Brazen Virtue

on the phone with Mary when—when she was attacked. He heard her scream, and what he thought were sounds of a struggle. In any case, he called back here. My sister-in-law didn’t know what to do, so she called me. The minute she explained things to me, I phoned it in.” The phone rang beside her, but she ignored it. “You see, the client couldn’t have called this in to the police. He wouldn’t have known where to tell them to go, or who to tell them was in trouble. That’s part of the protection.”
    “We need the name of the client, Mrs. Cawfield.”
    She nodded at Ed, then neatly tapped out her cigarette. “I need to ask you to be as discreet as possible. It’s not just a matter of my losing business, which I’m bound to do. It’s more that I feel I’m betraying client confidentiality.”
    Ben glanced at her phone as it started to ring again. “Those things get shot to hell when there’s murder involved.”

    Without a word, Eileen turned to her computer. “It’s top of the line,” she explained when the printer began to hum. “I wanted the best equipment.” She picked up the phone and handled the next call. As she hung up, she swiveled in her chair and detached the printout. She handed it to Ed.
    “The gentleman who was talking to Mary last night was Lawrence Markowitz. I don’t have an address, of course, just a phone number and his American Express.”
    “We’ll take care of it,” Ed told her.
    “I hope so. I hope you take care of it very soon.”
    As they walked out, the phone rang again.
    I T DIDN’T TAKE LONG to run down Lawrence K. Markowitz.
    He was a thirty-seven-year-old CPA, divorced, self-employed. He worked out of his home in Potomac, Maryland.
    “Jesus, look at these houses.” Ben slowed down to a crawl and craned his head out of the car window. “You know what places go for around here? Four, five hundred thousand. These people have gardeners who make more than we do.”
    Ed bit into a sunflower seed. “I like my place better. More character.”
    “More character?” Ben snorted as he pulled his head back into the car. “The taxes on that place over there are more than your mortgage.”
    “The monetary value of a house doesn’t make it a home.”
    “Yeah, you ought to stitch up a sampler. Look at that place. Must be forty, fifty thousand square feet.”
    Ed looked but was unimpressed with the size; the architecture was too modern for his taste. “I didn’t think you were interested in real estate.”

    “I’m not. Well, I wasn’t.” Ben drove by a hedge of azaleas in a pale, dusty pink. “I figure Doc and I’ll want a place sooner or later. She could handle this,” he murmured. “I couldn’t. They probably have an ordinance about color coordinating your garbage. Doctors, lawyers, and accountants.” And senators’ granddaughters, he thought, thinking of the understated elegance of his wife.
    “And no crabgrass.”
    “I like crabgrass. Here we are.” He stopped the car in front of a two-story H-shaped house with French doors. “Tax sheltering must pay real good.”
    “Accountants are like cops,” Ed said as he tucked away his bag of seeds. “You’re always going to need them.”
    Ben pulled up in the sloping driveway and yanked on the parking brake. He’d have preferred to stick a couple of rocks behind the back tires, just in case, but there didn’t seem to be any available. There were three doors to choose from. They decided to take the front. It was opened by a middle-aged woman in a gray dress and white apron.
    “We’d like to see Mr. Markowitz, please.” Ed held up his badge. “Police business.”
    “Mr. Markowitz is in his office. I’ll show you the way.”
    The foyer opened up into a wide room done in black and white. Ed discounted the decor as too stark, but found the skylights interesting. He’d have to price some. They turned right, into a bar of the H. Here there were globe lamps and leather sling chairs and a woman seated at an ebony desk.
    “Miss Bass, these gentlemen are here to see Mr. Markowitz.”

    “Do you have an appointment?” The woman behind the desk looked harassed enough. Her hair stood out in every direction as if she had raked and tugged and pulled on it with her fingers. Now she stuck a pencil behind her ear and began to search through the papers on her desk for her date book. The phone beside her rang steadily. “I’m sorry, Mr. Markowitz is very busy. It’s not possible for him to see new