Final Option

his company, Azor Pharmaceuticals.”
    “And you sleep with him, don’t you?”
    “I’ve had a relationship with Stephen since we were both teenagers.”
    “I didn’t ask when you started fucking Stephen Azorini,” retorted Ruskowski, raising his voice to just this side of a shout. “I asked when you started fucking Bart Hexter.”
    I struggled to resist being baited by this sudden rise in volume and descent in tactics.
    “Just because I have a sexual relationship with one of my clients doesn’t necessarily mean that I have a sexual relationship with all of them. If that were the case, I’d have a bed in my office instead of a desk, and I’d charge considerably more an hour.”
    “Are you telling me that you didn’t know that Bart Hexter rented an apartment at Lake View Towers without his wife’s knowledge?”
    “No. I didn’t know.”
    “Then I suppose it would surprise you to hear that the night doorman at Lake View Towers identified you from a photo array as the young woman that Bart met there.”
    “He must be mistaken,” I said, but my answer sounded lame, even to me.
    Ruskowski pulled the yellow envelope of photographs I’d found in Hexter’s desk from the pocket of his jacket. He began to lay them out on my desk as he spoke, examining each one judiciously before he set it down. “I guess you figured that since your face doesn’t show much, we wouldn’t know it was you. Or did you think that by giving them to us yourself we would automatically assume it was somebody else? If you don’t mind my saying so, you have great tits.”
    I was trained to believe that an emotional lawyer is a poor lawyer, and that in business it never pays to lose your cool. I walked up to Ruskowski, not stopping until I was too close to him. I pulled myself up to my full height and leaned into his face. I wanted the message to be clear: I was insulted but not afraid.
    “Am I under arrest?” I asked.
    “Do you want to be?”
    “Don’t play that bullshit game with me. I’m not some crackhead you caught holding somebody’s stereo. If you want to continue this discussion, arrest me and read me my rights. If not, get out of my office.”
    Ruskowski stood his ground a moment, weighing his options. I glared back, determined not to back down.
    The homicide detective’s ugly, freckled face split into a grin. He reached deep into the pocket of his jacket and came out with a set of car keys. He flipped them into the air and caught them smartly.
    “We’ll talk again soon,” he said. Then he walked out the door.
     

CHAPTER 8
     
    “What did he want?” inquired Cheryl after Ruskowski left. As a rule I took pride in my ability to go toe-to-toe with the big boys, but I had to confess that my encounters with the homicide detective were having an increasingly unsettling effect on me.
    “He thinks I killed Bart Hexter.”
    “That’s ridiculous!”
    “I know. But Hexter was supposed to meet me right before he was killed. When the police arrived I was standing next to the body.”
    “Come on, if you killed him, why would you show up for your meeting? It doesn’t make any sense.”
    “I’d have to go to the meeting. It would be suspicious if I didn’t.”
    “They suspect you anyway. Don’t you think you should get a lawyer?” ventured my secretary.
    “I don’t need a lawyer,” I declared. “I didn’t kill him.”
    “In the movies that’s what the innocent guy always says right before they put the handcuffs on him and throw him in jail.”
    “Thanks for sharing that with me.” I sighed. Changing subjects, I asked, “Any luck getting a hold of Herman Geiss?” Herman was the CFTC’s enforcement chief.
    “Nope, he’s been in a meeting all morning. I’ve left two urgent messages.”
    “Then would you please get Greg Shanahan on the phone for me?”
    “Is he a criminal lawyer?”
    “No, he’s a futures trader—a client. He should be in the rolodex.”
    “I still think you need to line up a criminal attorney.”
    “What I need,” I replied with mock severity, “is a secretary who will get Greg Shanahan on the phone for me.”
    “Yes, boss,” replied Cheryl with a cockeyed salute.
    “I like being called boss,” I called out to her retreating back.
    “Don’t get used to it,” came her faint reply.
     
    For the rest of the morning I tried to put thoughts of Bart Hexter’s death out of my head and concentrate on getting caught up with the tide of work that had washed up over my desk.