Bitter Business

knowledgeable about how trusts work for the other stuff. Don’t worry. I’ll find you someone who won’t patronize you. And you know you can always call me if you need advice about anything at all.”
    “Even if I just want to talk about my crazy relatives?” she asked with a sly smile.
    “If you want to talk about the crazy Cavanaughs, I’m definitely the woman to call,” I replied.
     
    As I climbed over the boxes of Superior Plating files in order to leave for the day, I reflected that I was now both physically and emotionally overwhelmed by the Cavanaughs—a situation that the prospect of dinner with Chelsea Winters did little to improve. No doubt the editor of the Yale Law Review was a very bright young woman setting out on a brilliant legal career, one that I would do my part to ensure included Callahan Ross. But I remembered the dewy-eyed idealism that I’d worn to dinner during the months that I was being recruited by law firms. Tonight I was feeling much too jaded and worn-out to enjoy being on the receiving end of Chelsea Winters’s routine.
    I had finished packing up my briefcase and was just getting ready to turn off the light when the phone rang. I picked it up. It was Elliott.
    “You’re not going to believe it,” he exclaimed breathlessly. “Somebody kicked somebody who kicked somebody in the medical examiner’s toxicology lab. They’re almost finished testing the stuff they took out of Dagny Cavanaugh’s office yesterday.”
    “I believe it,” I said, smiling to myself.
    “I bet you’ll never guess what they found?”
    “Cyanide?”
    “In a bottle of perfume—enough to kill a horse.”
    “That’s great! Now that we know how they got the poison, we have a place to start!”
    “There’s only one problem.”
    “What’s that?”
    “Think about it. They found the poison in a bottle of perfume.”
    “So?”
    “So how did it get into their bodies? What did they do? Drink it?”
     

24
     
    As soon as I could, I ducked out of dinner pleading a crushing amount of work—probably not the most politically correct excuse, but what the hell. From dinner I could tell that Chelsea Winters was an intelligent and capable young woman with excellent table manners. I honestly hoped that she’d choose to come to the firm, but I wasn’t about to lie in order to convince her. Besides, I was too preoccupied with poison to care one way or the other.
    I called Elliott from the restaurant and again from my car. Both times I got his answering machine. I wondered if he was out working on the Cavanaugh case. I also admit that I wondered if he was just out. I detected a twinge of unease at the thought of him on a date and was disgusted with myself. I dialed Stephen’s number, first at the office and then at home.
    “Whatcha doing?” I asked after we’d exchanged hellos.
    “I’m just playing around with our cash-flow projections for the next quarter, trying to figure out how the Swiss deal is going to affect us,” he replied. I imagined him sitting at the big rolltop desk that he’d had rebuilt to accommodate his computer—his leonine profile illuminated by the glow of the screen. “Where are you? In the car?”
    “I’m on my way home,” I replied, swerving to avoid a pothole. Spring had finally come, revealing the winter’s ravages on Chicago’s crumbling streets and avenues. “I was wondering if I could stop by for a drink.”
    “Of course,” Stephen replied, obviously pleased. Over the years our relationship had developed an elliptical vocabulary all its own. We never spoke directly about wanting to be together. This was probably as close as I’d ever come to telling him that I wanted to see him.
    Stephen’s apartment was right off Lake Shore Drive near the Museum of Science and Industry. I was there in ten minutes. I left my car with the doorman and took the elevator up.
    Stephen was waiting for me at the door. He was wearing a pair of cotton shorts and an old Harvard T-shirt. His hair was ruffled and he was barefoot. The muscles of his legs stood out like steel cables.
    “You okay?” he asked, taking my coat.
    I opened my mouth, but for some reason Stephen’s simple question unleashed a floodgate of answers, all of which tumbled over each other so fast in my brain that no words came out at all. No, I wasn’t okay. I was exhausted, unsure of how to proceed with the Cavanaughs, and confused about my feelings for a private investigator for whom I had absolutely no