Lawrence Sanders - The seventh commandment

But, the attorney went on, he could not rid himself of the notion that the printout was, in effect, Solomon Guthrie's last will and testament and he, Rushkin, would be failing his client, Starrett Fine Jewelry, by not investigating the matter further.

"Yes," Dora said, "I think it should be done. Tell me something, Mr. Rushkin: Did anyone at Starrett know that Solomon Guthrie had come to your office?"

The lawyer thought a moment. "He asked me not to tell Clayton Starrett of his visit, but then he said his secretary- Sol's secretary-knew he was coming over here."

"And other than what he thought might be on the computer printout, he had no additional evidence to prove his suspicions?"

"Well, he did say that Clayton had raised his salary by fifty thousand a year. I congratulated him on his good fortune, but Sol was convinced it was a bribe to keep his mouth shut and not rock the boat. He was in a very excitable state, and I more or less laughed off what I considered wild and unfounded mistrust of his employer. I think now I was wrong and should have treated the matter more seriously."

"You couldn't have known he'd be killed. And there's always the possibility that his suspicions had nothing to do with his murder."

"Do you believe that?" Rushkin demanded.

"No," Dora said. "Do you?"

The lawyer shook his head. "I told you I feel guilt for ignoring what Guthrie told me. I also feel a deep and abiding anger at those who killed that sweet man."

"Clayton Starrett?" she suggested.

Rushkin glared at her. "Absolutely not! I'm that boy's godfather, and I assure you he's totally incapable of violence of any kind."

"If you say so," Dora said.

The attorney took a deep breath, leaned toward her across his desk. "Mrs. Conti, I want to hand over the printout to you. Perhaps you can find something in it that both the computer expert and I missed. Will you take a look?"

"Of course," Dora said. "A long, careful look. I was hoping you'd let me see it, Mr. Rushkin. But tell me: How do you think possible illegality in the gold trades relates to the death of Lewis Starrett?"

He shrugged. "I have no idea. Unless Lew found out something and had to be silenced."

"And then Solomon Guthrie found out that same something and also had to be silenced?"

He stared at her. "It's possible, isn't it?"

"Yes," Dora said. "Very possible."

Sighing, Rushkin opened the deep bottom drawer of his desk and dragged out the thick bundle of computer printout. He weighed it in his hands a moment. "You know," he said, "I don't know whether I hope you find something or hope you don't. If you find nothing, then my guilt at treating Sol so shabbily will be less. If you find something, then I fear that people I know and love may be badly hurt."

"It comes with the territory," Dora said grimly, took the bundle from his hands, and jammed it into her shoulder bag. "Thank you much for your help, Mr. Rushkin. I'll keep in touch. If you want to reach me, I'm at the Hotel Bedling-ton on Madison Avenue."

He made a note of it on his desk pad and she started toward the door. Then she stopped and turned back.

"You knew Lewis Starrett a long time?" she asked.

Rushkin's smile returned. "Since before you were born. He was one of my first clients."

"My boss told me to ask you this: Did he have a mistress?"

The smile faded; the attorney stared at her stonily. "Not to my knowledge," he said.

Dora nodded and had the door open when Rushkin called, "Mrs. Conti." She turned back again. "Many years ago," the lawyer said.

She waited a long time for the down elevator and then descended alone to the street, aware of how a lonely elevator inspired introspection. In this case, her thoughts dwelt on how fortunate she was to give the impression of a dumpy hausfrau. If she had the physique and manner of a femme fatale-private eye, she doubted if Arthur Rushkin, attorney-at-law, would have revealed that his beamy smiles masked an inner grief.

She hustled back to the Bedlington, clutching her shoulder bag as if it contained the Holy Grail. Double-locked into her corporate suite, she kicked off her shoes, put on reading glasses, and started poring over the computer printout, convinced she would crack its code where two others before her (men!) had failed.

She scanned it quickly at first, trying to get an overview of what it included. It appeared to be a straightforward record of gold purchases abroad; shipments of gold by the sellers' subsidiaries in the U.S. to Starrett's Brooklyn vault; sales of bullion by Starrett to its branch stores; sales by the branches to small, independent jewelers in their areas.

Then she went over it slowly, studying it carefully. The documentation was all there in meticulous detail: numbers and dates of sales contracts, shipping invoices, warehouse receipts, checks, and records of electronic transmission of Starrett's funds overseas. Dora reviewed every trade, even double-checking addition, subtraction, and percentages with her pocket calculator. Everything was correct to the penny.

Suddenly, at about 9:30 P.M., she realized she was famished; nothing to eat all day but that measly tuna sandwich at lunch. She called downstairs hastily and caught the kitchen just as it was about to close for the night. She persuaded an annoyed chef to make her two chicken sandwiches on wheat toast-hold the mayo. While she awaited the arrival of room service, she brewed a pot of tea, using three bags.

And that was her dinner: sandwiches that tasted like wet cardboard and tea strong enough to strip varnish from a tabletop. As she ate, she started again on the computer printout, going slowly and methodically over every trade, looking for any evidence, however slight, of something awry. She found nothing.

By midnight her eyesight was bleary and she gave up. She took a hot shower, thinking that perhaps Solomon Guthrie had been imagining wrongdoing. And if there was something amiss, as Mike Trevalyan had suggested, she couldn't find it in Starrett's gold trades.

But she could not sleep; her brain was churning. She tried to approach the problem from a new angle. If Arthur Rushkin, his computer expert, and she had been unable to find anything wrong in the details of the printout, perhaps the corruption was implicit in the whole concept of bullion trading. Maybe there was a gross flaw, so obvious that they were all missing it, just as Mario sometimes said, "Where's the dried oregano?" when the jar was in plain view on the countertop. Then Dora would say, "If it had teeth, it'd bite you."

At 2:00 A.M. she got out of bed, turned on the lights, donned her reading glasses again. This time she flipped through the printout swiftly, trying to absorb the "big picture." She saw something. Not earthshaking. And perhaps it was innocent and could easily be explained. But it was an anomaly, and frail though it might be, it was her only hope.

She searched frantically through her shoulder bag for that folder she had picked up at Starrett Fine Jewelry the previous morning: the charge account application that also listed the addresses of Starrett's branch stores. She checked the location of the stores against the computer printout.

Then, smiling, she went back to bed and fell asleep almost instantly.

"This kir is too sweet," Helene Pierce complained.

"You were born a woman," Turner said, "and so you're doomed to eternal dissatisfaction. Also, it's a kir royale. Now eat a grape."

He had frozen a bunch of white seedless grapes. They were hard as marbles, but softened on the tongue and crunched delightfully when bitten.

The Pierces were slumped languidly in overstuffed armchairs in Turner's frowsy apartment, having returned from lunch at Vito's where they had pasta primavera, a watercress salad, and shared a bottle of Pinot Grigio. Now they were sodden with food and wine, toying with the kirs and frozen grapes, both smiling at the memory of their rice-and-beans days.