Final Option

father's attorney.”
    “So you’re the one who’s going to tell us how much?”
    “Pardon me?”
     “How much money. I thought that’s what lawyers do when somebody rich dies. You know, come to the house and read the will.”
    “I was your father’s corporate counsel,” I replied in what was intended to be a repressive voice. “I represent Hexter Commodities.”
    “Jesus Jones. A corporate lawyer. How dull.” She plopped down on the couch and addressed herself to her brother. “So who do you think murdered dear old Dad?”
    “No one knows what’s happened yet,” answered Barton, sounding genuinely pained. “The police are investigating.”
    “Don’t go all pompous on me,” said Margot. “What’s so terrible? The old monster’s dead, and we get all his money. You know, the only thing I find really shocking is that he was shot. I mean, frankly, I thought for sure they’d find him naked, in bed with sixteen-year-old twins, and with a pair of scissors in his back.”
     

CHAPTER 4
     
    Once Margot had been successfully prevailed upon to go upstairs to see her mother, I turned the currency I'd found in his father’s drawer over to Barton Jr. By anybody’s standards it was a lot of money, especially in cash, but for Barton Jr. it was clearly something more. The bullets that had killed his father had, by plan or accident, changed everything for him. Still reeling from the news, with grief so freshly upon him, he couldn’t see it yet. But events had placed him at the helm of a vast fortune, one that touched a great many lives. He stood for a time, quietly weighing the stack of bills in his hand, the first tangible sign of the responsibilities that would soon be heaped upon him.
    I kept the pictures. Barton had been dealt enough for one day. But I was reluctant to return them to the drawer. Who knows who would be next to stumble across them? Rightfully, they should be turned over to the police. But I found the idea repellent. I remembered how Ruskowski had managed to turn even routine questions into leering insults. How was he going to make Pamela Hexter feel when he asked her about the nude pictures that had turned up in her husband’s desk?
    I thought about asking Kurlander for his advice, but the thought of discussing pornographic photographs with the senior partner from trusts and estates gave me the willies. Besides, I knew what he would say—bum them, suppress them, do anything but turn them over to the police. The pictures are unpleasant, and it’s our job to see to it that unpleasantness is swept under the rug. With this in mind, I sealed them in an envelope along with a hastily scribbled note describing where I’d found them. I gave the envelope to the first policeman I saw with instructions to give them to Detective Ruskowski.
     
    I hadn’t realized how glad I’d be to escape the strained atmosphere of the dead man’s house. The reactions of his family to the strange crucible of death had seemed odd. But then again, who knew what constituted normal behavior in the wake of such a tragedy?
    In the car, on my way to my meeting at the Board of Trade, I called Elliott Abelman. Elliott was a private detective and the first person I could think of who might be able to arrange for protection for the Hexter family. I reached him at home and related the morning’s events.
    “Talk about being the attorney to the rich and famous,” he exclaimed.
    “I’m afraid now it’s going to be rich and infamous.“
    “You can say that again. You said he was shot. Did he kill himself?”
    “I don’t know. He was behind the wheel of his Rolls Royce wearing a pair of red satin pajamas with two bullets in his head.”
    “Not an outfit I’d choose for my au revoir. Was he connected with organized crime?”
    “I don’t know. Do you think he might have been?“
    “Everyone says that the mafia launders money through the exchanges, but I haven’t heard anything specific about Hexter. You have to admit that getting it in the head at the end of your own driveway sounds like a professional hit. Do the police have any suspects?“
    “If they do, they aren’t telling me.”
    “Well, I’m sure that Hexter’s pissed off a fair number of people over the years. I never believed that pious family man crap. You know, Mr. Philanthropy. You don’t make the kind of money he did without screwing people.”
    “In futures everybody screws everybody else,” I sighed. “Try telling me something I don’t