Bitter Business

lied, scribbling a note to have Cheryl call Cindy, his secretary, and arrange it.
    “I’m glad that’s all taken care of. But that’s not why I called.”
    “Oh?”
    “I wanted to let you know that we had to change the Children’s Memorial Hospital committee meeting to this afternoon at four, but I was able to have it moved to our house so that it would be more convenient.”
    “Convenient for whom?” I demanded.
    The committee had become yet another source of grievance between us. Fed up with my mother’s constant harping about my lack of community-mindedness, I’d allowed her to browbeat me into working on a committee to raise money for a sorely needed new wing for Children’s Memorial Hospital. Unfortunately, while the goal of the committee was admirable, our inability to successfully schedule our first meeting had proved to be something of an obstacle. Bridge games, trips to Palm Springs, golf tournaments all sprang up and had to be accommodated.
    “You’ll have to go ahead without me,” I said. “I have a new case and there’s no way that I can be in Lake Forest at four o’clock.”
    “But this is the only time that was clear for everyone. Surely you can rearrange your schedule.” If Philip Cavanaugh hadn’t descended on me unannounced, I might have been able to swing it, but now I was so far behind it was out of the question.
    “Mother, you can’t call me at one o’clock and expect me to shuffle things around and be able to drive out to the suburbs the same afternoon,” I protested.
    “I called you twice yesterday and again this morning,” my mother countered archly. “Or didn’t that secretary of yours bother to give you my messages? Perhaps if you’d had the courtesy to return my calls, you’d find yourself with rather more notice.”
    “I’ll see what I can do,” I replied, recognizing that once again I’d been outmaneuvered.
    “Don’t make us all wait for you,” instructed my mother. I could hear the satisfaction in her voice long after I’d replaced the receiver.
     

6
     
    “Nothing surprises me anymore,” Daniel Babbage announced across the white linen of his usual table at the Chicago League Club. “I’ve seen marital favors withheld, board meetings that ended in fistfights, and sons who cleaned out their father’s offices when the old man was out of town. But I have to tell you, Kate, a dead secretary is a first, even for me.”
    “How did you hear about it?” I asked, giving my dinner roll a surreptitious squeeze.
    The Chicago League Club was an institution, a hundred- | year-old bastion of political incorrectness whose unofficial motto had until recently been “No Democrats, no reporters, and no women.” Two years ago the rules were finally changed to allow the great-granddaughter of one of the founding members and a black U.S. Circuit Court judge to become members. Unfortunately, less progress I has been made in the quality of the food.
    “Jack called me at home last night,” replied Babbage. “He told me that you were there with Dagny when she found her.”
    I explained briefly how Dagny and I had discovered Cecilia Dobson’s body. I felt vaguely uncomfortable talking about death in Babbage’s company, but he did not seem in the least bit disconcerted. Cecilia Dobson’s passing was nothing to any of us—an unsettling episode, a gruesome lunchtime anecdote, nothing more.
    “So tell me, what did you think of Dagny?” he asked when I’d finished.
    “I really like her. She’s very impressive.”
    “I’m sure you realize that no matter what it says on the organizational chart, Dagny’s the one who’ll be running Superior Plating after Jack steps down.”
    “That’s not what she says.”
    “Why do you say that?”
    “Yesterday she told me that she’s had an offer from Monarch Metals to head their coatings division in Boston. She says that if her father doesn’t agree to buy out Lydia, she’s going to take it.”
    Daniel’s face was lit up by an enormous grin. “I told you she’s as tough as her old man.”
    “Philip came to see me this morning.”
    “And?”
    “I don’t think he likes me.”
    “Don’t take it personally. Philip doesn’t like anybody. You impressed the hell out of Jack, though. He said that you drank bourbon with him in the middle of the day. He said it showed that you had balls.”
    “Just what I’ve always wanted.”
    “So what did you make of Peaches?”
    “I’m not sure. I only spoke to her for a