Blood on the Street (A Smith and Wetzon Mystery, #4)

me. I didn’t know. I told him to put it into something conservative. He was Rona’s husband, and he was a lawyer and everything. I didn’t know.”
    “Well, you should have asked,” Rona said. She scowled at Wetzon. “Giving discretion is fine. You just have to know the person you’re giving discretion to.”
    Wetzon disagreed, but kept silent. Rona was a client. As much as she loved and trusted Laura Lee, Wetzon would never abdicate responsibility for managing her own money. She worked too hard to make it. Yet that’s exactly what people did. And not just naive people and first-time investors. One was constantly reading about movie stars and celebrities who had handed their money over to trusted counselors, even relatives and spouses, to invest and were taken to the cleaners. It was really interesting. People loved having money, making money, but didn’t love dealing with it. It was almost as if it was gauche—or too dirty for the Protestant ethic so ingrained in these here United States of America.
    “I trusted him,” Penny Ann whined. “How could I have been such a fool?”
    “I trusted him, too,” Rona said matter-of-factly. She signaled with her finger for another martini.
    “What are you doing about it?” Smith asked. “Have you filed a complaint?”
    “It’s done,” Rona said. “It went into arbitration.”
    “Arbitration,” Penny Ann said bitterly. “That’s when friends of brokers and brokerage firms sit on a panel and decide if the complaints are valid. How fair is that?”
    “You couldn’t sue?” Wetzon asked.
    “It’s not that simple.” Barbara waved her empty glass to the waiter for a refill.
    “I signed an arbitration agreement in all those papers.” Penny Ann seemed to cling almost lovingly to her portrayal of herself as victim. “I didn’t know I was signing my rights away.”
    “Oh, please,” Rona groaned. “You are responsible for yourself. The Supreme Court barred most lawsuits against brokers, especially if the arbitration agreement had been signed when the account was opened, because there were so many frivolous lawsuits.”
    “But, Rona,” Penny Ann mewed faintly, “the print is so small and the wording is so involved. And Dr. Jerry told me you can’t open an account with most quality brokerage firms unless you sign that agreement.”
    Who the hell was Dr. Jerry? Wetzon put a smoked, salted almond in her mouth. She was tired and having trouble concentrating.
    A rum and Coke refill for Barbara arrived with Rona’s martini, and the empty glasses were whisked away. No one else was having seconds.
    “The arbitration usually goes against the broker,” Rona snapped.
    “Well, this time it didn’t. Brian won and Bliss Norderman won. And I lost.”
    “Penny Ann,” Rona said wearily, “I’m sorry, but you did get a settlement.” Penny Ann’s mouth twisted into a sneer. “You did.” Rona looked at Smith and Wetzon. “Bliss Norderman assigned her and Tabby Ann each annuities of ten thousand dollars.”
    “But that only comes to twenty thousand dollars, and meantime I have a second mortgage on my house and I have no money, no income....” Her little voice was plaintive.
    “You might get a job,” Smith suggested. If she were a smoker, she would have blown smoke in Penny Ann’s face.
    Rage flashed quickly across Penny Ann’s dull eyes and was gone in a moment. Then she said the wrong thing, and to make matters worse, she said it primly. “You don’t understand what it’s like being a single parent.”
    “Oh, don’t I?” Smith was breathing icicles.
    Penny Ann gaped at Smith. “I’m sorry if I’ve offended you. Tabby Ann is sixteen.”
    “My son Mark is also sixteen. He’s at Groton.”
    Barbara was chewing on the ice in her empty glass. She had scarfed up the second rum and Coke faster than the first, but except for small red blotches on her cheeks, there was no evidence of inebriation. Rotating the ice shards in her mouth, she said, “It’s not exactly easy raising children when there are two parents.”
    I’m the childless woman at the table , Wetzon thought suddenly. Does that upset you, she asked herself, looking inward. She couldn’t answer. Lately everything upset her. Instead she said, “This Peter Rabbit talk is all very nice, but can we get to the reason for this meeting?” The other four women looked at her. Damn it all , she thought, I sound like an irritable old maid.
    “Tabby Ann has had some emotional problems,”