Final Option

help you,” I said. “Me, your father’s employees, Ken Kurlander. The problem, of course, is that futures is a fast business. There are things that have to be done today, decisions to be made over the next seventy-two hours that can’t be postponed, decisions with long-term consequences.”
    Barton Jr. looked grim.
    “I’ve already contacted the exchanges,” I continued. “I have a meeting set up with Ricky Sullivan at noon to go through your father’s trading accounts, just to be certain there are no surprises.”
    “You mean nothing that someone would want to kill I him for.”
    “Among other things. Do you want to come along?”
    “No, I think I’m needed here.”
    “I’m confident I can handle everything,” I said. “If not, I’ll call you. The exchanges are going to insist that we liquidate your father’s positions as quickly as possible.”
    “But we can’t do that until we’re sure he’s not offsetting himself in other markets,” interjected Barton Jr. “I know that lots of times Dad would offset purchases in Chicago with equivalent contracts in Hong Kong.” I heard a chorus of quiet hallelujahs. If Barton Jr. knew enough to be worried about offsetting or spread positions, there was a good chance that he and I and Hexter Commodities would survive the weeks ahead.
    “With your approval, I’d like to try to get the exchanges to agree to a gradual liquidation schedule, depending on the positions your father was holding, possibly over a week or ten days. That will give us a chance to look for warehouse receipts or confirmation slips from other markets. Do you have any idea where those things might be kept?”
    “The person who’d know is my cousin Tim. He was my father’s assistant.”
    “Do you have his phone number?” I asked. “I’d also like to have someone call the people who worked for your dad, spare them hearing about this on the news.“
    “I don’t think you’ll be able to reach Tim until dinnertime today. He belongs to a bicycle touring club. They take long rides every Sunday. It’s a family joke, every Sunday Tim runs away from Dad. No phones. It’s how he stays sane.”
    “Do you think that your father’s head trader might know? Carl Savage? Ricky Sullivan said he’d call him and get him to the meeting.”
    “I guess so. This is all so strange,” he burst out suddenly. “I keep expecting to hear his voice calling me from somewhere else in the house. It’s terrifically unreal. When my sister Krissy heard the news she collapsed. They had to sedate her. And yet Mother is upstairs calmly making lists of people to ask back to the house after the funeral. I haven’t even been able to reach my wife, Jane. She took the children up to Wisconsin to visit her parents for the weekend. When I called she’d already left to come back home. I had to leave her a note on the kitchen table, but I didn’t know what to write. She’s eight months’ pregnant. I don’t want her to be alone when she finds out. I don’t want her to hear it on the car radio while she’s driving the kids....” His voice trailed off miserably.
    Suddenly, the door banged open and a young woman burst into the room in a flurry of dark hair and jangling bracelets.
    “Oh God, Barton,” she exclaimed, throwing herself onto him.
    “Margot,” replied her brother. It was more a statement than a greeting.
    Margot Hexter was just a year younger than her brother, but she had an air of immaturity about her that made her seem much younger. She was pretty, in an unusual way, with torrents of curly dark hair and her father’s big brown eyes. She was dressed like the graduate student that she was, in a wrinkled T-shirt with the slogan: ‘Take Back the Night,’ tattered jeans, and a pair of Birkenstock sandals with heavy socks.
    “I can’t believe it!” exclaimed Margot, apparently oblivious to my presence. “When Krissy called to tell me, it was just amazing. Somebody shot him. Isn’t it too much? It’s so incredible. Daddy’s dead. The relief, the freedom. All the clichés are true. A weight has been lifted; I feel ten feet tall. It’s making me dizzy.”
    “Margot!” exclaimed her brother, horrified. “I wish you’d stop saying the first thing that just pops into your head. Especially in front of other people.”
    Margot turned around and peered at me like a child seeing a particularly interesting animal at the zoo.
    “Who are you?” she demanded.
    “Kate Millholland. I was your