Final Option

could have chosen to leave her portion of the estate in trust if he’d wanted to.”
    “He and I discussed it many times,” sighed Kurlander. “But Bart was eternally optimistic that Margot would eventually marry and straighten her life out.“
    “Do you think that Hexter might have changed his mind about Margot?” I asked. “Maybe that’s why he made an appointment to see you.” If Hexter had really counted on Margot finding a husband to straighten her out, her announced intention to try a lesbian life-style might have finally convinced him that he should put the money outside of her control.
    “I’m afraid we’ll never know what Bart intended,” confessed Kurlander.
    “Have you told the police yet that he made an appointment to see you?”
    “No, I have not.”
    “Do you intend to?”
    “I don’t see what bearing it has on the case.“
    “Don’t you think that’s for the police to decide?”
    “I see no reason to fruitlessly divert their attention.“
    “Ken,” I countered. “This is not some parlor game. A man was murdered. It is your duty as an officer of the court to pass along any information that might aid the police in their investigation.”
    “Please, Kate. That makes a very fine speech, straight out of your legal ethics class, no doubt. But you are speaking of principles, and I am speaking of reality. Detective Ruskowski may be a competent and experienced homicide detective, but he is the sort of man who would look for an apple in an orchard by first chopping down all the trees. I see no reason to turn his attention toward the family on the basis of what? The fact that Bart Hexter made an appointment to speak to me about something that has gone with him to his grave?”
    I knew that on some level Kurlander was right. But perhaps it was because the mere coincidence of my appointment with Hexter the morning he was killed had caused the spotlight of police suspicion to be turned upon me—or maybe my legal ethics class was recent enough to have left an impression—but when I got back to my office, I called Ruskowski and left yet another, more urgent message.
     
    No one who had their shit together would be on the phone an hour and fifteen minutes before the Arthritis Foundation Benefit while a saleswoman at Neiman Marcus described all the evening gowns she had in size ten. Leon, one of the mail clerks, had already been dispatched in a taxi with my credit card and instructions to pick up my selection, knowing that there was no way I would be able to get to Hyde Park, change, and get to the party in time. I was beginning to think Cheryl might have a point.
    I tended to other business until Leon appeared with two dresses, each in a plastic shroud, and a small shopping bag with a pair of Stewart Weitzman black satin pumps. I locked the door behind him, pulled the shades and, with a glance at the time, began to shed my suit.
    The dresses were pretty, though definitely more glamorous than I usually wore. One was emerald green, with long sleeves and a gored skirt, but the back plunged too low. The other one was midnight blue and seemed more promising. I slipped it on. It was a slim, fitted gown with a sweetheart neck, from which a tiny shower of translucent beads flowed into rivulets down the body of the dress. I examined my reflection in the dim and narrow mirror that hung inside the door of my office closet and saw at once what always greeted my mother’s disappointed eye.
    The dress was lovely, but it was worn by a slightly frazzled corporate attorney—a woman who’d had too little sleep and was wearing too little makeup. With a sigh of resignation I pulled the hairpins out of my French twist, bent at the waist like my nanny taught me, and gave my hair a hard brushing. Then I pinned it back up, rummaged in my desk for mascara and lipstick. Not finding any, I raided Cheryl’s drawer and found her makeup bag. Then, with cosmetic first-aid accomplished, I stuck my tongue out at myself in the mirror and headed out the door, only twenty minutes late.
     
    Running up the wide stone steps of the Field Museum of Natural History I felt a little bit like Cinderella—out of place and late for the ball to boot. The museum was a favorite venue for charity functions, and I’d eaten cool canapés and drunk warm wine on innumerable occasions in the shadow of the great woolly mammoth in its marble rotunda. I gave my name at the reception table, took my placecard and silent auction number, and went