Final Option

Jr.?” Savage helped himself to another finger of scotch. He rolled a little bit in his mouth for a minute while he considered. “Any chance he’ll come in and run the company?”
    “I have no idea,” I said. “Right now he’s trying to get used to the idea that his father is dead. The man’s a professor of theoretical mathematics, and from what I gather he’s a pretty big deal in his field.”
    “I know. But he’s the one person who really could take over for his old man. He’d do it differently, but he’d do it.”
    “I don’t know what his plans are. We’re going to have to give him some time.”
    “Time is money,” snapped Savage. “Especially in this business. What happens if the market takes a big jump tomorrow?”
    “What if Barton decides he wants to sell the company?”
    “You know and I know,” replied Savage in his grave, Texas drawl, “that if the customers pull their accounts, there’ll be next to nothing left to sell.”
     
    Reluctant to return to Lake Forest and the grieving Hexter family, I took the scenic route north on Lake Shore Drive to Sheridan Road. The rest of Chicago, it seemed, was out enjoying the first full-blown day of spring. People had broken out their baseball bats and their Frisbees, let their dogs off the leash, all drawn to the emerald band of parks that fringed Lake Michigan. On the bike path, cyclists, as common as bumblebees in the good weather, jockeyed with runners and Rollerbladers. I wondered whether Bart Hexter’s assistant, Tim, was among them, ignorantly enjoying the cloudless day, unaware of his uncle’s death.
    The fact that I’d been there so soon after it happened, had seen his body, made it hard to put Hexter’s death in perspective, much less set it aside. I found myself dwelling on it, replaying my encounters with Ruskowski, rolling them out again and again like some inner movie. But the truth was, to me it really shouldn’t matter who killed Bart Hexter. As long as there was no connection with Hexter Commodities, no impending losses or trading improprieties, I had to be content with letting the police do their job while I focused my energies on doing mine.
    But attorneys are not immune from curiosity—quite the contrary—and it was hard to deny the appeal of the crime. Bart Hexter was a name, a public man who had held himself out as an example of the triumph of discipline, hard work, and family values. The sort of man meant to die in bed, surrounded by his sobbing family. Carl Savage had said that Hexter was an asshole to work for. Even if that were true, people don’t, as a rule, get themselves shot for being assholes. If they did, this town would be knee-deep in corpses. There had to be some other reason. Unfortunately, until they found one, the press and the police—I couldn’t tell which one was worse—would hound the Hexter family without mercy.
     
    I found the Hexters in the minstrel-galleried great room, huddled around a drinks cart, indulging in an early and awkward cocktail hour. Pamela Hexter sat on the couch, a drink near at hand, working on a piece of needlepoint. By the door, on a hard chair, removed from the rest of the family, sat a large, damp-looking young man in full Tour de France regalia. Tim Hexter, his beefy thighs encased in black cycling shorts, looked remarkably ill at ease in the company of his closest relatives.
    Barton Jr., seeming positively relieved at my intrusion, rose hastily to his feet and introduced me to the other members of his family. His wife, Jane, pale and very pregnant, struggled out of her chair to meet me. Krissy, his younger sister, a spoiled blonde in her mid-twenties, acknowledged the introduction with a weary lack of interest. Her husband, Fourey Chilcote offered up a distracted, “Good to know you.” The Chilcotes, I knew, lived on the property in the old Manderson house. I wondered why I hadn’t seen either of them earlier that day.
    I declined Barton’s offer of a drink, cast a yearning glance at a bowl of peanuts, and withdrew with Barton to an adjacent sitting room. At a nod from Barton Jr. Tim Hexter shuffled after us. With his uncomprehending, bovine features, he reminded me sharply of a dim but loyal dog who’d recently discovered its master dead.
    I spread the printout of Bart Hexter’s positions on a low cocktail table, explaining the liquidation schedule I’d negotiated with the exchange.
    Most of what I said, I knew, was not sinking in. Both Barton Jr. and his