Bitter Business

have seen demonstrated with metaphysical certainty the fact that there is no force in the universe as powerful as the inertia of bureaucracy. I was chilled by the prospect of Joe Blades squeezing his search for the truth about what had happened to the two women into the odd moment between drug murders and domestic homicides.
    I believed it when Elliott told me that Blades was a good cop. But even a good cop can’t unravel one crime while he’s interviewing witnesses at the scene of another. Every time Blades took another call, it was going to take time away from the Cavanaugh case. And time wouldn’t be the only thing that would be lost. Physical evidence would disappear, memories would erode, and witnesses— if any had ever existed—would quietly fade away. It wouldn’t be too long before whatever urgency Blades might feel would be invariably diminished by the red heat of fresh murders.
    Of course that’s why I’d urged Jack Cavanaugh to hire a private investigator in the first place. But as tenacious and well connected as Elliott Abelman might be, he was still working from the outside. There were some things you could only manage if you were a cop, people who you could get to talk only if you wore a badge.
    The thing that rankled most—the thing that had rankled from the very beginnings—was the leisurely pace at which the toxicology lab seemed to operate. They had stumbled upon the cyanide by accident. What if they hadn’t? We’d still be waiting the two or three weeks for the toxicology results from Cecilia Dobson—which, when they eventually came back negative, would leave us exactly where we’d started.
    Suddenly the thought of all the evidence I’d seen the crime-lab technicians take out of the bathroom at Dagny’s office consumed me. Which of the little jars and vials in the bathroom medicine chest had contained the poison, if any? Once that was known, at least there would be a place to start. But how long was that going to take? A week? A month?
    Somewhere in this town there was someone with the juice to get what needed to be done done in a day instead of a week. The question was who and how to get to them. I thought about calling Elkin Caufield, my defense-attorney friend, but decided that whatever influence he’d managed to salt away had to be cashed in for his clients.
    Swallowing my pride, I reached for the phone to call Skip Tillman, the firm’s managing partner. Skip played golf with the governor and tennis with several members of Congress. In addition, Callahan Ross had always coughed up generous contributions to both political parties in the pragmatic belief that it always pays to cover yourself both ways.
    I dialed Skip’s number but hung up before it rang. However juvenile and perverse it might be, I hated the idea of crawling to the firm’s managing partner for a favor. I could just hear his well-bred, deprecating laugh as he explained to his lunchtime cronies what he’d managed to accomplish with a couple of phone calls. Besides, I suddenly thought of someone who was much better connected than Skip, someone who would be thrilled to have me owe her a favor....
    Which is why, when I picked up the receiver, it was my mother’s number that I dialed.
     
    Stephen called me from his office and asked what I was planning on doing for dinner. I looked at my watch; it was almost seven. I’d spent more than an hour on the phone with my mother—an all-time record, especially considering that we’d managed to remain on friendly terms throughout the conversation.
    “I hadn’t really thought about it,” I replied honestly. “Are you hungry?”
    I thought about it for a second. “I’m starved.”
    “How about Chinese food? We could stop in Chinatown on our way back to Hyde Park.”
    “That sounds good. I just have to finish up one or two things. Can you pick me up in about half an hour?”
    “Sure thing. I’ll meet you out front.”
    Thirty minutes later, give or take the time it took me to make sure that Daniel’s secretary, Madeline, had locked up his office and gone home, I found Stephen, good as his word, waiting behind the wheel of his dark blue BMW.
    “Did you get a lot of work done?” he asked as he pulled away from the curb. The streets were deserted, the windows of the office buildings on either side of us dark and empty. I was probably the last person to leave work in the loop—just in time to have dinner, catch some sleep, and get up bright and early to begin