Final Option

look at the boyfriend and said, ‘Eureka! We’ve got our killer.’ They handcuffed the kid, trampled the crime scene, and took him into custody where they tried their best to intimidate him into a confession.”
    “Did he confess?”
    “No. He didn’t confess because he didn’t do it. He and Leslie had planned to sneak out and meet each other in a little wooded glen near her house, but when he got there she was already dead. It seems there was another boy in her class who’d overheard them making plans, a boy with a history of mental instability who’d been obsessively stalking her. Trouble was, the cops spent so much time running in the wrong direction trying to make Wishburn the killer that by the time they figured out they had the wrong guy, the real killer had disposed of the murder weapon and any other evidence that might have linked him to the murder.”
    “So what happened?”
    “Nothing good. Eventually they released the boyfriend—his parents sued the city. They never managed to get enough evidence to charge the kid who really killed her. He’s a junior now at University of Illinois, dating other girls. Afterward, Lake Forest decided that next time a dead body turned up they’d better have somebody on the payroll who’d know what to do about it. So they hired Ruskowski.”
    “I am in deep trouble,” I moaned. “Deep, deep trouble.”
    “Why?”
    “Ruskowski’s got it in his head that I killed Bart Hexter.”
    “Well, did you?” inquired Elliott. His smile took the edge off the question.
    “I’m not in the habit of killing my clients, and if I were, there are quite a few I’d kill ahead of Hexter.“
    “Wow, I’m impressed. You work for bigger assholes than Hexter?”
    “Why do you assume Hexter was an asshole?” I asked. “Don’t you read the papers? The man was a paragon, a modem day Horatio Alger and upholder of family values.”
    “I thought being an asshole was a prerequisite of success as a futures trader. The more successful you are, the bigger jerk you must be. All things considered, I just assumed that Bart Hexter wasn’t exactly a prince among men.”
    “So far I’ve been told that Hexter was controlling, impossible, and had an abusive temper. I know that at least one of his kids hated him.”
    ‘That sounds like the personality profile of what percentage of your partners?”
    “My partners are all alive and well. There is a real live police detective who thinks I shot Bart Hexter. I am not finding this a pleasant experience.”
    “I know,” replied Elliott kindly. “But try not to let it get to you. Eventually the cops are going to find the right guy. They almost always do.”
     
    * * *
     
    I found Greg Shanahan in the back of Butch McGuire’s shooting baskets with another trader. The bet was five dollars a throw. Declining an invitation to get in on the action, I went to the bar and ordered myself a scotch and soda. As the bartender poured my Chivas, I watched Greg land an easy one. McGuire’s has long been a favorite spot among futures traders, and it was busy even on a Monday night, filled with aspiring Gatsbys and the girls they attract. The faces were so young it might have been a college crowd except for the trading jackets slung over chairs, the glitter of Rolexes, and the fact that the banter was about money, not grades.
    Greg, who appeared to have emerged victorious from the free-throw wars, sidled up to me at the bar.
    “I didn’t mean to keep you waiting,” he said. “But I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to take some bucks off that chump. Gotta make a living you know.” Greg ran his hands through his curly blond hair and ordered a gin and tonic. With his blue-eyed good looks and his tow-colored hair he looked more like a surfing instructor than a rabid capitalist. But I was not fooled. Greg, like all the guys in the pits with him, was single-minded in his pursuit of riches, unabashed in his lust for cash and flash. And yet, in his work-day clothes—Nike’s, jeans, a rumpled white shirt, and disreputable tie knotted about two inches below his open collar, he could be just another office boy, stopping in for a quick one on his way home from work.
    “How’s it going?” I asked, pushing my empty glass across the bar, giving the nod for a refill.
    “Hey, I feel lucky today,” he replied. “I made ten grand at the opening on two trades, netted twenty-five hundred in the Bart Hexter murder/suicide pool and,” he said as he wrested a