuben said, pausing beside his host at the front door. “Oh, by the way. Where were you Thursday night?”

Genakis looked away, then replied in the same steady voice he had used throughout his conversation with Frost. “You mean, what’s my alibi? I cooked Julie an early dinner here at the apartment. A real good dinner, because I figured she’d be working late. Blanquette de veau, one of her favorites. Then she went back, and I went off to the restaurant where I stayed till after one. Now that I’m out front, instead of in the kitchen, I’m the main man on the door most nights.”

“What about yesterday morning?”

“Beth Locke called up and asked where she was. With the hours you make your lawyers work, I just assumed she’d had an all-nighter and was still there somewhere, or maybe had gone out to breakfast. Then your security guy called, and I started to get worried. He said he’d check the hospitals, call the police if necessary, and keep in touch with me. So I went off to the restaurant. Then—”

“The police came.”

“Yeah. It was all over.” Genakis looked distressed, but still kept his composure.

“Well, thank you for your time, Mr. Genakis.”

“And thank you for coming by,” Genakis replied, but in such an expressionless way that Reuben could not tell whether he really meant what he said.

*Michael Gilbert, Smallbone Deceased (1950).

CHAPTER

8

Starting the New Year Wrong

After Woody Allen gave up his New Year’s Eve parties, New York’s gossip columnists searched desperately to identify the City’s most “in” end-of-the-year celebration. They finally concluded that Anne Westbury Clifton’s soiree, at her elegant Gramercy Park mansion, filled the bill.

Unlike Woody’s erratically scheduled event, Mrs. Clifton’s party was held each year without fail. It did resemble the Allen party in that food, drink and service were all of the highest order; the principal difference was that there were hundreds fewer guests at Mrs. Clifton’s. Attendance was limited to forty, the capacity of the five round tables for eight that fit comfortably into her dining room.

Most of the guests, including the Frosts, had been coming to the Clifton party for many years, though the hostess always seemed to keep a few of the places available for those passing through New York temporarily, usually from Hollywood or London.

Mrs. Clifton’s late husband, dead now for almost fifteen years, had been a powerful and generously compensated partner in one of the most eminent Wall Street houses. When he died, he had left his widow a comfortable fortune that she spent on adventurous travel, carefully selected charities—and parties.

Anne Clifton entertained in a quietly spectacular fashion, assisted by a large and experienced staff and Raoul Jouvet, her imaginative and often daring chef. The combination of her great charm and wit and her impeccably appointed house (a large and prominently displayed oil portrait of her two poodles the only demerit) made her without question one of the City’s great hostesses. An invitation from her was coveted, and none more so than one for New Year’s eve.

Reuben and Cynthia, as always, had looked forward to the evening and now stood by the window in the spacious Clifton living room, looking out on the shadows of Gramercy Park across the way. They were each wearing Christmas presents—she a Mary McFadden creation with a dramatically beaded bodice, he a silk brocade waistcoat with his tuxedo. (He had harbored some doubts about his wife’s colorful gift to him, but now it cheered him up and he thought its peacock-like aspects just fine.)

The two of them savored their champagne (no stinting here; it was Dom Perignon generously doled out by the attentive waiters in black-tie) and eagerly helped themselves from the bounteous silver bowl of caviar placed on a table near where they were standing. As they looked around, they marveled at the variety of the assembly. Within sight were a well-known architect, a philanthropist who had given his name to one of the new galleries at the Metropolitan Museum, the British ambassador to the United Nations, and a Hollywood matinee idol, now living in retirement in New York. The prominent guests were not all men: a tough-minded city planner whose very name sent shudders down the spines of the City’s more aggressive developers; an editor who had become the adoptive grandmother, or at least the doting aunt, of a group of young novelists, who turned out their miniaturist works under her tutelage; a landscape painter whose energetic inventiveness continued even in late middle age.

If there were common traits among the guests, they were high professional success and relatively advanced age. A prominent television commentator and the director of the hit movie of the Christmas season (one of the strays not on the permanent guest list) were, in their late forties, the youngest people in the room. With the notable and quite sensational exception of the director’s companion, Sallie Grassi, the deliciously beautiful star of his new movie.

Leaving these three aside, the triumphs of most of the guests had not occurred recently: one was a brilliant journalist, but his reportage had been for the old Herald-Tribune; another, a popular composer, had been the toast of Broadway, but for witty revues presented in the forties and fifties; another, a university president who had retired, exhausted, after the turmoil of 1968 and the hectic years immediately following. And the three or four who had been in government service—high government service—had been appointees under Truman or Eisenhower, not the later Presidents.

A feeling of uxoriousness pervaded the room. Nearly all the guests were married, except for the perennial bachelor book reviewer from the Times and an Episcopal rector who was a recent widower. To be sure, the women present were not all first wives and at least one of the guests had been involved in a scandalous divorce. But that had been years ago. The only avowed homosexual, and the avowal had always been very private and discreet, was Gavrin Lyons, the lieder singer and Mrs. Clifton’s erudite and witty “date” for the evening.

The crowd was also as notable for what it was not as for what it was. Except for Judge Ramsey Kendall, Reuben was sure he was the only lawyer present, and probably only there because of his wife’s involvement with the arts. Despite the roots of the Clifton fortune in Wall Street, there were none of the financial leverage artists who attended the more glittery parties so often covered in print. It was unlikely that conversation at Mrs. Clifton’s would turn to takeovers or the stock market. And the crowd was all-white apart from Margaret Dotson, the sensational mezzo-soprano in town for a series of appearances as Azucena in the Metropolitan Opera’s Il Trovatore. Dotson gave stiff competition to Sallie Grassi in the decorations department. Tall, with a diva’s formidable poitrine, she wore a capacious dark green gown that seemed to be composed of layer upon layer of silk, set off by a richly hued and grand red turban. The total overpowering effect was heightened by Dotson’s gestures and orotund voice, which could only be described, not surprisingly, as operatic.

Reuben was fearful that Juliana Merriman’s death would be a topic of interest, and he was not wrong. The murder had, after all, been reported in the morning Times, and he found himself cornered in two successive groups that asked him about it. But when it developed that he had nothing to add to the newspaper account, the subject was quickly dropped.

The only person Frost wanted to discuss Merriman with was Judge Kendall, for whom the young woman had clerked. Frost had spotted him across the living room, but had been unable to make his way to him without being swept up in successive interchanges of conversation.

Dinner was announced before Frost got to Judge Kendall. Reuben found himself seated between the hostess and Margaret Dotson. He was pleased with the singer’s aggressively friendly self-introduction, though at the same time slightly overwhelmed; there was a small fear that she might devour him.

“I’m so hungry I could eat those flowers,” she said, laughing exuberantly as she pointed to the sprawling, colorful centerpiece of out-of-season orchids. “Oh! But these will be better!” she added, once she saw the plate of shrimps (later identified by Mrs. Clifton as shrimps Arnaud) at her place. “You can’t give a girl from Louisiana too many of these!”

Reuben held the diva’s chair as she sat down, not without apprehension given her dimensions and the chair’s. Mrs. Clifton, on his other side, turned to him at once.

“Reuben, you old rascal, I’m delighted you’re here! You’d think we lived on opposite sides of the world. I haven’t seen you since the Multiple Sclerosis ball.”

“You mean Mrs. Reuff’s last triumph before her divorce?”

“Isn’t it dreadful! Four young children and yet she can’t keep things together. With all that money, too. And the lawyers! What a circus that is. On television all the time. They’re dreadful sleazes, don’t you think?”

“I’m afraid I do. But in defense of lawyers, I don’t imagine we have any more sleazes than any other profession. Or any more thieves, or any more drunks—”

“Or any more murderers?”

“You’re referring, I suppose, to what was in the paper this morning?” Frost asked, looking directly at his hostess.

“Yes. It must be terrible for you, Reuben. I remember years ago when a young secretary at Eric’s, my husband’s, firm was shot. A lover’s quarrel. They couldn’t stop talking about it for weeks.”

“I know, I know. But to get back to your question. Lawyers as murderers? I’m sure statistically we’re the same as anyone else. One only hopes the statistics haven’t caught up with Chase & Ward. Though I hasten to add I’ve no reason to think they have.”

“I’m sorry if I disturbed you, Reuben.”

“Not at all. Nothing could disturb me at this beautiful party, my dear.” As if to underscore the point, he drained the glass of Corton Charlemagne 1986 that had been served with the shrimps and turned to the Grand Puy Lacoste 1982, the Bordeaux accompanying M. Jouvet’s navarin of lamb.

“One thing, Reuben,” Mrs. Clifton said, lowering her voice. “I put you next to Margaret Dotson deliberately. I think you’re one of the few people here who can handle her. And you don’t smoke, which she hates.”

“I’ll do my best,” Reuben said, shifting to talk to the diva as they both attacked the new course, she with a zestful relish that amused him.

“Mr. Frost, tell me about yourself,” she asked, between bites.

“There’s not much to tell,” he replied modestly. “I’m a retired lawyer.”

“Business law?”

“Yes.”

“I thought so.”

“I didn’t know it was so obvious.”

Ms. Dotson laughed heartily. “It isn’t. Just a shrewd guess. So what do you do, now that you’re retired?”

“Investigate murders,” he almost said, but he really didn’t want to talk about that. “I enjoy myself,” he said, instead. “I try to improve my mind, to the extent that’s possible at my age, eat long lunches and take long naps. And occasionally hear wonderful singers at the Metropolitan Opera.”

“That’s the best thing you’ve said. Do you go often?” (“Have you heard my Azucena?” is what she really meant.)

“A fair amount. We don’t have a subscription—that’s too much like Russian roulette with casting the way it is at the Met these days—but yes, we do. Unfortunately, we haven’t seen the Trovatore yet. We’re going at the end of this month.”

“Good! I’ll be singing the performances until early February. Then I’m off to Covent Garden for Amneris in their new Aïda. Mr. Frost, why don’t you write me an opera in which the mezzo isn’t a witch or a servant? I want to play a seductress,” Dotson said, raising her arms for dramatic effect.

Reuben laughed and said he’d be delighted, if he only knew how. Then he asked about the new director at Covent Garden. “His name’s Isaacs, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Jeremy Isaacs. From everything I hear he’s very good. I’ll be able to tell you better when I get back in March. Maybe the ambassador knows him,” she said, nodding toward Sir Robert Buxton on her other side.

“Are you taking my name in vain, madame?” he asked, overhearing the reference.

“Bob,” Reuben said, “I was just asking Miss Dotson if she knew Jeremy Isaacs. Do you?” (Frost had chatted with the ambassador before dinner and followed the rule he had once been told of addressing him the first time as “Sir Robert,” and “Bob” thereafter. He wasn’t sure there was such a rule, but it sounded right, like the ladies-in-waiting to the Queen curtsying at the first encounter with Her Majesty each day.)

“I’ve only met him,” the ambassador replied. “I understand he’s a capital fellow. What a job, though. The Prime Minister’s budget cuts, labor troubles with the ballet dancers, every kind of morass you can think of.”

“But a guaranteed full house for the new Aïda.”

“Oh?”

“With Ms. Dotson singing Amneris.”

“Oh yes, yes, of course! Standing room only!”

Margaret Dotson laughed appreciatively.

Continuing the opera conversation, Reuben got into deep trouble by expressing admiration for the young American soprano, Dawn Upshaw. “She’s absolutely marvelous and seems to be able to sing modern music as well as the traditional repertoire.”

Miss Dotson, for all her ebullient amiability, was not interested in hearing about new singers, even ones who could not, by definition, be classified as rivals, and greeted Reuben’s praise only with a noncommittal “Oh, really?”

Frost was about to shift conversational gears—and quickly—when Anne Clifton reminded those at the table that midnight was almost upon them. With impeccable timing a strawberry bombe and more champagne were served.

“Maybe you’ll sing ‘Auld Lang Syne’ for us,” the hostess said.

“You mean—Should auld acquaintance be forgot.” Dotson sang only the one short line, almost sotto voce, but conversation stopped and Reuben could swear the glass pendants in the chandelier overhead began to vibrate. “That’s so—so mournful. I’d rather do—The joint is jumpin’, it’s really jumpin’.” She laughed as encouraging applause came from her tablemates. “Some other time, friends, some other time.”

“Well, here it is,” Mrs. Clifton said, glancing at her small, bejeweled watch. She rose, champagne glass in hand. “Happy New Year, everyone!”

The others rose, touched glasses with those near at hand and drank. Then the men, in a disorganized round-robin, kissed the women, mostly lightly on the cheek, though Miss Dotson had bussed Reuben full on the lips before he could accomplish a more sedate cheek-kissing maneuver. Reuben also kissed Cynthia warmly on the lips, whispering, “May the next year be the best yet,” after he had done so.

Dessert was soon finished and the diners drifted back to the living room, where a splendid assortment of liquers, and more champagne, had been assembled on a tea wagon. Reuben was ordering a brandy—a New Year’s exception to his usual regimen—when Judge Kendall came up behind him.

“Reuben, I’ve been wanting to talk to you all evening,” said the tall, graying jurist. He had been, as Frost knew, the personal lawyer for the Cliftons before his appointment to the Federal bench a decade earlier. He now served with distinction on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.

“I could say the same, Ramsey. I assume it’s about Juliana Merriman.”

“Yes.”

“She clerked for you, did she not?”

“Yes, indeed. One of the finest clerks I ever had.”

“I scarcely knew her, but she certainly was well regarded around the firm.”

“There’s something I’d like to tell you about her. It’s rather delicate.”

“Why don’t we slip up to the library right now, before everyone gets settled?”

“Fine idea.”

The Clifton library, stodgily wood-paneled, was not a relaxing setting for the two lawyers, though they were comfortable enough as they sat in deeply cushioned reading chairs, brandy snifters in hand. Judge Kendall began talking immediately in a deeply serious voice.

“Reuben, I’ve thought about little else except Juliana Merriman since I opened the paper at breakfast this morning. In particular, I’ve been thinking who I might talk to. I was going to call Charlie Parkes and then I realized you’d probably be here tonight, so I decided to wait, on the chance that I’d be able to see you alone.

“I have some information about Julie that is undoubtedly irrelevant—at least I hope it is. But I do want to tell it to somebody responsible, and even to the police if that becomes necessary. My problem is that what I have to say is potentially embarrassing to someone—I don’t know who, as you will see.”

“In other words, Ramsey, you’d like to talk to me in confidence.”

“That’s what I’d like, but I know when you get embroiled in a homicide investigation—and one that the newspapers are going to be interested in—that may not be possible. So all I’m asking is that you treat what I’m going to tell you with discretion. I don’t know you well, except from seeing you here at Anne’s once a year, but I know your reputation, so I’m certain you’ll be discreet. And we’re both members of the Gotham Club, after all.”

“True enough.”

“I’m assuming, with your new career as an amateur detective, that you’ll be involved in the investigation of Juliana’s death,” the Judge said.

“That’s a safe conclusion. Charlie Parkes has asked me to lend a hand, and I intend to do whatever I can.”

“Good. Let me tell you my story, which is perplexing and brief,” Kendall said, taking a deep gulp of brandy before continuing. “As I told you, Juliana Merriman was very exceptional. You know, we always try to find the best and the brightest in the law schools to be our clerks. Sometimes that means we get to deal with some prickly pears—super-bright youngsters totally lacking in what I believe they call ‘people skills.’ Asinine term. And you often get a clerk that thinks he’s the judge, not you.

“Julie was never like that. She knew her place—and I use the phrase in the best sense—and never tried to play judge herself. She just did the research I required brilliantly, and in most cases, I agreed with the conclusions she proposed to me. She was a very likable person—warm, friendly and often witty, too. We became true friends and, given the gap in our ages, I think I was something of a father to her.

“Our friendship continued after she left me. I followed her progress at your firm with great interest and from what she told me, even speaking from her worm’s eye view, I sensed that she was doing well at Chase & Ward. That is correct, isn’t it?”

“From what I understand, yes. She definitely had a chance for partnership,” Frost said.

“About six months ago, she called and asked if she could come and see me. I of course said yes and she came to my chambers. She was obviously disturbed about something and swore me to secrecy. Then she told me that she’d been a victim of sexual harassment at your firm. And that she didn’t know what to do about it.”

“Did she say who the guilty party was?”

“Unfortunately, Reuben, she said that it was a partner, though she wouldn’t identify him. I didn’t press her for the name, because I didn’t think it was any of my business.”

Reuben audibly let out his breath and rubbed his chin with his free hand, while mentally running through the roster of his former partners.

“All I can say is, it must have been someone she worked with very closely,” Kendall said.

“Why do you say that?”

“Because the harassment apparently occurred out of town, on business.”

“Where, did she say?”

“No.”

“I suppose it was the old line about his wife not understanding him and here they were lonely and far away from home. You know the routine.”

“Only by hearsay.”

“My dear Ramsey, I wasn’t implying anything else.”

Both men smiled, if a little tightly.

“Do we know whether Mr. X was married?” Frost asked.

“She said he was. Oh, and Mr. X, as you call him, must have some clout, since she was sure if she brought the matter to a head it wouldn’t be good for her career.”

“I suspect my ex-partners would draw the wagons into a pretty tight circle if any one of them—with clout or not—was accused of fooling around with an associate,” Frost said.

“They would at my old firm, too. Or even on the Federal bench!”

“What was she proposing to do?”

“She was uncertain. I told her I’d known Charlie Parkes for many years and that he’d always seemed like a fair-minded person to me. I suggested she go and see him.”

“What was her response to that?”

“She said, no, that wasn’t what she had in mind. If she was going to do anything, she wanted to go all the way.”

“And bring a lawsuit?”

“Yes, and bring a lawsuit.”

“Good God.”

“She was practical enough to know that suing was probably not a career-enhancing move. I told her she ought to weigh the matter carefully—lawsuits like this can be very messy—but that her own conscience would have to be her guide.”

“What did you think? That she would sue?”

“I couldn’t tell. She said she would have to reflect on what I’d said. That’s where we left things and I never heard any more about it.”

“Well, Your Honor, you’ve certainly started the year off well for me.”

“I’m sorry about that. I know that as a rule murder is not a lawyer’s weapon of choice, but I thought you should know about our conversation. The prospect of a scandal may have sent someone over the edge. For the sake of your fine firm, my New Year’s wish is that everything I’ve told you is irrelevant.”

“Amen to that. Shall we rejoin the happy party down below?”

CHAPTER

9

Next of Kin

Judge Kendall’s revelation put a damper on the festivities for Reuben, though they were winding down anyway, the older crowd at Anne Clifton’s running out of energy as the beginning hours of the new year started ticking away. At one-thirty, the Frosts made their goodbye rounds and found outside the chauffeur-driven car that Reuben had engaged for the evening.

“What’s the matter, dear?” Cynthia asked as they were driven quickly uptown through streets all but deserted except for occasional bands of happy, unsteady pedestrians. “I saw you go off with Ramsey Kendall, and then you were as pale as a ghost when you got back.”

Frost related to his wife what the Judge had told him. “I said to Charlie Parkes yesterday that the man we’re looking for might be a partner. But I didn’t really believe it. What a disaster! Besides, Kendall kept me from meeting that actress—my selected target for after dinner.”

“You didn’t miss much. Pretty vacant upstairs.”

“But good to look at. Three stars—worth a trip.”

“You had your sex at dinner, with the reigning diva.”

“Not quite the same thing. What a formidable lady!”

“Opera singers always are. But speaking of sex, I’m sure your culprit is Dick Langdon,” Cynthia said, referring to a Chase & Ward partner who had been involved in some pants-unzipping episodes some years before.

“No, I doubt it. I think Dick learned his lesson when the husband of that young nurse caught him unawares.”

“Caught him unawares and beat him up, you mean.”

“Yes. I certainly wouldn’t stake my life on it, but I think he’s been on reasonably good behavior ever since.”

“Who’s your candidate, then?” Cynthia asked, while her husband fumbled for the key to the front door of their home.

“I don’t have one. The implication was that it was someone for whom that girl had worked directly. That means Bernie Straus, Brian Heyworth or Bill Richardson.”

“From what you’ve always told me, Brian’s probably too ineffectual to carry out a seduction. And Bill Richardson—William Denning Richardson, the heir-apparent as leader of your firm—and Bernie are devoted family men. You know that.”

“Of course I know that. They’re all friends of ours, to one degree or another. Right now, I’m going to struggle to bed. I need a good night’s rest before I confront Charlie with this latest stick of dynamite.”

Frost waited until the relatively decent hour of nine o’clock on New Year’s morning before he called Parkes. After Frost had said “I told you so”, referring to the morning’s press coverage in the tabloids—“Death Blackens White-Shoe Law Firm” was the most restrained of the headlines—he summarized his conversation with Ramsey Kendall, without naming him. As expected, the Executive Partner was not happy with what he heard. His first reaction was to jump to the conclusion that Merriman “must have been crazy.” Then, on reflection, he soberly admitted that a made-up story, or an imagined incident, was inconsistent with all that he knew about her. Reuben was relieved that Parkes sounded genuinely puzzled; he would not have been pleased if Parkes had known about Mr. X and not mentioned him when they had gone over the situation the previous Friday.

“If the story you heard is correct,” Parkes said, “I must say I’m at a dead loss to finger the culprit. I’ve never heard even the hint of any funny business involving Straus or Heyworth or Richardson. Of course, Reuben, you know what it’s like being the Executive Partner. You’re the last one to hear anything. Except when sex is involved, I’d expect the word to get around pretty fast—even to me.”

“How are we going to get to the bottom of this one, Charlie?”

“Let me make some inquiries. Discreet inquiries. I just hope I can do it without everybody and his brother hearing about it.”

Frost knew that, in keeping with recent tradition at Chase & Ward, Parkes had an informal “executive committee”—Keith Merritt, Rod Crutcher and Simon Isaacs—that he consulted on thorny issues. He was sure this was where Parkes’ “inquiries” would be directed. Even though the “committee” was often not as tight-lipped as it might be, he thought they would keep the matter of Mr. X, whoever he was, under wraps, given the circumstances. He told Parkes this, and the Executive Partner seemed reassured.

“You know, Reuben, I was about to call you,” Parkes said.

“I’m not sure you sounded that way.”

“I am a bit groggy, you’re right. But I had an idea I wanted to try out on you. I’m not trying to duck anything, but wouldn’t it make more sense for you to see Merriman’s parents than for me to do it? Somebody’s got to—we may be crusty bastards at Chase & Ward but we’re not completely heartless, at least I hope we’re not. I’m the logical one, I realize, but since you’re our star detective, shouldn’t you see them? Maybe you could turn a meeting with them to good advantage and find out something useful. And if they stay longer—I gather they’ll be here until the body is released after the autopsy—I’ll see them later.”

Frost did not relish meeting with grieving relatives, but he had to admit to himself that Parkes’ suggestion made some sense. He knew that Charlie was not a shirker and was almost Biblical in his kindness, visiting the sick and burying the dead, sending flowers to the lowliest employee in the hospital, going to wakes and otherwise showing a personal concern for those that made up the Chase & Ward family.

“Where are they?” Frost asked.

“The father—his name is Paul—told me they’d be at the Howard Johnson’s right near the office and Julie’s apartment. Not where I’d like to do my grieving, but that’s what Genakis had arranged. If you agree, I’ll try to reach them now and tell them you’ll be calling.”

“Lunch, I suppose,” Frost said, resignedly.

“That would be great, Reuben.”

“All right, I’ll do it. But you owe me one for this, Charlie.”

“I know I do. And good luck.”

Despite his reluctance, Frost was at least mildly curious about Juliana Merriman’s parents. He turned over in his mind where he could take them for lunch. He was damned if he would go to the Howard Johnson’s coffee shop, assuming the place had one, but he drew a blank on other restaurants on the West Side in midtown, or at least a blank on ones that would be open at midday Sunday on the New Year’s weekend. A hotel seemed to be the answer. Could they find their way to the Plaza Athénée on East Sixty-fourth Street? And would Mr. Merriman be wearing a necktie? The hell with it, he thought. Le Régence in the Plaza Athénée. That was it. He called Howard Johnson’s and was put right through to Paul Merriman. Yes, he and his wife, Nancy, would meet Mr. Frost. Yes, one o’clock at the Plaza Athénée would be fine. No, he didn’t know where it was, but no, there wasn’t any need to send a car, they would take a taxi and were sure they could get there without any trouble.

Frost awaited his guests at a table off in a secluded corner at Le Régence. He had resisted ordering a martini and had settled for a glass of white wine. Soon a couple, looking slightly confused, came down the stairs. Frost decided they must be the Merrimans, though he was surprised at how young they looked; neither could have been much over fifty. They were wearing what he thought of as out-of-towner clothes—a dark brown blazer and light tan slacks in his case; pants and a discreetly beaded sweater in hers. Their outfits were in no way offensive, but not what a New Yorker would wear to go out to Sunday lunch. Mr. Merriman was wearing a necktie, a conservative striped one.

Reuben stood to greet them. They were a dry-eyed couple, though they looked as if they bore the weight of the world on their shoulders.

“I’ve lived a long time but I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a tragedy as distressing as your daughter’s death,” Reuben said.

“Thank you, Mr. Frost. We appreciate your words,” Nancy Merriman replied.

“I wanted to meet you and convey to you the sadness everyone at our law firm feels. And to see if there is anything we can do to try and make things easier for you.”

Paul and Nancy Merriman each nodded, but did not speak.

Frost was relieved when a waiter approached and he was able to ask his guests if they would have a drink.

“Sorry, Mr. Frost, we don’t indulge,” Paul Merriman said. “One of us used to drink enough for the whole population of Portland, but not any more.”

Frost assumed the man was referring to himself, though from the odd locution used, he couldn’t be sure.

“They won’t even let us see her body,” Nancy Merriman blurted out, after another awkward silence. “They’ve done an autopsy and they said she … she …” Overcome with tears, she was unable to finish the sentence. Her husband took her hand, which seemed to calm her.

“I know it’s hard, but that’s probably just as well,” Frost said. “Better to remember her as you knew her.”

The captain presented menus. Frost, hungry, ordered the oeufs en cocotte with truffles. In the state they were in, the Merrimans seemed confused by the wide choice available, and Reuben offered suggestions.

“I’m just not hungry at all,” Mrs. Merriman said.

“Mommy, you’ve got to eat something. Got to keep your strength up.”

“Then I’ll try what Mr. Frost is having.”

Paul Merriman ordered a minute steak and, with the departure of the captain, turned back to Frost, looking squarely at him. “Since we couldn’t see Jule’s body this morning—Jule, that’s what we always called her—we sat in our room, watching TV. Until the news came on, with Jule’s picture—an old one—and a shot of the building where she worked. Then we turned it off and just sat looking at each other. ‘What happened?’ I kept saying to Nancy. What did happen, Mr. Frost?”

“Did you read the papers this morning?” Reuben asked.

“About our ‘brilliant, sexy’ daughter, you mean?” Merriman asked bitterly.

“They’re having one of their field days, I’m afraid. But their accounts, tasteless as they are, essentially tell the story. Your daughter was found strangled in our offices Friday afternoon. Unfortunately, that’s about all I know at this point,” Frost said. It did not seem to him that any useful purpose would be served by repeating Judge Kendall’s conversation.

“Have you talked to the police?” Reuben asked.

“No, they want to see us this afternoon. Marsh Genakis is the only person we’ve spoken to. Plus your partner, Mr. Parkes,” Paul Merriman said.

“Nobody has mentioned a suspect,” his wife added. “Don’t they have any idea who might have killed her?”

“I haven’t heard any names mentioned,” Frost said.

“Whoever it is, I hope I never meet him, with or without a gun,” Paul Merriman said fiercely.

As their food was served, Frost again expressed sympathy, trying to keep the conversation going. “I know it will be small comfort to you now, but she was a very capable lawyer and very much admired, both by the partners and her contemporaries.”

As they began eating, the Merrimans became less tense and began speaking more volubly. “She was our only child, you know,” Mrs. Merriman said.

“No, I didn’t.”

“She always wanted to be a lawyer. We never knew how she got the idea—‘Perry Mason’ reruns on television, maybe. We didn’t know whether to encourage her or discourage her. She was the first in her family on both sides to go to college and after that law school seemed like a pretty big step. Paul and I got married right after high school, and I had Jule right away, so we never had the chance.”

“Jule won every honor there was and got a scholarship to UCLA,” Paul Merriman explained. “She did fine there, too, and got another one to Stanford Law. Plus some loans. She didn’t need our help—not that the assistant manager of Skates’ Furniture Store would’ve had much to offer—and didn’t ask our advice. If she had, and knowing what we know now.…” His voice trailed off.

“All we could do was try and give her a good upbringing,” Mrs. Merriman said. “When she was a teenager, we both joined the Pentecostal Church after … after Paul got over his drinking problem, seventeen years ago. We took our religion very seriously—we still do—and were very strict with Jule. We always knew where she was and who she was with. ‘Do you know where your child is tonight?’ one ad used to say. We did.

“She never gave us an hour’s trouble. Never. And as far as we know, she was always the same good girl she’d been back in Portland. She must have behaved herself or she couldn’t have had all the honors she received.”

“What about Mr. Genakis?” Reuben asked. “Had you known him?”

The couple hesitated before answering. Then Paul spoke, after receiving an encouraging nod from his wife.

“Jule always said the first time she’d met him was with us, at his restaurant in Palo Alto. We didn’t remember him and really met him for the first time last night. We knew of him of course. Jule had told us she was ‘going steady’ with him when she was in law school. But she never brought him home. And we didn’t know until this morning that …” He hesitated.

“That Jule was living with him here in New York,” his wife prompted.

“We had no idea. But he’s been very helpful—he called us on Friday and met us at the hotel last night. We asked if we could see Jule’s apartment. That’s when he told us it was their apartment.”

“I guess they’re not the first couple to live together these days,” Nancy Merriman said.

“I think that’s true,” Reuben said, diplomatically, then pressed his inquiry. “Your daughter did talk about Genakis? What did she say about him?”

“Oh, that she’d met a man she cared about for the first time in her life.”

Frost looked quizzical and Nancy Merriman expanded on her statement. “There’s something you should understand about Jule, Mr. Frost. Did you know her?”

“I certainly had met her, but she never worked for me.”

“She was a beautiful girl.”

“Yes, that much I know.”

“There was just one problem. Jule was born with a cleft palate. It was operated on when she was a baby and she never had any difficulty with her speech. But it did leave a tiny scar. You could scarcely see it and it didn’t detract from her good looks at all. At least we never thought so. She felt differently. She was ashamed of the scar and it bothered her terribly when she was growing up. And I know it frightened her, reminding her how close she’d come to having a serious speech defect.

“Because of it, she never had much luck with boys. She was always shy with them, always said she was too ugly for any boy to be serious about her. Paul and I thought that was ridiculous, and there were plenty who wanted to take her out. But we couldn’t convince her that no one cared about her scar, that she was so attractive any sensible young man would overlook it.

“We finally got her some counseling—psychiatry—but it didn’t help. She just refused to have any kind of steady involvement with a boy. Genakis was really the first one.”

“And you’d never met him until yesterday, except for that one time at his California restaurant?”

“That’s right.”

“How do you explain that?”

“We never could figure it out,” Paul said.

“Did she think you would disapprove? I’ve met him. He seemed perfectly all right to me.”

“I agree with you,” Nancy Merriman said. “He’s been wonderful to us since we got here. I always had the idea, though, that there had to be something wrong. If he was as terrific as she said he was, why did she keep him away? And there was once, back at Stanford, when Jule said she was through with him, but that didn’t last very long. Two months later she was talking about him again.”

“Any indication of what happened?”

“No, Jule never said. Maybe it was just my maternal instincts, but I had an idea he was in some sort of trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“Oh, I don’t know. The usual kind of scrape young people get into, I guess.”

“What do you mean, drugs?”

“I suppose so. But, honestly, Jule never said that. She always swore to us that she had never had anything to do with drugs and never would.”

“And you never had any reason to doubt that?” Frost asked.

“Certainly not,” Paul Merriman snapped. “Our daughter never lied to us.”

“When was the last time you saw Juliana?”

“A year ago Christmas,” Nancy said. “She came out for the long weekend—alone. This year she said she had too much going on here to get away. I had the feeling—probably just my intuition again—that Genakis sometimes bossed her around. And that he didn’t want her to make the trip out to see us. Most of our contact was by phone. She’d call about once a week and always kidded that she was ‘reaching out to touch us,’ just like they say in the ad.”

“How about some dessert?” Reuben asked. Both Merrimans declined.

“Coffee?”

“No.”

“When do you see the police?”

“Anytime between three and five,” Paul said. “Marshall’s going to meet us at the hotel and take us there.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t ask him to lunch,” Reuben said.

“That’s all right, he didn’t want to come. He said he’d only be in the way.”

While they waited for the check, Frost decided to make an offer of financial assistance, on behalf of Chase & Ward. He knew Charlie Parkes had already done so, but there was no harm in trying again. The Merrimans would almost certainly proudly refuse, but if they were really strapped—and this would be an expensive trip for the assistant manager of a furniture store—a modest subvention might help to relieve their anxiety.

“Mr. Merriman, this trip, in addition to being painful, will be very costly for you. Can my firm help out with your expenses?”

“No, sir. We’ve got a little money saved. And I’m lucky enough to have a working wife—Mommy here is a receptionist for a doctor in Portland. Worked for him ever since Jule was a baby. We’re fine. I’ve always told Mommy we have five things to thank the good Lord for—our religion, our jobs, our daughter, our health and our house, which we own free and clear. We don’t have our daughter now, but we still have the rest.”

After satisfying himself that arrangements had been made to get Juliana Merriman’s body back to Portland—Genakis had already seen to that—Reuben thanked them for coming to lunch. He gave Mr. Merriman his business card, with his home number written in, and told the couple to call if there was anything at all he or the firm could do. And, ever so gently, asked them to contact him if they thought of anything that might help to solve their daughter’s murder.

“We’re very grateful for your interest, Mr. Frost, coming out on a holiday like this,” Nancy said. “I hope we haven’t bored you with all our talk about Jule, but it’s been a great comfort to speak to somebody.”

“It sure has,” Paul added. “I don’t know much about New York—except that it scares me—I don’t know much about lawyers, I don’t know much about living in sin. And the closest I’ve ever come to murder is shooting at deer. So we’re glad to have you on our side. It’s such a terrible blow to us!” Paul Merriman began crying, the brave front he had maintained through lunch cracking at last.

His wife joined in, her tears reaching a flood as she had a new, melancholy thought. “You know, Mr. Frost, we always thought Jule might be famous some day. But we never had any idea it would be because of her death.”

By now the Merrimans’ visible, and audible, grief had attracted the attention of other diners in the room. Never comfortable around tears, Frost did his best to soothe them. He walked them to the coatroom and then to the front door, where he waited until the doorman had seen them into a taxi.

Completely drained, he decided he needed a bracing walk home. On the way, he reflected on the Merrimans’ American Gothic reserve. And made a mental note to see if he could find out about Marshall Genakis’ “trouble” in California; the intuition of a God-fearing woman like Nancy Merriman could not be dismissed.

Making his way through the slush, he reflected on the upwardly mobile progression of the Merriman family: from furniture-selling to practicing law at the top of the profession in one generation. Then he realized sadly that he didn’t have it quite right, and that going from furniture salesman to lawyer to murder victim really wasn’t much progress at all.

CHAPTER

10

Old Friends

Monday morning Frost reported on his luncheon with Juliana Merriman’s parents to Charlie Parkes.

“They’re very religious and as straight as they come. Very solid people, and holding up pretty well. But I’m not sure I learned anything of significance,” Frost said, passing over Mrs. Merriman’s suspicion of Marshall Genakis’ possible difficulties in California.

Frost did raise the matter of paying the Merrimans’ hotel bill, which could be done without their concurrence, and Parkes readily agreed.

“Christ, we put our baby applicants up at the Essex House when they come interviewing, the least we can do is pick up the tab for a murdered associate’s parents at Ho-Jo’s,” Parkes said.

“That’s how I came out,” Frost said, and then asked, “What did your Gallup Poll turn up?”

“Nothing. I talked to Keith, Simon and Ron,” Parkes said, confirming Frost’s guess that Parkes would call his “executive committee.” “I brought up the three names with all of them and they just laughed at me. Where the hell did you hear this story about harassment anyway, Reuben? Some drunk at a New Year’s party?”

“New Year’s party, yes. But my source was sober and a man whose integrity I respect. And whose confidence I can’t breach, even to you. But Charlie, this allegation is one we have to take seriously.”

“Okay, understood. But where do we go from here? I suggest we get together tomorrow morning—just you, me, Keith, Simon and Ron. No need for a New England town meeting. Best we meet outside the office, I think. Not the Regency, though. If anybody in the know spotted the five of us having breakfast it would be in the next issue of the American Lawyer, sure as anything. Come over to my place, say eight o’clock.”

“How about nine? Give us time to get our gums working.”

“Eight-thirty?”

“All right,” Frost said reluctantly. He did not argue, since he had another matter he wanted to raise. “You know, Charlie, I’ve been thinking. This spot we’re in—the firm is in—is going to be bad for everything—morale, recruiting, you name it. Fort Bliss could turn into a ghost town, with nobody willing to work there. We’ve also got to chase down this harassment matter as discreetly as possible, so nobody gets hurt unless it turns out, God forbid, that there’s a reason.

“It so happens I have a friend who’s just retired from the homicide squad of the Police Department. He’s first-rate and he knows something about us—he was the chief investigator when Graham was murdered. He’s a lawyer now and has just started up his own practice. But I’ll bet we can hire him as a private detective.”

“Reuben, I’ll let you call the shot on that. If you think it would help, for God’s sake get him. I assume he can keep his mouth shut.”

“Yes.”

“Can you reach him today?”

“He’s coming over for dinner tonight.”

“You work fast.”

“No, just a coincidence. If he’s available, shall I bring him to breakfast?”

“As I said, I’d rather keep that to ourselves. You can liase—that’s a word, if it is one, I heard over at Salomon Brothers last week—with him later.”

The holiday weather was still bad, and Reuben was glad he and Cynthia did not have plans to go out. Luis Bautista and his companion, Francisca Ribiero, were old enough friends, he reasoned, that he did not have to change his clothes. He did shave, tied a wool necktie over the Viyella shirt he had been wearing during the day and put on an aged tweed jacket.

Frost had not seen his sometime collaborator since Bautista had set up his practice in the fall and was looking forward to the evening with him and Francisca. He was only sorry that business would intrude. He had called Bautista after talking to Parkes to warn him that the evening would not be entirely a social one; and to ask him to pry loose whatever information he could from his former colleagues in the NYPD.

Luis and Francisca arrived at the Frosts just before eight. They made a stunning couple, perhaps the most attractive one the Frosts knew. A clear-eyed six footer, tall for a Puerto Rican and sensually handsome, Luis had on as conservative a suit as Reuben had ever seen him wear—Brooks Brothers, not Italian, and a three-pieced one at that. Francisca was more flamboyant, in a bright-red silk blouse and loosely cut flannel pants.

“My, my, look at the attorney!” Frost kidded, using “attorney” mockingly, since he had always thought the word both pompous and affected. “You look like you’re ready to address the jury, or read the will to the survivors.”

“I wish it were true,” Bautista said, throwing a broad arm around Reuben and laughing, revealing the sexy chipped tooth at the front of his mouth.

“And you, my dear, you’re spring on a snowy New Year’s day,” Reuben said to Francisca, embracing her.

“Reuben, I’ve heard that before. You always say I remind you of spring. How about summer?” she said, managing, in her sultry voice, to give a smoldering quality to the word “summer.” She loved to flirt with Reuben, almost fifty years her senior, and he always reciprocated.

“Let’s just say you’re a woman for all seasons,” Frost replied.

“Well, Reuben, I’m glad you’ve got something to take up the slack in the new year,” Bautista said, when seated between Francisca and Cynthia in the upstairs living room.

Reuben, making drinks in the corner, recognized the inevitable, that social conversation would have to wait until the murder had been discussed. He asked Bautista whether he’d been able to learn anything from the police.

“Not a lot,” Bautista said. “They don’t know much. A detective named Dave Petito caught the case.”

“I met him at the office on Friday. He wouldn’t let me see the crime scene, as I believe you people call it.”

“As they call it. You forget I’m a civilian now, Reuben. I know Petito only vaguely …”

“He said he didn’t know you.”

“That’s because I’m such a shy, retiring guy.” Bautista grinned. “Petito’s got a good reputation and is a stickler for the rules, as I guess you found out. They’re pretty sure Merriman was strangled with a necktie, or at least that’s what the ligature marks look like. As for suspects, the only possible one they’ve uncovered is the woman’s boyfriend, guy named Marshall Genakis.”

“I’ve talked to him,” Frost said. “Why are they suspicious?”

“You’ve got to start somewhere, Reuben. It’s a rule that goes back to the old-time Irish flatfoots. You find a dead woman who’s living unmarried with some guy, you look him over real careful.”

“That’s comforting,” Francisca interjected.

The two men discovered that the stories Genakis had told the police and Reuben were consistent. Reuben apologized to Francisca and Cynthia for going into such detail.

“That’s all right, L-L told me you were back in the detective business. You know, the mortality rate at that firm of yours is getting right up there,” Francisca said to Reuben, using her pet nickname for Luis Lopez Bautista and alluding to the Donovan murder, which had brought Bautista and Frost together in the first place.

“They get bored over there, Francisca,” Cynthia commented. “Murder livens up their practice.”

“I’m going to ignore both of you,” Reuben said.

“In that case I’m going to get the caviar,” Cynthia said. The Frosts had received three tins for Christmas and one, a large one, was still left.

“Does Genakis’ story check out?” Frost asked Bautista.

“There’s no way to know whether he and Merriman had dinner together. But his second in command and the bartender both told the police that he was at the restaurant from a little after eight on.”

“There’s one thing I’m curious about,” Frost said. “He comes from California. Palo Alto. Did Petito say whether he’s inquired about him out there?”

“Yes. They ran a computer check and came up empty. No record.”

“Hmn,” Frost muttered. He told Bautista about Nancy Merriman’s suspicion that something had happened to Genakis in California, serious enough to affect his relationship with Merriman, at least temporarily.

“There’s no record of it, I’m afraid,” Bautista said.

“So much for Mrs. Merriman’s hunch.”

“Come, let’s eat,” Cynthia said.

The foursome moved to the dining room, where a ham and scalloped potatoes that Cynthia had prepared awaited them.

“Just a simple country dinner,” she said.

“You think there’s enough?” Reuben asked, viewing the large ham.

“You can make sandwiches of the rest for the boys at the Gotham Club, dear,” she replied.

“We only eat sweetbreads and foie gras at the Club, as you well know.”

“Must be something new since the last time I was there. And Reuben, some wine?”

He had forgotten to open a bottle and now hastened to do so. “She may be serving a country dinner, but this is a city wine,” he explained. “Fitting to start the new year.” He poured the 1982 Chateau Pavie.

“How’s your practice going, Luis?” Reuben asked, once he had finished pouring the wine.

“Lack of practice is more like it.”

“You mean you’re off to a slow start?”

“You might say that. Couple of kids on mugging charges. A court referral—robbery, second—which looks like it’s going to trial. Plus a couple of tort cases.”

“What you’re telling me is you’re getting rich in experience instead of just getting rich.”

“Boy, you can say that again. I’ve got my pension from the NYPD, of course, and Francisca’s still working, so we get by.”

The talk flowed easily as the bottle of wine, and then another, was emptied. Cynthia asked Bautista where his new office was.

“If you can call it an office. I rent a room in a suite down on Centre Street. There’re six of us, so we do pretty good on overhead. Two secretaries, a library, or at least part of one, and a receptionist to answer the phone calls. If there are any, that is.” Bautista again looked slightly forlorn.

“You know, Luis,” Reuben said, trying to cheer up his guest, “you’re a braver man than I ever was. I never had the guts to set up my own office or start my own firm. Cynthia and I used to joke about moving upstate, where I could try dog-bite cases and replevy cows. But the joke never lasted very long. I needed the security blanket of mother Chase & Ward.”

“Reuben, come on,” Luis said. “You’re about as independent a guy as I’ve ever met. You stayed at Chase & Ward because you liked the practice—and the money—not because Chase & Ward was some big mamma giving you love and security.”

“The fact remains that I regard you as brave, whereas I have always been a coward.”

When dinner was over, Frost had a chance to talk to Bautista alone, while his wife and Francisca cleared the table.

“Come into the library a moment, Luis, I want to talk to you,” Frost said. The two men sat down facing each other, Reuben’s personal computer behind them on the desk.

“You still like it?” Bautista asked, pointing to the machine.

“I don’t know how I got along for three-quarters of a century without it. I even learned how to address an envelope with it the other day. It took me a day and a half to figure it out, but I did it.

“Luis, I want to make a proposition to you,” Frost went on. “I’m awfully afraid Juliana Merriman’s death is going to be an embarrassment to my firm. Look what Francisca said, about the Chase & Ward mortality rate. The second scandal in five years.

“I’ve talked to Charlie Parkes, who heads the firm these days, and he agrees with me that we should hire you. I realize that playing detective is probably not what you have in mind, now that you’re getting started in your practice, but as a favor to me, I hope you’ll accept. We’d propose to compensate you at the regular hourly rate you’re charging as a lawyer.”

“I don’t know, Reuben. Getting my practice going is pretty important to me right now.”

“Look at it as just another job for a client. With any luck you’ll have disposed of the matter in a week or two, maybe less.”

“Okay, let’s leave it that way. I’ll help you out for a couple of weeks. But then it’s over—whether the murder is solved or not.”

“That sounds fine, Luis.”

“As for my hourly rate, with the stuff I’ve been doing, I haven’t had to set one. Or if I did, no one could’ve paid it.”

“You must have one in mind.”

“I suppose a hundred fifty would be about right.”

“Let’s call it two hundred,” Reuben said. “Agreed?”

“Sure.”

With Bautista committed, Frost discussed with him the slim leads they had to go on: the vulnerability of “Fort Bliss,” sitting in the midst of a neighborhood with a high population of disreputable characters; the On-Line transaction that Merriman had been working on and the antagonisms that had apparently been generated in the course of it; the possible cloud of suspicion over Marshall Genakis. Finally, Frost told Bautista about the harassment allegation, once again without naming his source.

“We’ve got to get to the bottom of that one—quickly and quietly. We don’t want anyone’s reputation damaged if that girl was only imagining things. As far as we know, she wasn’t the type who’d make the story up, but we’ve got to tread very, very carefully.”

“I can see that,” Bautista said. “When do we start?”

“I’ve got a meeting with some of my partners tomorrow morning. Early. Too damn early. But I should be in the office by eleven, at the latest. If you’re free, come over then. Also, I wouldn’t lose touch with Detective Petito. Though I think it would be premature at this stage to tell him about the harassment business, don’t you?”

“I agree, since we don’t have a name to give him.”

“So we’ll see you tomorrow at eleven?”

“Sure.”

“Luis has agreed to help out on investigating Ms. Merriman’s death,” Reuben announced to Cynthia and Francisca when he returned to the living room.

“That’s wonderful!” Cynthia said, with real enthusiasm.

“The old team’s back together!” Francisca added.

“Let’s just hope we have a run of good luck,” Frost said.

Soon the party broke up, when Reuben again mentioned his early appointment the next day. “Never get involved in breakfast meetings, Luis. There’s seldom anything accomplished that couldn’t be done at a more civilized hour. Plus it’s much too early in the day to watch others eat. It’s amazing how many people have big breakfasts.”

“I like breakfast meetings,” Francisca said. “The men all look scrubbed and fresh. No five o’clock shadow.”

“I’m glad somebody thinks they have redeeming features,” Reuben answered.

“That was a good piece of work, Reuben,” Cynthia said, once Luis and Francisca had left.

“I think so.”

“You know, I’ve been thinking about something all evening. Your talk with Mr. Genakis. He didn’t say anything about Merriman being harassed, isn’t that right?”

“Correct.”

“Don’t you think that’s odd? If his girlfriend was so upset, don’t you think she would have confided in him?”

“Hmn.”

“And if he did know about it, wouldn’t it have been logical to point the finger at whoever had made a pass at her?”

“Yes. That sounds sensible to me. Good thinking, Cynthia. And thank you. You’re really very sweet, my dear.”

“What does that mean?”

“Well, I was afraid I’d have to go to bed tonight without a burning question to keep me awake. Now you’ve solved my problem.”

CHAPTER

11

Office Hours

Riding through Central Park early Tuesday morning in a taxi, Reuben Frost reflected on the streak of independence that he had always found attractive in Charlie Parkes. Now an even sixty, he was the only senior partner of Chase & Ward in recent memory to live on the West Side. Some of the younger members of the firm did, but the Upper East Side or suburbia was home to all the rest.

Parkes differed from his partners in other ways, too. His four children, two sons and two daughters, were all successful, for example—not always a distinction among well-to-do professionals in Manhattan. All four had gone to first-class colleges and done well there, none was on drugs, addicted to alcohol or in analysis, and all had reasonably interesting jobs that did not require subsidies from Charlie or his wife, Betsy.

In Frost’s view, Parkes had done a fine, evenhanded job of running Chase & Ward. He used an astute mix of charm, persuasion and occasional coercion to corral the forty-four large and independent egos that comprised the partnership.

At home, Betsy Parkes, an art historian, had opened her husband’s eyes to contemporary art at a time when most of his partners, while not quite contending that any five-year-old could paint as well as Rothko, nonetheless knew little about current painting and were basically uncomfortable when around it. Together the Parkeses had assembled a modest but distinguished collection. Even when they had reservations, many recalled with pleasure Charlie’s enthusiastic and knowledgeable guided tour of his acquisitions.

Shown into the Parkeses’ living room by the maid, Frost scanned the canvases around him to see if there had been additions or changes since his last visit. Recognizing none, he told Parkes, when he appeared, that he “had run out of steam.”

“Nonsense,” Parkes said. “Come see something.” He led Reuben into the dining room and pointed to a sculpture in the corner by the window. “Run out of steam, have I? Take a look at that.”

The sculpture, a Nancy Graves, was indeed dazzling, a surrealistic and wild plant rendered in colored metals. Reuben, who had admired her work in other places, praised the Parkeses’ new acquisition. As he did so, Keith Merritt, Chase & Ward’s senior tax partner, came up behind them. “Does it bite?” he asked, in his mellifluous Southern accent. A popular figure at the firm, Merritt had been on the “executive committee” even before Parkes’ tenure.

“Enough, enough,” Parkes said. “Let’s have breakfast while it’s hot.”

The three men picked up plates and served themselves from a buffet at one end of the large eating table. Reuben took a slice of toast to go with his black coffee.

Soon the group was joined by Ron Crutcher, the litigators’ representative on Parkes’ informal committee, and Simon Isaacs, a corporate lawyer who was independent by nature and unafraid to speak his mind (and admired for it, especially by those less brave in the partnership ranks).

“Now that we’re all here, gentlemen,” Parkes said, “I want you to hear what Reuben has told me about Julie Merriman.”

Frost summarized what he had learned about the police investigation, and the substance of his conversation with Ramsey Kendall. He did not mention Kendall by name, and his listeners unsuccessfully pressed him on this. They showed impatience, though the real tension Reuben had created was not worry over his source, but the distasteful substance of what the source had said, assuming it was true.

Speculating over the identity of Merriman’s harasser—Isaacs actually took out his pocket office directory and worked down the list of partners—the group could not reach a conclusion, even when Frost said he was sure, based on what he had been told, that the list could be narrowed to Straus, Heyworth and Richardson.

“I managed to find an excuse to talk to all of them yesterday,” Parkes revealed. “They’ll all be in the office this morning except Bill Richardson, who’s coming in from the island around noon.”

“I think y’all have got to question them,” Keith Merritt said to Parkes. “You and Reuben.”

“Is that really going to do any good?” Ron Crutcher asked. “They’ll only deny it and if one of them is guilty, it’ll tip him off that you know about it.”

“That’s true, Ron—” Parkes said.

“But they are our partners,” Isaacs interrupted. “Don’t we owe it to them to confront them?”

The group agreed, the “executive committee” relieved that they had left the dirty work to Parkes and Frost.

Once at Clinton Plaza, Frost went to the cafeteria for a midmorning cup of coffee. Since many employees had left early the previous Friday to start their holiday weekend, they were now being briefed firsthand by those who had been caught up in the police dragnet. The buzz was audible as he passed crowded table after crowded table.

Parkes had requested the office manager to move Frost to a large corner office “for the duration.” Reuben did not object and told Bautista, when he arrived at eleven o’clock, that the larger office “might come in handy, might be more intimidating.”

Frost introduced Bautista to Joe Conklin, explaining his association with the former detective and saying that he had been hired “to help out.” (He had earlier passed along to Bautista Parkes’ admonition that Conklin was a trifle on the slow side.)

“I know they say too many cooks can spoil the broth,” Frost said. “But right now the broth we’ve got is so weak and insubstantial, I think we can use all the help we can get.”

“Boy, that’s okay with me,” Conklin said. “Murder’s a little outside my line.”

Conklin had been in touch with Detective Petito earlier in the day and reported that the medical examiner had fixed the estimated time of Merriman’s death between 9 and 11 P.M. on Thursday, and that the lab results had indicated that Merriman had probably been killed in her own office, down the corridor from the library shelves where she was found.

“It’s not conclusive, but they found threads on the carpet in her office that matched the dress she was wearing when she died.”

“Are the police still barricading the thirty-first floor?” Frost asked. “I still want to see where they discovered her—and her office.”

“We can do it,” Conklin replied.

The section of the library where Merriman’s body had been found was deserted when Frost, Bautista and Conklin arrived there a few minutes later. Looking around, Frost concluded that it probably never was very busy, housing as it did the firm’s collection of the statutory law of states other than New York. Young lawyers like Tom Henderson might wander there on assignment occasionally, but it was not frequently used. Had Juliana Merriman’s killer merely found an out-of-the-way corner to hide her body? Or had he known that it was not only out-of-the-way, but not visited with any regularity?

The hiding place in the library was perhaps forty feet from Merriman’s office; her assailant could have moved her there quickly.

Moving to the office area, Merriman’s secretary, Mary Coward, was sitting at her desk when the trio arrived.

“Mary, I was very sorry to hear about Ms. Merriman,” Frost said to the woman who had been at Chase & Ward as long as he could remember. Hadn’t he presented her with a twenty-five year award back when he had been the Executive Partner? Or had it been for thirty years? Whatever the number, Ms. Coward was one of the most senior Chase & Ward employees in point of service. “May we go in?” he asked, pointing to the closed door behind her.

“Of course, Mr. Frost. It isn’t locked.”

Juliana Merriman had attempted to dress up her space with two Mostly Mozart festival posters on the wall. The office was crammed with papers, left over from her preparations for the On-Line closing. On her desk was a color photo of Marshall Genakis, showing him standing tan and fit on an unidentified beach and looking heavier than Frost remembered him. As they looked around, Conklin’s beeper went off and he picked up the phone on Ms. Coward’s desk.

“There’s a drunk passed out downstairs by the entrance,” he explained when he had finished the call. “I’ve got to go down and see that he gets scraped up. Christ, what a neighborhood this is.”

“Before you go, where do they think the murder happened?” Frost asked.

“Over there, according to Petito’s description,” Conklin replied, pointing in front of the table.

After Bautista promised to catch up with Conklin later and the security director had gone out, Frost moved behind the desk to examine the IBM-XT personal computer perched atop it. He had become something of a computer fanatic himself a year before, though his interest had waned somewhat as the miraculous novelty of his own machine, a Compaq portable, had worn off. Nonetheless, he now considered himself reasonably knowledgeable about PC’s—certainly as knowledgeable as almost anyone else his age.

Reuben had observed that a number of associates had computer terminals in their offices, though he had not been sure how much or what kind of work they did on them. He asked Ms. Coward to come in. She did so, leaning on a cane because of a bad case of arthritis in her leg.

“Mary, this XT in here. Did Ms. Merriman ever use it?”

“Oh, yes, Mr. Frost, all the time. The young ones do, you know. I was getting afraid for my job, she did so much of her work on it herself.”

“Revisions? That sort of thing?”

“Yes, and original drafting, too.”

“How does this work, Mary? What happens if Ms. Merriman wanted to revise a document—say, the On-Line Merger Agreement?”

“That’s easy, Mr. Frost. All she had to do was call it up on her screen from the central file, make her changes and transmit the new version back.”

“Is that all done internally? No disks involved?”

“No, thank God, we’ve gone beyond that, moving floppy disks around. We abandoned that system when we moved up here.”

“So any files that Ms. Merriman might have worked on herself are in central storage?”

“Yes, anything to do with the office or clients. Of course, she kept her personal things right here on her own hard disk.”

“Oh?”

“I don’t know what kind of material she had, but that would stay here, yes.”

“How do I get access to it?”

“I can do that for you. I know her password. Let me call up the directory of her files.” She put down her cane and turned the PC on. In no time the directory appeared on the screen. “Here you are.”

Frost glanced at the list of perhaps fifty files. Most were uninformative. BPARTY.DOC and CCARDS.DOC he guessed related to the guest list for a birthday party and Merriman’s Christmas card list. EUROPE.DOC could be anything, but then Frost’s heart pounded as he read the next entry: HARASS.DOC.

“Are you familiar with this one, Mary?” he asked, trying to keep his voice calm, as he pointed to the entry.

“No. I never touched her personal files.”

“Can you call it up for me?”

“Of course.” Ms. Coward sat down in front of the PC and brought the contents of HARASS.DOC into view.

Frost took the woman’s place in front of the keyboard. Already he could see he had struck pay dirt. The file was a draft of a complaint in a legal action in Federal District Court entitled “Juliana S. Merriman v. William D. Richardson.”

“How do I print this out?” Frost asked.

“Hit ‘cancel’ and then ‘P’ twice. It’ll print on the printer out by my desk.”

“Luis, will you go pick up the document as it comes out?” Frost said, managing to convey to Bautista that he should not let anybody see the pages as they appeared.

In no time Bautista came back with a ten-page printout, which he handed to Frost. Ms. Coward stood uncertainly near the door; Frost asked her to leave them alone and to close the door behind her.

Merriman’s office was cramped. Frost sat in her desk chair as he began reading. Had he been looking closely, Bautista would have seen Reuben’s face setting with anger as he read the draft complaint. It alleged a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in that Richardson, as Merriman’s employer, had created a “hostile environment” in the workplace.

The recital of the alleged facts centered on a business trip to Dallas in mid-March the previous year, where plaintiff (Merriman) and defendant (Richardson) were working on the Triumph recapitalization and staying, in separate bedrooms, at the Mansion on Turtle Creek. On the night in question, plaintiff and defendant had had dinner together at the hotel. After a postprandial drink, defendant, whose leg was in a cast after a skiing accident, complained that his leg was bothering him and asked plaintiff to help him to his room. She did so, where he made an attempt to kiss her, to stroke her hair and to fondle her breasts. She managed to break away—a comparatively easy task, Frost thought, given defendant’s physical condition—and leave the bedroom. Next morning, defendant apologized, but cautioned plaintiff that “it would go badly” for both of them if she told anyone what had happened. It was alleged that defendant had repeated his warning on three subsequent occasions.

Frost read the document with a sinking heart and, when he had finished, turned to Bautista. “If this document is to be believed, Bill Richardson was Merriman’s harasser,” he said. “He’s one of the firm’s most senior partners and a well-respected one. At least up until now.” Frost summarized the gist of the complaint for Bautista, who agreed that Richardson had suddenly become worthy of more than routine scrutiny.

“One detail, Luis,” Frost said. “Can that law office of yours find out if this damn thing was ever filed in District Court? I can’t ask our managing clerk without creating unnecessary gossip that we don’t want or need.”

“Sure, I can do that,” Bautista replied.

“Then what I’m going to do is go see Charlie Parkes. I think the two of us—Parkes and I—should talk to Richardson.

“And I think you should independently check out what Genakis has said about his activities on Thursday. We’ve got to cover all bases. Was he really at his restaurant from eight o’clock on? And let’s see if we can get a better fix on Merriman’s comings and goings the day she was killed. You’ve got carte blanche to talk to anybody, though I don’t think you should mention Richardson to anyone just yet. I’ll let you know if I get anything out of him.”

“Sounds good to me, Reuben,” Bautista said.

“Good. Then you get out of here so I can talk to Merriman’s secretary. She’s an ancient party like me and may know something helpful. Why don’t we plan to get together at the end of the afternoon.”

“In your office?” Bautista said.

“It’s not my office, but yes. Room 3433, where we started out this morning.”

Once left alone, he called in Mary Coward. “Mary, as I said before, I’m sorry about your boss.”

“I can’t believe it, Mr. Frost. She was a wonderful person. Very well-mannered, very considerate. I’ve seldom had a better person to work for.”

“Are you including me in that, Mary?”

“I never worked for you, Mr. Frost.”

“Of course you did. When did you start with the firm?”

“Right after the War. I got out of high school a month after V-E Day and began work at Chase & Ward the end of that summer.”

“Well, I returned from the Navy in the fall of forty-five and came back to the firm. If I’m not mistaken you were in the steno pool, as we called it then, and you did do work for me.”

“If you’ve remembered it all these years, I must have been terrible.”

Frost did not let on that it was indeed the woman’s youthful inexperience that had stuck in his memory.

“Anyway, we go back a long way, Mary,” he said, shifting away from the subject of her early skills (which in fact had improved greatly within a very short time). “As you might have guessed, Mr. Parkes has asked me to see what I can find out about Juliana Merriman’s death. The gentleman who was here with me is a detective we’ve hired and he’ll also be asking some questions around the office. But what I need to know right now is whether you have any bright ideas about who might have killed Ms. Merriman.”

“Believe me, I’ve thought about it, but I don’t have any answers. All I know is I’ve been sure there’d be some terrible trouble when we moved to this dreadful neighborhood. These offices are a delight to work in, Mr. Frost, everything up-to-date, like the computer system. And for a poor old cripple like me, they’re terrific—that special elevator downstairs, for example—I’m shriveled up enough that they gave me a key to use it. That’s a double blessing—it’s convenient and it means I don’t have to look at that appalling lobby when I come in and leave. But …”

“That lobby is outlandish, isn’t it?” Frost agreed. “More like a mausoleum for Mussolini than the entryway for our staid and proper firm.” They both smiled, old-timers remembering a better past.

“What about Marshall Genakis?” Frost asked, getting back to the subject. “What do you know about him?”

“Well, since you ask me, I’ll tell you. Or rather I’ll show you something. Will you excuse me?” She left the room and returned with a thin file that she handed to Reuben. It was labeled on the tab at the top, “J. Merriman—Personal—Insurance.” The contents were neatly attached inside the folder with metal clips.

“Look at the top sheet,” Ms. Coward advised. It was a copy of a change of designation of beneficiary for Merriman’s group life insurance policy. Dated the previous November, it named Genakis, rather than her father, Paul Merriman, as the beneficiary under her policy, which Frost determined, by looking further in the file, was in the face amount of $150,000.

“Do you know any more about this?” Frost asked.

“No. She asked me to type it up. She signed it, had it notarized and turned it in to Benefits.”

“Did she seem happy about it? Or concerned? Or apprehensive? Or angry? What, Mary?”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Frost, I don’t recall her attitude. I don’t recall anything special at all.”

“Do you know Genakis?”

“Oh, yes. He used to come over now and then. Always a perfect gentleman to me.”

“Meaning that you think he may not have been with others?”

“No, no. I just meant I don’t know him very well.”

“They were getting along all right, weren’t they?”

“I can’t say. Miss Merriman kept a very tight rein on her emotions. Our relationship seldom changed from day to day, no matter how she was feeling or what she was feeling. That was one of the pleasures of working for her—there never were unpleasant surprises. The only time she ever let her guard down was several months ago when she told me Mr. Genakis was the only man she’d ever met who accepted her the way she was. Whatever that might mean.”

“Did Ms. Merriman have a will?”

“Yes, let me get the file. I know she had the trust and estates people do one up about two years ago, because I was one of the witnesses.”

Ms. Coward went outside again and returned with the file containing a copy of Merriman’s will. Reuben flipped through it and noted that she left everything to her parents, except two $1,000 bequests, to the March of Dimes, earmarked for birth defects research, and to Stanford Law School, and except that her shares in Marshall’s, Inc., presumably the corporate owner of Genakis’ restaurant, were left to him. Satisfied, Frost asked Ms. Coward to recount what had happened the day Merriman died.

“She was terribly busy, doing that On-Line merger all by herself. I was working here most of the time and she was in the conference room. She’d call me down there when she needed me.”

“Did you notice anything unusual?”

“Only that there seemed to be a tension between her and Mr. Rawson.”

“The man from Schoonmaker?”

“Yes.”

“What kind of tension, Mary?”

“Oh, it’s hard to say. He’d say something perfectly innocuous and she’d contradict it. Or vice-versa. It was bickering. Picky. I didn’t think much about it at the time …”

“But you have since?”

“Yes, but I can’t make much out of it.”

“Anything else?”

“Yes, there is one thing. Ms. Merriman and Mr. Richardson had some sort of quarrel, some sort of argument, late Thursday afternoon.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Well, Mr. Richardson called about five o’clock to say he was back from Detroit and wanted to sign the On-Line opinions as soon as possible, because he was in a hurry to get off to the country. Both the phones in the conference room were busy, I remember, so I went down and gave her the message myself.

“When she didn’t respond right away, Mr. Richardson came looking for her, just as she came up from downstairs. The opinions were all in piles in her office, so he stayed here to sign them. Her office was so full of papers he used Mr. Loveman’s over there. Mr. Loveman was away on vacation for Christmas week.

“Ms. Merriman took the opinions into Mr. Loveman’s office and closed the door. I couldn’t hear what was being said, but she and Mr. Richardson both raised their voices at one point and I could hear that. Then Ms. Merriman came out with one of the opinions. There was a stupid typo—my fault—and she asked me to correct it. She seemed quite shaken.”

“Do you think Richardson got angry when he found the typo?” Frost suggested.

“That’s possible, but I really don’t know. Anyway, once she’d given me the opinion to fix, she went back in and closed the door, like before. Again they raised their voices, but I still couldn’t hear what they were saying.”

“How long did this go on?”

“About five minutes, I guess. Then Mr. Richardson came out, acting a little impatient. I remember he said as he was leaving, ‘There’s an end to it, Juliana, there’s an end to it.’”

“What do you think he meant by that?”

“I assumed he meant the On-Line merger would be over the next day.”

“Did Ms. Merriman seem upset?”

“She was very tired, and, yes, a little tense. Maybe because of arguing with her boss, or maybe because she’d had a hard day with those characters down in the conference room.”

“When was the last time you saw her?” Frost asked.

“Right after Mr. Richardson went back upstairs. She talked with Beth Locke for a few minutes about setting up a conference call to Tokyo for later in the evening. After that she got ready to leave and said she was going to eat at her apartment, but expected to be back by eight.”

“That was when, around five-thirty?”

“Almost exactly, I’d say. Jennie Sage, a secretary down the hall, always leaves on the dot of five-thirty. I remember she stuck her head in the door to wish me a happy New Year just as Ms. Merriman was leaving.”

“How long did you stay around?”

“By the time I’d made the correction, and gotten the new page run off in duplicating and inserted in the opinions, it was almost seven. Frankly, I waited around until exactly seven so that I could take a cab home.” Frost doubted that Ms. Coward would have confided her stretching of the office rule—paid-for taxicabs home only after seven o’clock—in less grave circumstances.

“So you didn’t see Merriman after five-thirty?”

“That’s right.”

“She had not returned from dinner by the time you left at seven?”

“No.”

“Did you see any strangers wandering around before you went home?”

“Only Mr. Wylie. The one they call Skip. He’d come up to use the telephone just before Miss Merriman went out.”

“In her office?”

“No, he used Mr. Loveman’s, too. He was on the phone for twenty minutes or so and then he took off.”

“Well, Mary, thank you. Can you make me a Xerox of this?” he asked.

Ms. Coward copied the change of beneficiary form and handed the copy to Frost. “Do you think this means anything?” she asked.

“I wish I knew, Mary.”

CHAPTER

12

More Questions Than Answers

Frost went immediately to Charlie Parkes’ office and was pleased to find him in. In the excitement of his discoveries, Reuben had given up all thought of lunch and wanted to press forward.

“Come in, Reuben,” Parkes said. “What have you found out?”

“Plenty,” Frost replied.

“Does it lead us anywhere?”

“Yes. We’ve got two roads. If we go down either one, Merriman’s killer may be at the end of it.”

“You’re talking in riddles.”

“I was only trying to pick up on your question about where things have led us. Here’s the situation.” He related to Parkes the gist of Merriman’s draft complaint, and told him of the recent change in the beneficiary of her insurance policy.

“So you think it may be either Bill Richardson or Marshall Genakis?”

“Don’t push me too far—all I’m saying is we’ve discovered something adverse, something unfavorable, about each one—not enough to send either of them to Dannemora, but leads worth pursuing.

“Here’s what I propose to do, if you agree,” Frost went on. “I think we should talk to the three partners Merriman worked for—Straus, Heyworth and Richardson—just as we discussed this morning. I doubt that either Straus or Heyworth will have anything to tell us, but it’s an unobtrusive way of getting to Richardson, without half the office buzzing that he alone was summoned to talk to us.”

“You want me involved in this?”

“I think so, Charlie. I think we need to lend your weight as the Executive Partner, so it’s not just an old man fishing around.”

“Whatever you think. I’m at your service. What about that detective you hired? You want him here, too?”

“No, not at this stage. I want to keep things as low-key as possible.”

“Shall we start now?”

“The sooner the better.”

Frost and Parkes saw the three partners for whom Juliana Merriman had worked in chronological order. As Frost had predicted, the first, Bernie Straus, had little to relate.

“I knew she was a bright girl, right from the start,” he said. “She was just about the best first-year associate I ever had. She got along with everybody as far as I could tell.

“Who killed her? My daughter asked me the same thing—she’s down at U.Va. law school. When I told her I didn’t have any idea she said the firm better hurry up and find out, if we ever want to hire anybody again.” Parkes grimaced as Straus repeated his daughter’s observation.

Frost asked if he could ask his former partner “a final question.” “This is a touchy one, Bernie, but what do you know about her sex life?”

“Nothing, really. Except that she was a real knockout. While she was working for me she took up with some guy she’d known from California. I think they were living together.”

“Did she ever make an advance towards you?”

“Lord, no. A sexy girl like Juliana sure could do better than an old plug-ugly like me. And to anticipate your next question, I never made a pass at her.”

“Oh, Reuben, before Brian gets here, there’s one thing I thought of,” Parkes said. “You know about the Carson Group?”

“I’m not sure I do.”

“The ‘hotline’ people.”

“Oh, yes,” Reuben answered. It was a development since his time as an active partner, but the firm now had a contract with Carson, a group of psychologists and social workers who maintained a hotline that all employees of Chase & Ward, lawyers or not, could call at any hour of the day or night to get expert referrals for their personal problems. Frost had heard about it only indirectly, but he had been told that Dr. Carson, himself a recovering alcoholic, had made a convincing presentation to the partners and persuaded them that Chase & Ward was probably not as invincible as they complacently thought—its personnel might be exposed to drugs, alcohol, child abuse, suicide, depression and all the other maladies of late twentieth-century living.

Charlie Parkes and the members of the firm had decided to try out the Carson Group for a year. The cost was minimal and the benefits, if Dr. Carson were correct, quite real. To the surprise of the partners, the service had been called with some frequency, though the identity of the users, and even the breakdown between lawyers and non-lawyers, was kept from the members of the firm. But the description of the purposes of the calls had shocked the partners into voting to renew the Carson retainer each year.

“I think I’ll call Dr. Carson and see if Juliana ever used their services,” Parkes said. He did so, and Reuben, overhearing one side of the conversation, could tell that it was not going smoothly.

“But she’s dead, Dr. Carson,” Parkes said, impatiently. Then, later, “You want to talk to me in person you say? Can you come over now?”

Parkes hung up the phone. “He’s coming over, as you probably gathered. He’s a bug about secrecy and confidentiality, but I guess that’s what makes his service work.”

Brian Heyworth, as expected, had already told Parkes and Frost what he knew the previous Friday.

“Let me ask you this,” Frost said to him. “All these characters who were here for the On-Line closing. They were in the office the day Juliana was killed. Did any of them strike you as suspicious?”

“As I told you, I hadn’t really dealt with them until Friday morning, when Julie didn’t show up. Our client, Alan Lovett, can be pretty blunt, but basically I’d say he’s a laid-back Californian. Skip, the youngest of the Wylie brothers, was sort of a hood, but more a diamond-in-the-rough than a gangster.”

“How about the other brothers?” Frost asked.

“Harmless. No, the only other possibility would be their investment banker, Harvey Rawson. He was obnoxiously aggressive, but that’s true of about half his profession, wouldn’t you say? Overall, it didn’t strike me as a murdering bunch, Reuben.”

“Shall we call in the golden boy?” Parkes asked, once Heyworth had gone. Frost smiled at the reference to Bill Richardson’s sub-rosa nickname. He had been tagged with it by those of his own generation in the office, who had observed early on that the socially impeccable Richardson was favored by the more traditional senior partners of the firm; it had not had anything to do with the young man’s flaxen hair.

Chase & Ward had always been a meritocracy. Every partner, by instinct in some cases, out of principle in others, had realized since the earliest days of Charles Chase that advancement within the firm must depend on ability; that it would sink into mediocrity if nepotism or other irrelevancies entered the advancement process and the brightest law school graduates shunned it because of a lack of commitment to merit. This is not to say that those who formed the traditional, WASP backbone of the firm did not rejoice when one of their own showed the ability to compete fairly and squarely with his peers.

Such had been the case with the young Bill Richardson. A varsity tennis player at Yale, and an enthusiastic member of Fence Club, he had not had a distinguished academic career in New Haven, to the point where he had been rejected by the Yale Law School. This had come as a great shock to the moderately well-to-do young man, who had never encountered such a heavy setback before.

Disappointed, he had enlisted in the Army and wrangled an assignment in the elite Special Forces, which then formed the glamorous vanguard of President Kennedy’s ill-fated intervention in Vietnam. Richardson spent three years as a Green Beret, two of them in Southeast Asia.

After his discharge, a more sympathetic admissions committee at Columbia Law gave him a slot, and he reciprocated by compiling a distinguished record, graduating as a Stone Scholar. From law school he went immediately to Chase & Ward, where the resident barons looked upon him as a comer almost from the day he first walked in the door.

Bill Richardson had not disappointed them and, after eight years (the usual minimum at the time), was elected a partner. More recently he had developed a special niche in the firm’s busy mergers and acquisitions practice, advising both borrowers and lenders on the intricacies of the imaginative, complicated and often risky financial instruments used to raise borrowed funds for mergers, buyouts and what were euphemistically called “recapitalizations.” Richardson was in the forefront as Wall Street continued to reverse the traditional capitalistic goal of increasing equity and decreasing debt.

At forty-nine, he was universally thought to be Charlie Parkes’ logical successor as Executive Partner, the only fear (by some) being the facetious one that, once in charge, he would impose his fanatical notions of exercise—jogging to work when the weather permitted and early-morning tennis three days a week—on his more flabby colleagues.

There were also reservations about his wife, Nina. She was a glacial blonde who, but for a wrinkle or two, still looked like the Mount Holyoke coed she had once been, complete with straight hair, headband, matching sweater sets and modest strings of pearls. She had married Bill the year after he had started work at Chase & Ward, thus merging his modest Philadelphia inheritance with her own Boston one.

Huskily enthusiastic, in the way of women who may have played too much field hockey when young, she had sought a cause to take up her considerable energies once her three children had gone off to boarding school. Planned Parenthood had seemed a likely possibility and she had plunged into its activities and fund-raising with both ability and enthusiasm. Like so many activists doing good works, she soon could talk about little else except her new charity, whether her listener was a goggle-eyed young associate (is this senior partner’s wife really talking to me about condoms?) or one more aged, such as Reuben or Cynthia, to whom the procreative issues obsessing Nina were somewhat remote.

“Sitting next to that woman at dinner is like being trapped in a gynecologist’s office,” Reuben had once sputtered to Cynthia after a dinner party where Nina Richardson had been placed beside him.

“How on earth would you know that?” Cynthia had asked.

“I don’t. But a visit to the gynecologist can’t be any more clinical than talking with her,” Reuben had replied, vowing to avoid being trapped with her ever again.

Bill Richardson, whose office was on the same floor as Parkes’, appeared immediately when the Executive Partner called. He strode in, awash in his usual self-confidence, and arranged his lanky, athletic frame as he sat down, crossing his legs and draping an arm over the side of Parkes’ sofa. Frost’s examination of him was not without envy: Richardson exuded good health and his blonde hair was only now starting to be interspersed with patches of gray. He was wearing a dark tie with yellow and light blue stripes, which Reuben correctly identified as the winter tie of the Brook (as its members called their club).

“What’s new, gentlemen?” he asked jauntily.

“I think I filled you in pretty well when we talked yesterday,” Parkes said. “What’s new is we’ve got to find Juliana Merriman’s murderer.”

“Is that where I come in, Charlie?” Richardson asked, smiling.

“At this point, I don’t know where anybody comes in,” Parkes said. “I just want to get this whole thing behind us. Every additional hour that it’s hanging over our heads means more worry, more anxiety, more damage to our reputation, more lost work time. That’s why I’ve asked Reuben to come in and help out.”

“Good idea. A little experience at a time like this can’t do any harm.” Richardson raised his shaggy eyebrows and smiled at Reuben. As if on cue, Frost picked up the conversational thread.

“One thing we’re trying to do, Bill,” he said, “is find out as much as possible about Juliana Merriman. The logical place to start seemed to be with the three partners she worked for. We’ve already talked to Bernie Straus and Brian Heyworth, and now it’s your turn.” Frost’s approach was relaxed and non-confrontational.

“What did Bernie and Brian have to say?”

“Frankly, not much,” Frost said.

“I’m afraid I’m about in the same position. Julie was rotated to me after her second assignment, with Brian. What can I tell you? She was a very good lawyer.”

“Bernie said she was the best first-year associate he’d ever had.”

“I don’t disagree with that. Her work on the Triumph recapitalization was above average and she was doing this two-bit On-Line thing all by herself. My only reservation was about her handling of a consent problem with a Japanese bank.”

“How did you find out she was missing on Friday?” Frost asked.

“Her paralegal called me and said she couldn’t be found either at her apartment or the office. That’s when I got Heyworth to swing into action.” The notion of Brian Heyworth “swinging into action” was an ironic one, but all three lawyers refrained from further comment.

“I suppose I should have known something was wrong Thursday night,” Richardson continued. “The consent I referred to involved the Machikin Bank in Tokyo and there was a conference call about it that evening. She was meant to call me out in East Hampton to tell me what happened, but she never did.”

“Triumph,” Reuben said, shifting the subject. “That’s the company in Dallas you represented last year?”

“Yes.”

“Did you work with her closely on that?”

Richardson looked wary, but answered without hesitating. “Yes, I did. I was the Expert, capital E, they kept wanting to talk to, but Julie did much of the work. And finally it got to a point where she’d gained their confidence and they talked to her directly.”

“When exactly was that?”

“The first half of last year. I remember the deal kicked off with a meeting in Dallas just about a year ago now and finally closed in July. Mid-July.”

“You mentioned a meeting in Dallas. Where did the work take place, here or there?”

“Hard to say, Reuben. Maybe there was more Dallas involvement than usual—they insisted on using a local printer down there for the proxy materials. And they were big on meetings—always down there. So I guess, yes, to answer your question, we were in Dallas a fair amount.”

“Were there other associates involved, or just Julie?”

“Only Julie. Lean-and-mean Chase & Ward staffing, Reuben. No slack.”

“What do you know about her personal life?”

“Not much. She was living with a guy in the apartments next door, I believe.”

“Do you know him—Marshall Genakis?”

“I guess I’ve met him a couple of times. Didn’t make much of an impression.”

“One detail, Bill,” Frost said, shifting the focus again. “Her secretary, Mary Coward, had the idea you and Juliana were quarreling last Thursday.”

“Quarreling?”

“Yes. Apparently you’d gone down to her office to sign some opinions.”

“Oh, that,” Richardson said, equably. “It was over that damned consent. Machikin Bank had to give its permission for the On-Line merger. She’d let the matter slide somehow and there she was the night before the closing with no piece of paper in hand. I chewed her out for that. I’m sure that’s what Ms. Coward overheard.”

“Bill, there’s one very delicate matter I’d like to raise in total confidence,” Frost said. “We have reason to believe that Merriman may have been subject to sexual harassment by someone in this office.”

“Whose wild idea is that? The boyfriend? Or that secretary of hers?”

“No, it wasn’t either of them. Do you have any comment?”

“Yes, I do. I always believe in the principle of de mortuis nil nisi bonum, but now that you’ve raised the subject, let me add something to what I told you. You knew Juliana, or at least what she looked like?”

Frost and Parkes nodded.

“She was uniquely attractive. Very special. Not my type, exactly, but a latter-day flower child. She knew she was sexy and liked to tease.”

“What do you mean?” Frost asked.

“I’ll tell you what I mean. She was always a quiet dresser, but she wore especially conservative clothes when we went down to Dallas. No point in offending the cowboys. It was always dressed-for-success suits, with those floppy ladies’ bow ties. But as our meetings wore on, usually late in the afternoon or early in the evening, Julie would take off her jacket. Then a few minutes later she would take off her tie and ever so discreetly unbutton the top buttons of her blouse. And slip off her shoes, resting her stockinged legs on the bottom rung of the next chair. All the while stroking that extraordinary hair of hers.”

“You were quite observant, Bill.”

“I couldn’t help it. She was always sitting next to me.”

“I don’t quite understand what this has to do with sexual harassment,” Reuben said.

“All I’m saying is that if she was harassed, my guess would be that she asked for it. Not jailbait exactly, but a tease who knew what she was doing.”

“Did she try this on you?”

Richardson paused, as if weighing the question, then responded, “Yes, I think it’s fair to say that she did.”

“How did this manifest itself?”

“By putting her feet on the bottom of my chair, not the empty chair on the other side.”

“Her bare feet?”

“She wore stockings, Reuben. But, yes. She put her feet on my chair and wiggled her toes. And stroked her hair.”

“This was at the meetings in Dallas?”

“Yes.”

“And I assume her overtures were rebuffed?”

“Absolutely. Screwing lady associates is not my style.”

Frost decided there was no point in being evasive any longer. He picked up from Parkes’ desk, where it had been lying face down, the draft complaint retrieved from Merriman’s word processor and handed it to Richardson. “Have you seen this before?” Frost asked.

Richardson put on his reading half-glasses and looked at the text quickly.

“This is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever read!” he said, when about halfway through. “Where the hell did this come from?” he asked Frost, with a look that may or may not have been saying, “you old snoop.”

“Out of Merriman’s computer,” Frost said.

“Well, it’s absolute nonsense. Fiction.”

“You’ve never seen it before?”

“Never.”

“And what it alleges about you is not true?”

“Absolutely not true. But now I think you’ll understand why I always tried to stay out of her way—in Dallas, and back here in New York, except where business demanded. She had this teasing streak, and I decided to avoid her whenever I possibly could.”

“When was the last time you saw her?”

“Thursday afternoon. I’d been out in Detroit, but I figured I’d better stop back here to make sure everything was going okay with On-Line. I’d brought the car down before I flew out the day before and left it in the garage downstairs, so I could come in from Detroit, check up on the deal, and get off to East Hampton.

“Anyway, to answer your question, Reuben, I got back here about five on Thursday and went over things with Juliana—that’s when we had our famous ‘quarrel’—and signed our opinions. Then I took off, I guess right around five-thirty.”

“That was the last time you saw her?” Frost asked.

“That’s right. Saw her or heard from her.”

“How did she strike you?”

“She was okay. She was really ticked off at some guy named Rawson, one of the bankers in the deal who was giving her a rough time. But I could understand that. I saw enough of him to know he’s a real hard-ass. Otherwise, she seemed perfectly normal.”

“You realize, Bill, the police will have to see this draft complaint of hers, sooner or later,” Frost said.

“I’m not sure I see why,” Richardson said.

“Unless her killer is found, I’m afraid it’s relevant.”

“I don’t agree, Reuben. But whether the police get it or not, everything it alleges is untrue. I’ll enter my general denial right now.”

“The police will also want to know where you were last Thursday night,” Frost said, proud of himself for questioning his former partner about his alibi without appearing to do so.

“Thursday night?”

“When Juliana was killed.”

“That’s easy,” Richardson said. “Nina and I were planning to spend the holiday weekend in East Hampton. She went out on the Jitney Thursday morning to get things ready and I came out Thursday night. I left here around five-thirty, as I already told you, picked up the BMW at the garage downstairs and went to the country.”

“So by eight o’clock, or thereabouts, you were in East Hampton?”

“I wish I could say that. You remember the weather was terrible Thursday night. Traffic was impossible. The Long Island Expressway was completely tied up. I didn’t get to East Hampton until very late.”

“What time?”

“I honestly don’t remember.”

“Did Nina hold dinner?”

“No, she’d turned in early and was asleep when I got there. I made some scrambled eggs for myself.”

Frost decided not to press his questions; others could pinpoint the details of Richardson’s alibi, though he did note that Nina had been eliminated as a corroborating—or contradicting—source.

“Can I get back to gainful employment now?” Richardson asked. Frost had no more questions and Richardson left, his self-confidence to all appearances unshaken.

“Do you believe him?” Parkes asked.

“He used to be my partner, Charlie. And he’s still yours. Don’t we have to give him the benefit of the doubt? Though I must say Merriman had quite an imagination if she made up the allegations in that complaint. Distasteful as it may be, I’m afraid we have to keep Bill in our sights.”

“What about Dr. Carson? You want to talk to him? He should be here any minute.”

“Why don’t you do that, Charlie. You know him, I don’t. Besides, it’s getting late and I want to talk to Luis Bautista.”

“All right. I’ll come down and report what he has to say, if anything. Where are you, 3433?” Parkes asked, making a note of the room number.

Bautista met with Frost in his temporary office. As agreed, the former detective had spent the day checking out the movements of Juliana Merriman and Marshall Genakis in the hours before Merriman died.

“Genakis repeated again that he’d met Merriman for dinner at their apartment and then he’d dropped her off out front here just before eight o’clock. He’s full of detail about what they had for dinner—he cooked, he says—but that’s not really corroboration.”

“It doesn’t matter, does it?” Reuben asked. “The important thing is where he was around nine o’clock.”

“I talked to his assistant at the restaurant. Also the chef. They both say he arrived a little after eight and was on duty the whole evening.”

“Are they telling the truth?”

“I think so. They were both nervous as hell, but they were cooperative.”

“Hmn.”

“Now we come to Merriman herself. You talked to her secretary, so you know she left here, supposedly to have an early dinner, around five-thirty. I haven’t talked in person to this fellow Rawson yet, but he said on the phone that she came back in time to make their conference call to Tokyo at eight. The call apparently lasted about half an hour, down in Conference Room B. She and the paralegal, Beth Locke, were still here when he left around eight forty-five.”

“What does Locke say?”

“She confirmed what Rawson told me and said Merriman left the conference room shortly after Rawson did, probably just before nine. She said she was going to do a couple of things in her office and then was going home. And that was the last Locke saw of her.”

“So we’ve accounted for her movements up until about nine, which is when we think she was killed.”

“With one exception, Reuben, which I can’t understand. Joe Conklin pointed out to me that a record is made when any regular employee of this place comes in downstairs. A guy puts his magnetic card in the slot—”

“Yes, I’ve had the system explained to me already.”

“Conklin got a printout of the serial numbers of everyone who came through the downstairs entrance on Thursday, or everyone who used a magnetic card, anyway. He’s matched the numbers up and it appears that Merriman came back in here at six-fifteen—”

“That means she had a pretty fast dinner.”

“Or something. But here’s the crazy part. She must have gone out again, because the computer record shows her coming in again at seven forty-five.”

“Damn,” Frost said, after a pause to take in what Bautista had been saying. “I don’t suppose this fancy system can make a mistake?”

“Conklin says the chances of the gates downstairs miscoding a number are zero.”

“Did anybody see her come back?”

“So far, we haven’t found anyone who saw her in the office between five-thirty and just before eight. I’ve told Petito about it, and he’s having his guys check it out.”

“Since her secretary didn’t see her after five-thirty, it doesn’t seem likely she came back to pick up something she’d forgotten in her office.”

“Agreed.”

“What about Richardson?”

“You’re a tough guy, Reuben. I haven’t gotten around to him yet.”

“Sorry, Luis.”

“Oh, I did find out that Merriman’s harassment complaint was never filed.”

Frost brought Bautista up to date about the conversation with Richardson.

“Sounds like he was making a few preemptive strikes,” Bautista said, referring to Richardson’s description of Merriman’s teasing.

“There’re a couple of things that trouble me,” Frost said. “Putting the make on Bill Richardson wouldn’t exactly have been the shrewdest way for her to get ahead around here. From all we know, she was too savvy to try such a stunt. Plus the fact that her mother told me she’d always been shy around men—Genakis supposedly being the great exception.”

“Girls do grow up, Reuben.”

“I’m aware of that. But the pieces don’t fit together quite right.”

“So you think Richardson came onto her, without any encouragement on her part?”

“I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

“And then you’d argue he killed her to shut her up, I suppose?” Bautista said.

“I’m not arguing anything at this point. But I do think you should start checking out Richardson’s alibi. And you might just note, if you haven’t already, that Richardson and Merriman both left here that night at roughly the same time, around five-thirty.”

Charlie Parkes appeared in the door as Reuben gave Bautista his instructions. The Executive Partner had not met Bautista before, so Frost made the introduction.

“Are you here about the ‘hotline’?” Frost asked. He explained its operation to Bautista.

“Talking to Carson is like pulling teeth,” Parkes said, when Reuben had finished. “But he brought her file along, and when I assured him that Merriman was still dead, he acknowledged that she had called the Carson Group about three months ago.”

“Do we know why?”

“She was seeking advice about drug treatment. ‘Detox’ programs, as Carson refers to them. For cocaine.”

“For herself?” Frost asked.

“No, for a friend. Carson’s records are definite on that. She explicitly told the psychologist she talked to that she was worried about a friend and wanted to know what the treatment options were.”

“The friend male or female?”

“No indication.”

“What happened after that?”

“Nothing. The psychologist suggested several alternatives and Merriman said she’d think about it. She never called again.”

“Do we really believe she was calling for a friend? Isn’t that what they all say?” Reuben asked.

“Carson admitted that.”

“Let’s not take our eye off Genakis,” Frost said. “If there really was a friend in trouble, he’s a pretty likely candidate.”

“Sounds like we’re still going down two separate roads, Reuben, like you said,” Parkes observed. “Genakis Lane and Richardson Boulevard.”

“Yes, and I just hope they’re not both dead ends.”

CHAPTER

13

A New Direction

Tuesday night Reuben found that his New Year’s socializing and intense concentration on the Merriman case were catching up with him. He had briefed Cynthia fully over a quiet dinner at Hulot’s, the small French bistro up Lexington Avenue from their townhouse. To his disappointment, his usually shrewd wife had no clever insights into the miscellany of facts he had served up with her warm quail salad.

By the time they returned at eleven, Reuben was exhausted and went directly to bed. The most intriguing puzzle of the day—why had Juliana Merriman returned to the office twice on the night she was killed?—plagued him briefly, but he was soon fast asleep.

Just before midnight, the telephone rang. Cynthia, who was still up, answered it in the library. Within minutes she was rousing her husband.

“It’s Charlie Parkes,” she told him. “I told him you were asleep, but he said he must talk with you tonight.”

Frost rubbed himself awake, wondering with some annoyance what could be so important that it couldn’t wait until morning.

“Yes, Charlie,” he said groggily as he picked up the telephone at bedside.

“Reuben, we’ve got a grade-A disaster on our hands,” Parkes said, talking rapidly.

“I’m aware of that, Charlie.”

“No, no, I don’t mean Merriman, though the Lord only knows whether this new goddam thing has anything to do with her murder.”

“What new goddam thing?” Frost said, impatiently.

“Brian Heyworth got a call at home about an hour ago from a fellow named Ames, at First Fiduciary’s branch in Tokyo. You remember he was supposed to take physical delivery of that consent from Machikin Bank. The one they needed to close the Applications/On-Line merger.”

“Yes, I do remember,” Frost said. “There was some mix-up about it.”

“That’s right. A fellow from Schoonmaker in Tokyo was supposed to pick up the original from Machikin and turn it over to Ames. But the arrangements got fouled up somehow, so Ames never got it. So they closed on the basis of a fax.

“Here’s the beauty part, Reuben. The man from Schoonmaker, name of Peter Wesray, has gone off to Singapore or Bangkok or some such goddam place and can’t be reached. So Ames, being the dutiful fellow he apparently is, got in touch with Mr. Hiseo—he’s the one who supposedly signed the thing—this morning. And guess what? He’s never heard of the consent!”

“What about the copy that was faxed to New York?”

“It must be a fake. Hiseo told Ames he’d never heard of the merger, never heard of the consent and said there’s no way Machikin would have agreed to it!”

“Did you talk to Ames?”

“No, I’m only passing on what Brian told me.”

“Are we sure there’s not some failure of communication here? The old barrier between East and West?”

“It would be nice if that were so. Ames told Brian that Hiseo couldn’t have been more definite. Never heard of it, and never faxed a copy here.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“My sentiments exactly.”

“Did Ames show Hiseo a copy?”

“Heyworth asked him that. But Ames himself had never seen one. All he’d gotten was Wesray’s assurance that Hiseo had faxed the consent to New York.”

“What was that assurance based on, for God’s sake?”

“Wesray claimed he’d talked with Hiseo by telephone.”

“Can you hold on a minute, Charlie? It’s cold as hell in here and I need to get my bathrobe,” Reuben said.

“Sorry.”

Frost grabbed his silk Christmas present from a chair and returned to the phone.

“I take it there was nothing wrong on its face with the fax that arrived Thursday night?” Frost asked. “Nothing suspicious about it?”

“That’s what Brian Heyworth says.”

“Hmn.”

“I caught that, Reuben. Let’s hope he was right. With Bill Richardson hopping back and forth to Detroit, and Merriman’s death, and Brian stepping in at the last minute, this wasn’t exactly the best supervised transaction in the history of Chase & Ward.”

“Well, Charlie, let’s hope there’s no problem for the firm,” Frost said. “But the more important question right now is whether this fake consent had anything to do with what happened to Merriman.”

“I know. You remember she was the one who was insisting that they get the original document. Somebody who knew that this would be impossible might have killed her to get the deal done.”

“Like the people from Schoonmaker, you mean. What’s the fellow’s name who was working on the deal?”

“Rawson. Harvey Rawson.”

“I don’t know him.”

“Neither do I. He’s one of their hotshot M&A types.”

“With the morals to go with it, no doubt.”

“Probably,” Parkes said. “Look, I hate to do this, but can we meet first thing tomorrow, Reuben? We’ve got to find out exactly what happened, and I also want you to tell the boys what you’ve found out about Bill. I don’t want to make a habit of this, but can you be over here at eight?”

Frost did not even try to get the hour moved up. “Of course, Charlie. But aren’t you going to have to include Richardson and Heyworth if we’re going to get the full story on that fax?”

“Oh, God, I suppose so. But that nixes the chance of talking about Bill.”

“We can do that later in the day.”

“This is becoming a full-time occupation,” Parkes grumbled, before saying good night.

The Tuesday group met in Parkes’ dining room again Wednesday morning, this time with Richardson and Heyworth in attendance.

“Welcome to Parkes’ restaurant,” Charlie said ruefully, before outlining the newest perplexity.

“So we don’t go off half-cocked, I think we ought to find out exactly what happened in this On-Line deal last Thursday and Friday,” Ron Crutcher said.

Richardson and Heyworth together reconstructed the details, Richardson leading off by repeating what he had already told Frost and Parkes the day before. Then Heyworth picked up the story.

“When Bill called me Friday morning, I had to play some pretty fast catch-up ball. Luckily for me, Merriman had prepared a good closing memo, so we could proceed in a fairly orderly way even without her.

“We had the fax of the consent in hand. It had been sent out at 9 A.M. Tokyo time on Friday. That meant it got to our shop at seven Thursday night. Alan Lovett, our client, filled me in on the conference call to Tokyo they’d had Thursday night, and said we were supposed to get word from Vincent Ames when he had taken delivery of the consent. While we were talking, our paralegal, Beth Locke, came in with a phone message she’d picked up off Merriman’s desk. Ames had called at the crack of dawn Friday, before anybody was in. By the time I got the message, it was night in Tokyo, but the Fiduciary woman at the closing had his home number and we were able to reach him. That’s when he reported that Mr. Hiseo of Machikin had left on their Friday for the long weekend without delivering the original consent to Schoonmaker or anyone else.

“That led to lots of finger-pointing around the table and it became clear that Rawson was the person we had to talk to. His assistant, a big fat guy named Lewis, was no help at all, so everybody screamed that we had to get Rawson over to the closing. Lewis finally tracked him down and he joined us around eleven o’clock. He was very subdued and said that he’d talked with Wesray in Tokyo and there had been a screw-up. Mr. Hiseo, the VP at Machikin, had misunderstood his instructions and thought that all he had to do was put a signed copy of the document on the fax machine to us. Rawson was very apologetic and said he realized the great difficulty this had caused, but he hoped we could still go ahead and complete the merger on the strength of the fax.”

“Do you have a copy of the phony document?” Reuben asked.

Heyworth took his attaché case from beside his chair, opened it and pulled out a xerox copy. He handed it over to Frost, who examined its two pages carefully. The cover simply read “To Juliana Merriman, Chase & Ward, Clinton Plaza, New York, NY 10019,” with a second line below that saying “From A. Hiseo, Machikin Bank, 5th Floor, Machikin Building, Tokyo 100.” Otherwise the page was blank, except for an identifying line at the top which gave the date, the hour sent (“0905”) and what was presumably the fax number of the sender (“03-945-8402”). The second page was short and sweet:

The undersigned, Machikin Bank (the “Bank”), HEREBY CONSENTS to the merger of On-Line Distribution Corporation (“On-Line”) with and into Applications Unlimited, Inc. (“Applications”) and HEREBY WAIVES the terms, covenants and provisions of the outstanding Credit Agreement between the Bank and On-Line to the extent, and only to the extent, required to effect said merger.

MACHIKIN BANK

A. Hiseo

“Anything unusual, Reuben?” Parkes asked.

“It looks to me like the bankers cobbled this up. Or maybe it’s pidgin English written by the Japanese.”

The discussion came to a halt when the Parkeses’ maid came in to announce that Bill Richardson had a phone call.

“That’ll be Glenn Wylie,” he said. “I’ve been trying to get him since last night. Brian, you’d better come with me.” Each of them grabbed legal pads from their attaché cases and left the room.

“Gentlemen, I don’t want to confuse you so early in the morning,” Parkes said, “but while Bill and Brian are out of the room, I’d like Reuben to report on what happened yesterday. If they come back, we’ll have to cut it off and resume later down at Fort Bliss. But go ahead, Reuben, maybe there’s time.”

Parkes had spoken very quietly and Frost did likewise, telling the increasingly disturbed group about the harassment complaint in Merriman’s PC and summarizing their session with Richardson. He also told them about Merriman’s insurance policy and will, and the suspicion that Genakis was the “friend” with the drug problem that Merriman had asked the Carson psychologist about.

“As Reuben said yesterday, there seem to be two roads we’re going down, with Bill at the end of one and Genakis at the end of the other,” Parkes said, when Reuben had finished.

“I’m afraid we’re going to have to amend that,” Frost added. “It seems to me there’re now three roads, with this fellow Rawson at the end of the third one.”

“This is getting too rich for my blood,” Keith Merritt said. “What did we do to deserve this?”

“Let me ask a question about this consent,” Ron Crutcher said; like the others, he was too nervous to discuss Richardson, who might return at any moment. “I take it there’s nothing about that fax that should have tipped off Brian and Bill that something was wrong. I’m a litigator and the last closing I went to was on my house in Greenwich. But there’s nothing there that should have alerted an experienced corporate lawyer?”

“Let me go back a little bit,” Frost said. “Bill didn’t get a chance to tell you that he had proposed Friday morning that Schoonmaker stand behind the fax, that they guarantee its validity. That idea apparently went over like a lead balloon and our client, Lovett, was told that it was the fax or nothing, as far as Machikin was concerned. He and Bill and Brian apparently talked it over and he decided to take the risk.

“Now, was that reasonable? Did Bill and Brian lead him down the garden path? The document is pretty half-baked. But we’ve all seen half-baked documents before—and we’ve all swallowed hard and accepted them to get a deal done. Should they have uncovered the fraud? I don’t see how, Ron, even in hindsight. There’s nothing on the face of that fax to indicate it’s a fake. And at the time, what happened in Tokyo seemed plausible, I believe. Look at the situation. Inscrutable Japanese banker who probably didn’t understand the timing of the merger. Wesray, who probably didn’t understand the deal, either. Ames, who’d been dragged in at the last minute. And all of them antsy to get away for the holiday. And I don’t just say that because we’ve—you’ve—got to stick with your partners. I’d say they both acted perfectly responsibly.”

“I only hope when the laundry’s been washed we find that Bill acted ‘perfectly responsibly’ down in Dallas, too,” Merritt added. “Oh, oh, here they come.”

“If Glenn Wylie knew about this, he’s a pretty good actor,” Richardson told the group, once he was back at the table. “I thought he was going to have apoplexy when I told him what had happened. He had nothing new to add. Schoonmaker was supposed to engineer the whole negotiation with the Bank.”

“Let me interrupt right there,” Simon Isaacs said. “From what was said earlier, I gather that keeping the Machikin loan in place was crucial to our client’s view of the deal. So the Wylie brothers had to know that a consent from the Japanese was important. You mean to tell me that even though their company, On-Line, was the borrower, they never talked to their lender themselves?”

“It was amateur night in Morris County, Simon,” Richardson said. “The Wylie brothers and their lawyer were over their heads—I could see that in the meetings I attended—and had never been involved in anything as complicated as the merger with Applications. Hell, Lovett told me they’d been in the embalming fluid business, for Christ’s sake, before they discovered computer software. The Wylie brothers are not the first, and certainly not the last, self-made millionaires to be rubes when it comes to the niceties of finance—like telling your bankers you’re about to merge your company out of existence.”

“Amen,” Parkes said.

“So, for better or worse, the brothers left the whole matter of getting a consent up to Schoonmaker,” Richardson concluded.

“Who, like take-charge investment bankers, promised they’d handle everything,” Isaacs said.

“I’m sure that’s exactly right,” Richardson agreed.

“Another thing, if Merriman was playing it so carefully, why didn’t she instruct Ames to go directly to Machikin?” Crutcher asked.

“It appears that the only contact was through Schoonmaker. I suspect getting the piece of paper indirectly from Schoonmaker was the best she could do,” Richardson said.

“What about our client?” Parkes asked. “What does he have to say?”

Heyworth explained that he had called Lovett the previous night and that he was coming in on the first flight from L.A. that morning.

“Well, Brian, I’m going to leave him in your hands. Yours and Bill’s,” Parkes said. “I’ll talk to him if that’s necessary—if he blames us for the mess he’s in. Obviously, we’ve got to help straighten things out with the Japanese. One of you may have to get on a plane to Tokyo with him and get Mr. Hiseo happy.”

“I nominate Brian,” Richardson said affably. “I’ve got my fiftieth birthday party Saturday night, as you all know, and Nina and I are supposed to go skiing in France next week.”

The others looked distressed, Heyworth because such an untidy emergency mission to Tokyo did not have much appeal, the rest because sending Heyworth on such an assignment was not very attractive.

“I’m still confused,” Keith Merritt said. “Let me ask a couple of questions that have been bothering me. First, assuming nobody told Machikin about the merger, why didn’t they find out about it from the newspapers? Surely it must have been announced when the merger agreement was signed?”

“No, it wasn’t,” Richardson said. “Neither Applications nor On-Line had public stockholders. They were privately held. So there was no requirement to make an advance announcement. The first publicity the merger had was after it was consummated on Friday.”

“Okay. Then here’s my second question. Why didn’t this man Ames get to Machikin before Wednesday?”

“The answer seems to be that the Japanese aren’t quite as hardworking as we’ve always been led to think,” Heyworth said. “As I understand it from Ames, it’s customary for the Japanese to stretch out the New Year’s weekend. So our Mr. Hiseo was gone from sometime Friday until Wednesday morning—last night, our time.”

“Maybe we’ve got something to learn from them after all,” Isaacs said.

“Look, I think we’ve noodled this thing about as far as we can for the moment,” Parkes said. He was eager to bring the disorderly meeting to a close, since the next steps—whatever they might be—couldn’t really be discussed in front of Richardson. “I think we should tell the police about the consent problem. Reuben, I assume you can take care of that. And we’ll also have to wait and see what Mr. Lovett has to say when he gets here. Meanwhile, let’s get downtown and try to do some useful work.”

Frost rode to Fort Bliss with Parkes and Simon Isaacs. On the way, Frost asked what either of them knew about Schoonmaker.

“We do some work for them, you know,” Parkes said. “A few hundred thousand dollars a year. Mostly their mortgage-backed stuff. We’ve never done their regular work, or their underwriting. So they’re not exactly our oldest and dearest client.”

“What shape are they in?” Frost asked.

“There are rumors around,” Isaacs said. “They’ve had all the usual problems—M&A way off, their retail business a drain. If I recall correctly, they also reported a big arbitrage loss last quarter. And they’ve announced a pretty big cutback in staff. A couple of thousand, I think was the figure.”

“So their fee in the On-Line deal could have been important?”

“I can’t imagine they’re that bad off,” Isaacs replied. “But the Schoonmaker fee may have been helpful to Mr. Rawson. Boosted his good standing if they’ve got the knives out to make cuts. And undoubtedly it counted towards his bonus for last year.”

“Do you know him?” Parkes asked.

“I’ve heard of him,” Isaacs said. “One of Schoonmaker’s M&A troops. Which means he’s tough, get-the-deal-done-at-any-price and probably totally without principle.”

“Would he have murdered to get the merger completed?” Reuben asked. “Sounds pretty extreme to me, even given my high opinion of some of the fellows operating today. But you’ve told me enough to confirm that he had a motive. Close the deal, save his job, get his bonus.”

“But, Reuben, for the sake of argument, look what he would have had to do,” Isaacs said. “First, fake the whole business of getting the Machikin consent, meanwhile keeping his clients, the Wylies, from ever talking to Machikin—though after what Bill said, that may not have been as improbable as it sounds. Then he had to draw his buddy Wesray into it, all the while hoping that Machikin would go along quietly after the merger was consummated. That’s not exactly the reputation of the Japanese bankers, who can be pretty hard-nosed. And then, when Merriman threw a monkey wrench into his plans by insisting on getting the original, and not a copy, he murdered her. This sure as hell goes beyond anything Mike Milken ever dreamed up.”

“Simon, I grant you all that,” Frost replied. “Let’s not forget, however, that we’re dealing with two facts that won’t go away—Merriman’s death and a fake document. Maybe there’s no relationship whatsoever between the two. But if there is, I don’t think it looks very good for Mr. Rawson.”

“What about the Wylie brothers? Don’t you think they must have known what Rawson was up to?” Parkes asked.

“In a rational world, one would have thought so,” Frost said. “What I heard this morning was that they’re babes in the woods, so maybe they really didn’t have anything to do with Machikin.”

“Babes in the woods, Reuben, but prosperous ones,” Parkes said. “They were shrewd enough to get a sweetheart loan from Machikin in the first place. And smart enough to get a fancy price out of our client.”

“Maybe they knew what was going on,” Reuben said. “It’s possible at least one of them saw how things were going last Thursday and resorted to some self-help. They certainly were in the office that day, and one of them could have hidden out and killed Juliana. And don’t forget, Brian Heyworth told us the youngest one was something of a rough character.”

“I think that’s wishful thinking, Reuben,” Isaacs said. “Your problem, my problem, everybody’s problem is that we don’t want to face up to the fact that Bill Richardson may have killed Merriman.”

“Not if his alibi checks out,” Frost said.

“I leave that to you and that gumshoe you’ve hired,” Isaacs said. “I wouldn’t say this to everybody, but I’ll say it to you two in strictest confidence. Having your roots in Latvia instead of upstate New York—isn’t that where you come from, Reuben?—sometimes gives you a different perspective. God knows I’ve got nothing against Bill, and he certainly’s always carried his weight in the firm, but that golden-boy image has always been almost too much to take. People without any imperfections disturb me.”

“I’ll file that away, Simon,” Frost replied.

Once at the office, Reuben got his own copy of the controversial fax. With the help of the chief operator, he determined that the number on the document was not one of those listed for Machikin in Tokyo. He also asked the operator if she could try to find out who the number did belong to. In the confused state of affairs, any hard information would be welcome.

CHAPTER

14

Right and Wrong

By lunchtime the chief operator had somehow tracked down the number shown on the fax of the Machikin “consent.” It belonged to the improbably named Miki’s Mailbox, with an address on the Ginza in Tokyo. Frost guessed (correctly, as it turned out) that Miki’s was a facility with a fax machine available for public use; it was assuredly not a part of Machikin Bank. There now seemed no question that the document that had been received was a fraud rigged by Harvey Rawson and his accomplice Wesray in Tokyo, with or without the complicity of the Wylie brothers. He brushed aside for the moment all questions of responsibility for the deception and concentrated on how it may have been a factor in Juliana Merriman’s death. By one o’clock, isolated in his office, he had devised a strategy.

If Rawson had behaved as he now believed, he thought it essential to confront the top management of Schoonmaker & Co. with the wrongdoing of their subordinate, “top management” in this case meaning Thomas Hanford, the chairman and chief executive officer. A medium-sized investment banking firm on Wall Street, Schoonmaker was owned by its management except for a large minority holding of the Seabrook Life Insurance Company and a 20-percent share held by the public. Whatever the ownership, it was widely recognized as a one-man fiefdom, the unquestioned czar of the business being Hanford.

Everyone on Wall Street knew about Hanford in at least one of three ways: his link with Schoonmaker, an aggressive firm with power disproportionate to its size; the gossip-column coverage of his perfervid social activities, shared with his second wife, Barbara, a former physiotherapist and the quintessential trophy wife (known unkindly in at least one gossip column as “Ms. Keepsake”); and, more recently, as a peripheral—but so-far untouched—figure in three questionable market manipulations that in two cases had led to indictments (of others, not Hanford). The close scrapes in those manipulations had earned him the sobriquet “Tommy Teflon.”

Frost had never dealt with Hanford professionally, though he had run into him at countless society benefits, and had heard him hold forth on international economic problems at sessions of the Foreign Affairs Forum. The Hanford social peregrinations had not disturbed Reuben; he had only been quietly amused as the couple had conspicuously self-propelled themselves into the upper spheres of glitterati heaven (assisted by generous contributions from the coffers of Schoonmaker & Co.). He had, however, objected to Hanford’s doomsday pronouncements at the FAF, where he regularly condemned many contemporary business practices as dangers to the world economy. All of which was fine, Reuben had often told himself, except that these very practices had been key elements in the flamboyant profitability of Schoonmaker in the high-flying eighties.

He had never taken to Hanford. Originally from Birmingham, Alabama, the banker had about him a southern bonhomie that seemed to Frost patently false, embodying the slickest qualities of an overgrown fraternity boy and a purveyor of snake oil. He was, Frost thought, just a trifle too old—at forty-two—to get away with calculated boyishness; there were the beginnings of too many lines in his face for that. And his constantly darting eyes, too closely set together, added to the furtiveness Frost was sure he had detected. It would not have surprised Reuben at all if someday the Teflon wore off and Thomas Hanford was found to be something other than a benign good ole boy.

Frost’s strategy was in two parts, the first being the confrontation with Hanford. The pressure of one Wall Street institution, Chase & Ward, on another, Schoonmaker, might just energize Hanford into getting to the bottom of the puzzle and—here Reuben was aware there was a gamble—would either lead to a sellout of Harvey Rawson or result in a protective blanket being thrown around him. Frost’s hunch was that Hanford would not be eager to risk being once again on the outer boundaries of scandal.

The second prong of Frost’s proposed attack was a reassembly of all those who had been at the On-Line closing, and the pre-closing on the day Merriman had been killed. This would perhaps be a futile effort, he realized, but the exercise might yield up a valuable clue. A meeting with Hanford should come first, however.

Frost took his idea to Charlie Parkes; if he was going to risk alienating one of the most powerful figures on Wall Street, the Executive Partner had a right to sign off on it. Besides, he wanted Parkes to take part, so that any meeting would include the two heads of state, Parkes and Hanford.

Parkes shared Frost’s aversion to Hanford and did not hesitate to endorse his idea. “Getting this mess straightened out is worth more to this firm than the middling amount of business we get from Schoonmaker,” he said.

Frost speculated about whether Parkes’ alacrity would have been diminished if Schoonmaker were a major client, but he dismissed it as irrelevant and, on the basis of knowing Parkes over the years, most likely wrong.

“How do you want to set this up, Reuben?” Parkes asked.

“Well, Alan Lovett is coming in from L.A. today. He should be here by five or five-thirty. I’d suggest we try to sit down with Hanford around seven.”

“Who should be there?”

“You, definitely,” Frost said, explaining his head-of-state theory. “Then, just to show we mean business, a litigator. Preferably Ron Crutcher, who’s up to speed on this. Plus Lovett.”

“And Richardson and Heyworth, I suppose,” Parkes said.

“That’s a tough one. I think so. The Schoonmaker people will just lie through their teeth if Bill and Brian aren’t there.”

“Now, on their side. Who in addition to Hanford?”

“I’d scare him a little by telling him to bring a lawyer. And Rawson and his sidekick, Lewis.”

“It’s getting kind of big.”

“Yes, but if we show our concern by strength of numbers, they’ll want to do that, too. The alternative’s a one-on-one meeting between you and Hanford.”

“No, thanks. What about you doing it?”

“I’m afraid he’d just fob me off as an old busybody,” Reuben said. “We don’t have time for that.”

“And I don’t imagine you want to make the call to Hanford?” Parkes asked.

“You’re the head of state, Charlie.”

Parkes sighed and called in his secretary. “Miss Stinson, get me Tom Hanford at Schoonmaker. If they give you any static, tell them I said it’s important.”

Frost and Parkes sat across from each other, gazing at each other silently. Both knew that this was the kind of call that occurs only on the rarest occasions in a lifetime of legal practice, confrontation at the highest level over a sensitive and potentially scandalous matter. The trick, if there was one, was to be direct, low-key and polite. No name-calling, no loaded adjectives, no sarcasm or insults.

“Mr. Hanford’s on,” Ms. Stinson called from the outer room.

“Tom, how are you?” Parkes said. “I’m delighted I caught you. I’m here with my old colleague Reuben Frost. I’m sure you know him. Can I put you on the speaker?”

Hanford apparently agreed, since Parkes manipulated his telephone console until Hanford’s voice was audible.

“Tom, I don’t know how much you know about the Applications/On-Line merger that was consummated last week, where we represented Applications.”

“Next to nothing. Except that our M&A people were handling it for On-Line.”

“That’s right. Not the usual megabuck takeover you fellows are used to, but, yes, your M&A department was involved.”

“What’s the problem, Charlie? Can’t you get your bill paid?”

“I wish it were that simple, Tom. Let me get right to the point. The merger was conditioned upon getting a consent from Machikin Bank in Tokyo. Machikin had On-Line tied up in knots under a loan agreement—the merger’s a default about a hundred ways to Sunday without that consent. A crucial part of the deal, from our client’s standpoint, was keeping that loan in place.”

“Low interest and airtight covenants, I’ll bet.”

“Precisely.”

“Sounds like a typical Pacific Rim loan to me.”

“Be that as it may, the merger took place last Friday. A year-end deal. Everybody closed on the basis of a fax from Japan which purported to be a consent from Machikin. So it was quite a jolt when we learned last night that Machikin doesn’t know anything about the transaction.”

“Then where the hell did the consent come from? The tooth fairy?”

“We’re trying to track that down now. Meanwhile, we’ve got a first-class eruption on our hands, and an extremely angry client,” Parkes said. He did not know whether Lovett was in fact angry, but felt he was safe in assuming it. “I know it’s short notice, and probably inconvenient, but we’d like to arrange a meeting of the interested parties to figure out where we’re at. Our client’s coming in from Los Angeles this afternoon, and we would like to meet early this evening.”

“That’s all very fine, Charlie, but what’s this got to do with me? I know I’ve got a reputation as a hands-on manager, but I really don’t know a thing about the deal. In any event, tonight’s impossible. It’s the Books and Bonnets Ball—the women’s benefit for the Public Library—and Barb’s the co-chair. I’ve got to be there.”

“Tom, in any normal circumstances, I wouldn’t disturb you about this. But there are three things you ought to know. First, you probably read in the papers over the weekend about the murder of our associate, Juliana Merriman. She was working on the merger. Second, Merriman apparently quarreled with your man on the deal, Harvey Rawson, over the consent that turned out to be fake. And third, as I understand it Rawson was responsible for all the dealings with Machikin about the consent.”

Hanford was silent for at least ten seconds. “Are you saying there’s some link between that murder and the consent?”

“We can only speculate on that, Tom. But it’s the reason we want to unravel things. In addition to seeing that our client gets what he thought he bargained for.”

“Are you telling me that one of my vice presidents is a murderer?”

“No, I’m not saying that. But once this leaks out, there may be others who do.”

“Like our friends in the press?”

“And the police.”

“Christ, I don’t know what to do. I’ve got an appointment here at five, then I’ve got to go home and change. I don’t see what a meeting with me is going to accomplish. But if you insist, can we do it in midtown?”

Frost nodded his head affirmatively. When Parkes hesitated, he mouthed the word “Gotham” silently.

“How about the Gotham Club? Let’s say at seven?”

“All right. Who do I bring along?”

“Frankly, Tom, I suggest you bring your lawyer,” Parkes said. Hanford did not respond to this, so the Executive Partner ran through the list on both sides that he and Frost had drawn up.

“Sounds like a convention to me.”

“I’m not happy with the numbers either, Tom, but I think they’re necessary if we’re really going to talk this thing out.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Hanford said, sounding most unhappy.

Alan Lovett arrived at Clinton Plaza around five forty-five. Brian Heyworth, not eager to be alone with an angry client, called Frost and Richardson immediately and introduced Frost when he came in. Despite the urgency of the business at hand, Lovett pressed for details about Merriman’s death and the on-going investigation. The others deferred to Frost, Heyworth explaining that Reuben was “following the case” for the firm.

Frost gave an abbreviated summary of developments, tactfully omitting any mention of Bill Richardson, who sat listening calmly to Reuben’s account. When Genakis’ name came up, Lovett offered the comment that “I’ve known Ted Genakis for fifteen years. He’s gotten bent out of shape in his day, but he’s not a bad person.”

“You call him Ted?” Frost asked.

“Yeah, he was Ted before he came to New York. Theodore. Marshall’s his middle name. He started using it when he opened the restaurant—made the place sound less like a Greek luncheonette, he said.”

“I hope to God this deal of mine didn’t have anything to do with Julie’s murder,” Lovett added. “But now with this snafu with Machikin, I wonder. Until that came up, Harvey Rawson wasn’t on my A-list of suspects, even though he’s a nasty piece of work.”

“Who is on your A-list, Mr. Lovett?” Frost asked.

“A figure of speech, sir. I don’t have a list. My bet was somebody who had a grudge against Julie here in your office.”

Frost glanced at Richardson, but detected no reaction to Lovett’s observation. “And you wouldn’t include Genakis?” Reuben pressed.

“No, as I said, I can’t buy that.”

Realizing that time was running out, Frost was anxious to begin briefing Lovett on the meeting scheduled to take place almost within the hour. Before he could do so, Lovett asked if he could use the telephone. Having had no success in mastering Chase & Ward’s multi-digit system for making a long distance call when camped out in the office the previous week, he used his credit card to call his office.

“Jesus Christ!” he shouted, as the three lawyers listened. “Can you fax me the damned thing right away?” he asked, then relayed the firm’s fax number, which Heyworth quickly wrote down for him, to his colleague in Palo Alto.

“Those bastards have called On-Line’s loan!” he explained, once he had hung up. “They sent a notice to the Wylie boys this morning demanding immediate payment.”

“Let me make sure our people are alerted to bring the fax down here,” Heyworth said.

“I don’t know as I can raise the money that fast,” Lovett said. “All I can say is it’ll be one for the books if we have to hit Chapter Eleven five days after our merger.”

“I’m sure you can raise it, Mr. Lovett,” Richardson said.

“I suppose so, but the Wylies are sure as hell going to have to pay for it. Or the great Tommy Teflon.”

Frost was surprised that Hanford’s moniker had traveled to California, but he used the mention of Hanford to bring the discussion around to the imminent meeting. When Frost had explained his plan, Lovett offered no objection, so Reuben suggested that Heyworth “get the rest of our brave little band down here so we can spend a few minutes plotting how to handle Tommy Teflon.”

The Chase & Ward delegation opted not to fight rush-hour traffic and walked across to Fifth Avenue and the Gotham Club. Jasper Darmes, the Club’s agreeable doorman, seemed surprised to see Frost, usually the picture of retired ease when he visited his Club, arriving with his grim-faced entourage burdened down with attaché cases. It was enough to keep Darmes from making his usual jokes—he and Frost had maintained a years-long badinage that continued on each visit—and he told Frost, with gravity, that his meeting room was ready.

“Show the other gentlemen right up when they get here,” he instructed Darmes.

The austere room assigned to Frost had not been touched up with the normal amenities—no tablecloth, no flowers and no open bar. Frost had specified that the only bow to comfort was to be pitchers of ice water—not even Perrier or diet drinks—which had been placed on the green felt cover on the single oval table. Alcohol and the plain-speaking that Frost was anticipating would not mix, though he personally could have done with one of the Gotham’s infamous martinis.

While no directions were given, the group—Frost, Parkes, Crutcher, Richardson, Heyworth and Lovett—sat on one side of the table, perhaps huddling together in preparation for the onslaught they were sure would be forthcoming.

To their surprise, Hanford and Brendan McLeery, senior partner of Hallowell, King & Nicholls, Schoonmaker’s outside lawyers, arrived unaccompanied by others.

“Where’s the rest of your party, Tom?” Parkes asked.

“We decided to economize,” Hanford said.

“So no one else is coming?”

“That’s right. Brendan and I can take care of whatever needs handling.”

Lovett was introduced to the two new arrivals and Crutcher to Hanford, whom he had not met before (Parkes taking care to make it known, though very quietly, that Crutcher was a litigator). Frost was angry, but concealed it; Rawson’s absence meant that they would not get very far in establishing what had happened and would give Hanford and McLeery a chance to probe while at the same time professing their own ignorance. He was not sorry that his own team was fully manned, since it underscored the seriousness with which they viewed the situation.

“Gentlemen, I don’t have much time,” Hanford said, once he had poured himself a glass of water and taken a seat. “Let me tell you where we are at.” The Chase & Ward team was not going to have a chance to set the agenda. “When you called me this morning, Charlie, I was pretty upset, as you can imagine. I dropped everything and began to investigate. Fortunately, Harvey Rawson was around and I’ve been able to clarify this whole business with Machikin. I’m glad to report it’s not as bad as you fellows seemed to think.”

No one on the other side of the table spoke as they waited for the explanation.

“I’m afraid some apologies are in order, but what we’ve got here is a simple mistake in judgment. A bad mistake in judgment, I’ll be the first to admit, but that’s all it is. Not a matter for the district attorney. Let me start by giving you a little bit of a genesis on Machikin. As you probably know, it’s not one of the international giants, like Bank of Tokyo or Dai-Ichi. It’s hooked up with Hakone Trading, and most of its loans benefit Hakone one way or another. That’s how the loan to On-Line came about. Hakone Electronics wanted to know how a software distribution company operates over here. What better way than to have Machikin become a lender and be able to monitor On-Line’s operations? Machikin would be privy to all sorts of financial and operational information that could be turned over to Hakone—not exactly Boy Scout behavior, but then our Japanese friends sometimes have rules of their own.

“When the loan was made two years ago, we were On-Line’s bankers. We approached Machikin in Tokyo—they don’t negotiate through a New York office, like the other Japanese banks. Why Machikin? Because we’ve got closer relationships with them than any other Far Eastern bank—without any loan-production staff of their own over here, they’re delighted to have us steer business their way. We go back years with them—I emphasize this because it’s important—and the relationship has always been superb.

“To get back to On-Line,” Hanford continued. “When we approached Machikin, the Japanese were enthusiastic, it turned out later for the reason I told you, the Hakone angle. On-Line got its loan on very favorable terms—except that the financial covenants they came up with were horrendous. Horrendous not because Machikin was worried about On-Line’s credit, but because the tougher the covenants, the more financial reporting On-Line had to do to show its compliance. One of our guys in Tokyo did all the negotiating. Ian Wylie was the only one of the brothers that went over and, frankly, from what I’m told, he spent the three days he was there chasing geishas.

“That’s the background. Now comes an L.A.-New York plane flight in November, when Harvey Rawson, from our shop, met Mr. Lovett’s investment banker, from Harrick, Millstein, and agreed that a merger of Applications and On-Line made real sense. Both guys crunched some numbers and talked with their principals, and you know the rest. The merger that was done last Friday.

“Here’s where the bad judgment comes in. Rawson had dealt with Machikin—he’d even spent a couple of years in our Tokyo office a few years back. He knew they were about as slow-moving a bunch as you can find. The chances of their approving the merger by year-end were not very good. He also knew that Machikin, or rather Hakone, had designs on On-Line. So Rawson decided—completely on his own—that the best strategy was to present Machikin with a fait accompli. Do the merger, then get the consent. His hunch was that Machikin would go along, because if their friends at Hakone had any sense, they’d find the merged company stronger and even more attractive than On-Line by itself.”

“As a target, you mean?” Lovett said, sardonically.

“Yes, I suppose so.”

“I wish Rawson had consulted me about the long-term plans for my company,” Lovett said.

“I hear you, Mr. Lovett. But let me go on. Needless to say, Rawson’s approach is not the way Schoonmaker does business. He was very wrong in what he did, though I have to say I think he had everybody’s best interests at heart. But there’s no point in belaboring the issue. What we’ve got to do now is get Machikin’s consent. We stand ready to help you negotiate that—without fee, I might say, we’ll consider it part of the merger transaction—and I’m sure we can button things up in a matter of days. As I said, Machikin is an old customer. If Mr. Lovett’s willing to fly out, he and our people in Tokyo can probably wrap it up in one meeting.”

“What about this little technicality?” Lovett asked, pulling the fax of the Machikin acceleration notice, calling the loan, from the inside pocket of his coat and handing it to Hanford. “Or is this another fake?”

Hanford read the short document carefully, with McLeery reading over his shoulder. While they did so, Frost looked disdainfully at the dinner jacket Hanford had donned for the Books and Bonnets Ball. He was normally not a patronizing man—he enjoyed life much too much to dwell on the surface faults of others—but Hanford’s discourse had infuriated him so greatly that he gleefully noted that the man’s tuxedo had a shawl collar, more befitting a callow young fraternity brother from the sticks than the man-about-town who fancied himself a financial and social paragon.

“I don’t know, Brendan, this strikes me as a cute tactic to make sure they’ve got somebody’s attention,” Hanford said to his lawyer. “Ignore it. Everything with Machikin will be straightened out. Just trust me on that.”

“That’s fine for you to say, Mr. Hanford,” Lovett said. “But I don’t see what there is to stop them from coming in and suing my company for thirty million dollars.”

“That won’t happen—”

“Don’t forget ‘our Japanese friends sometimes have rules of their own,’” Lovett said, bitterly.

Hanford smiled. “Believe me, I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about.”

“Bill, Brian, you have any comments?” Parkes asked Richardson and Heyworth. They both quietly said no; it was time for straight-talking from their head of state. Parkes instinctively realized this. “Tom, let me say something, if I may,” he began. “You’ve told us that Mr. Rawson decided to delay asking Machikin for a consent and that this was bad judgment on his part. I’m afraid that from our perspective it looks like something more than bad judgment. To put it bluntly, it looks like good old-fashioned fraud. My colleagues and their client were served up with what purported to be a consent from Machikin. It wasn’t. It was completely bogus. Machikin had never seen it. And Rawson had to ring in one of his colleagues in Tokyo to send out the fake. Now, doesn’t all that add up to more than bad judgment?”

“Oh, I understand there was some kind of mix-up and a piece of paper got passed around. And Wesray, one of our men in Tokyo and Rawson’s friend from his Tokyo days, didn’t show very good judgment, either. I’m sorry about what happened and so is Rawson, and I’m sure Peter Wesray is, too. But fraud? I think that’s much too strong a word. There was a screwup, no question, but it was all part of the bad call on this one.”

“Brendan, what do you think? Am I being unreasonable?” Parkes asked, trying to put Hanford’s lawyer on the spot.

“Charlie, you must understand I’m a late player in this game. I’d never heard about any of this until this afternoon, and I don’t really feel I know enough about the facts to make a judgment,” McLeery said, copping out.

“Gentlemen, I don’t think we’re going to advance the cause much by sitting around speculating about who struck John,” Hanford said. “We’re ready to go to work on Machikin any time you are. What’s done is done. Now what we have to worry about is what to do next. I’ve made my proposal. And now I’ve really got to go.”

Before he could leave, Frost spoke up. “Tom, quite irrespective of what happens with the Japanese, we’re arranging a meeting at our place tomorrow morning of all those who took part in the On-Line closing. The question of whether there’s a connection between Juliana Merriman’s death and the events that led up to that closing is very much on our minds, and the hope is we can reconstruct what happened last Thursday and Friday. I trust your Messrs. Rawson and Lewis will attend.”

“What time?”

“Eleven o’clock.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Hanford said, as he stood up.

Lovett spoke out before Hanford reached the door. “You know, Mr. Hanford—”

“Tom.”

“I prefer Mister. I only call my friends by their first names. You know, Mr. Hanford, I may be a naive California raisin, and maybe we do things differently out there. But I’ve been sitting here not believing what I’ve been hearing, which is one goddam big dose of spin control. I’ve been defrauded by a forged document prepared by an employee of your company. And all I’ve heard you say is that your man made a mistake in judgment—almost as if the mistake was getting caught.”

“Now, wait a minute. Are you saying that Harvey Rawson defrauded you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Look, when you fellows are ready to stop throwing the word ‘fraud’ around, you know my proposed solution. Until then, there’s no reason to continue the discussion. So I’ll say good day, gentlemen.”

“And, under all the circumstances, I don’t think anything would be gained by having Rawson and Lewis attend your meeting tomorrow,” McLeery added, as he prepared to follow Hanford.

“I think that’s a mistake, Brendan,” Frost said quickly. “Don’t forget it’s not just Chase & Ward and our client that are involved. The police will certainly be interested if you’re not cooperating, and the press will have a certain amount of fun, too. Which won’t look good for Rawson or Lewis, or Schoonmaker either.”

“Don’t get excited, Mr. Frost,” Hanford said. “I’m going to talk to my lawyer and we’ll decide what to do.”

“Fine,” Frost replied. “Just remember what I said.”

Hanford and McLeery left without any more shots being fired.

“I’m glad that fellow’s got everybody’s interests at heart,” Crutcher said, once they had gone.

“And that he’s willing to straighten everything out without charging a fee,” Heyworth added. The group laughed heartily, if uneasily, relieved to have the confrontation over, however unsatisfactory it had been.

“I’ve never seen such an unbelievable performance in my life,” Parkes said. “His ‘bad judgment’ gambit was bad enough, but his indifference to Julie’s killing was truly incredible.”

“He’s a son of a bitch, no question,” Crutcher said. “I think we need to get our position in writing sooner rather than later. At least Brendan McLeery may change his tune when he sees it in black and white. But meanwhile, I think your idea of replaying the closing is a good one, Reuben. Let’s us talk when you’ve done that. Then we can work with Mr. Lovett to get up a response to these bloodless wonders.”

“I’m sorry you characterize them that way, Ron,” Frost said. “As far as I could see, Tommy Teflon’s a perfectly charming man. He just has one small flaw.”

“What’s that?” Crutcher asked.

“He can’t tell right from wrong,” Frost replied.

CHAPTER

15

Recollections: I

“Excuse me, dear, I have to do a phone-a-thon,” Frost told his wife when he got home.

“For your favorite charity?” Cynthia asked.

“Sort of. It’s for the future good of Chase & Ward.”

“Not exactly my idea of a charity case.”

“Never mind. Then I’m going to have a drink and tell you about a truly astounding session I just had with Tom Hanford.”

“You mean that dear, sweet southern boy?”

“No comment. Let me make these calls and then I’ll fill you in.”

Frost retrieved the On-Line working party list from the pile of papers on his library desk. He had instructed Ms. Locke earlier in the day to forewarn the participants of a meeting Thursday morning. He now began calling them at home.

How times have changed, he thought. In his active days, a working party list showed a person’s home telephone number and a switchboard number for that person’s office. Now there was a long catalog: direct dial and fax numbers for the office, fax and regular numbers at home—plus, in most instances, reflecting Wall Street’s recent prosperity, the number for a weekend house in the country. And, in the case of Harvey Rawson, listings for a car telephone and a country fax. There was no longer any place to hide, Frost decided. And why had he not invested in telephone company stock?

He had good luck reaching the parties, fixing the meeting for eleven the next morning. He did ignore the listings for Rawson and Lewis; Hanford and McLeery could give them their marching orders.

Frost’s businesslike, almost somber approach convinced those he talked to that the meeting was of vital importance. Vague protests of the short notice gave way to his tone of urgency. He could not reach Ed Sharett from First Fiduciary, but his colleague, Jeanne Horan, said she knew where he was and would try to get hold of him later in the evening. Frost noted with satisfaction that a full set of players should be available. If, of course, Brendan McLeery heeded his advice and permitted Rawson and Lewis to show up.

Reuben’s final call was to Luis Bautista. He had decided it would be useful to have him present to help sort out the cast of characters. Bautista reported a couple of developments. Bill Richardson’s statement that he had left Chase & Ward promptly at five-thirty on Thursday had been corroborated. An elderly Chase & Ward messenger, retread at Fort Bliss as a receptionist, had been on duty at the ground-floor desk and remembered that Richardson had not only left, but stopped to shake his hand and wish him a happy New Year. In the best noblesse oblige tradition expected of senior partners, Frost thought. And the records of the garage beneath Clinton Plaza showed that Richardson had taken out his car shortly before six and an attendant recalled that Richardson had inquired about traffic conditions on the Long Island Expressway.

As for Genakis, Bautista had checked his story, that he had been at his restaurant on Thursday after eight o’clock, with three more employees, and they had all confirmed it.

“I learned one thing this afternoon that may be of interest,” Frost said. “Genakis was apparently known as Ted, rather than Marshall, in his California days. Could that make a difference?”

“Sure could,” Bautista said. “What Petito was told is that Marshall Genakis has no record out there. But I know how these checks are done, especially when they come from out of state. Ask a question, you get a literal answer. Ask about Willie Sutton, you get a response about Willie Sutton with an i-e. Even if he’s on the Most Wanted list, you’ll get nothing about Willy with a y, or Will or William. Let me feed this one to Petito.”

Bautista’s other report was the result of a check made by the police on Merriman’s home telephone. There were no outgoing calls on the number on Thursday, except one to a direct line at Chase & Ward at 6:50 P.M. The number turned out to be that of Beth Locke, who had confirmed that Merriman had called to make double-sure that the conference hook-up to Tokyo had been arranged.

“So she was in her apartment,” Frost said. “Which makes it bloody unlikely that she was passing through the turnstile at Chase & Ward at six-fifteen.”

“So it seems.”

“Any new thoughts on that one?”

“Not yet, but I’m thinking about it.”

“Good. Keep on thinking, and I’ll see you tomorrow. Come early, so we can be ready to play the good host at eleven.”

Thursday morning, Frost himself arrived at Chase & Ward at nine thirty-five. He had arranged to take Alan Lovett and Beth Locke through a retracing of Thursday’s and Friday’s events before the eleven o’clock reunion. He decided to talk with Lovett first and ushered him into his temporary office, where Bautista was already waiting. A drooping Harold Lane, the Applications’ house lawyer, who had once again flown overnight from Los Angeles, was with him.

After minimal pleasantries—it was too early for small talk—Frost asked Lovett to tell him, and Bautista, everything he knew about the bogus Machikin consent.

Lovett explained how Merriman had persuaded him to go off at lunchtime on Thursday—“I don’t blame her, she seemed to have a thousand things to do”—and, when he returned, had taken him aside to warn that the original Japanese consent might not be available the next day.

“I frankly thought a fax was good enough,” he said. “Who the hell would ever think it was a fake? But Julie said she’d feel more comfortable if she pressed to get the original.”

“Did she say why?” Frost asked.

“Only that she’d worked with Rawson before and he was a sleazeball.”

“There must have been more to it than that,” Frost said.

“I don’t know anything more definite than Alan,” Harold Lane interrupted. “But I could understand why she was on her guard. Every time she brought up the consent—and this had gone on for days—Rawson had fobbed her off, told her not to worry. He tried to make her seem like—like, well, frankly, an emotional female. She didn’t care for that, and I don’t blame her.”

“I see,” Frost said. “Why don’t you go on, Mr. Lovett?”

“After she explained the problem to me, I told her to go for it—to insist on the original piece of paper. She did that once Rawson joined us, and all hell broke loose. Rawson was so abusive I was going to intervene. But then he calmed down, and it was agreed we’d call Tokyo together at eight o’clock.”

“I left when we broke up around five,” Lane said. “Julie said there was no reason for me to stay around. I was relieved, since I had a ticket to Phantom of the Opera.”

“That’s where you were Thursday night?”

“Yes. I had a couple of drinks with Alan, went to the show and had supper at the Algonquin. I was in bed at the Park Lane by midnight.”

“And you, Mr. Lovett?” Frost said. “What did you do from five-thirty until eight?”

“As Hal said, we went out for a couple of pops. A place called B. Smith’s down the street. I came back here just before eight for the conference call.”

“So you were basically out of the office after you quit in the afternoon until eight?” Frost asked.

“Yes.”

“So neither of you was in a position to know where Juliana was during that time?”

“Only from what she’d said. That she was going home to eat.”

“With Genakis?”

“Now that you ask me, I’m not sure she said that. I guess I assumed she would eat with him.”

“Tell us about the conference call,” Frost said.

“Okay. Julie, Glenn Wylie, Rawson, Lewis, Frank Martin and I on this end. On the speakerphone in Conference Room B. In Japan we had Ames and Wesray, each one at his office. The call was fairly short, about twenty, twenty-five minutes, once we got connected. It was agreed that Wesray would get in touch with Mr. Hiseo right away and get the signed document, which he would then bring back to Schoonmaker’s and turn over to Ames.”

“Wouldn’t it have been easier for Wesray and Ames to go to Machikin together?” Frost asked.

“They talked about that. But Wesray felt it might confuse Hiseo to introduce a new face.”

“What liars,” Frost observed. “Meanwhile, the infamous fax had arrived, hadn’t it?”

“Yes,” Lovett said. “Maybe I should tell you an unpleasant little incident about that. Those of us on the conference call reassembled a little before eight. Everybody was milling around when your communications room, or whatever it is, called to say there was a fax from Tokyo. Julie said she’d go and pick it up herself. When she came back, Rawson and Lewis were talking together off in one corner. Rawson had his back turned and didn’t see her come in. I could half-hear that he was still complaining about Julie’s demand, and in the course of this he said to Lewis that he supposed they had ‘to keep the harelipped bitch happy.’ I heard that and Julie could have, too. I was ready to punch Rawson straight in the mouth, but then realized that wouldn’t advance the cause much. I could deal with Rawson later.”

“You think Merriman overheard what Rawson said?”

“I can’t be sure. She certainly could have, though she didn’t lose her cool. When we finished the call, Rawson behaved like a real jerk once again. He was mocking Julie, asking her if she was worried about anything else, was she sure there wasn’t something more she wanted, like that. I was really glad when she got mad and told him off. ‘Harvey, do you realize what a lousy impression you’ve been making on everyone?’ she said. ‘If this deal gets done, I hope your client’s aware that it was in spite of you, not because of you.’ When she said that, he and Lewis got up and left.”

“The building?”

“I can’t say for sure. But they both grabbed up their coats and left the conference room.”

“How about you? What did you do?”

“I stayed around to soothe Juliana for a little bit. So did Glenn Wylie, who was embarrassed by Rawson’s behavior. I asked her if I could buy her a drink, but she refused. Said she had to check the closing papers once more and then was going home to bed. So I left. That was the last time I ever saw her.”

“Then what did you do?”

“I couldn’t decide where to go for dinner—I don’t like to eat in restaurants alone—so I went back to the Park Lane and had room service.”

“What did you think had happened when Juliana didn’t show up Friday morning?” Frost asked.

“I figured she’d been up most of the night and probably had overslept. Then, when nobody could find her, I didn’t know what to think.”

“And how did you react when you got the message from Ames about the missing consent?”

“I was disgusted that Rawson and his pal in Tokyo had mixed things up. But I wasn’t that upset. As I told you, my inclination had been to go with the fax when Julie brought the problem up on Thursday, even though I’d deferred to her judgment then. Mr. Richardson suggested on the phone that we get Schoonmaker to guarantee the authenticity of the fax, but when Mr. Heyworth brought that up we just got another horror show from Rawson. So we ended up taking what we had. I was going to have a little fun with Rawson, keep him on the hook and tell him we wouldn’t close without a signed document, but the deal was too good for me to cause trouble. And we were running out of time.”

“Speaking of which, I think we’d better bring this to a close,” Frost said. “Our friends are going to be here in a few minutes, and I want to talk to Beth Locke before that. So will you excuse us, Mr. Lovett? You can wait down in the conference room if you like.”

Beth Locke apologized for being nervous when she was ushered in to see Frost and Bautista. “Julie and I worked together very closely, and I’m still in a state of shock,” she explained. “It scares me that her killer’s still out there.”

“We’re doing our best to find him, ma’am, and so are the police,” Bautista said.

“You knew Ms. Merriman pretty well, didn’t you?” Frost asked.

“Oh, yes. I worked for her on a project when I first came here, six months ago. We got along just fine. I think she liked me. She tried to talk me into going to law school, so she was always pointing things out to me, trying to get me as fascinated as she was in legal practice. She was like a big sister to me. Gave me advice about everything, including a lot of pointers about getting along here at Chase & Ward.”

“Do you need pointers for that, Ms. Locke?” Frost asked. “I would have thought this was a pretty easy place to work.”

“Oh, it is, Mr. Frost, don’t get me wrong. I just meant that she gave me good advice—who the real incompetents are in word processing, who’s hard to work for, that kind of thing.

“People who’re hard to work for? I can’t believe it!” Frost said, laughing, in his most avuncular manner, trying to put the sad and frightened young woman at ease.

“It was more I guess who it’s hard for a woman to work for.”

Frost’s interest perked up, as he asked, “Oh? Can you be more specific?”

“Nothing serious. She just warned me about a couple of associates who think they’re God’s gift to women. And one of the maintenance men who’s been known to pinch once in a while. By accident, of course.”

“Pinching by accident? That’s an interesting concept. And if somebody is doing that, he should be reported.”

“It never happened to me.”

“Did she warn you about anyone else, Ms. Locke? Other than the two Lotharios among the associates?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“No partners?”

“Oh, no. Nothing like that.”

“You’re sure?” Bautista asked.

“Positive.”

Bautista and Frost looked at each other. Then Reuben asked Locke to give her account of Thursday’s events. Her description tallied with what they had already heard about the afternoon meeting. She also said that Merriman had left at five-thirty, telling Locke she was going off to eat.

“Where?”

“At her apartment. She called me from there just before seven, to check that I’d set up the conference call.”

“You were here the whole time, between five-thirty and eight?”

“Yes. I ordered the conference call and spent the rest of the time checking out things in the conference room.”

“Did you eat?”

“Yes, I ordered out for pizza for me and a paralegal who was around working on another deal. As a matter of fact, when Julie came in for the eight o’clock call, she kidded the two of us about eating too much. She said we were pigging out while she’d only had a tuna fish sandwich.”

“Did she mention Marshall Genakis?” Frost asked.

“I don’t think so.”

“So you didn’t have the impression she’d had her tuna fish sandwich with him?”

“No,” Locke said, thinking. “I don’t remember anything like that.”

“Were you present when the call to Tokyo was made?”

“I was there when it started and talked to the conference-call operator. Once everyone was on I left to work on some other loose ends. But again, I was in and out.”

“The call was amicable?”

“As far as I could tell. But it wasn’t so amicable afterwards. Julie really gave it to Harvey Rawson.” Her account of the final face-off with Rawson, and the departure of Rawson and Lewis, checked out with what Lovett had said. Like Lovett, she could not be sure Rawson or Lewis had left the building when they had stormed out of Conference Room B, though she thought that she and Merriman eventually were the only two people left.

“What happened then?” Bautista asked.

“Julie and I sat in the conference room and had Cokes. She had her checklist with her and we decided everything was done, except for the consent. She told me to go home and get some rest.”

“What about her?” Frost asked.

“She said she was going to do a couple of things in her office and then come back and look over the closing papers one more time. She was in a real good mood, I think because she’d told Rawson off. And also because everything was falling into place. She was real proud of the deal—which she’d done all by herself—and said she was pleased it was going to happen, and happen on time.”

“So you left her in the conference room?”

“No, the last time I saw her, she was heading upstairs to her office.” Locke’s sad expression returned. She looked as if she might weep and Frost hastily brought the interview to a close before she did so.

CHAPTER

16

Recollections: II

The veterans of the On-Line closing made themselves at home in their familiar surroundings in Conference Room B. By 11:10, when Frost and Bautista came in, everyone was present, except Harvey Rawson and Jim Lewis.

It was not a happy atmosphere. The combination of tension, given the grim reason for the reunion, and impatience at the inconvenience cut the quipping and joking that would have normally preceded a meeting.

Frost detected this and tried to be as cheerful as was tastefully permitted as he introduced himself and then Bautista, explaining the latter’s role as a detective hired by Chase & Ward.

“Where are the Schoonmaker boys?” Glenn Wylie asked.

“Maybe that fellow Lewis was afraid you wouldn’t serve lunch,” his brother, Herb, said.

“I’m not sure they’re coming,” Frost said. “But let me call and find out.”

He left the room and did not return until a full ten minutes later.

“Mr. Rawson wouldn’t talk to me, but referred me to Brendan McLeery, Schoonmaker’s lawyer. He said no purpose would be served by having his client here. If it’s necessary to deal with somebody about the Merriman case, they only want to talk to the police.”

“I don’t understand that,” Glenn Wylie said. “We’re all busy people, but we came over here because you, Mr. Frost, said it might be useful to get everyone together again. Schoonmaker’s working for us. Can’t I make them come?”

“You could try, Mr. Wylie, but I don’t think it’s going to work. McLeery sounded pretty adamant.”

“Maybe they’ve got something to hide,” Skip Wylie said.

“Or maybe that young man Rawson’s ashamed of the way he treated Miss Merriman,” Herb observed.

Alan Lovett interrupted to ask the Wylie brothers what they proposed to do about Machikin’s acceleration notice. They had evidently talked to someone at Schoonmaker, since they followed the don’t-get-excited line that Tom Hanford had pursued the night before.

“I realize Mr. Frost has other things in mind for this meeting,” Lovett said, “and I don’t want to interfere with that. But I’m putting you guys on notice that if this thing isn’t resolved satisfactorily—like today—you may have a litigation situation on your hands.”

“Mr. Lovett, this thing’s going to be worked out, I hope to everybody’s satisfaction,” Herb Wylie said. “Right now let’s try and help Mr. Frost.”

Reuben was grateful that the position-taking had been brief and the recriminations minimal. “I agree with Alan. Let’s go ahead,” he said. “What I had in mind was talking to each one of you individually. That is, Mr. Bautista and I would interview you, to get your best recollection of the events of last Thursday and Friday. Is that agreeable with everyone?” There were some surprised looks around the table; star-chamber interrogations had not been mentioned before.

“I thought this was going to be a group meeting,” Skip Wylie said. “What you propose could take all day.”

“We’ll certainly try to do better than that. I apologize for the inconvenience. Who wants to start off?”

“Reuben, I’ve got a twelve-thirty lunch that I should get to if possible,” Ed Sharett said. “If it’s okay with all of you, I’d like to go first.”

There was no disagreement, and Sharett was the first to make the trek up to Frost’s temporary outpost. The others followed in no particular order. By one twenty-five the process was complete.

Sharett, his colleague Jeanne Horan, and their lawyer, Angelica Post, all said they had gone directly home after leaving Chase & Ward Thursday afternoon, Sharett to eat with his wife and five children, the two women to their separate apartments on the Upper East Side for microwave dinners and, in Post’s case, to await a messengered copy of the fax from Tokyo for her review.

Glenn Wylie and Frank Martin both confirmed that they had stayed around for the conference call, drinking coffee and eating sandwiches in the Chase & Ward cafeteria to pass the time from five-thirty until eight; they had not seen Juliana Merriman in the office during those hours. Both had left after the call, and after apologizing to Merriman for Rawson’s behavior. They had gone home to Plainfield in Glenn’s On-Line limousine.

Herb Wylie said he had left right after the afternoon meeting and been taken to Christ Cella for an early steak dinner by Larry Bonner, the Harrick, Millstein banker. Craig Webber, Frank Martin’s young associate, had also gone along. Bonner and Webber confirmed this, and said that none of them had returned to Chase & Ward when their dinner, extended by a celebratory brandy or two, had broken up around nine-thirty. Herb had given Webber a ride back to New Jersey in his limousine, and Bonner had caught a New Haven train to Rye.

Skip Wylie’s story was more interesting. He told Frost and Bautista that he had wanted to call his broker in private Thursday afternoon, the broker having liquidated a complicated commodities straddle on his behalf earlier in the day. At the end of the afternoon meeting, Merriman had invited him up to use her office. He said he’d made the call in the office next door to hers and had finished about six, when he went to Mickey Mantle’s for a drink and then to dinner at the Palm with a friend. (It had been a big night for cholesterol, Frost reflected, with everyone off at a steak house.) Who was the friend? Skip at first refused to answer, then allowed that it was a “date.” Pressed further, he admitted that he only knew her first name, Lucinda, and that she had been furnished by the Sugar and Spice Escort Service. They’d had dinner, gone on to the club called Mars and then returned to the On-Line company apartment.

Frost’s precaution of keeping as much of the group together as possible, so that any contradictions that showed up in what was said could be worked out, proved to be unnecessary. He dismissed them with polite thanks shortly after two. Everyone left quickly, except the Wylies, Frank Martin and Lovett, who stayed behind to confer with Brian Heyworth about how to calm Mr. Hiseo and Machikin.

“Well, what have we learned?” Reuben asked, when he and Bautista were alone.

“How to take a pad full of notes without having your fingers fall off,” Bautista replied.

“I’m sorry, Luis. It seems to me we’ve done a lot of fishing to catch a few minnows. Our round-robin interviews were pretty useless, don’t you think?”

“Yeah. But ninety percent of the fishing you do on most murder cases doesn’t turn up a bite.”

“The most interesting part was what Beth Locke told us this morning,” Reuben said. “About the tuna fish sandwich.”

“Sandwich?”

“Yes. Tuna fish. Merriman told Locke that she’d only had a tuna fish sandwich for dinner on Thursday. Marshall Genakis has told us both he’d cooked dinner for himself and Juliana. Blanquette de veau, I believe he said. You don’t make that with tuna fish.”

“Hey, Reuben, that’s good! We ought to be able to pin that down from the autopsy report.”

“You mean they’d look at the contents of her stomach even though she’d been strangled?”

“You bet. It’s one of the ways the M.E. tries to fix the estimated time of death. If there were still masticated chunks of food in her stomach—”

“I don’t need an explanation, thanks,” Frost interrupted. “But will you check on what the report said?”

“Sure thing.”

“Maybe we do have something to show for the day’s work after all.”

“I had another thought about Merriman’s dinner,” Bautista said. “Merriman, Genakis and Lovett were supposed to be old buddies from California. How come they didn’t invite Lovett to eat with them? It would seem like the polite thing to do if you have a visiting friend who’s all alone in the Big Apple.”

“Hmn.”

“And another thing. When Lovett left the office all by himself later that night, why didn’t he go to Marshall’s? That should have been more fun than having room service at his hotel.”

“Good point,” Reuben said. “But does it mean anything?”

“That he didn’t want to be tied down, so he could stay around and strangle Merriman? It doesn’t sound right. Why would he want to kill his lawyer?”

“Luis, when your practice gets going, you’ll find that a lot of people want to kill their lawyers. Seriously, though, I agree with you. An interesting fact, but I don’t see its relevance.”

“I’m going down to see Petito,” Bautista said. “His guys can check the autopsy report and everybody’s alibi. And I’ll make sure he talks to Rawson, if he hasn’t done so already.”

“I hope you can persuade Petito to do all this. I’ve got more important plans for you,” Frost said.

“Oh?”

“As far as I’m concerned, we’ve got three people to scrutinize—Rawson, Genakis and Bill Richardson. Skip Wylie, maybe. Alan Lovett, maybe. But the big three are the ones I want a look at first. You’ve always told me that there’s a huge volume of information out there about everybody and that the trick is to be dogged enough and clever enough to find it. So let’s try to dig up everything we can on our trio. If we’re lucky we’ll find something relevant. Does that make sense?”

“It makes sense, but you forget I’m no longer a cop. No badge to wave, no subpoenas, no search warrants.”

“I’m surprised at you, Luis. I had more confidence in you. With your contacts, I can’t imagine the lack of a badge is going to stop you.”

Bautista grinned. “We’ll have to see. And I’ll get Petito fishing, too. He can get search warrants and subpoenas if he needs them.”

“I also think that thee and me should have a nice bachelors’ dinner tonight,” Frost said.

“Any place come to mind?” Bautista said, still grinning.

“Yes, as a matter of fact. A joint I’ve heard of called Marshall’s.”

“Sounds good to me. What time?”

“Let’s say eight-thirty.”

“You’re on.”

“Meanwhile, I’ll have somebody in the library get a Dun & Bradstreet on the finances of Mr. Genakis’ restaurant. I don’t like to eat in restaurants in shaky financial shape. They cut corners.”

CHAPTER

17

Marshall’s

Bautista and Frost had decided to meet so that they could go to Marshall’s together. Reuben was excited; the D&B on the restaurant had been revealing, and he could scarcely wait until they were seated.

On entering, they encountered a highly polished wooden bar, which was doing a good business. They advanced to the desk in the back where Genakis and a tastefully dressed woman, in a very short skirt, were presiding.

“Good evening, Mr. Frost,” Genakis said, without a conspicuous show of enthusiasm.

“Mr. Genakis, hello. I know I said I’d bring my wife here, but I brought my friend Luis Bautista instead. I believe you know each other.”

Genakis looked at Bautista again and realized who he was. “Oh, yeah. The detective. Hi. Carrie, would you show the gentlemen to fifteen?”

Without asking, Genakis had assigned them a free standing table, well away from the banquettes along two of the walls. From one seat, where Bautista sat, it afforded a good view of Genakis’ work station. Both men took in the ambience, which featured roughly plastered white walls, sand-colored upholstery on the furniture and black wrought-iron lighting fixtures overhead.

“I thought you said this was a California place,” Bautista said. “It looks more like Santa Fe to me.”

“Suburban Palm Springs, maybe. California desert,” Frost suggested.

The staff all wore red mess jackets over tuxedo pants. An amusing touch, Frost thought, assuming it was a deliberate send-up of the usual waiter’s uniform in Greek luncheonettes.

After ordering drinks from a red-jacket, Frost told his companion that the faxed report he pulled from his pocket contained “lots of information.”

“This place is way behind on payments to suppliers—ninety days overdue. I don’t know anything about the restaurant business, but if it’s like any other, it sounds to me like Mr. Genakis is about to be put on a cash-only basis. Not a healthy development. His restaurant corporation’s also got a big mortgage—four hundred thousand and change. That’s current, and so’s his rent. But he’s obviously in a cash squeeze for some reason.”

“Anything else there in the D&B?” Bautista asked.

“He’s got a big payroll—fifty-eight in all. His liquor license is up for renewal March 1. And Juliana Merriman was a minority stockholder in the company—she owned thirty percent of the stock, which, you remember, he gets under her will.”

Frost decided to have the warm duck salad, followed by seared tuna, a special for the evening. Bautista ordered the salad and a rib-eye steak. After the usual polite duet—white wine to accommodate the fish-eater or red for the carnivore?—Reuben opted for a red Italian Barolo, one of the few non-California wines on a rather long list.

Once again, they went over the day’s interrogations, reaching no new conclusions. As they talked, Frost noticed Bautista looking intently out beyond their table. “What do you see?” he asked.

“A pretty good crowd,” Bautista replied. “Our friend Genakis seems to know them all. He’s also pretty cozy with his sidekick.”

“Cozy enough that she might have given him an alibi for last Thursday?”

“We’re probably going to have to drop that one,” Bautista replied. “Unless last Thursday was different, he would have known most of the customers. She and the rest of the help could have covered for him, but there’s no reason the customers would.”

“You haven’t tried to talk to any of them?”

“No, but I did get a Xerox of the Thursday pages from their reservation book.”

“You think of everything.”

“I try.”

“Luis, what would you say to having an after-dinner talk with Genakis?”

“To confront him, you mean?”

“No, I don’t think we’re quite ready for that. Just to, ah, very quietly go over some details. Like the menu for last Thursday’s dinner.”

“No harm in it, if he’s willing.”

Genakis, making the rounds as they finished their entrees, gave them a chance to pose their invitation.

“Sure,” Genakis said. “I don’t have to say I’m curious about what’s going on. The only thing, the best time would be now. Everybody’s seated, but I like to be here when they start leaving. So if you ace dessert we can go up to my office. You can have coffee there. Brandy, if you like.”

“Coffee’s fine and no dessert is fine. Espresso?” Reuben said.

“We’ve heard of it,” Genakis said.

“Shall we go? I need to get the check.”

“Dinner’s on me.”

“That’s not necessary,” Frost said, thinking of the owner’s cash bind.

“But that’s the way I want it,” Genakis replied. “Come on. I’ll have the coffee sent up.”

Genakis’ stylish decorator had not done his office, a utilitarian cubicle upstairs next to the rest rooms.

“Sorry about the mess,” he said, as the three of them crowded in. “What’s going on?”

“Not much, I’m afraid, but I’ll try to bring you up to date. And maybe you can be helpful, filling in some of the gaps,” Frost said.

Genakis rubbed his nose and said, “I’ll try.”

“We’ve got an interesting lead we’re pursuing,” Frost went on. “It may not get us anywhere, but there apparently were some bad feelings between Juliana and the people she was working with on the On-Line deal.”

“Alan Lovett’s deal.”

“That’s right. Did she ever talk to you about it?”

“Oh, sure. Lovett and Julie and me go back a long way. Alan even tried to steal Julie away from me once. That was a long time ago, and it never interfered with our friendship. We all had dinner together when Alan was here in town. Over at Orso.”

“When was that?” Bautista asked.

“Sunday night. The eighteenth, I think it was,” Genakis said, looking up at the three-month calendar on the wall. He seemed to tense up as he apparently realized he was on the griddle once again.

“Have you seen Lovett since?”

“No.”

“Talked to him?”

“No.”

“Either before or after Juliana was killed?”

“Neither.”

“Maybe you could tell us what Juliana said about the deal,” Frost said.

“Not much, really. She said one of the guys involved was pretty obnoxious and one was absolutely gross. But she never said she’d had a quarrel with anybody. Julie didn’t get into fights.”

“What about the Thursday night before she died, when you had dinner with her?” Frost asked. “The big trouble she had—it was with an investment banker named Harvey Rawson—was that very afternoon. Didn’t she mention it? Wasn’t she upset?”

“Not that I recall,” Genakis said. Then he suddenly got up. “Sorry to interrupt, but will you excuse me for a minute? When you’re on the door downstairs you never get to take a leak.”

Frost and Bautista studied the disorderly array of account books, letter boxes and miscellaneous office detritus while Genakis was out of the room. Nothing visible was revealing.

“Sorry about that,” Genakis said, returning. “Where were we?”

“I was asking about your dinner with Ms. Merriman the night she was killed, and whether she’d said anything about her quarrel with Rawson,” Frost said.

“Nothing like that,” Genakis answered. “I just tried to help her relax before she went back to work.”

“By cooking her a dinner, is that correct?”

“Yes. Blanquette de veau. My blanquette de veau is great.” Genakis laughed as he spoke, again scratching his nose.

“Mr. Genakis, I asked you last Saturday about the lawyers Juliana had worked for. There were three—Bernard Straus, Brian Heyworth and, most recently, William Richardson. You said on Saturday she’d never had any complaints about them. Is that still where you come out?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Surely she must have had gripes from time to time. These men were my partners but I know they’re not perfect.”

“Chase & Ward partners not perfect? That’s hard to imagine,” Genakis said, laughing again. “Julie wasn’t a complainer. That wasn’t like her. She got along with everybody.”

“Did you ever meet any of the lawyers I mentioned?”

“Probably. She took me a couple of times to your annual dinner dance. I could’ve met them there, but I don’t really remember.”

“Would you recognize any of them if they came in here?”

“I doubt it.”

“Let me change the subject,” Bautista said. “Chase & Ward has a referral service their people can call with personal problems, like drug or alcohol abuse. Would it surprise you to know that Juliana consulted this service about a drug problem?”

“Julie? A drug problem? You’ve got to be kidding!” Genakis said, then burst into laughter that was almost out of control. “She experimented a little back in California—doesn’t everybody in California?—but she’d become a real just-say-no-person here in New York. She hated drugs.”

“She wasn’t calling about herself, but for a friend. Any idea who it might have been?”

“You’ve got me there. She didn’t have any druggie friends that I know of.”

“Reuben, I think we’d better go,” Bautista said.

“Yeah, I’ve got to get back to work,” Genakis added.

“Mr. Genakis, thanks again for the fine dinner,” Frost said. “I enjoyed seeing your handsome restaurant.”

“Glad you like it. We’re doing great. Knock on wood. And good luck to you guys.”

Bautista accepted Frost’s invitation for a nightcap, and the two of them took a taxi uptown.

“If Juliana Merriman didn’t like druggies, I wonder what she was doing messing around with that guy,” Bautista said.

“What do you mean?”

“He’s a cokehead if I ever saw one.”

“Really? I’m so naive about such things he could have fooled me.”

“He had all the symptoms, Reuben. His hoarse voice, pulling at his nose. Depressed when we got there. Talking to you about Alan Lovett when you’d asked him about Lovett’s deal. Then he left us to go to the john and came back as happy as an Inca chewing coca leaves, laughing his head off. I’m not a betting man, but I’m sure he was on something, probably cocaine.”

“Maybe that’s where the restaurant’s cash is going,” Frost said.

“Yeah, right up his nose. Except after his hit he said the place was doing great.”

“Which was not what he told me last Saturday. It was only doing okay then.”

“I can see my work’s cut out for me. We’ve got to find out more about this character.”

Cynthia Frost was waiting up when her husband and Bautista came in. “How was boys’ night out?” she asked.

“Reasonably interesting,” Reuben answered. “Come and sit with us and we’ll tell you about it.”

After preparing a round of drinks, he asked Bautista what he thought Merriman had had to eat the night she died. “Was it blanquette de veau or a tuna fish sandwich?” He explained the reference when Cynthia looked puzzled.

“What do you think?” Bautista countered.

“I’ve got a theory I just worked out on the way up here,” Reuben said. “Let me try it out, starting with the two contrary bits of evidence we’ve got about Merriman. First, there’s the record that she returned to Chase & Ward at six-fifteen Thursday evening. But there’s the contrary record that she called in from her apartment at six-fifty.

“Now let’s look at Genakis. He claims he was at the apartment, too, cooking dinner for her. Yet she told Ms. Locke that all she’d had to eat was a tuna fish sandwich. So I say Genakis was lying. He wasn’t slaving over a hot stove making blanquette de veau at all.”

“But why would he lie?” Cynthia asked.

“Because, my dear, he doesn’t want it known that he’d borrowed Merriman’s ID card and used it to get inside Clinton Plaza.”

“But this was before the girl was killed,” Cynthia said. “She wasn’t even there.”

“I know that, Cynthia,” Reuben said, impatiently. “I didn’t say he went there to kill her.”

“Then why did he go?” Cynthia asked.

“To see his old friend Lovett, perhaps. To hit him up for money so he could keep up appearances as a successful restaurant operator.”

“That doesn’t fly, Reuben,” Bautista said. “Lovett told us he’d gone out for drinks. And that guy Lane confirmed it.”

“You’re right, Luis,” Reuben said, deflated. “It was just a theory.”

“It’s not a bad one,” Bautista said. “It’s the first explanation that makes any sense of that computer entry showing Merriman going back to the office at six-fifteen. But who the hell was he going to see?”

“How about Merriman’s harasser?” Cynthia asked. “No mention of him again this time?”

“He said she’d had no complaints about her bosses—including Richardson,” Bautista said.

“I still find that very odd. If what Merriman said was true about being harassed, he must have known about it.”

The three were quiet for a time, before Reuben told Bautista that they should talk in the morning.

Bautista looked discouraged and Frost noticed it. “Don’t be down, Luis. Remember the slogan I keep seeing on kids’ T-shirts all over town.”

“Which one?”

“‘Don’t worry, be happy.’ Something’s bound to break soon, you wait and see.”

CHAPTER

18

The Birthday Boy

“Do you think this is authentic enough?” Cynthia Frost asked her husband the next Saturday night, as they dressed for Bill Richardson’s fiftieth birthday party. The invitation had said “Dress: Black Tie and Vintage Sixties,” and Cynthia was now proposing to wear a bright purple short dress.

“I was going to give this to the legal aid thrift shop years ago,” she said, “but I always hesitated, because I liked it so much. And so did you.”

“I still do, my dear. It’s very festive.” And would show off his wife’s well-preserved legs, Frost thought proudly. He himself felt no reason to modify his usual formal uniform, though he decided against the brocade vest he had worn on New Year’s eve.

“This will be interesting,” he said, “a party at the American Crafts Museum. We’ll probably eat off Amish quilts on the floor.”

“Let me ask you something, Reuben. Who there will know about Bill’s … difficulty?”

“As far as I know, it’s been kept completely quiet, except for Charlie, Ron Crutcher, Keith Merritt and Simon Isaacs. And me and Luis.”

“What about the police?”

“Luis told them either Wednesday or Thursday. Dave Petito, the detective on the case, was supposed to interview Bill yesterday at the office—not at home, thanks to Luis’ intervention. As for tonight, I doubt that anyone there will know Bill’s under suspicion except those I mentioned.”

As his wife left him alone to tie his new dress bow tie, Frost remembered with rueful amusement the first time he had encountered the fiftieth birthday phenomenon, far too many years before. He remembered very well a huge party for George Lawrence, a Chase & Ward partner now long since dead, when he was fifty and Reuben was forty. Viewed from that perspective, Lawrence had seemed very old indeed, his life largely spent. Now, of course, time had done its work, and a party for Bill Richardson at fifty seemed to Reuben an affair for a young man. Not a teenage sleep-over exactly, but still an affair for the young.

The decor of the handsome museum, hung with colorful artifacts from the American past, had been enhanced with flowers everywhere, centerpieces on the tables for the sit-down dinner, and huge, exploding bouquets placed at intervals around the walls. Frost speculated at how Nina Richardson’s straitlaced Boston trustees (which he was sure she had) would react to the bill for flowers.

The crowd gathered near the bars for drinks. It was altogether unsurprising. Perhaps half the Chase & Ward partners, leaning to the senior side of the masthead. A good sprinkling of the “M&A” community, more youthful than the lawyers’ delegation (mergers and acquisitions being a young man’s game) and distinguished by wing-collared shirts under their dinner jackets and more trendily dressed female companions at their sides. Then there were Bill Richardson’s Yale classmates and club-mates, who laughed a lot and talked almost exclusively to each other. And two men that Frost learned during the evening had been in the Green Berets with Bill, and their wives, one couple coming “all the way from Denver, Colorado.”

It was a prosperous group, all white, though by no means all Anglo-Saxon Protestant, drawn primarily from the Ivy League ranks of Wall Street and the legal profession. With a quick change of venue and costume, from black tie to Ralph Lauren tweed, it could have easily become an oversized tailgate party at the Yale Bowl before the Harvard game. No artists, writers or rebels (scarcely a Democrat, for that matter) need apply.

Reuben, drink in hand, circulated through the room, greeting those he knew. He was sure he recognized the piano player, a venerable black man churning out Cole Porter and Rodgers and Hart tunes at a grand piano in the corner. He moved closer and indeed recognized John Darmes, the now-retired doorman at the Gotham Club for most of the years Reuben had been a member.

“John! What are you doing here?” he asked.

“Why, Mr. Frost, how are you?” the pianist said, as he continued to play. “Excuse me for not getting up.”

“You’ve taken up a new line of work.”

“That I have. Retirement was no good for me. And the work I do at my church is just fine, but I need some diversion now and then. So I do gigs like this.”

Frost noticed the small plaque by the keyboard: “JOHN DARMES: FROM NEW ORLEANS TO NEW YORK.”

“I didn’t know you were from New Orleans, John.”

Darmes winked broadly. “Oh, that’s just advertising, Mr. Frost. I’m as New York as you are, maybe more so. I was born and raised in Harlem, back when a body could live there.”

“Well, it’s good to see you.”

“My son Jasper tells me things are right good at the Club, even with the women coming in.”

“It hasn’t changed things much, John. Besides, we had to enter the twentieth century sometime.”

Frost moved along, delighted to have seen Darmes, and to know there was at least one person at the party in his age bracket.

The dinner which Nina Richardson had arranged was not a success. The Craft Museum did not have its own stoves, so the beef dish the caterers served had been prepared on portable kitchen equipment. A weird combination, somewhere between boeuf Stroganoff and Chinese orange beef, it had suffered from its makeshift preparation. The wine was good, however, so the meal was not a total disaster.

And Frost had what turned out to be a merry time at his table, sitting next to Richardson’s daughter, Aline. At first glance, Aline had seemed a younger version of her well-scrubbed but slightly austere mother, an impression reinforced by her horn-rimmed glasses. But on closer inspection—or maybe it was the cumulative effect of the drinks and the wine—she seemed downright pretty, her long, golden hair the same color her father’s had been as a younger man.

Reuben quickly found a common bond with his companion. She was a junior at Princeton, his alma mater, with outspoken but politely and even humorously presented views on the role of women at the University.

“It’s not a plantation, exactly. Or even a collective farm—you know, where the women have their babies in the morning and go back to picking the crops in the afternoon. But it’s not utopia, either. There’re still some old Tigers around, and the sons of some old Tigers, who have to be convinced that we can function in the classroom as well as the kitchen.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“It’s all right. It’s funny, really. And besides I’m used to it. You didn’t grow up with Dad and his buddies without learning to defend women’s rights.”

“What do you mean?” Reuben asked, toying with his glutinous beef.

“Just that they think it’s a man’s world. Even when they see the evidence to the contrary all around them.”

“I think I know what you’re saying. They see a threat to the Old Blue network. But what do you expect from Yale men?”

Reuben’s companion on his other side, Keith Merritt’s wife, Ruth, was deeply enmeshed with her other partner, a young banker holding forth about a recent trip to India. Ruth, about to go there herself, was enthralled. Reuben, never having had the least desire to visit India, wanted to avoid being caught up in the travelogue and, besides, Ms. Richardson was much more fun. And he had taken Mrs. Merritt for a spin around the floor (to “Mountain Greenery”) between the first two courses.

Uncertain of the ages and whereabouts of Bill Richardson’s children, he asked Aline about them.

“Darren, my older brother, is at Yale. He’s two years older than me and a senior. Then there’s the baby, Walter, who’s still at Exeter, but can’t wait to go to Yale, if he can get in. I’m the meat in the sandwich. A girl, a Princetonian, a non-jock. The men in the family all think I’m weird.”

“Which of course is not true.”

“Well, they’ve got some cause,” Aline said, laughing. “I do sing with a rock band, you know.”

“What?” Frost said, genuinely surprised at his bespectacled companion.

“Yup. There were some guys down the hall from me at Princeton who talked about starting a band, so I joined them. Youthful rebellion, a sure way to annoy Mom and Dad.”

“Does it have a name?”

“Yes.”

“Well?”

“You won’t be embarrassed? My father is.”

“I’m beyond embarrassment, my dear.”

“Well, um, we call ourselves Lolita and the Lechers.”

“Who’s Lolita—you?”

“That’s right. My stage name. I decided to keep some peace at home by not calling us the Randy Richardsons, or Aline and the Ape-shits. Excuse me, but that was one of the names we considered.”

“You did the right thing,” Frost said. “How often do you play?”

“As often as we can. A couple of times a month. We’re not exactly up there making top-forty records.”

“Doesn’t this interfere with your studies?”

“You sound like Dad. No, I work real hard at school. I do better than my brothers, I can tell you.”

“Amazing.”

Frost, curiosity aroused, wanted to probe further into the alien world of rock, but Aline Richardson got up and excused herself.

“There’s going to be a little show now, before the birthday cake,” she explained. “I’ve got to get ready. It was nice talking to you. I’ll see you later.”

Almost at once, one of Bill Richardson’s college chums appeared and acted as the master of ceremonies. Featured were two songs—a dreadfully unfunny one performed by Nina’s friends about dwindling sexual capacity and a more amusing one, sung a cappella by the Yale contingent, about Richardson’s valiant attempts to better his performance in the New York Marathon (he had been 224th the previous year). Then there were toasts by the two sons—the Exonian was quite funny—Bill’s law school roommate, one of the Green Berets and Charlie Parkes. The two themes throughout were Bill’s wonderful family and his dogged bad luck on the ski slopes, which had led to two injuries in recent years, including the broken leg that had kept him on crutches through most of the previous winter.

As the entertainment progressed, Reuben had noticed an impressive collection of electronic gear at the side of the bandstand, unused by the Lester Lanin sidemen who had played for dancing earlier. Now, it was pushed forward on the makeshift dance floor and the emcee introduced, with much fanfare, Lolita and the Lechers.

Frost couldn’t decide which was funnier: the four fresh-faced Princetonians and Lolita/Aline (without her glasses), trying to look fierce and menacing in their jackboots and leather gear, or the song of Aline’s composition that they sang, “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy”:

When I was twelve I went out on the street,

When I was fourteen I got me a treat,

When I was sixteen I had me a ball,

But now that’s behind me—

‘Cause Dad’s best of all.

Daddy, Daddy, Daddy,

Won’t you come to me?

I’m your darlin’ daughter,

Here for all to see.

When I was thirteen I longed for a thrill,

When I was fifteen I went over the hill,

When I was eighteen I wanted them tall,

But now that I’m twenty—

Old Dad’s best of all.

Daddy, Daddy, Daddy …

The attempt at decadence (incestuous decadence at that) was delightfully ludicrous; the loud, raucous song surely bore no resemblance to what may have been heard at the tables down at Mory’s a generation earlier. Richardson, seated at ringside, tried to get into the swing of things, good-naturedly shifting his upper body in attempted rhythm, but it was hopeless. The generation gap was evident.

When the song, and an encore (“Lolita, My Lovely”) were over, waiters wheeled a trolley containing an enormous birthday cake out onto the dance floor, while others poured champagne at the tables. Nina Richardson came forward, glass in hand, and took the portable microphone from her daughter. Years of fund-raising appeals enabled her to handle both the microphone and her glass. The rock musicians, except “Lolita,” left the floor and she and the two Richardson sons flanked their mother, standing behind the cake, which featured the spun-sugar likeness of a runner, rather than a wracked-up skier.

“Twenty-five years ago, when he was half his present age,” Nina Richardson began, “I met Bill for the first time. He was the most wonderful man in the world then, and he still is today, only doubly so. I have been very lucky, and my children have been very lucky. You know, today, when there’s so much talk of ‘quality time,’ I just want to say that we’ve had twenty-five years of Bill’s ‘quality time’—except the part Chase & Ward got, of course—and we’re the better for it. So, Bill, for your birthday, let me make a double toast—first, when we go to Chamonix next week, may you not break your leg again and, second, may you have many more years for the ski slopes, the jogging path—and for us. Happy birthday!”

The crowd rose, singing “Happy Birthday,” as Bill Richardson stepped forward. If the shade of Juliana Merriman was haunting him, it was not evident: either the virtue of the innocent or the confidence of the undetected guilty made him seem a genuinely happy man.

“I don’t have a witty speech prepared,” he said. “I’m not a terribly witty man. And, besides, how could I compete with ‘Daddy, Daddy, Daddy’? But I can tell you one thing. I’m not going to fall next week. I’m never going to fall again!”

Was there a subtext here? Reuben wondered, as Richardson went on to express his love and affection for his wife, his children and the guests at his birthday party. Then the entertainment ended with a chorus of “Bright College Years” by the Yalies; it was the first time Reuben had seen white handkerchiefs waved aloft since a Yale-Princeton football game decades before.

“I’ve talked to your friends,” Richardson told Frost, in a low voice, as they shook hands when Frost was leaving.

“Friends?”

“The police. I assume it was you who slipped them that damn-fool complaint.”

“My apologies, Bill. I warned you we would have to do that.”

“I’m innocent, Reuben. Don’t you forget that …” Richardson’s features had hardened, and he seemed prepared to say something stronger, perhaps even to issue a threat. But the queue of those waiting to greet him had grown, and it would have been impossible to continue the exchange without others hearing.

Frost moved on, realizing that he wanted to believe, after the warm family vignettes observed during the evening, that his former partner was indeed innocent. He began to wonder if perhaps Merriman had not misinterpreted what had happened in Dallas—or worse, inexplicably made the story up.

“What did you think?” Reuben asked his wife, once they were back home, sitting comfortably with their feet up in their living room.

“I think Bill’s family doesn’t have a hint of what’s going on,” Cynthia replied. “Either that or the Richardsons are a family of actors to rival the Redgraves. Which I doubt.”

“I didn’t see a trace of papering anything over. I sat next to the daughter—the singing Lolita—and she certainly didn’t give any indication that anything was amiss. I’ve almost concluded that we’ve been wrong to suspect him. Bill’s just too straight to be a philanderer. Juliana Merriman was wrong. Or up to something.”

“That party was certainly all good clean fun, I grant you that,” Cynthia said. “But that doesn’t mean Bill didn’t make a slip somewhere along the line.”

“The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced he’s not the type, Cynthia. All-American, or at least all-Yale, good guy. That certainly came out tonight. He might be capable of an innocent flirtation, but nothing beyond that.”

“Reuben, the trouble with you is that you have the typical male notion of philandering, which I grant you fits most cases. Endless catting around, looking for a chance for clandestine sex every time a new female appears. The fat man ready to raid the icebox when no one’s looking. The compulsive stage-door Johnnies I used to see at the ballet.”

“That’s not Bill Richardson.”

“Granted. But you don’t have to be a Don Juan to get into trouble. I’ve seen it happen. Upright family men who suddenly get infatuated—who see something, or hear something, and are struck dumb. You yourself told me how Bill remembered so vividly Juliana Merriman wiggling her foot and stroking her hair when they were meeting in Dallas, or wherever it was. Those tiny gestures may have been all it took to set Bill off.”

“That’s ridiculous, Cynthia.”

“Is it? I’m no Dr. Ruth—”

“Thank God for that—”

“But Bill Richardson may have been a walking time bomb ready to explode. Look at the facts. He’s fifty, which means he grew up when sex was about as exotic as it was when we were young. You saw the blissful smiles on those faces tonight when they played the twist—that was their biggest excitement, Reuben. Doing the twist at a spring house party. No girls in the classrooms then, to say nothing of the dormitories. Then what happened? He probably had a quickie or two with the Suzy Wongs out in the Far East, then came home and met a sweet Mount Holyoke coed, probably as sexually unsophisticated as he was. They fall in love, they marry, they have children. Then the sexual revolution happens. Sex is everywhere, probably even in his own children’s bedrooms. Half the young lawyers who work for him are living together. Everywhere he looks he sees that sex has become accessible and casual. Isn’t it just possible that the golden boy thought life was passing him by? That he got dizzy and fell off the edge when Ms. Merriman wiggled her foot at him? Is that really such a ridiculous theory?”

Reuben refreshed his drink before he answered.

“You could be right,” he said, finally. “I thought what I saw tonight was going to make things simpler for me, that Bill Richardson had been struck from the list and we could concentrate on Genakis and Harvey Rawson. Now you’ve put him back on. Even though making a fool of yourself—‘exploding’ as you call it—doesn’t necessarily turn you to homicide.”

“I didn’t say it did. But a public scandal—a harassment lawsuit—certainly would shatter the complacent picture we saw tonight. The model wife, the model kids, the camaraderie of the Old Blues, the jovial but very conventional friends. Keeping that picture intact seems like a pretty powerful motive, I’d say.”

“I’d be much happier, my dear, if your astute analysis had been about Genakis or Harvey Rawson,” Reuben said. “But I’m afraid I have to take what you said seriously.”

CHAPTER

19

An Escapade

Frost was in a restless mood by the time the weekend was over. Monday morning, he realized that he had no plans for the day and no new ideas for advancing the investigation. He was impatient for something to happen, though he knew that instant results could not be expected from the new tactic of casting a wide net for information about the likely suspects.

For want of anything better to do, he called Bautista, who patiently explained that their plan was indeed being put into place. After lunch at the Gotham Club, Frost went to Chase & Ward, where he called him again. This time Bautista responded to Reuben’s hectoring with a gentle, but nonetheless clear, plea to let him get on with his digging without pointless interruptions.

Bautista was able to report that Petito had interrogated Harvey Rawson. “It was pretty dicey, I understand. Real stonewalling at first. Even after Dave made it clear that he wasn’t interested in the hanky-panky over that bank consent, Rawson still clammed up about what had happened on December twenty-ninth.”

“So we don’t know where he was or what he was doing when Merriman was killed?”

“Wait. Dave got a break. He and his partner talked to this guy Lewis, Rawson’s helper—the fat one we’ve heard about. After about five minutes of good-cop, bad-cop jazz, Lewis told them Rawson left Chase & Ward the same time he did, to meet Skip Wylie for dinner.”

“Skip Wylie and his, uh, escort?”

“Yeah. When Petito went back to Rawson, he admitted he’d spent the night with Skip, his bimbo and her friend, Melody Teabury—can you believe it? They had dinner at the Palm, went over to Mars and then came back to the On-Line apartment.”

“Don’t you think it’s odd that Skip Wylie didn’t tell us he was with Rawson that evening?” Frost asked.

“He was probably trying to protect Rawson. Dave’s reading is that things are not too good in the domestic department for Rawson, and the guy was scared out of his skull that his wife would find out about his night on the town. She was at their country place in Redding, Connecticut.”

“Maybe,” Reuben said, skeptically. “Anyway, what time did Lewis and Rawson leave here?”

“Lewis said he left just before nine and Rawson was with him.”

“So they left together?”

“Hold on, that’s the interesting thing. Lewis said Rawson went out to the elevator with him. But then he told Lewis he’d forgotten his umbrella and went back for it. He said not to wait, and Lewis didn’t.”

“So we don’t know when Rawson left the office?”

“Right.”

“What does Rawson say?”

“He told Dave he left about nine to meet his party at the Palm.”

“And what do his friends say?”

“Skip Wylie claims he got held up drinking at Mickey Mantle’s, so he was late. He thought he’d gotten to the Palm about ten-fifteen, but he couldn’t really remember. Rawson was there when he arrived.”

“What about the girls?”

“Dave hasn’t talked to them yet.”

“Well, keep me posted.”

“Stay cool, Reuben, I’ll let you know as soon as we have anything more.”

Frost attempted to follow Bautista’s advice, but flipping idly through the latest Princeton Alumni Weekly did not allay his edginess (though he did register that, for a welcome change, his class notes did not record the death of a classmate).

Then he had an inspiration. The police had not yet talked to Melody Teabury. Why couldn’t he do that? The Sugar and Spice Escort Service, wasn’t that the name? He located the Manhattan Yellow Pages and eventually found a section, an extraordinarily long one, called “Escort Svce-Personal.”

Sure enough, there was a full page display ad for the “expensive and exclusive” Sugar and Spice, which promised “personalized attention” to the “discriminating gentleman” from “sophisticated, beautiful and poised” companions. Whose ministrations were both “safe” and “discreet,” no less. Company for luncheon, dinner and travel, as well as “late-night service,” were all offered.

Did he dare to go further? What if he located Ms. Teabury? Where would he take her? What if they were seen? And what would Cynthia say? She would never stop kidding him. But why was he worried? He did not, after all, plan on seeking Melody’s “personalized attention”; he merely wanted information that might be useful in tracking Harvey Rawson.

Conquering his doubts, Reuben decided to call Sugar and Spice and, if Ms. Teabury was available, he would hire her (Hire? Is that what you did?) for drinks and dinner (he was reasonably sure Sugar and Spice would not be interested in sending her out for cocktails alone). Then he would exact whatever information he could over drinks, pay her off for the whole evening—and flee.

Should he use a false name? Reuben wondered. He smiled as he thought of calling himself Buzz Tiffler, after one of his college roommates. But given his serious purpose, he decided to play things straight.

Or relatively straight, as it turned out. He closed the door to his temporary office and called Sugar and Spice.

A neutral 800-number voice answered (it turned out to belong to a male named Terry) and put Frost through a round of screening questions, including the name in which the telephone he was calling from was listed (Oh, Lord, there probably will be a vice raid this very day, he worried, and Chase & Ward’s name will come up in still another scandal—to say nothing of my own), his address and his credit card number. Then there was a stumper: since he had never used Sugar and Spice before, could he supply a reference? After a pause, he gave Ian Wylie’s name.

“Oh, yes, Skip Wylie,” Terry said, adding that he would call Reuben back at the number he had given.

When they were reconnected, Terry got down to business and described Sugar and Spice’s rate structure—a basic four hundred dollars per hour. Reuben was taken aback; it seemed exorbitantly pricey, even for sophistication, beauty and poise. But then he remembered that his colleagues at Chase & Ward charged almost as much, albeit for a slightly different kind of service. As it turned out, once drinks and dinner were brought up, there was a special one thousand dollar rate for a maximum of four hours.

When Terry asked Frost “what kind of a companion he had in mind,” he gave Ms. Teabury’s name.

“She’s the greatest,” Terry said, his voice no longer neutral but rather insinuating. “Skip Wylie must have told you about her.” Frost did not deny it. “You’re in luck, she’s not booked tonight. Monday’s usually slow. Let me see if she’ll do it.”

Within half an hour, the assignation was arranged. Cocktails at the Royalton Hotel at six o’clock.

“How will she recognize you?” Terry asked.

Another poser. “I’ll be wearing a gray suit and carrying a copy of Time magazine,” Reuben finally said, feeling as if he were being sucked into some Eastern European intrigue.

“Super. Have a great evening, Reuben. Good luck with Melody. She’s dynamite.”

Reuben dutifully called Cynthia, at the Brigham Foundation, to let her know that he might be late for dinner.

“What’s happening? Have your cronies at the Club abandoned their New Year’s resolutions already?”

“No, no, nothing like that. I have to have cocktails with someone. It’s business.”

“Business?”

“It’s about Juliana Merriman, if you must know. I’ll tell you about it later.”

“Reuben, this isn’t something dangerous, is it?” Cynthia asked.

“Absolutely not. Safe and discreet, I believe would describe the situation.”

“Well, be careful, dear,” Cynthia said, puzzled.

Reuben checked his coat at the Royalton a few minutes before six, commandeered a table in the cocktail area and ordered a martini. He prominently displayed a copy of the latest Time next to his drink.

The postmodern decor of the refurbished Royalton lobby was surreal at best; now it seemed totally so to Frost. Was he really sitting here waiting to have drinks with a hooker? For which she would get paid?

At the dot of six a young woman, wearing a mink coat and with an outsize purse draped over her shoulder, appeared. She removed her beret and rearranged her short, auburn hair. Scanning the recessed area below her, she spotted the red Time cover and smiled at its owner.

Frost rose, and shook hands with her when she approached the table.

“Mr. Frost? I’m Melody Teabury.”

“Yes. Do sit down, Miss Teabury.”

“Melody.”

“Yes. Melody.” (What if Charlie Parkes sees me here, talking to Melody?)

Melody draped her fur over the back of the Philippe Starck chair opposite Reuben; the task was easy, since the back of the chair closely resembled a chrome-plated coat hanger. When asked, she ordered a whiskey sour. Frost, who had half-expected a buxom, dyed-blonde chorus girl of uncertain age, was surprised. The only vulgar thing about his new hired companion appeared to be her first name. Certainly her clothes were chic, a wool skirt and a checked wool jacket, both of which could have been Armanis (and at four hundred dollars an hour probably were, Frost thought). And the brown jacket nicely complemented her brown eyes.

Frost was also surprised at her accent. It was British—not Oxbridge exactly, but not early Eliza Doolittle, either. Her voice was, to tell the truth, modulated and sexy. And she was adept at small talk, of the sort often heard among strangers at a cocktail party. Where do you live? Have you always lived in New York? Reuben answered her questions reasonably truthfully, though he shaved ten years off his age when she asked him how old he was.

“I must say you don’t look sixty-seven,” she said. Frost thought he had been caught out in his lie, then realized, pleased, that she was at least pretending he appeared even younger.

“How about you?” he asked.

“Twenty-eight.”

More details followed, and Frost learned that Ms. Tea-bury had been in the States for three years. She had started as a receptionist in an advertising agency but had given that up for the more “interesting” opportunities with the escort service.

As they talked, Frost recalled Charlie Parkes’ reference to “Dutch courage” when they had talked recently, and now signaled for a second martini. When it and a new whiskey sour had been brought, Ms. Teabury asked where they were going to have dinner.

This was not the way Frost had hoped the conversation would go. “Um, I’ll get to that. Before I do, I think there’s something I should tell you.”

“You have AIDS,” Melody said, smiling through her dark, beet-red lipstick.

“Nothing like that, thank God. But I am afraid I’ve gotten you here under false pretenses.”

Melody appraised Reuben carefully. “You’re gay?”

“No, no, no.”

“Married?”

“Well, yes, as a matter of fact I am.”

“Don’t worry, dearest, I can handle that.”

“That’s not, um, what I was getting to. The point is, I’ve invited you here in the hopes of getting some information.”

“I see. Are you a detective?”

“Good heavens, no.”

“A solicitor—lawyer, I mean. Looking for a missing heir?”

“I am a lawyer, yes. But let’s stop fencing. I believe you know Harvey Rawson.”

“Rawson?”

“He’s an investment banker downtown with a firm called Schoonmaker.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know him,” Melody said. “But I suppose I could have met him. I do meet a lot of people, you know.”

“Rawson’s a friend of Ian Wylie.”

“Skip, you mean? Oh, yes, now I remember. Skip goes out with my friend, Lucinda, quite often. If he brings someone else along, she usually invites me. Rawson was with us one night last December.”

“That’s what I understand. December twenty-ninth, to be exact.”

“It’s coming back to me. Skip and Harvey, yes, Harvey Rawson, were working on some big deal together. We met them for dinner, I think at the Palm. Or was it Sparks’?”

“I believe it was the Palm.”

“Yes, yes, I remember the whole bloody evening. Is Rawson a pal of yours?”

“I’ve never met him.”

“Then you won’t mind if I say he was a pig? A rutting pig?”

“Hmn. I can’t say I’m surprised,” Reuben said. “But what I’d like to know about is the dinner you had. Particularly the time.”

Teabury hesitated before she answered, perhaps trying to calculate if there was any harm in telling the truth. Then she shrugged her shoulders and said, “Let me see. I think Lucinda and I were supposed to meet them at nine-thirty. Yes. Lucinda had an earlier, ah, engagement and she came over to my flat afterwards. We went to the Palm together, I remember. It must have been half after nine, no earlier. Skip and Harvey were late.”

“How late?”

“They came separately, as I recall. Harvey first, then Skip. It was a perfectly dreadful night—there’d been a snowstorm—but the Palm was still crowded. The head-waiter started hassling us a bit when they didn’t show up. I remember looking at my watch and realizing they were already half an hour late. Lucinda and I were very nervous.”

“So you looked at your watch around ten o’clock?”

“That has to be about right. Then they both arrived, separately, as I said, and we started eating.”

“How did Rawson strike you?”

“As you might have guessed, I didn’t like him. He seemed very tired and complained about how hard he’d been working. But after a few drinks he thought he was the life of the party and became quite obnoxious—all hands, if you know what I mean.”

“Yes.”

“After dinner we went over to Mars, where he got even more squished. He was like an overgrown boy, having his first fling after school is over. If it hadn’t been for Lucinda, I would have left him and gone home.”

“But you didn’t?”

“No, we went back to Skip’s apartment. Rawson was still pawing around like a cat in heat but fortunately he passed out. A most obnoxious man.”

“Did he say anything about the deal he was working on?”

“I don’t think so, really. I did gather that Skip was involved because he was kidding Rawson about some bird who’d given him a hard time.”

“Do you remember what was said?”

“Rawson said he was glad he wouldn’t have to see her again after the next day. I remember because he drank a toast to that. Two, in fact.”

“I see.”

“Is Rawson in some sort of trouble?”

“I’m not sure. All I can say is that the bird, as you called her, was murdered sometime that evening.”

“Jesus!” Melody exclaimed, shivering.

Frost described Merriman’s death, which Melody had read about in the tabloids.

“Do you think Rawson killed her?” she asked.

“It’s a possibility. What do you think? You’ve met him, I haven’t.”

“That man is capable of anything, so long as it’s disgusting,” Melody said, quietly. She shivered again, and Frost noticed this.

“I’m afraid, Ms. Teabury, that the police may be questioning you about your night on the town with Rawson. I suggest that you be frank with them, as you appear to have been with me.”

“Should I be frightened?”

Frost considered the question and finally answered, “Perhaps.” “I suggest that you and your friend, Lucinda, be on your guard. And let me give you this.” Reuben took a sheet of paper from his pocket notebook and wrote down Dave Petito’s name and phone number, as well as his own.

“Here’s the name of the detective in charge of the case,” Frost explained. “He’s a good fellow and if Rawson threatens you, or you feel in any danger at all, give him a call. Okay? My number’s there, too, if you need it.”

Melody took the paper, studied it and put it in her purse.

“Ms. Teabury, I think you’ve given me the information I wanted, so I’m going to beg off from dinner. How do I settle up with you?”

“Give me your credit card,” Melody said. Frost did so and, to his dismay, she pulled an impressing machine out of her capacious purse.

“I usually do this in the taxi … or in private,” she said, apologizing. She was so adept in preparing the credit card chit that the machine had disappeared back into her purse before others had seen it. She pushed the chit across the table toward Reuben.

“I believe the quoted rate for this evening was one thousand dollars, plus tip,” Reuben said.

“Forget the tip. The thousand is plenty, all things considered,” Teabury replied.

Frost did not argue, but filled in the chit and signed it, wondering if “Sugar and Spice” would appear on his next American Express bill or if the outfit used a more discreet name for billing. The whole transaction was simpler, if more expensive, than charging a pair of socks at Bloomingdale’s.

He passed the chit back to Ms. Teabury, who exchanged it for a business card with her name and phone number, but no address. “This is in case you want to reach me. Or if there’s ever anything else I can do for you.” She grabbed up her coat and shook hands with Reuben before hurrying toward the door. “You’re very sweet, you know,” she said as she departed.

Once she had left, Reuben slowly finished his martini, satisfied that he had kept the door open on Harvey Rawson, but wondering what the Chase & Ward accounting department would say about his escapade. Then he prepared to slope home, to confess all to Cynthia. And to call Bautista.

CHAPTER

20

A Victory and a Visitor

Tuesday morning at Chase & Ward, an excited Charlie Parkes burst in on Reuben in midmorning, bearing a message from Brian Heyworth in Tokyo. After two tough meetings with the bankers at Machikin, they had agreed to extend the On-Line loan and to withdraw their notice of acceleration.

As expected, the Japanese had exacted a price for their acquiescence—an increase of a full percentage point in the interest rate and an undertaking to negotiate a new set of covenants and financial tests binding on the combined Applications/On-Line enterprise. The Wylie brothers, in turn, had agreed to pick up out of their own pockets the increased interest cost for the first four of the eight years the loan still had to run. Lovett, not wishing to press his new merger partners too far, had accepted the Wylies’ compromise.

“Well, Charlie, if we can just find Juliana Merriman’s killer, we can close the book on this whole damned affair,” Frost said.

“The ball’s in your court, Reuben,” Parkes replied.

Later the same day, Frost was paid an unusual visit in his temporary office. His caller was Dennis Mackey, a legendary figure at Chase & Ward. Mackey, a rheumy, seedily dressed and overweight Irishman, was the most senior of the firm’s proofreaders. When not on one of his drinking binges, which seemed to occur without warning every few weeks, he was able to proofread with amazing speed, no matter how complex the document being vetted or how messy and incomprehensible the master copy used to check it.

And Mackey was more than a mere proofreader. Drawing on the rules of grammar, punctuation and composition drilled into him years earlier by the Jesuits in his parochial school, he was a first-rate copy editor. His suggestions, always penciled in green to distinguish them from his proofreader’s markings, had improved many a document prepared by the firm’s young (and some not so young) lawyers. As infelicity, not to mention near illiteracy, had increased among the supposedly educated products of a television age, his discreet green markings had become even more valued. Which meant that Mackey’s spectacular lapses were overlooked and the specter of his messy, Falstaffian frame was tolerated in the otherwise decorous confines of Chase & Ward.

It was almost three o’clock when Mackey’s bulk literally darkened Reuben’s door.

“Could I see you for a minute, Mr. Frost?” he asked, as he entered the room, trailing cigarette ashes on the rug.

“Of course, Dennis. Come in,” Frost replied, searching around for an ashtray. He found one on an empty bookcase and placed it on the desk. Mackey sat down heavily. His ruddy face was flushed and the hand with the cigarette was shaking.

“It’s been a long time, Dennis,” Frost said, sitting down himself. “But then I don’t have much output that needs your fine touch these days. What can I do for you?”

Mackey did not answer directly. “I see Mr. Richardson is in Europe,” he said.

“I believe that’s correct,” Frost replied. “Let’s see.” He picked up his copy of the list circulated each morning at Chase & Ward showing the names of lawyers away from the City. “Yes, he’s in Chamonix, France, until next Sunday. He’s a skier, you know.”

“Oh, yes,” Mackey said, laughing softly. “Even if it puts him on crutches.”

“Why did you ask about Mr. Richardson?” Frost inquired.

Again Mackey did not answer directly. “Mr. Frost, I’ve known you for over thirty-five years now. You were an honorable man when you ran this firm, and I’ve no reason to think you’ve changed any in the years since.” Mackey paused, and Frost waited, too. “The word around the office is that you’re working with the authorities on Miss Merriman’s case.”

“I’m doing what I can.”

“I read a lot of detective stories, which probably makes me too suspicious, makes me imagine things. But I know from my reading that sometimes an isolated fact, an isolated incident, can sometimes be important.”

“That’s true,” Frost said, more and more curious as to what his eccentric visitor was leading up to.

“I may have such a fact, but it is so remote, so tenuous—so gossipy, if you will—that I hesitate to pass it on to you.” Mackey nervously lit a new cigarette as he spoke.

“Dennis, what exactly is it you have to tell me?” Frost asked, gently but firmly.

“You remember the Christmas party last year?”

“You mean last month?”

“Yes. It was on a Wednesday, the twenty-first. I looked up the date. Down in the cafeteria.”

“I know. I was there,” Frost said, thinking that it was the last time he had seen Juliana Merriman alive.

“As usual, the party started at the end of the workday, at five-thirty. I didn’t go. I never do. I’m not much on parties. I can do my drinking at home.”

Frost refrained from comment.

“Anyway, since everybody was off to the party, I left a little early and went to the movies at the Cineplex next door, the one in the middle of the block between here and the apartment houses.”

“I know it.”

“I came out about eight-thirty,” Mackey continued, “and was headed for the bus stop on Eighth Avenue—I live up by Lincoln Center—when I saw Miss Merriman coming down the street, headed toward those apartments, where she lives. Lived.” Mackey hesitated, then blurted out, “She was with Mr. Richardson.”

“And?”

“They went into the apartment house together.”

“I see. Perhaps he was seeing her home. They don’t call this place Fort Bliss for nothing.”

“He went up in the elevator with her.”

“You saw that?”

“I’m ashamed to say I did. I was being a silly old Nosy Parker and followed behind and watched.”

“The lobby’s all glass, as I recall,” Frost said.

“Yes, it was easy to see them. But I’m sorry I was spying. It was none of my business to do that. Now I’m being punished.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, I peeped around and learned something I probably shouldn’t have. And now, with Miss Merriman dead, murdered, I’m frightened. I’d hate to think that curiosity, curiosity …”

“Killed the cat?”

“Yes.”

“In other words, you must think you’ve got sensitive information.”

“I don’t know, I don’t know. Miss Merriman was murdered almost two weeks ago, and no one’s been arrested yet.”

“Are you saying you think Mr. Richardson killed her?”

“No! No! I have no basis for saying anything terrible like that. Except …”

“Let’s put it bluntly, Dennis. You think that Ms. Merriman and Mr. Richardson were having an affair and that he killed her in a lover’s quarrel.”

Mackey put up his hands as if to stop Frost’s words and vigorously shook his head from side to side.

“Have you told anyone else about this?” Frost asked.

“No one.”

“Good. Let’s keep it that way, at least for now. But tell me this, did the two of them appear, ah, intimate? Were they holding hands, for example?”

“Nothing like that. They seemed to be talking very seriously.”

“Quarreling?”

“I couldn’t say.”

“Dennis, I’m grateful to you for coming around. Whether you’ve given me useful information, I can’t tell. But useful or not, it’s safe with me.”

“Mr. Frost, thank you.” Despite his size, Mackey rose quickly and left the room before saying anything more.

Frost stared out the window after his departure. “She had this teasing streak, and I decided to avoid her whenever I possibly could.” Richardson’s remark, made so coolly a week before, came back to Frost over and over, as he tried to decide what to do now.

CHAPTER

21

An Information Explosion

“I know you think we haven’t been moving fast enough, Reuben,” Bautista said Wednesday morning, as he met with Dave Petito and Frost at Chase & Ward. He had called Frost earlier to make the appointment, saying that “We’ve put together some interesting stuff we’d like to pass on to you.”

Frost was expectant, given Bautista’s enthusiastic mood. He did not know Petito well enough to assess how he felt, but he thought that the relaxation of his stern features was probably a good sign, too.

“You’ve been pretty busy yourself,” Bautista said to Reuben. “Your hot date Monday night, and then the visit from that guy in your office yesterday.”

“I’ve tried to keep my hand in,” Frost said. “So what have you got?”

“The one thing we struck out on was the autopsy report,” Petito told Frost. “The M.E. didn’t show what the stomach contents consisted of. They were too far digested to be specifically identified.”

“It was only a shot, Reuben,” Bautista added. “Once food has turned into chyme—that’s the mush that forms when the digestive juices go to work—you can’t tell whether it’s tuna fish or—”

“Luis, I get the point. We can’t prove Genakis was lying about dinner the night of the murder. Let’s go on to something else.”

“Okay, let’s start with Rawson,” Bautista said, opening his notebook. “His finances first. He makes one-ninety grand at Schoonmaker. His wife works for an ad agency in midtown, Vickery and Carpenter, and pulls down another hundred G’s. They’ve got two kids, both in private grade school. He’s got a Porsche he’s buying on time. And that ain’t all. He’s in hock up to his ears. A mortgage on his co-op here in town—nine hundred thousand—and one on the house in Connecticut—a cool million on that one.”

Frost did a quick calculation while Bautista spoke. Assuming a ten percent rate—no Machikin preferences here—the interest on the two mortgages alone would eat up most of the couple’s combined after-tax salaries. Before maintenance charges on the apartment, or the swimming pool cleaner in the country—or private school tuitions.

“You have any idea what the bonuses are at Schoonmaker?” Frost asked.

“Yeah, I’ve got that here. Two years ago, Rawson’s bonus was double his salary. As near as I can tell, they haven’t set the bonuses for last year yet—the personnel woman I talked to was pretty frank that they’d had a lousy year, and the figures—which they’re going to announce any day—are still being worked out. They’re going to be down from last year. Or rather, she told me, they’re going to be paid partly in stock.”

“That will be rough for Rawson,” Frost observed. “As I calculate it, he needs his bonus to live on.”

“It looks that way. His wife gets a bonus—fifty grand last year—but their situation’s damned tight.”

“So our Mr. Rawson really did have an interest in getting the On-Line deal closed,” Frost said. “If Schoonmaker’s in trouble—and that’s what everybody says—he needed every brownie point he could get. That’s good work, Luis.”

“What I don’t understand is how he got those mortgages,” Petito said.

“Who are they with?” Frost asked.

“Both with savings and loans, one upstate in Buffalo, one in Connecticut.”

“There’s your answer,” Frost said. “He got his money the same way the real estate speculators and the junk bond artists did. By standing in front of the window and scooping up the cash that was pushed at him. Those S&L’s were probably glad to shovel money out to him—his loans counted as lending for housing, which is what they were supposed to be doing, not speculating on high-fliers. And who knows, with all the deals Rawson’s been involved with at Schoonmaker, there could have been all kinds of back-scratching.”

“When I think about the trouble I had getting a mortgage on my duplex in Brooklyn …,” Petitio said. “But we’re not here to talk about that.”

“It’s the American way, Mr. Petito, at least these days.”

“Rawson’s not the only guy who’s overextended,” Bautista continued. “There’s Genakis. His business is really going to hell. The restaurant’s busy—we know that—but he’s short of money all the time. It’s much worse than that D&B report you got. He even had trouble making the payroll about a month ago.

“We can’t find a personal bank account for him—everything goes through the restaurant account at First Fiduciary, which he apparently draws on for his personal expenses. Including some pretty regular cash withdrawals we suspect he uses to buy cocaine.”

“You’re now sure about the cocaine part?” Frost asked.

“Yeah. Tell him, Dave.”

“We got one of the bartenders and a guy in his kitchen to open up,” Petito said. “They say there’s no question he’s a user. And it has gotten worse in the last few months.”

“I don’t understand that,” Frost said. “If he’s got a drug habit, how can he run a restaurant?”

“You know what a functioning alcoholic is, Reuben?” Bautista asked. “A guy who’s half-drunk all the time, but he still functions? Maybe not on all eight cylinders, but he gets by? Same with a dope addict. You don’t just collapse instantly the first time you blow the stuff. You fall apart little by little.”

“It looks like that’s what’s happening to Genakis now,” Petito added. “You know, reputation’s very important in the restaurant business—to creditors, to the staff, to customers. It’s such a risky business nobody wants to take chances with most of the guys who’re in it. At the rate Genakis is going, he’ll be out of business in another couple of months. I saw it happen in another restaurant, and a club downtown. The owner gets crazier and more paranoid and his staff begins to leave. Except those who stick around to steal from him. Then, if he’s out front, like Genakis, pretty soon he alienates the customers, too. Right on to the bankruptcy court for the restaurant and the dry-out farm for him.”

“So Genakis is a cokehead going deeper into debt and taking his restaurant down with him,” Bautista said. “But that’s not all, right, Dave?”

“Right. We ran his name back through California—Ted Genakis this time. He had a couple of pot busts in Palo Alto. Low-level dealing, for which he got a suspended sentence the second time. Then there’re the records here at the State Liquor Authority. When Genakis applied for his license, another fix he’d gotten into came out. The DEA—Drug Enforcement—had a major operation going on in Palo Alto about six years ago. Genakis got swept up in it. He wasn’t dealing then, but he was trying to blackmail an assistant professor at Stanford who was. The Feds picked him up on their wiretaps but the prof wouldn’t press charges and the whole thing was dropped. That required a hell of a lot of explaining to the SLA.”

“I believe they call that extortion,” Reuben said, impassively, looking up from the yellow pad on which he had been making extensive notes. “I wonder … no, let’s go on.”

“Now comes the beauty part, Reuben. A triple-chocolate dessert,” Bautista said. “You ready?”

“Of course I’m ready,” Frost shot back.

“You remember you were impatient with me when we talked on Monday, and I was a little short with you? A little short because I really was working on the case and had a long night ahead of me. Staking out Marshall’s to see what they did with their cash at the end of the night. As I expected, when the restaurant closed, Genakis and a buddy jumped into a cab and took a bag to the night depository at the First Fiduciary branch in Rockefeller Center. I wanted to know if Genakis deposited his cash right away, and I found out.”

“Why did you want to know that?”

“Because, the night Merriman was killed, the cash deposit in the restaurant account was enormous.”

“You’ve seen his account?”

“I sure have. An old buddy at the bank got the records for me and left them on a table in his office when he went out to make a call. Very convenient.”

“Convenient, but not very nice,” Frost said.

“You may change your mind when you hear the rest. These days restaurants don’t have a whole lot of cash at the end of the night. Nearly everybody uses credit cards. And the management has to pay out to its help the tips on the credit card slips, using up even more cash. The deposits for Marshall’s run about fifteen hundred dollars a night, except that on the Thursday when Merriman was murdered, the deposit was twenty-eight thousand—way, way high, especially when you consider the lousy weather that night. There were also three blips—not as big as the December twenty-ninth one, but still big—on the last days of September, October and November.”

“What are you saying, Luis, that these were proceeds from peddling dope?”

“Negative. What I’m saying is that these blips match cash withdrawals from Mr. William Denning Richardson’s money-market account at the Mercantile. I’ve seen that account, too, and it shows withdrawals of nine thousand dollars each on September thirtieth, October thirty-first and November thirtieth. And—and—three withdrawals of nine thousand dollars each on December twenty-third, twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth. You realize the significance of the amounts.”

“You mean that each one was under ten thousand dollars?”

“Right. All three were under the cutoff below which the bank doesn’t have to make a report of a cash withdrawal to the Feds. It looks like Mr. Richardson was being a good, careful lawyer, trying to avoid calling attention to his transactions.”

“Are you telling me he was being blackmailed by Genakis?” Frost asked.

“It’s an interesting coincidence, don’t you think? Take the sequence. Richardson makes a move on Merriman. Genakis finds out about it, and he—or he and Merriman—put the squeeze on Richardson. They work out a scheme for easy monthly payments. Then Genakis gets into money trouble and gets greedy, tripling the ante. Probably at a meeting the night of your office Christmas party, when your nosy friend saw Merriman and Richardson going up to her apartment. Then …”

“Yes, then?” Frost said. “What comes next?”

“One of two things. Richardson decides to cut off the blackmail by killing the witness—Merriman. Or Merriman comes to her senses, sees her boyfriend getting crazier, and threatens to pull the chain on the whole operation.”

“Whereupon Genakis kills her?”

“Precisely.”

“But we know that Genakis was at the restaurant when Merriman was killed.”

“Do we? We’ve now talked to a couple of the customers that were there that night and they support his story, that he was around all evening, but I still think he could have slipped over here and done it. Remember, you were told he knew his way around this office.”

“But how would he get in here, unrecognized?” Frost pressed.

“Maybe he borrowed her ID card.”

“That doesn’t make sense. She came back in here at seven forty-five and used the card. How could he have used it an hour or so later?”

“Okay, okay. We’ve still got work to do, I’ll admit that.”

“What he could have done is used her ID card at six-fifteen, as we agreed the other night,” Reuben said. “And on your theory that he was blackmailing Richardson, Genakis might have gone to Fort Bliss to see him. But we’re pretty sure Richardson left the office around five-thirty, and there’s no record on the computer of his returning. So he didn’t come back to meet Genakis—or to kill Juliana Merriman.”

“That’s the way it looks,” Bautista said. “Obviously we’ve got work to do on that as well. But don’t you think Genakis and your partner look like good prospects?”

“Except for the little matter of proving it. And let’s not forget about Harvey Rawson. Did I tell you this? Ms. Teabury calling him a rutting pig,” Frost said, imitating Teabury’s British accent.

“Yes, we’re going to keep an eye on the pig, too,” Bautista said.

“You boys certainly have been busy,” Frost said, with a sigh. “It’s amazing—not to say appalling—what you can dig up on people.”

The three men fell silent as they pondered the next step.

“I think I’m going to have a talk with Genakis,” Petito finally said. “Just a friendly visit to discuss his finances. Maybe tell him he should get in touch with those S&L’s Rawson uses.”

CHAPTER

22

A Shocker

Dave Petito was back in Frost’s office by four o’clock Wednesday afternoon. Genakis had agreed to see him, in the upstairs retreat at Marshall’s, as soon as his lunch customers had been seated.

Describing his encounter to Frost and Bautista, who had returned to hear the officer’s report, Petito said he had asked Genakis if he wanted to change anything he had told the police earlier. The answer had been no.

“The guy was really wired.”

“Not just nervous about another visit from the cops?” Bautista asked.

“I said wired. Bad shape. His emotions up and down like a roller coaster. I started asking him about the restaurant’s bank account. He hit the ceiling when he realized I knew about the activity in it.”

“I don’t know as you have to be a drug addict to get angry at that,” Frost commented.

“When he calmed down, I took him through the three bumps in the account last fall,” Petito went on, ignoring Reuben’s comment. “His only explanation was that some nights were better than others. Then I hit him with the big bump on the twenty-ninth. Another explosion, after which he said it was a loan. From a friend in California.”

“Any name?” Frost asked.

“He said it was private. He wouldn’t tell me. He dared me to arrest him and said flat-out that the loan had nothing to do with Merriman. He also said he’d sue if we didn’t leave his staff and customers alone.”

“What did you say?”

“I told him we’d be happy to see him in court.”

“Dave, did you ask him if the person who loaned him the money was Alan Lovett?” Bautista asked.

“No. There didn’t seem to be any point. He wasn’t rational. I didn’t bring up the tuna fish sandwich or Merriman’s insurance policy, either.”

“What about our other guy, Richardson?” Bautista inquired. “What do we do about him?”

“He’s in France, skiing,” Frost said. “He’s due back on Sunday.”

“Should we pull him back?” Petito asked.

“I don’t think you’ve got enough to do that,” Bautista said. “Besides, you’d be lucky to get the French red tape unraveled by Sunday.”

“That’s true,” Petito said, glumly.

“You’ll just have to wait and have a welcoming party when he returns,” Bautista said.

“Suits me,” Petito said. “I’ve caught three new homicides and can use the time.”

“What about me?” Bautista asked. “Back to my thriving law practice?”

“Gentlemen,” Frost said, “years ago our senior partner, Charles Chase, gave some good advice to an ambitious young turk in the office. He said that if you’ve finished your work, and don’t have anything to do, play hooky and go to the movies. Maybe that’s what we all should do—except for the checking I assume you’re going to continue on Genakis’ alibi.”

Petito and Bautista laughed.

“I’d add only one thing,” Frost went on. “Chase also said there’s no surer way to make certain you get hit with more work than playing hooky. Let’s try it.”

Frost glanced at his watch as his guests departed. It was five forty-five. Two forty-five in California. He called Alan Lovett and reached him as he was returning from lunch.

He asked at once about developments before Frost could pursue his questioning.

“Not much that I can report, I’m afraid. Lots of bytes—your kind of bytes, with a y—but nothing’s fallen into place. I do know the police are taking a hard look at Marshall Genakis. Which brings me to my question to you. Did you ever make a loan to him?”

“Sure, when he first got started. I put up a hundred fifty thousand. It was a little tricky. Genakis’ lawyer told me that if I made a loan directly to the restaurant corporation, I’d have to go through a lot of sweat with the liquor license people. So I lent the money to Julie and she put it in the business. How she explained the source of her funds, I don’t know—maybe she said it was her savings out of those fat salaries you pay—but Genakis’ lawyer handled the whole thing. I know Julie wasn’t too happy about it, but Genakis has always been a persuasive guy, especially where Julie was concerned.”

“Did you make a loan more recently?” Frost asked. “Like last month?”

Lovett hesitated before answering “No.” Then he paused again and added, “But not because he didn’t ask me.”

“When was that?”

“In the middle of the On-Line deal, when I had dinner with him and Julie. She’d gone back to the office after dinner and then he sprung it on me. Said he had a cash crunch and needed thirty grand.”

“And you refused?”

“Right.”

“Can I ask why?”

“Off the record, I’ll tell you. I didn’t give him the money because I figured it would go straight to his dealer. His coke habit was getting worse and costing him more. I could afford what I’d put into the damn restaurant, and I’d already chalked that up to friendship. For Julie, as much as anything. But there was no point in being a chump and sending good money after bad.

“Ted was very angry—so angry I haven’t talked to him since. One more nice thing that happened to me in New York. Not to mention my recent all-expense paid trip to Tokyo—all expenses paid by me.”

“I was glad to hear you worked out your problem with the Japanese. Did you ever meet the mysterious Mr. Wesray, by the way? How did he explain what had gone on?”

“We never saw him. They told us he was still in Singapore, which was very convenient—for them. Maybe he’ll stay there permanently.”

“I’m glad it’s over, for all concerned,” Frost said.

“We’re stuck with a set of covenants that would strangle a horse, but we’re going to grow Applications so much that it won’t matter. Other than the covenants, all it took was money—mostly the Wylies’ money. If I were them, I’d sue the hell out of Rawson and Schoonmaker.”

“Schoonmaker will make it up to them somehow.”

“Tell your man Richardson to send me a bill.”

“I will. I’m sure it won’t take much urging.”

Frost had a long, leisurely lunch at the Gotham Club Thursday noon. Following his own advice, he had taken the day off and was now listening to Austin Hulbert, at the common table, holding forth about a meeting at the White House at which one of the participants had been nipped by Millie, the Presidential dog.

“You didn’t read a word about it in the papers,” Hulbert, a prominent music impresario, said. “You’d think after Watergate those Washington reporters would stop protecting them—but I saw it happen.”

“Was she rabid, Austin?” a companion asked.

“No, no. The only rabid creature present was Senator Helms.”

While the others savored Hulbert’s story, Jasper Darmes, the doorman, appeared and whispered to Reuben that he had an urgent telephone call. Frost left the table and took it in a booth off the dining room.

It was Bautista. A very excited Bautista. “We’ve got a new one, Reuben. They found Genakis stabbed to death about an hour ago.”

“Where?”

“Outside his restaurant. Looks like he was stabbed with a goddam hunting knife.”

“Was it a robbery?”

“Don’t think so.”

“Where are you now?”

“At the restaurant.”

“Don’t go away. I’ll be right there.”

Frost did not return to the lunch table, but instructed Darmes to let his waiter know so he wouldn’t be back. “And tell the old croaks I had to leave on some urgent business. Otherwise they’ll have it all over town that I had a heart attack and had to be carried out.”

Marshall’s was only blocks from the Gotham Club. Frost thought of taking a cab, but decided it would be faster to walk. He was glad of his decision when he got to the block in while Marshall’s was located, where a convoy of police vehicles had stalled all other traffic. The area around the restaurant was cordoned off, but luckily he spotted Bautista, who had gotten into the restricted section.

From where he stood behind the NYPD “crime scene” yellow tapes, Frost could see one end of a body, covered with a blanket, protruding from the alleyway next to the restaurant.

Bautista came over and ducked under the tapes. “Let’s get out of here, unless there’s more you want to see. If so, I’ll try to arrange it.”

“I wouldn’t know what to look for,” Frost said. “Let’s go to my office.”

They walked west toward Clinton Plaza.

“You say this happened about eleven-thirty?” Frost asked.

“That’s right. Genakis usually came in around then to get ready for the lunch crowd. Somebody must have waylaid him, got him into the alley next to the place and gutted the poor bastard.”

“One of the denizens of the Fort Bliss neighborhood?”

“Could be, I suppose. Or maybe a dope dealer he tried to stiff.”

Frost walked in silence almost until they reached Chase & Ward’s building, then, suddenly turning to Bautista, asked, “Or is it possible this is Bill Richardson’s doing?”

“Richardson? He’s in France.”

“I hope so, my friend, I hope so. Let’s get the hell upstairs and make sure of that.”

Once inside, Frost dialed Richardson’s secretary.

“Ms. Weems, where is Mr. Richardson?”

“He’s on vacation this week, Mr. Frost. Skiing in France.”

“I know that. How do I reach him?”

“I have the number right here,” Ms. Weems said, reading it off. “He gave me strict orders that he didn’t want any client calls, but that doesn’t include you.”

“No, this is all in the family, Ms. Weems.”

“Family. That’s what the man who wanted his number yesterday said.”

“Oh? Who was that?”

“Someone named Marshall. He said there was an emergency he had to talk to Mr. Richardson about. A family matter.”

Frost tensed and scowled, as Bautista looked on. “Did you give him the number?”

“He was so agitated, I didn’t know what to do. But yes, I finally did. I hope I did the right thing.”

“Yes, I’m sure you did. What time was this?”

“Let’s see. The middle of the afternoon. I’d say around three o’clock.”

“Thank you, Ms. Weems.”

“What’s that all about?” Bautista asked, when Reuben had hung up the phone.

“Someone named Marshall called Richardson’s secretary to get his number in France about three o’clock yesterday.”

“Holy hell.”

“I couldn’t make an overseas call on this damn phone if my life depended on it,” Frost said. “Let me get the operator.”

He gave the operator the instructions and then, while they waited, asked Bautista if he had “a friend at Air France.”

“I don’t get you.”

“Do you know someone at Air France?” Frost repeated, sternly.

“Yeah, I think I do. But what’s that got—”

The phone rang. It was the operator, announcing that she had Mrs. Richardson on the line. Holding the phone, Frost bent forward and scratched his head. When he sat upright again, his face was cheerful; all evidence of the impatience he had just shown with Bautista was gone. He searched for and turned on the speaker, reasonably certain that it could not be detected on the transatlantic connection.

“Nina, how are you?” he asked, in his friendliest, most expansive voice. “Is Bill there? I’m dreadfully sorry to interrupt your holiday, but I really must talk to him.”

“Oh, Reuben, I’m afraid not. He’s gone off to Paris today. To see a client. I’m so angry, I can’t tell you. We’d been having a lovely vacation, when Bill got this call last night absolutely demanding that he come to Paris first thing this morning. The call came just as we were sitting down to dinner, and poor Bill spent the rest of the night trying to figure out how to get to Paris. He had to drive to Geneva at dawn to get a flight.”

“You did say Paris?”

“Yes. He had to meet this person, or people, at the Crillon at eleven. He was furious, too, I can assure you.”

“Who was he meeting?”

“He didn’t say, Reuben. Bill has a rule that he never talks over his clients’ business with me.” Frost was grateful for Richardson’s self-imposed rule, one he did not apply to Cynthia; it meant he did not have to give a specific business reason for his intrusion on their vacation.

“When did he say he’d be back?”

“He was going to try and stay at the Crillon tonight and said with any luck he’d be back tomorrow morning.”

“Nina, I’m very sorry. How’s the skiing been?” Reuben felt slightly caddish, disguising the grave purpose of his call, but felt there was no point in alarming the woman unduly—or at least prematurely.

“The weather’s been wonderful. We’ve been out every single day. And Bill hasn’t broken anything, at least yet. So he won’t be hobbling around the office all spring.”

“I’m delighted to hear it.”

“Shall I tell him you called?” Nina Richardson asked.

“No, I’ll try to do my business elsewhere and not interrupt your vacation any more. If I need him, I’ll call back.”

Hanging up on Nina Richardson, Frost immediately, without even a word to Bautista, asked the office operator to connect him to the Crillon in Paris. Within minutes he had learned from the hotel’s reception desk that no guest named Richardson was registered or expected.

“There. Now,” Frost said to Bautista, pointing to the other phone in the room, “get your friend at Air France. Find out what time the Concorde arrived this morning. Unless my feeble old memory fails me, it leaves Paris at eleven and arrives at Kennedy around nine. The miracle of supersonic flight. And see if there was a William Denning Richardson aboard. William Denning Richardson, William D. Richardson, W. Richardson, D. Richardson, Bill Richardson—check them all. Let’s not have one of your Willie Sutton situations. And—and—see if he’s booked on the overnight flight to Paris tonight. That’s the flight Cynthia and I always take. It has left at seven ever since the Wright brothers, and I expect it still does.

“Also,” Frost raced on, “I suppose, just for fun, you should see if he was booked on this afternoon’s Concorde. It would have left sometime after lunch. Probably too early for Richardson to have finished his business in time to catch it.”

“I see where you’re coming from, Reuben, but wouldn’t he have used an assumed name?”

“Luis, we don’t have time for questions now. We’ve just got to get busy. If he’s booked on that flight tonight he’s right here in New York and we can head him off at JFK.”

Within twenty minutes, Bautista had the information. “It’s a lucky thing Air France employs so many Hispanics,” he said. “There was a W. Richardson aboard the Concorde that arrived at eight forty-five this morning. And a W. Richardson is booked on their flight zero-seven-zero to Paris tonight. First class and with a connection to Geneva that will get him there a little after noon tomorrow.”

“Okay, here’s my plan. We’ll go to the airport and have a chat with Richardson. Air France has pretty compact quarters out there, but there’s always a chance he might slip through on us. Can you arrange to have their security people watch for him?”

“I’ll try. I’d better clue Petito in, too.”

“I suppose,” Frost said. “You might have Petito’s boys start checking the knife stores around Manhattan, beginning with the area around here, where my impression is that every store that’s not selling dirty books sells knives. Use the phone next door and we won’t get in each other’s way. Oh, and one other thing, have your friends check Genakis’ telephone calls yesterday. And the ones on his private number at the restaurant.”

“I don’t know what that number is.”

“Well, I do,” Frost replied, his face lighting up with a small, pleased smile. “I wrote it down here in my notebook when we paid him our visit the other night.”

“You’ll make a detective yet, Reuben.”

Frost had maneuvered Bautista out of the room because he wanted the privacy to explore an idea inspired by his conversation with Nina Richardson. It was something he should have thought of days ago, he realized, as he called Joe Conklin, the security director, and asked a question. He was saddened that the answer he received almost certainly meant the end of his fading hope that Bill Richardson might somehow be exonerated. Still he was exhilarated at the prospect of solving the murders of Juliana Merriman and Marshall Genakis.

CHAPTER

23

End of The Road

Luis Bautista knew Frost well enough to recognize that he was deep in thought as they rode in a taxi to Kennedy Airport and would not appreciate being interrupted. It was only when they passed the World’s Fair site in the middle of Queens that Frost spoke, giving Bautista a chance to ask how Reuben had known that Richardson would be traveling under his own name.

“What choice did he have, Luis? He was stuck with his own passport and his own credit cards. Not much time, or much opportunity, to invent a false identity. Besides, if he kept out of sight, his only risk was being seen on the Concorde. I concede that’s a real possibility, since the only people other than rock stars who use it seem to be lawyers. But a desperate situation requires desperate measures.”

“You haven’t said so, but I assume you think Richardson killed Merriman, too.”

“Yes.”

“I’ve got a problem with that. I know the guy’s alibi is kind of fuzzy for December twenty-ninth, but we’re pretty sure he left your firm before Merriman was killed.”

“That’s one of the things I want to ask him about,” Frost said, noncommittally.

The prospect of a confrontation with Richardson brought the conversation down to logistics. Frost outlined a plan, which he soon repeated to the director of Air France security at the airport and two puzzled detectives from the Port Authority police who had been pressed into service by Dave Petito.

“Subject to you gentlemen agreeing, here’s what I have in mind,” Frost said. “I know there’s a private room off the first-class lounge upstairs. I propose to wait there, if it’s free.”

“We’ll make sure of that,” the security officer said.

“When Richardson checks in, he’ll undoubtedly go up to the lounge,” Frost went on. “I want Mr. Bautista here to follow him, and then steer him to where I am.”

“I’ve never met him,” Bautista said.

“I know that. But can’t you, Mr., ah …”

“Sullivan,” the security officer prompted.

“Mr. Sullivan. Can’t you stand behind the check-in clerks—they’re only two for first class I believe—and give Bautista the high sign?”

“Sure.”

“Once I’m with Richardson, I want you, Luis, to wait outside. Just in case he still has his knife. Now, gentlemen,” he said, turning to the two detectives, “I don’t know how much Officer Petito has told you about all this.”

“Not much.”

“The man we’re after, William Richardson, is suspected of murder. Rather than arrest him and have him take the Fifth Amendment, I’m going to talk to him. I’ve known him for many years and he may come clean with me. If he does, I’ll give you some sort of signal—you tell me what—and you can arrest him. But I may come up dry, as Mr. Bautista here likes to say. If that happens, no signal, no arrest. Is that satisfactory?”

“Detective Petito said we should be guided by you fellows.”

“Good. So how do I signal you? Or not signal you?”

“How about your pocket handkerchief?” one of the detectives said. “If you come out of that room fingering your handkerchief we’ll make the collar. Otherwise we let him walk.”

“That’s perfect,” Reuben said.

Perfect, but damned unpleasant, Frost thought, as he waited upstairs in the separate room off the first-class lounge. Wasn’t he being devious, looking to trap his former partner? No, he argued with his conscience, he was giving Bill Richardson a last chance to clear himself, to show that they had gone down the wrong road—that he and Bautista and Petito should have been pursuing Harvey Rawson or another person whose identity they had not guessed. If only it were Rawson it would make life easier, Frost thought, sadly.

Shortly after six, Bill Richardson, without luggage but with a copy of Forbes under his arm, stepped up to the first-class counter. Sullivan nodded to Bautista, standing several feet away.

Richardson was checked in, handed a boarding pass and two drink chits, and directed to the elevator behind him, which would take him up the two flights to the first-class lounge. Bautista unobtrusively joined him in the elevator and then followed him as he showed his boarding pass to the attendant and headed for the bar. He ordered a double scotch on the rocks, and when he turned, drink in hand, Bautista approached him.

“Mr. Richardson?”

“Yes,” he replied. He was startled at being recognized, but Bautista, avoiding any hint of the mannerisms acquired in his years on the police force, did not act threatening. He could have been an airline service representative, which was exactly the impression he was trying to convey.

“There’s someone here to see you, sir. Could you come with me?” Bautista said, pointing toward the doorway at the side of the room. “This way,” he directed, gently guiding Richardson’s elbow.

“What’s this all about?” Richardson asked.

“Just come this way, sir, there’s someone to see you.” Still with his hand laid gently on Richardson’s elbow, he opened the sliding door and managed to slip behind the lawyer so that he could not bolt once he had seen Frost.

Richardson started when he saw his old colleague, now on his feet, by a brown sofa along one wall.

“Hello, Bill.”

“What the hell’s going on here?” he asked, looking first at Reuben and then back at Bautista.

“Come sit down,” Frost said, pointing at a chair at a right angle to the sofa. Outwardly he appeared so calm that he could have been welcoming Richardson to his office or his town house.

Richardson hesitated, apparently realizing that he had met his physical match in Bautista; the rough stuff learned years before as a Green Beret wouldn’t help him. There was little point in attempting to leave.

“Reuben, I don’t understand this. I’ve got a plane to catch,” he said, as Bautista left and slid the door shut.

“I’m sorry to surprise you this way. But some questions have come up that need answers very urgently.”

“I suppose this is about Juliana Merriman.”

“That’s right.”

“I’ve told you everything I know.”

“Bill, we’ve known each other for a quarter of a century or thereabouts, so I’m not going to beat around the bush. You are in very serious trouble. You’re about to be arrested for the murders of Merriman and Marshall Genakis.”

“Reuben, I’ve never heard such rot in my life. If this is your idea, they’ll have you in a nursing home—for the senile—when this is over.”

“Bill, let me say something. Please bear with me and don’t interrupt. You know, when trouble comes in people’s lives—and I don’t exclude myself from this—there’s often a temptation to do something that may not be quite straightforward. You’ve seen it. I’ve seen it. A simple piece of paper that’s terribly damaging to a client, for example. Or maybe to one’s performance as a lawyer. There’s a great urge to destroy that piece of paper, even though it would be unethical and probably illegal. So why don’t we destroy it? Conscience perhaps, or a sense of professional ethics. Or maybe just the practical realization that one will be found out. A xerox of the incriminating document will show up somewhere else. Or someone will testify that it existed. But every so often one of our brethren gets into trouble, because he has mistakenly thought that he won’t be discovered, that he has been so clever no one will catch up with him, that he’s somehow outside the rules that govern others. Then it turns out he’s wrong, and disgrace—or worse—follows. Do you understand me?”

“That’s an interesting sermon, Reuben, but I really don’t have time for character guidance. They’re calling my flight …” The announcement was indeed being made and could be heard through the wall.

“Let’s turn from the sermon to real life,” Frost said, in the same calm and even voice he had been using since Richardson first entered the room. “Can I review the events of the last few months? Not to refresh your recollection—I’m sure there’s no need for that—but to let you know you’re not operating in the dark anymore. Almost a year ago, you and Juliana Merriman were constantly thrown together, working on the Triumph recapitalization, traveling together to Texas. You became infatuated with Merriman, a smart, sexy young woman who led you on by accident or design—I don’t know which. You tried to seduce her in Dallas, I believe without success. Your luck and timing were very bad. Merriman was a first-rate associate and everyone knew it, so there wasn’t any way you could make up an excuse to get her fired, or even transferred to another partner. And you didn’t know that she was living with an unstable cocaine addict who badly needed money to support his habit and prop up his failing restaurant. But you found out pretty fast, and learned that he was quite capable of good, old-fashioned blackmail.

“Many men in your position would have brazened things out, oblivious to what others might say, but you couldn’t bring yourself to do that. The notoriety would have been too unpleasant—you know as well as I do the gossip that still goes on at Chase & Ward about Dick Langdon’s peccadilloes, twenty years ago. You couldn’t face that, or the disgust and anger of Nina and your children. So when Genakis made his threat, saying that Merriman would bring a harassment suit against you if you didn’t pay up, you gave in and paid him nine thousand dollars last September. In cash, drawn out of your money-market account. Then another nine thousand dollars in October, and again in November. There was nothing you could do except pay or dare them to expose you. The night of the office Christmas party, you met with Merriman and Genakis at their apartment. Did you threaten them? That I don’t know. Did they threaten you? I don’t know that, either. But at some point, my guess is after Genakis’ quarrel with his old California backer, Alan Lovett, on December eighteenth, when he turned him down for a loan, Genakis raised the stakes.

“The night Merriman was killed, you left the office and made certain you were seen leaving. You took your car out of the garage and again made sure you were recognized. Then you parked the car and returned to the office, avoiding being recorded on the computer by using the handicapped elevator that’s partly hidden at the back of the lobby at Clinton Plaza. You had been issued a key for the elevator when you had your skiing accident last winter and had never returned it. Joe Conklin confirmed that a few hours ago. You met Genakis in your office—he had used Merriman’s ID card to get through the electronic security—and paid him twenty-seven thousand dollars in cash. My guess is you thought that would be the end of it—or so you had told Merriman that afternoon—but Genakis must have said something, or acted so strangely, that you realized he would never be satisfied. The only solution was to silence Merriman, to murder your ultimate accuser. So you waited around and killed her—you knew she would be back in the office and staying late—and then escaped, unseen once again on the handicapped elevator.

“Then, yesterday afternoon, Genakis called you in Chamonix. He was in a state, panicked at being squeezed by the police. He was out of control and there was no telling what he might say to them. So you flew here on the Concorde this morning and silenced him, too.”

Richardson sat bolt upright as Frost spun out his tale, staring straight at his accuser.

“Is that all, Reuben? You don’t want to know how I got rid of the necktie and the knife?” he asked sarcastically.

“Knife? I don’t believe I mentioned a knife.”

Richardson put his head in his hands and, when he raised his head again, he was crying.

“What will Nina think?” he asked.

“I don’t know, Bill.”

“I suppose they arrest me now?”

“That’s the plan.”

“No chance of delaying that until I can talk to Nina—and the kids? Can’t you give me twenty-four hours? Twelve hours?”

Frost did not know how to answer. He realized the situation was in his control, that no arrest would be made unless he signaled with his handkerchief. He knew now that there was no question of Richardson’s guilt. Could he dare risk giving him a reprieve?

“I promise you I’ll surrender by noon tomorrow. You just tell me where. That’ll give me a chance to get a lawyer and talk to the family,” Richardson pleaded.

“You’re asking an awful lot, Bill.”

“I give you my word.”

Frost calculated the odds. What was the likelihood Richardson would try to disappear?

“Don’t our years as partners mean anything, Reuben? Aren’t they worth something?”

“Give me your passport and your credit cards. And your word that the police can pick you up at your apartment at noon tomorrow,” Frost said, finally.

Richardson did not fight Frost’s demands and handed over his passport and wallet, after extracting several bills. “The credit cards are in there.”

Frost checked and found American Express and Visa cards.

“I’ll have Bautista take you home. I’d be uneasy leaving you here at the airport, passport or no passport.”

“Reuben, my life is ruined. But you’re a gentleman, and I’m grateful to you for letting me have time to sort things out.”

There was a knock on the door. It was the lounge attendant, pleading “Please, messieurs, you will miss the flight.”

“I’m not going,” Richardson said.

“Then may I have your boarding pass? We have stand-bys tonight.”

As Frost and Richardson left the confining room where their face-off had occurred, Frost resolutely kept his hands at his side; there was no signal to the plainclothes detectives, trying to look inconspicuous on the other side of the now deserted departure lounge.

Frost quietly instructed Bautista to take Richardson home and then to come over to his house.

“You’re not coming with us?” Bautista asked.

“I’ll go back by myself.”

“What happened?”

“I’ll tell you when we’re alone.”

“How did he explain himself?”

“I’ll tell you later.”

CHAPTER

24

A Sad Ending

“Reuben, you’re an idiot,” an angry Luis Bautista said later Thursday evening, after Frost revealed the bargain he had struck with Bill Richardson. “If he gives the police the slip, they’ll have you up for obstruction of justice. And what the hell do we tell Dave Petito?”

Frost was exhausted; his encounter with his former partner had not been easy and he had missed his nap that afternoon. And he was dismayed at Bautista’s anger.

“It’s done, Luis. I probably am an idiot, but please give me credit for being human,” he said sharply.

“It can be undone, and ought to be. They should go in for him right now.”

“He gave me his word,” Frost protested, weakly.

“His word! The guy’s a double murderer and you take his word? I’ll tell you one thing, I don’t want to be disbarred for being your accomplice. I’m going to call Petito.”

“Please don’t, Luis. I’ll take full responsibility. Wait till tomorrow morning. Do that for me.”

“Reuben, we’ve worked together for a long time and I’ve never seen you do anything as brainless as this.”

“Thanks for the compliment. But please remember this is the first time I’ve had one of my old law partners accused of murder.”

“Petito’s going to be on the phone when he hears from those Port Authority guys.”

“We’ll have to take our chances on that,” Frost said.

Tired as he was, Frost finally cajoled a reluctant and fearful Bautista into going along with his arrangement. When Bautista left Frost’s house, it was agreed that he would brief Petito the very first thing in the morning and arrange the noon arrest at Richardson’s apartment.

Reuben’s plan almost collapsed near midnight when a harried Petito called to find out what had happened. Cynthia answered the phone and told the detective, on her husband’s whispered advice, that he was sound asleep and could not be disturbed. Petito demanded that Cynthia wake Reuben up, but relented when she insisted that Reuben must sleep. The detective muttered that he would call back in the morning.

There were some advantages to being old, Frost decided.

Petito was furious when Bautista told him what Frost had done. His fury increased exponentially when he and his partner went to the Richardson apartment at noon on Friday and there was no one there. Mr. Richardson had gone out around eight that morning, the doorman explained, and had not returned.

Frost was not used to the abuse he took from Petito, who called him from the lobby of Richardson’s apartment building.

“There has to be some mistake,” Frost said quietly, though the queer feeling in the pit of his stomach told him that his former partner had betrayed him.

The next thirty-odd hours were miserable for Frost. Richardson had disappeared, after last being seen at Chase & Ward’s offices at mid morning on Friday. Bautista, camped out at the Frosts in case there were developments, was unsympathetic, though out of consideration for his old friend he did not once say, “I told you so.”

Cynthia did her best to relieve Reuben’s distress.

“You did what you thought was honorable and decent,” she told him.

“I was a fool! Luis is absolutely right. I took the law in my own hands just the way Bill did.”

“Not quite, dear. After all, you didn’t murder anyone. Besides, they’ll find him. I don’t see Bill Richardson stowing away on a freighter or going underground to wash dishes in a diner.”

Shortly after noon on Friday, when Petito was discovering Richardson’s absence, the police in the Fifth Precinct were called to the Clocktower, a McKim, Mead & White landmark on Leonard Street, in downtown Manhattan, where a man had jumped from a window off the stairway leading to the art gallery at the top.

The suicide bore no papers containing his name and it was Saturday night before the body of William Denning Richardson was identified from his fingerprints, on file with the FBI in Washington from his more heroic days in the military.

Sunday morning, at a hastily called meeting of Charlie Parkes’ “executive committee,” Reuben sadly recounted the events leading up to Richardson’s suicide. Later, separate notes to Nina and each of his three children were found in his desk. And the next morning, Monday, a “confidential” envelope had arrived for Reuben in the inter-office mail. It contained a tape recording and a note from Richardson, explaining that he had indeed met Genakis at his office early in the evening on December 29, hoping to make an incriminating tape on a primitive “voice-activated” recorder he had bought for the purpose.

“As you will see,” Richardson’s note to Reuben said, “Genakis was not rational. I knew then that further dealings with him were hopeless, which set me on the disastrous course that will come to its end in a matter of hours.

“I know that I have come to a point where anything I do will cause pain for those who have sustained me over the years—Nina, the children, my friends, my partners. The way out I am taking is the only one that I can now see clearly. I hope it is the one that will cause the least pain to those who survive.”

Bill Richardson’s suicide received extensive press coverage, but like most such stories, it was a short-lived phenomenon, covered heavily one day, ignored the next. The word was quietly passed at Chase & Ward and among Richardson’s friends and clients that he had been suffering from depression. His death was in no way linked with either Merriman or Genakis.

The few who had known of Richardson’s troubles managed to keep the secret. There were others at Chase & Ward who thought they were being very shrewd in concluding that Marshall Genakis had killed Juliana Merriman. The fact that this did not explain Genakis’ own murder did not bother the office theorists at all.

CHAPTER

25

Epilogue

Cynthia Frost waited for several days after Bill Richardson’s death to ask her husband a question that had been troubling her. Finally, one night, at the end of dinner, she asked him outright if he thought Juliana Merriman had been a party to Marshall Genakis’ blackmail scheme.

“I’ve been brooding about that ever since Bill killed himself,” Reuben answered. “We’ll never know the answer for certain. But I’m awfully afraid it’s yes. I think at the beginning, when she went to see Ramsey Kendall, she didn’t know what to do. She probably hadn’t even told Genakis what had happened. Then she did, and he forced her to draft that harassment complaint, which he used when he approached Bill.

“My guess is that by Christmas time, when she and Genakis met Richardson at their apartment, she was in the thick of it, right up to when she loaned Genakis her magnetic ID card the night she was killed, so that he could have an undetected meeting with Richardson.”

“But why, Reuben? She was a woman with a brilliant future. Why would she jeopardize it for a crazy boyfriend?” Cynthia asked.

“Love does funny things, my dear—it even brought us together, and has kept us going for forty-five years. My own theory is that it all goes back to that scar on her lip. You remember her mother told me that it had troubled her right from childhood—it was a constant reminder of how narrowly she’d escaped having a speech defect, and she was convinced it marred her looks. It didn’t, as I can attest, but it was there; remember how that pig Rawson called her a ‘harelipped bitch.’”

“So there was a scar and she was self-conscious about it—to the point where it made her uncomfortable with men. Marshall Genakis was apparently the first man she thought had accepted her as she was, scar or no scar. At least that’s what I made out of what she told Mary Coward, her secretary.”

“Oh, Reuben, do you really think that scar made such a difference—that she would risk everything because Genakis ignored it?”

“I brought that up with Dr. Lygian at the Club the other day. You remember him, the psychiatrist. He said the answer to your question was a definite yes, that self-consciousness as a child about even such a trivial blemish can affect behavior for life. She was beautiful, but she had this one flaw, and that is what she dwelt on, not her beauty or her brains.”

“That poor, poor woman,” Cynthia said.

Reuben could not shake a depression that lasted all winter. He still went to the Gotham Club nearly every day, but he seemed to read less, to show decreasing interest in the world around him.

Was it just old age? Cynthia did not think so—his health seemed fine—and she eventually confronted him with her worries.

“I’m fine, dear, really I am,” he told her. “But, yes, I am depressed. I’m haunted by knowing that Bill Richardson would still be alive if I hadn’t given in to his tragic request for more time before he was arrested. I could have prevented his suicide.”

“Reuben, you mustn’t blame yourself,” Cynthia insisted. “You did what you thought was the humane thing. There’s no cause to be depressed about that.”

“I know, but I still am.”

“Are you sure there isn’t more to it, my dear? Can I speak frankly?”

“I don’t believe you’ve ever done anything else.”

“Isn’t it just possible that you thought, when you gave Bill those hours of freedom, that he would kill himself? That he would fall on his sword and spare his family and the firm embarrassment and agony?”

Reuben’s eyes opened wide as he took in what his wife was saying. He rubbed his face, and took a long time before answering.

“My dear, I’ve asked myself that question a thousand times, searched my conscience a thousand times. I think the answer is no, but maybe there was something at work at some deeper level that made me do what I did.”

“Reuben, dearest, you mentioned forty-five years. Knowing you for that long, does it help if I say I believe you? That tempting Bill to kill himself would have been absolutely out of character for you?”

Frost took his wife’s hand and did not speak.

“And, Reuben, look at it this way,” Cynthia went on. “Even if you knew you were giving Bill a chance to kill himself, think about what would have happened if he had lived. He would have been tried, in the newspapers as well as the courts, and sent to jail. Would that really have been easier for his family? And wouldn’t his lawyers have dragged Juliana Merriman’s name through the mud as well? His suicide was a terrible thing, but you’ve got to recognize that the alternative would have been worse. Does that help?”

“Yes, my dear, I think it does.”

In April, with Reuben still very low, Cynthia persuaded him to spend a week in Paris. They took the same Air France flight on which Bill Richardson had tried to make his escape. Waiting in the departure lounge at Kennedy was painful for Reuben, but once he’d left it and the plane was in the air, he began to snap out of his depression. The week in Paris, where he and Cynthia both delighted in its springtime beauty, completed the cure.

Turn the page to continue reading from the Reuben Frost Mysteries

CHAPTER

1

Getting There

“It’s like old home week.”

“What did you say, Reuben?” Cynthia Frost asked her husband as they stood in line at Charles de Gaulle Airport, waiting to board the Monday morning Air France flight from Paris to Venice. “You’re muttering and I can’t understand you.”

“I say it’s old home week. All these familiar faces.”

“What familiar faces?”

“Well, that tall brunette up there, for one,” Reuben said, pointing to a woman some eight places ahead in the queue. “Isn’t that Gregg Baxter’s Girl Friday—if I can use such a politically incorrect term?”

“Where? Oh, I see. The one with the florid complexion. Yes, that’s Doris Medford.”

“On her way to the party, I’m sure,” Reuben said, referring to the well-publicized dinner that Gregg Baxter, the designer of the moment in American fashion, was throwing in Venice on Wednesday. “She’s a great admirer of yours, as I recall.”

Reuben knew this from past encounters with Medford in New York, when she always claimed to be a fan of Cynthia’s, going back to the days when his wife had been a leading ballerina with the National Ballet.

“It’s not just me, she’s a fan of NatBallet,” Cynthia said. “She’s the one who persuaded Baxter Fashions to underwrite the Company’s tour last year. A million dollars plus.” The former artistic director of NatBallet, a post she had held for several years after giving up dancing, Cynthia remembered the details of contributions to the Company.

“The tall, fat guy she’s talking to is a lawyer named Cavanaugh,” Reuben said. “I was on the other side of a deal with him way back when. He looks like an Irish sumo wrestler, but he’s really quite genial.”

Cavanaugh and Medford were conversing in the friendly but slightly stiff way acquaintances do when they meet by chance. They both towered over a second man, who appeared to be traveling with Cavanaugh.

“Who’s the dried-up old fellow, do you suppose?” Reuben asked.

“‘Dried-up old fellow,’ indeed,” Cynthia said, after taking a closer look. “That’s Eric Werth.”

“All right, rich dried-up old fellow,” Reuben said, realizing that he was staring at the most successful marketer in the perfume business since Charles of the Ritz. “He looks like he’s on his last legs.” Reuben, a healthy seventy-seven and a happily retired Wall Street lawyer, had no hesitation in commenting on the aging process in others. “I assume he’s going to the Baxter thing, too. Though it does seem a bit odd to bring your lawyer along.”

Cavanaugh’s presence was explained after takeoff. The Frosts found themselves in the same row with him and Werth in the small business-class section of their Airbus A-320, the best seating available on the 100-minute flight. Doris Medford was in the aisle seat a row ahead, diagonally across from Reuben.

She had greeted the Frosts as they passed by. Now Jim Cavanaugh, formidable as he stood in the aisle, reintroduced himself to Reuben, then reached over to shake hands with Cynthia. Eric Werth, already settled, looked up and smiled at the Frosts.

“Vacation?” Cavanaugh asked, as he eased his bulky frame into his narrow seat.

“That’s right,” Reuben said.

“Ever been to Venice?”

Frost smiled. “Every September for the last twenty-two years. It’s our annual escape from Manhattan.”

“This is my first time. Never had any interest in the place. Those canals smell pretty bad, I understand.”

Ah yes, Frost thought. The uninformed Cavanaugh had fixed on one of the two most common misconceptions about Venice, the other of course being the unshakable conviction that the city is irretrievably sinking.

“Maybe in the hottest part of the summer, but not in September,” Reuben assured him.

Doris Medford, who had been listening to the conversation, turned and agreed with Reuben. “I’ve been there for two weeks now,” she said, “and I haven’t had any trouble with the smell.”

“You’re not coming from New York?” Reuben asked her.

“Lord, no. I’ve been holed up at the Hotel Cipriani getting ready for this insane dinner Gregg’s having. Right now I’m returning from a crash trip to Paris to buy—don’t laugh—dried flowers. Gregg decided last Friday that he couldn’t deal with the florists in Venice—any of them—so it had to be dried flowers from Lhuillier in Paris. Good ol’ Doris was packed off to make sure the Frogs worked all weekend to turn out the centerpieces he wanted.”

“Are you going to Venice for Ms. Medford’s ‘insane’ dinner?” Reuben asked Jim Cavanaugh.

“We’ve been invited,” the lawyer replied. “But we’re really hoping to do some business with Baxter and Dan Abbott, his partner.” Then he added, irritably, “It’s a matter we could have wrapped up right on Seventh Avenue, but Abbott insisted we traipse over here.”

“Dan thinks that Gregg will be more relaxed in Venice and more receptive to making a deal,” Medford said. “I hope he’s right.”

“So do we,” Werth interjected.

“Nothing wrong with seeing Venice,” Frost added.

“Maybe,” Cavanaugh said skeptically. “You’ve been there so much, you got any bright ideas about restaurants?”

Given Cavanaugh’s girth, his interest in eating places was not surprising. Reuben reeled off thumbnail descriptions of two favorites and Cynthia added a third, the names of which Cavanaugh carefully wrote down. Medford, still listening, had been to all three and commended the selection.

“Where are you staying?” Eric Werth asked, leaning forward to see across Cavanaugh’s ample stomach.

“The Cipriani,” Frost said.

“Like it?”

“Absolutely! For my money, it’s one of the best hotels you can find anywhere.”

“I disagree with you,” Werth said. He had a deep and authoritative voice, out of proportion to his tiny size. “The Cipriani’s too far away. I feel marooned over there on the Giudecca, away from the action. You’re totally dependent on that boat of theirs to get anywhere. It’s the Gritti Palace for me—a first-class hotel right in the middle of everything.”

Reuben recalled a hundred debates over which hotel was better. “I can’t knock the Gritti, but the Cipriani’s unique,” he said. “It’s a well-run resort, but when you get bored with the resort life—as I do—you just hop on that boat you don’t like and five minutes later you’re in the Piazza San Marco, the greatest urban space in the world.”

“To each his own, Mr. Frost. I’d rather walk to St. Mark’s.” Werth smiled and sat back, all but disappearing behind his lawyer.

Cynthia and Reuben refused the food being doled out. They had decided to wait for lunch at the hotel; two airline meals in a row, dinner and breakfast aboard the overnight flight from New York to Paris, were quite enough.

“I’m surprised there aren’t more passengers heading for the party,” Cynthia said to her husband, once their companions turned to their lunch trays. “This crowd doesn’t look swank enough for Gregg Baxter.”

“He probably chartered a plane. Or the beautiful people came early to spend the weekend.”

“I still can’t figure out how we got invited,” Cynthia said.

“My bet is that Baxter’s people asked the Cipriani who would be staying there Wednesday night. Your friend Ms. Medford probably saw our names and put us on the list. You know, even though we’re not beautiful people—for which we can be thankful—we do wear shoes and don’t smell bad.”

“Unlike the canals,” Cynthia whispered, provoking a laugh from her husband.

“Why do those who’ve never been to Venice always bring up the stinking canals? The garbage at night outside our supermarket in New York smells worse than anything I’ve ever come across over there.” While he was talking, Reuben noticed that Doris Medford had attracted the attention of a stewardess and commandeered a second of the splits of Beaujolais being served with lunch.

“We’ve never met this Dan Abbott they were talking about,” Cynthia said. “I’ve read about him, though—the smart businessman who keeps Baxter Fashions going.”

“Actually I have met him,” Reuben said. “Before he became so famous in the fashion industry, he was a banker. He worked at First Fiduciary until he hooked up with Baxter and got rich. I’m sure I worked with him on a couple of loan transactions where we represented the bank.”

“The long arm of Chase & Ward,” Cynthia commented, taking an affectionate dig at the Wall Street law firm where her husband had been a partner for over forty years, including eight when he was the Executive Partner presiding over its affairs.

“Whoops, we have to buckle up,” Reuben said, as the seat-belt announcement was piped into the cabin in impeccable recorded French, Italian and English.

Cynthia fastened herself in and squeezed Reuben’s hand. “We’re almost there, darling, and I can’t wait. Except for Gregg Baxter’s extravaganza, I’m looking forward to a quiet, restful vacation. It will do us both good.”

“D’accordo, signora.”

The confused hotbox terminal at Marco Polo Airport had been improved since the Frosts had first begun coming to Venice. When a full planeload of tourists arrived, the lines at passport control could still be slow, but at least now there were more than two luggage carts to be fought over.

The Frosts always checked their bags through from New York, which meant there were sometimes anxious moments at Marco Polo when they feared the transfer had not been made in Paris. This time their suitcases were among the first to appear on the baggage carousel. Reuben pulled them off under the alert gaze of Sacco, the drug-detecting German shepherd of the guardia di finanza. On every arrival he half expected the placid canine to turn into a fearsome monster, savagely—and mistakenly—attacking the Frost luggage, but so far it had never happened.

Reuben wheeled his cart toward the exit without incident, stopping only to invite Doris Medford to share a water-taxi. She declined, saying she had to wait for her boxes of dried flowers to come off the plane. He and Cynthia also paused to wish Eric Werth and the less than excited Jim Cavanaugh a good trip.

“We’ll see you Wednesday night for sure,” Reuben told them. “And since Venice is really such a small town, we’ll probably run into you ten times before that.”

Outside the customs area, Gianni, the smiling greeter from the Cipriani, waved to the Frosts, rushed to shake their hands and maneuvered them outside to the motoscafo he had reserved. He told Reuben that the cost of the water-taxi would be charged to his bill at the hotel. Reuben knew from experience that this was more costly than shelling out lire directly, but it meant that he did not have to worry about whether he had enough Italian money left over from the last visit to pay the $75 fare. It also lessened the initial shock of having a dollar price multiplied by 1,200 or so to get a lire equivalent. The absurd result—a 90,000-lire fare for the twenty-minute water-taxi ride, for example—required getting used to all over again.

Reuben and Cynthia sat in the open back of their motoscafo, drinking in the September sunshine as it sped along. They were exhilarated, realizing that again they had confounded the actuarial tables and the health statistics. Venice cheered them up; and, as Reuben had remarked when he turned seventy, “Forget Thomas Mann and Death in Venice. Titian lived and worked here until he was a hundred and three. That’s the place for me.”

Now he observed to Cynthia that “it looks like the gabbiani had a good season,” as he pointed to the plump seagulls comfortably perched atop the wooden channel markers they swept past.

The belching industrial plants of Marghera on the mainland came into view far on the right, followed by the garbage-strewn landfill at the end of the island of Murano on the left. Then the scenery improved vastly as the spires and steeples of the clustered, interconnected islands of Venice proper, the centro storico, appeared in the midday haze: the campanile of the Madonna dell’Orto, then the tallest ones of all in the Piazza San Marco and at the church of the Frari, then the steepled bell tower of San Francesco della Vigna to the east, then six, eight, ten more.

Their motoscafista slowed down as he maneuvered into the Rio di Santa Giustina and across to the Riva degli Schiavoni and postcard Venice: the Doges’ Palace and the Piazzetta di San Marco on the right, Santa Maria della Salute and the Dogana da Mar, the triangle-shaped customs house, on the other side of the Grand Canal, and the island and church of San Giorgio straight ahead.

Reuben observed his own personal Venetian talisman, the statue of Fortune atop the Dogana, turning in the breeze, as they again picked up speed in open water and crossed to the front landing stage of the Cipriani on the Giudecca.

Virgilio, the crew-cut, bass-voiced doorman (if that is what one calls the attendant at an open entrance on the water), showered the Frosts with words of welcome as he helped them from the water-taxi.

Alfredo Cavallaro, the black-suited reception manager, added his greetings once the Frosts were inside the lobby. He apologized for the absence of Dr. Rusconi, the managing director, away at a sister hotel in Portofino.

“I’m sorry we can’t give you the room you had last year, 301,” Cavallaro explained. “But we have 201 saved for you.”

“My letter said we wanted 201 or 301,” Reuben said. “Either is fine with us.” Many years earlier, a friend, Neal Protest, had given Frost a tip that the end rooms on the second and third floors—201 and 301—were slightly longer than the hotel’s standard double.

A young woman assistant manager showed the Frosts upstairs. Reuben inquired whether the hotel was full.

“Completely,” she replied.

“People here for Gregg Baxter’s party?” Cynthia asked.

“Yes. We’re fully booked to Thursday with the party guests, and il signor Baxter and his colleagues as well. Then we have for three days some American bankers. Plus very many of our old and good friends, such as you, signora, and you, signore.”

Room 201 was exactly as the Frosts remembered it: light and comfortable, with twin beds and two windows looking out on the Venetian lagoon. They changed their clothes as soon as their bags were brought up and went downstairs for lunch.

“I don’t know about you,” Reuben said as they finished, “but it’s now thirteen hours since we left New York—twenty-four hours since I’ve been to bed. It’s pisolino time.”

Despite his intention of taking only a little nap, Reuben slept until six o’clock, when he groggily agreed with Cynthia that they should dine at the hotel. They had an early and quiet dinner, and then retired immediately.

“As my Pakistani dentist says, ‘very excellent,’” Frost remarked as he readied for bed. “It’s wonderful to be back.”

“No argument about that,” Cynthia replied.

CHAPTER

2

Peace and Quiet: Tuesday

Tuesday morning, Reuben ate a light breakfast on the terrace outside the Cipriani dining room, delighted to take in the view of San Giorgio and the Lido.

He and the other September regulars had often joked about spending so much money at the hotel that they really had bought a part of it. If they did not have an actual financial stake in its operation, they had an emotional one. After breakfast Reuben took a stroll about the grounds to make sure unwelcome changes had not been made. He was pleased as always to see the garden in the front, with its absurdly but somehow attractively clashing masses of color: explosions of pink begonias next to flaming red salvia, pink and white petunias at war with orange impatiens.

Reuben had decided to take a swim, so he went through the lobby to the pool at the opposite end of the building. Here again he was satisfied with what he surveyed: a lawn studded with flowering trees and evergreens, surrounding the enormous pool itself; the fading red brick walls of the church of San Giorgio in the distance; the terrace where he and Cynthia had lunch most days; the landing stage on the Canale della Grazia used as the main entrance at night; the balconies and skylights of the luxury suites tucked away behind trees at one end of the pool. Bearing out what he had said to Eric Werth, the place had the look of an elegant, immaculately kept resort. It was a quiet, private enclave.

He tipped the pool boy (actually a longtime retainer whose boyishness was giving way to baldness) for bringing him a towel and setting up a chaise longue in his favorite spot, near a cluster of purple-flowering acacias. It was secluded, yet afforded a clear view for seeing anything of interest that might be going on; Reuben gladly ceded more visible perches to those more concerned with being seen.

After a half-dozen laps in the warm water, he put on the white terry-cloth robe furnished by the hotel and settled down to work on the vacation project he had thought up for himself. He believed firmly that each year he should have a definite agenda of places to visit; otherwise there was the risk that he would spend far too much time lazing where he was right now.

He and Cynthia had agreed years before that they would do their Venetian sightseeing separately. Each had a different pace and much preferred to view art objects in silence. Which was not to say they didn’t exchange reports on—and discuss and argue about—what they had seen. But sightseeing was, by their preference, a private, independent affair.

On Reuben’s part, he loved to walk in the city’s automobile-free byways. Years before he had done the walks described in Giulio Lorenzetti’s exhaustive Venice and Its Lagoon. It had taken three vacations to finish the author’s twelve itineraries, but at completion Reuben felt that he knew Venice well. Then he had done the four walks outlined by J. G. Links. (He was a great admirer of Links, a London furrier who became an amateur expert on Venice and wrote the splendid Venice for Pleasure.) Next he had used two vacations to view (as best he could in the unsatisfactory light) the mosaics in the Basilica di San Marco, spending a large part of the year between the two holidays reading the remarkable commentary by Professor Otto Demus, who had studied them for the better part of his adult life.

During his reading and sightseeing, Frost had become fascinated by the Doges, the ducal rulers of the Venetian Republic from the eighth century until its collapse in 1797. The Doges, 118 of them, had been a quirky lot, with endless foibles and eccentricities.

Frost had started his education with John Julius Norwich’s A History of Venice and then, with ambition exceeding ability, had tackled Andrea Da Mosto’s I Dogi di Venezia, a massive Italian text. This was slow going, given Reuben’s embryonic knowledge of the language, and he finally concluded that he could only make limited use of the Da Mosto.

Part of Reuben’s fascination with the Doges came from his amusing discovery that there were similarities between the Dogeship and the position he had once held as the Executive Partner of Chase & Ward, his old law firm. Each Doge had possessed the trappings of power, starting with the extraordinary Doges’ Palace, just as Chase & Ward’s Executive Partner occupied a breathtaking corner suite overlooking New York harbor. And deference was paid by the colleagues of each. Yet, when all was said and done, both were essentially figureheads. The Doge had been checked and contained by the so-called Council of Ten and the Grand Council of 1,500-plus; Reuben and his successors at the law firm had been kept within bounds by an informal executive committee and ever shifting alliances and coalitions among the partners.

A newly elected Doge had been required to sign a promissione, carefully spelling out what he could and could not do. There was no such formality at Chase & Ward, but there did not have to be. A new Executive Partner and those around him implicitly knew what the boundaries of his power were: to make decisions that had to be made but that no one else really cared about; to build a broad consensus on those issues considered important; to preside at meetings of the partners; and to represent the firm to the outside world when a front man was needed. If the Doge had been a “gilded icon,” as one historian had described him, the Executive Partner was somewhat the same, though without a great deal of gilt and with a following that paid him something less than full respect; he was more anodized than gilded.

Thus predisposed to the Doges, Reuben had decided, as Da Mosto had, to study them through their tombs and monuments. This would goad him to revisit favorites among the city’s churches. It also would provide an excuse for dipping again into John Ruskin’s The Stones of Venice, which contained comments, often enraged ones, on many of the Doges’ monuments. He found the Victorian essayist amusing, more often than not unintentionally so.

Reuben had an old green book bag in which he carried his guidebooks.* He now pulled out Norwich’s history and James Morris’ The World of Venice. While he made notes, the pool area began to fill up. He recognized guests from past years (the September crowd at the Cipriani being a faithful one): the chic Austrian woman and her elderly male companion who arrived and departed separately, convincing Frost that their annual visit was a tryst; a young, outgoing American investment banker, who Frost was sure must be very successful, since the hotel was not exactly priced for the young, and his wife, a painter; a well-known British actor and his wife, she a Labour Member of Parliament; an American woman who owned a restaurant in San Diego, a boring chatterbox; and a peppy, dwarfish man who exercised by walking in quick-step around the pool, furiously smoking an especially obnoxious cigar almost as large as he was. The guests mostly seemed “acquainted with luxury,” as one guide described the hotel’s clientele. Or, as the local Tourist Board would call them, “elite” tourists, which meant simply that they stayed at least overnight, ate in restaurants and went shopping occasionally.

With the Baxter dinner in prospect, some new faces had gathered at poolside: a chummy group that Frost guessed were store buyers from the States; the wife of one New York leveraged-buyout artist and the ex-wife of another, whom Reuben recognized; and (he was almost sure he remembered correctly) an editor of Vogue. All sat around idly, many reading trashy best-sellers; as was often the case, almost no one ventured into the pool.

A couple passed along the walk near where he was sitting and noticed him. It was the Spencers, Colin and Edith, from London. She taught mathematics at the University of London, he English literature at Oxford. (Cynthia called them the “brainy Brits”.) They had been coming to the Cipriani as long as the Frosts for what they termed the “pricey part” of their annual holiday. After several years of nodding and smiling, the Spencers and the Frosts had become acquainted, at least to the extent of trading observations about changes in the hotel and hints about local restaurants. The Spencers shared Reuben and Cynthia’s protective concern about the Cipriani and like them were leery of innovation; horror had struck, for example, the year they had found that the staff’s uniforms had been changed from smart, nautical white to a dismal brown, looking like “something that wretched costume designer at your ballet company might have done” as Reuben had grumped to Cynthia at the time.

“What’s new and different?” he asked the Spencers.

“Nothing, thank God,” Edith Spencer said. “As far as we can see, everything’s much the same. And the place looks wonderful, don’t you think? The gardens seem especially lovely this year.”

“I agree,” Reuben said. “And I see that many of the old-timers are back.”

“But what a lot of new ones,” Colin said. “The place is absolutely full up, I’m told. Some Yank dressmaker is throwing a party tomorrow.”

“The ‘Yank dressmaker’ is Gregg Baxter. Surely you’ve heard of him?” Reuben asked.

“Oh, indeed,” Edith said. “Even in dowdy England we know that name. But is he really all that prominent in the States?”

“He’s a very, very hot designer at the moment. Everyone from Mrs. Bush to Madonna wears his clothes. Cynthia tells me the showings last spring of his fall collection caused a sensation. He did something called the Malevich look, based on the work of the Russian constructivist, if you can believe it. The biggest success since St. Laurent was inspired by Mondrian, twenty-five years ago. He does men’s clothes, too. Hasn’t the ‘gray look’ reached London, Colin? Everything a different shade of gray—coat, trousers, shirt, socks, necktie.”

“Good heavens,” Colin said. “Sounds terribly somber to me. But, Reuben, why is an American giving a bash in Venice? Will you tell me?”

“You should really ask Cynthia, who knows all the details,” Reuben said. “As I understand it, he’s become interested in the work of a fabric designer here, named Cecilia Scamozzi. We know her a little bit, she’s got one of those fancy local titles. La marchesa Scamozzi. Anyway, Baxter’s announced that he’s using her fabrics in his line for next spring, which he’ll be displaying in New York in another month or so. This party is to drum up interest.

“If you care, the Paris Tribune says it’s also a declaration of war on his European competition. Baxter’s apparently determined to break into the market over here and challenge Paris and Milan. This party is the kickoff of a huge publicity campaign. And the Europeans are furious because it steals the thunder from their fall shows.”

“So we’re witnessing the first shots in an international trade war,” Colin said. “Jolly exciting!”

“Are you going to the party?” Edith asked.

“In fact, we are.”

“We’ve heard on the grapevine that Baxter is staying here,” Edith said.

“So I understand. We met his assistant on the plane coming in from Paris.”

“They say he and his friends have taken all the rooms up there on the second floor, looking down over the pool.”

“That’s bad news,” Reuben said.

“Really? Why ever so?” Colin asked.

“Cynthia’s a sometime customer of Baxter’s. If he’s staying up there, he’s going to have to raise his prices to pay the bill.”

Cynthia joined her husband for lunch at their usual table on the terrace next to the pool. Finishing one meal, they intensely discussed the next.

“I’m not quite ready to start the fish diet yet,” Reuben told his wife. “Let’s try Da Arturo tonight.”

“Suits me,” she said.

Reuben made a reservation through the hotel’s other Gianni, the concierge they had known the longest, and then set off on a short excursion to start his quest for Doges’ monuments. He had decided to visit San Francesco della Vigna, which could be reached easily by the number five circolare, the water-bus that stopped near the rear exit of the hotel. The vessel was uncrowded when Reuben boarded. Being (basically) a good citizen, he purchased a ticket. For any lengthy water-bus journey, Reuben did buy a ticket for the two dollars-plus required; going a shorter distance, such as the one-stop trip across to San Giorgio, he did not. It never seemed to matter any more, since the single marinaio on each boat, responsible for checking on fares, almost never did so. Reuben was free to make up his own rules for paying.

At the Celestia stop he disembarked and walked the short distance to the church, its white Palladian front tacked onto a building designed by Jacopo Sansovino, the great sixteenth-century architect and sculptor.

Doge Andrea Gritti (1523–38), whose severe portrait Reuben remembered from the lobby of the Gritti Palace Hotel, had laid the cornerstone. It thus had seemed only fitting that he should be buried there. Reuben found the tomb at the left of the main altar without difficulty, recalling that the unfortunate Gritti had died, at age eighty-four, of eating too many grilled eels on Christmas Eve. Though he was not yet Gritti’s age, Reuben vowed to watch his vacation diet.

The monument carried a Latin inscription that referred to Gritti as a “most loved” leader; entirely appropriate, Reuben thought, for the father of at least five illegitimate children. And, come to think of it, Gritti perhaps resembled Bruce Nevins, a Chase & Ward Executive Partner many years back, who had fathered a bastard (in the days when this was thought to be most dishonorable) and probably died of overindulgence of one sort or another, though not gorging on eels. And he, too, had been “much loved” (or as much loved as any Executive Partner ever is).

Reuben moved down the aisle, seeking the memorial busts of the Contarini, Doge Alvise (1676–84) and his ancestor Doge Francesco (1623–24). He was disappointed. The Contarini family chapel was boarded up, in restauro.

Thwarted, he strolled back to San Marco. Once in the Piazzetta beyond, he ran head-on into Edgar Filbert, a young partner at Chase & Ward, and Noreen, his wife. Reuben was surprised, since he had not known the couple was planning to be in Venice.

There were few people at the firm that Reuben did not like, but Edgar, and Noreen for that matter, were among them. Edgar, in or out of the office, had always seemed chronically incapable of hearing any voice other than his own or, if another’s words did evoke a response, it was almost certain to be condescending. And Reuben found insufferable Noreen’s smugness about her children, their home in Westchester and Edgar’s model behavior as a husband.

Edgar was photographing his wife feeding the pigeons in front of the Marciana Library when Frost saw them. He thought first of fleeing as quickly as he could but Noreen, posing in her tan canvas skirt and a man’s shirt, spied him. She quickly ran over, followed by her husband in his cerise trousers and a polo shirt that was too tight around his expanding middle.

After expressing mutual surprise at their chance meeting, Filbert asked Frost if his trip wasn’t “awfully strenuous.” “I mean, how does someone of your age manage to get around over here?”

Before Reuben could sputter out an answer, Noreen had joined in. “Do you spend most of your time at the hotel?” she asked.

It had never occurred to Reuben that he might be too decrepit to make the annual trip to Venice and he had, by God, been doing it for almost a quarter century. So, trying to conceal his rage, he mumbled quietly that “I do my best to see what I can.” As he glanced toward the two huge columns that stood nearby, it occurred to him that in an earlier day the bodies of executed malefactors were hung from a rope tied between them. He could not resist the thought that such treatment would be appropriate for the Filberts.

Any notion of entertaining them disappeared as they asked their snide questions; the Frosts’ schedule suddenly filled up with real and fancied engagements in case a get-together was proposed. It wasn’t; the Filberts’ conversation was confined to complaints. This was the second of two days in Venice (between Lake Como and Florence) and the results had not been good. It was too crowded. Too expensive. The shopping opportunities were overrated. The local fish wasn’t fresh. And, without their Hertz car, Venice was too confining. Not a word about any site or object of artistic interest.

Reuben expressed the hope that the rest of their trip would be more to their liking and beat a hasty retreat. But not before Noreen had asked if Mrs. Frost was spending the afternoon “resting.”

He hurried off toward the Cipriani’s private dock and caught its motoscafo back to the Giudecca. As he looked out at the beautiful changing light reflected on the facades of the buildings bordering the bacino of San Marco, he reflected with satisfaction that the callow and unseasoned Filberts had been very wrong in their impertinent conclusions. And despite what he had said to them, he fervently hoped that their stay in Florence would be hot, sweaty, crowded and noisy.

That evening, back at the centro storico, the Frosts walked past the church of San Moisè and the Teatro la Fenice, the city’s jewel box of an opera house. As the alleys narrowed, they reached Da Arturo.

They had never been clear why it was called that, since the genial proprietor was named Ernesto Ballarin. It was he who showed them to a booth in the vest-pocket restaurant, which was barely large enough to hold him, a young waiter and the chef.

“Ernesto, do you have spaghetti with Gorgonzola tonight?” Reuben asked. “I’ve been waiting a whole year to have it again.”

“Sì, sì. Spaghetti al Gorgonzola. But let me make another suggestion. The funghi alla Russa.” He described the dish—mushrooms and potatoes in a cream sauce—and Reuben and Cynthia agreed to share one order of spaghetti, one of the mushrooms.

When it arrived, the pasta lived up to Reuben’s memory of it. “Pretty good macaroni and cheese, what?” he said to Cynthia.

“Yes!” she said enthusiastically. But they agreed that the funghi were even better.

At Ernesto’s urging, Reuben and Cynthia each ordered the braciola alla Veneziana, a pork cutlet marinated in vinegar, then breaded and baked. When their orders came, snaked down the narrow aisle by the deft owner, they agreed that he had guided them wisely to the braciola, which had an unusual piquant flavor.

“Have you seen Gregg Baxter?” Reuben asked his wife as they ate. “I expected a big show around the hotel, but there hasn’t been any sign of him.”

“I haven’t seen him, either. He’s probably spending all his time at the Palazzo Labia, getting it fixed up for the banquet.”

They speculated how it would be decorated—apart from the Lhuillier dried flowers that Doris Medford had brought from Paris.

When their plates were clean, Ernesto asked the Frosts if they wanted dessert.

“This is one place where I break my rules,” Reuben said. “I’ll have the tiramisù.”

“Not for me. Just some fragole, strawberries with lemon,” Cynthia said.

“You don’t know what you’re missing,” Reuben told her. “I’m not an expert on many things, but tiramisù is one of them and, as I’ve told you before, it’s best right here. Ernesto’s really is a ‘pick-me-up’ that deserves the name.”

The owner spooned a portion of the quintessential Venetian dessert from a large bowl. His version was a soupy mixture of mocha and mascarpone cheese, different from the more solid varieties found elsewhere. It was outrageously delicious, and Ernesto could not resist smiling and looking satisfied as he watched Reuben eat. A second helping was offered but reluctantly declined.

Outside the restaurant, the narrow, dimly lit calle was deserted, so the Frosts walked along side by side.

“You know, I never can get over it, Cynthia,” Reuben said, as she took his arm. “Being able to walk here at any hour of the day or night, drunk or sober, hearty or lame, and you feel perfectly safe. When you’re used to being nervous at home about going around the corner to the Korean grocery, it’s a marvelous sensation.”

“You think the Venetians are less prone to crime than we are?” Cynthia asked. “I wonder.”

“Maybe the difficulty in escaping from an island city is a deterrent. But then Manhattan’s an island, too.…” Reuben’s voice trailed off.

“God knows there’s been plenty of violence in Venice’s history,” Reuben continued a moment later. “Take the street Da Arturo is on—the Calle degli Assassini. There has to be a violent history that goes with a name like that.”

Once the Frosts reached the Campo San Fantin, they were no longer alone. Other pedestrians bustled about and there were drinkers in the Bar al Teatro. Looking up at the illuminated neoclassical facade of La Fenice, Reuben began quietly singing:

“La donna è mobile,

Qual piuma al vento.…”

“I knew you’d sing that when you got near the Fenice,” Cynthia said. “You always do, especially after a little wine.”

“And why not? It’s one of the greatest arias ever written, and it was first sung right here. You know the story.…”

“On the day of Rigoletto’s premiere, Verdi held back the orchestra parts for La donna è mobile until late in the afternoon.”

“He didn’t want the gondoliers singing his masterpiece even before the first performance,” Reuben said. “You want to hear more?”

“No, dear, and I don’t want to hear Questa o quella, either.”

* See Appendix.

CHAPTER

3

Peace and Quiet: Wednesday

Wednesday morning Frost was deep into planning his sightseeing when Cynthia joined him at the pool. “Where are you off to today?” she asked.

“I haven’t decided yet. Most of the monuments I’m interested in turn out to be in San Zanipolo, but I’m going to save that for last.”

“Oh, look what’s happening here,” Cynthia said, nodding toward the door of the hotel. A procession was coming down the sidewalk. In the lead, by himself, was Gregg Baxter. Barely forty, he was tall, thin and suntanned, with golden hair that had been bleached either by the sun or the contents of a dye bottle. He was wearing small, round steel-rimmed sunglasses, and, as befitted the creator of the “gray look,” light gray shorts and a dark gray polo shirt.

Dan Abbott, his business partner, and Doris Medford followed at a respectful distance. Behind them was a stunning black couple. Reuben did not recognize them, but Cynthia pointed out that the man, Tony Garrison, was Baxter’s up-and-coming design assistant—and lover, according to rumor—and that the woman was Baxter’s favorite model, called simply Tabita.

Running ahead of the parade, which was moving at a stately pace, was a hotel functionary who frantically assembled five chaises at poolside, directly in front of the Frosts’ semi-isolated enclave. Eventually the group reached its destination, but only after Baxter had stopped to embrace and kiss several women, including two wealthy customers from Fort Worth and New York recognizable from the pages of W.

Frost tried to recall the details of a Time cover story on Gregg Baxter that he had read a year earlier. He remembered that it had called Baxter the most gifted American designer since the young Halston and contained a wealth of biographical detail: Baxter had grown up in the Bronx, in New York City, and had attended the Bronx High School of Science before going off to Brown.

While at Brown, he had begun sketching at the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence. After college he had come to New York and signed on with Liz Claiborne, where he worked hard and learned the designing trade. By the end of the seventies, he was ready to try high fashion and go out on his own. He started his successful ascent almost at once, when the chief buyer for Bergdorf Goodman bought several of his creations.

Menswear followed in the mid-eighties, along with a more broadly distributed lower-priced women’s line, which competed with the clothes of his old employer, Liz Claiborne.

The Frosts watched as Baxter, realizing how strong the sun was, sent Garrison back inside for a cap. The assistant was dressed from head to toe in black—a declaration of independence from the gray look?—starting with heavy shoes and moving up to a black felt baseball cap that said PADRES in yellow letters on the front. He came back with a second baseball cap that he handed to Baxter, this one for the New York Mets.

Baxter put on the cap and sent Garrison to find a waiter, who soon hustled over with cups of cappuccino. Then the young man was dispatched again to the hotel, from which he returned with a stack of Italian fashion magazines. Baxter immediately began tearing through them as if looking for a specific item.

He was jittery and nervous, to the point where it made Reuben jumpy simply to watch him. “You say that young black man is the great man’s design assistant?” Reuben asked Cynthia. “I hate to say it, but Stepin Fetchit’s more like it. The kid’s done nothing except run his legs off since they came out here.”

Cynthia did not have a chance to comment. Doris Medford had spotted the Frosts and was coming toward them. Reuben was sure she was around forty, though her swimsuit revealed that she had a well-shaped figure, free of the flab that so often comes with growing older. Her bright red lipstick would normally have made a pleasing contrast with her dark, black hair, but the effect was at least partially spoiled by her flushed, ruddy complexion.

“How’s the flower girl?” Reuben asked. “They let you back in, I see.”

“Oh yes. But I almost had to go back. We were going to be two hundred and fifty at our party. Then we decided to use a second room at the Palazzo Labia, so we can handle three-fifty. But that means another ten centerpieces. Thank God those stupid flowers I brought back could be subdivided without looking scrawny.”

“That’s a lot of people, three hundred-fifty,” Cynthia said.

Medford covered her eyes with her hands. “You have no idea what a mess it is,” she said. “Can you imagine … no, don’t get me started. There are at least five hundred who want to come—all of Paris, Rome and Milan, it seems like. Gregg has intimate friends he didn’t even know about. And now we have a war about who goes in the main room and who in the anteroom. It’s something, that’s all I can say.”

As they chatted, Dan Abbott joined them.

“Do you know Dan Abbott?” Doris Medford asked.

Cynthia said no, and Medford made the introduction. Reuben reminded him that they had met “when you were at First Fiduciary.”

“Jesus, that was a thousand years ago. In my other life. On days like this one I wish I’d never left.”

Abbott was the oldest member of the Baxter entourage. Mid- to late fifties, Frost estimated. He was also the most unprepossessing, with a freckled face and a high-pitched voice. He had been going bald when Reuben first knew him, but now wore an obvious toupee. Observing it, Reuben could not help thinking of that emblem of the Watergate scandal, Howard Hunt’s ill-fitting red wig. Not only was Abbott’s hairpiece ill-fitting and red, it looked to be knitted of yarn, like the hair of a Raggedy Ann doll. It was so bad Reuben felt it must be a fashion statement, or antistatement, by its wearer.

“Is there anything we can do?” Cynthia asked.

“Maybe push a hundred people or so in the Grand Canal,” Abbott said. “There’s going to be a riot over there tonight.”

“Dan, we’d better get back. Gregg’s going to start feeling lonely and neglected,” Medford said.

“Yes,” Abbott said, sighing. “Along with everything else, let’s not have him throwing one of his fits.”

“Good luck to you both,” Cynthia said. “We look forward to the party.”

After Abbott and Medford had returned to their leader, Reuben noticed Medford whispering to Baxter. He looked around and stared at the Frosts, then got up and came over. He took off his sunglasses, which revealed piercing blue eyes. The kind of eyes, Cynthia later told Reuben, that could break a girl’s heart if that had been Baxter’s inclination, which they knew it was not.

“The Frosts, I believe,” he said as he approached and, when invited, sat on the edge of Cynthia’s chaise.

“I’m surprised to see you here by the pool,” Reuben said.

“I came out to relax for half an hour and then it’s back to work,” Baxter replied. This prompted Reuben to reflect that if the frenetic behavior he had been observing was relaxation, he wondered what the designer was like when keyed up.

“Everything’s ready for the party,” Baxter said, “but I expect it’s going to take most of the day to finish the seating list.”

“That sounds like fun,” Cynthia said.

“Not when you may offend your customers—and the prima donnas in the press. It’s damned hard work.”

“Well, it’s the party of the year,” Cynthia said. “I know, because the Tribune said so.”

“Pure hype,” Baxter said, smiling.

“I hope it compares with the party that was held in Venice,” Reuben said.

“When was that?” Baxter asked.

“Middle of the sixteenth century. I’ve just been reading about it. It was a banquet for Henry the Third of France. In the Doges’ Palace for three thousand guests. All the women wore white and there were twelve hundred items on the menu. Plus trick napkins at each place sculpted out of sugar.”

“We’re operating on a more modest scale,” Baxter said, smiling again. “Without any tricks.”

“And of course there’s the modern party that was held right where yours is going to be, at the Palazzo Labia,” Cynthia said.

“Yeah, I’ve heard about that one. Some rich Mexican,” Baxter said.

“Carlos de Beistegui,” Cynthia said. “Charlie, I believe everyone called him. He spent a fortune buying and fixing up the Palazzo Labia and had a costume ball to end them all back in nineteen fifty-one.”

“There are old ladies who still talk about it,” Reuben said. “Though I think it’s a little like the Mayflower and a good many more people say they were there than actually were.”

“We’re not quite up to Charlie’s standards, either,” Baxter said, as he stood up and tipped his Mets cap. “See you later.”

“Oh dear,” Cynthia said, when he had gone. “He seemed to leave in a huff. Did I make a mistake by mentioning the Beistegui party?”

“I don’t think so. He’d heard about it. He said so.”

Cynthia was mollified and again asked her husband whose tomb he was going to visit that day.

“Pasquale Cicogna.”

“Never heard of him.”

“Cigogna commissioned the Rialto Bridge. A wonderful example of bureaucracy at work. He held a competition and got entries from Michelangelo, Sansovino and Palladio, among others. But he picked a hack named Da Ponte—of all things—who had done some work for him on the Doges’ Palace. The result is what we see over the Grand Canal. It reminds me of when Marty Lenmeade hired his shiftless, no-talent brother-in-law to redo the Chase & Ward offices.”

“Where is Cicogna’s monument?”

“In the Gesuiti. Why don’t we have a late lunch at Harry’s Dolci and I can sneak over there when the church reopens this afternoon?”

“Fine. I’d just as soon get out of here. With the party, there’s bound to be lots of Euro-trash here at lunch.”

It was exceptionally clear, with no clouds in the azure sky, and thus a perfect day to eat outside at the Dolci, the modest offshoot of Harry’s Bar down the way on the Giudecca. The Frosts went out the back entrance of the Cipriani and strolled down past the Zitelle church, now wrapped like a mummy while in restauro; past the youth hostel, with a United Nations of young backpackers lunching outside; past the Redentore, Palladio’s finest church.

At Harry’s Dolci, they sat at a table fronting directly on the water. This created a unique immediacy with the heavy traffic in the Giudecca Canal: water-buses, tour boats, car ferries, tankers, barges, a Norwegian cruise ship. The world seemed just about perfect as they watched the passing traffic, drank Bellinis—that nectar of Prosecco, the sparkling white wine of the Veneto, and peach juice—and ate their club sandwiches, here formidable behatted structures that had to be attacked with knife and fork.

After lunch Cynthia walked back to the hotel alone and Reuben took the circolare from the Sant’Eufemia stop next to the Dolci around to the Fondamente Nuove. He paid the fare for the forty-minute trip.

He was happy to be returning to the Baroque church of the Gesuiti, or Santa Maria Assunta, which he regarded as the most idiosyncratic sight in all of Venice, its interior enveloped with green and white marble carving that looked like damask drapes. The sarcophagus of Cigogna (1585–95) framed the door to the sacristy. It was worth the trip, topped as it was by a delightful sculpted likeness of the reclining Cicogna, wearing his ceremonial regalia and corno, the traditional headdress of a Doge. His head rested comfortably for eternity on one elbow. The monument seemed splendidly irreverent and Reuben liked it.

Given the oppressive heat, which showed no signs of letting up, Reuben had planned to take another swim when he returned to the hotel but then decided against it. He didn’t want to be tired for the evening ahead, which he was sure would be long. And hot.

Buy A Very Venetian Murder Now!

About the Author

Haughton Murphy is the pseudonym of former lawyer James H. Duffy, author of the Reuben Frost Mysteries. A graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School, Duffy got his start writing as a part-time and summer reporter for the Daily Times of Watertown, New York, before moving to New York City to practice law. After a number of years as an attorney, Duffy began writing thrillers, eventually retiring to focus on his novels full-time.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1991 by James H. Duffy

Cover design by Greg Mortimer

ISBN: 978-1-5040-2819-6

This edition published in 2016 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

345 Hudson Street

New York, NY 10014

www.openroadmedia.com

THE REUBEN FROST MYSTERIES

FROM MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM

AND OPEN ROAD MEDIA

Available wherever ebooks are sold

MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM

MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM

Otto Penzler, owner of the Mysterious Bookshop in Manhattan, founded the Mysterious Press in 1975. Penzler quickly became known for his outstanding selection of mystery, crime, and suspense books, both from his imprint and in his store. The imprint was devoted to printing the best books in these genres, using fine paper and top dust-jacket artists, as well as offering many limited, signed editions.

Now the Mysterious Press has gone digital, publishing ebooks through MysteriousPress.com.

MysteriousPress.com. offers readers essential noir and suspense fiction, hard-boiled crime novels, and the latest thrillers from both debut authors and mystery masters. Discover classics and new voices, all from one legendary source.

FIND OUT MORE AT

WWW.MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM

FOLLOW US:

@emysteries and Facebook.com/MysteriousPressCom

MysteriousPress.com is one of a select group of publishing partners of Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

The Mysterious Bookshop, founded in 1979, is located in Manhattan’s Tribeca neighborhood. It is the oldest and largest mystery-specialty bookstore in America.

The shop stocks the finest selection of new mystery hardcovers, paperbacks, and periodicals. It also features a superb collection of signed modern first editions, rare and collectable works, and Sherlock Holmes titles. The bookshop issues a free monthly newsletter highlighting its book clubs, new releases, events, and recently acquired books.

58 Warren Street

info@mysteriousbookshop.com

(212) 587-1011

Monday through Saturday

11:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.

FIND OUT MORE AT:

www.mysteriousbookshop.com

FOLLOW US:

@TheMysterious and Facebook.com/MysteriousBookshop

Open Road Integrated Media is a digital publisher and multimedia content company. Open Road creates connections between authors and their audiences by marketing its ebooks through a new proprietary online platform, which uses premium video content and social media.

Videos, Archival Documents, and New Releases

Sign up for the Open Road Media newsletter and get news delivered straight to your inbox.

Sign up now at

www.openroadmedia.com/newsletters

FIND OUT MORE AT

WWW.OPENROADMEDIA.COM

FOLLOW US:

@openroadmedia and

Facebook.com/OpenRoadMedia

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

Dedication

Chapter 1: Fort Bliss

Before

Chapter 2: A Merger Made in Heaven: I

Chapter 3: A Merger Made in Heaven: II

Chapter 4: A Merger Made in Heaven: III

After

Chapter 5: General Confusion

Chapter 6: Probing

Chapter 7: The Boyfriend

Chapter 8: Starting the New Year Wrong

Chapter 9: Next of Kin

Chapter 10: Old Friends

Chapter 11: Office Hours

Chapter 12: More Questions Than Answers

Chapter 13: A New Direction

Chapter 14: Right and Wrong

Chapter 15: Recollections: I

Chapter 16: Recollections: II

Chapter 17: Marshall’s

Chapter 18: The Birthday Boy

Chapter 19: An Escapade

Chapter 20: A Victory and a Visitor

Chapter 21: An Information Explosion

Chapter 22: A Shocker

Chapter 23: End of The Road

Chapter 24: A Sad Ending

Chapter 25: Epilogue

Preview: A Very Venetian Murder

About the Author

Copyright Page