Bitter Business

office in four days. All I do is sit at this damned window and look out at her house. I can’t bear to look at Claire—she reminds me so much of the little girl that I lost. This is killing me. Just killing me.”
    I leaned forward in my chair. “The first time I met you, you told me that Dagny was the one person who loved Superior Plating as much as you do. Don’t let its collapse be her legacy. I met with Philip yesterday. He needs your support if he’s going to have any chance of guiding this company through the next generation. I think it’s pretty clear from what Lydia said in that magazine article that she’s determined, for whatever reason, to hurt you as much as possible.”
    Jack raised his hand in protest, but I cut him off. “I’m not saying that her reasons are good ones, I’m not even sure that they exist outside of her imagination. But I think the time has come, for the sake of the rest of the family and for the health of the company, to accept the fact that Lydia doesn’t want to be a part of the business anymore. Jack,” I implored him, “you’ve got to just let her go.”
    “No!” he said, his face turning an ugly shade of red. “This is my family, goddammit! This isn’t some sales manager we’re talking about who’s not performing. This is my only daughter. I want you to go to her, talk to her... beg her if you have to. Find out what it is that she really wants.”
    Personally I suspected that Jack’s pain was what Lydia really wanted, but I felt as though I’d already been as forthcoming as I dared. So I said nothing and instead let Jack Cavanaugh finish saying his piece.
    “I’ve been thinking things over the last couple of days, reflecting on my life. Nothing can take the place of family,” he announced solemnly. “Nothing. Life is so short and so precious.” He looked me straight in the eye. Some of the old fire seemed to have returned. “I want you to go to my daughter and I want you to tell her that there is nothing more important to me than the love of my children. If it’s the company that is keeping us apart, then I want the company to be sold. Go out if you have to and hire a team of investment bankers, get the paperwork started. I want them all to know that if I have to put Superior Plating on the block in order to keep my family together, then believe me, I’m going to sell.”
     
    * * *
     
    Mariette’ s was a twenty-four-hour coffee shop on the ground floor of a seedy office building on the fringes of the loop, and was obviously a haunt of cabbies as well as cops, since my driver needed no directions to deliver me to its doors. I found Joe and Elliott comfortably ensconced in a comer booth, breakfasting handsomely on pancakes and bacon.
    “I’m glad you’re still here,” I said as Elliott slid across the ancient vinyl to make room for me beside him.
    “Are you kidding?” said Blades. “Of course we waited. Elliott told me you were picking up the check.”
    Elliott grinned hugely and motioned to the waitress that I needed coffee.
    “Breakfast is a small price if you tell me what’s going on with this bottle of perfume. Jack Cavanaugh is busy beating himself up over the fact that it was originally sent to Peaches and he decided to give it to Dagny. But what I want to know is whether there’s any evidence that the cyanide was already in the perfume bottle when it arrived?”
    A waitress appeared and filled my cup with coffee. I took a sip. It was surprisingly good.
    “Here’s the lowdown,” said Blades, laying down his fork and knife and briefly applying his napkin to his lips. “The lab turned up cyanide in a one-ounce bottle of perfume taken from the medicine cabinet of the bathroom in Dagny Cavanaugh’s office at Superior Plating and Specialty Chemicals. The brand of the perfume is Forever, and according to Jack Cavanaugh, it was sent to him at the office by a sales rep named Chip Polarski as a present for his wife, Peaches. When we dusted the bottle for prints we came up with a partial that might belong to Jack Cavanaugh, but it’s such a small fragment the lab says they can’t be sure. But they lifted clear prints from both of the dead women.
    “According to Jack Cavanaugh’s secretary, the perfume arrived in a cardboard box. I’ve got a couple of uniforms over there right now turning the place upside down in case by some miracle the box wasn’t thrown out. Not that I’d hold out much hope of it being of much use as evidence after