Final Option

Hexter was heavily involved in both. There was a thick file pertaining to a proposal to revise the procedure for time coding trades at the CBOT, documents related to Globex, the relatively new twenty-four-hour computer trading system, and a sheaf of correspondence related to the scheduled opening of a second trading floor, sometime in the summer at the Merc.
    And then there were bundles of envelopes, bound together with rubber bands, and largely unopened, that looked to be statements from various bank and brokerage accounts. Hexter, it seemed, was a little behind in his mail. I foresaw good times for Kurlander, trying to settle the estate.
    I turned my attention to the drawers. They were filled with the usual supplies—pencils, notepads, rubber bands, stamps—all neatly and impersonally arranged. In one drawer Hexter kept buy and sell tickets, and order forms from both exchanges. In another, weather forecasting charts, rolled and banded together. Finally, I found something useful. In a bottom drawer, amid the social directories of half a dozen clubs, were two thin pamphlets listing the home phone numbers of all the members of the Chicago Board of Trade and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.
    The first call I made was to Ricky Sullivan, the current chairman of the CBOT, and a boyhood friend of Hexter’s. I caught him just as he was leaving for church. He agreed to set up a meeting at the Board of Trade at noon. Sullivan, it was clear, was shocked by the news of his friend’s death, but he had wasted no time indulging it. There would be time for grieving later, for meandering discussions of mortality over a couple of stiff drinks at Butch McGuire’s when the trading day was done. But until Ricky Sullivan could be certain that Black Bart hadn’t gotten himself into the kind of corner you only get out of with a bullet, his overriding response to the news of his old friend’s death was going to be fear.
     
    After a methodical search of Bart Hexter’s study I turned up nothing pertaining to the CFTC matter save a pink message slip at the bottom of an otherwise empty briefcase that read: Sunday, 8 A.M., Kate Millholland. There was, however, one drawer in the desk that was locked, so I wandered the Elizabethan halls of Hexter’s creepy mansion until I encountered sullen-faced Elena, who agreed to inquire of her mistress where the keys might be. She returned a few minutes later with a bunch of keys on a ring.
    It took me a couple of tries, but I eventually found the key that fit the drawer. When I opened it, I was disappointed. The drawer contained little of value or interest: some loose change in a small, shallow tin that had once contained hard candy, a roll of first-class stamps and another for overseas airmail, four cigars— Montclairs—each packed in its own cream-colored sarcophagus, and a cardboard box. I lifted the lid and found it filled to the brim with Bart Hexter’s personal stationery. Puzzled, I pushed the drawer closed, and sat staring blankly at the top of Bart Hexter’s desk. An array of handsome toddlers stared back at me from their silver frames—Hexter’s grandchildren, I assumed.
    I had been at it for almost an hour and had found nothing at all. No hint of a financial scandal, no threatening letters, nothing at all of a personal nature. All very well and good, but what troubled me was the absence of material pertaining to the CFTC investigation of Hexter Commodities. It was, I knew, compared to murder, a minor matter. But he had promised to give me all the documents this morning. So where were they?
    I picked up the bunch of keys, intending to return them to the maid, but my unanswered questions stopped me. Why on earth would anyone bother to lock up a handful of change, two rolls of stamps, and a box of letter paper, I wondered? Why lock up Montclairs when there was a box crammed with Cuban cigars sitting on top of the desk? I weighed the keys in my hand for a minute, considering, then returned to the drawer and I opened it up again.
    I opened the plastic cigar containers. Inside I found cigars. I took the box of stationery out and set it on the desk. I removed the lid and found Hexter’s letter paper. I lifted it out. Beneath it lay another box.
    The money was the first thing that caught my eye—a wad of cash three fingers thick, fastened at the middle with a red rubber band. I picked it up. The bills were all hundreds. I counted until I lost patience—more than $30,000. I turned my