Final Option

intercom. In Hyde Park, unexpected late-night visitors are not to be treated lightly. “Who is it?” I demanded.
    “Detective Ruskowski,” growled a familiar voice. “Come on up,” I bellowed into the intercom, squaring my shoulders and preparing for the worst.
     

CHAPTER 13
     
    “Come on in, Detective,” I said, opening the door. “Make yourself at home. You remember where everything is.”
    The policeman followed me into the empty living room. Claudia must have beaten a hasty retreat. Even with my unsympathetic eye I could see that Detective Ruskowski was looking unwell. In the three days since Hexter’s murder, Ruskowski’s suit, the same one he wore on Sunday, did not seem to have had time to rest.
    “Going someplace?” he asked as his eyes raked over me in my evening gown.
    “No, I’ve just come home. What can I do for you?“
    “You called me three times today,” replied Ruskowski. “I sort of figured you wanted to talk to me.“
    “Yes. But it wasn’t necessary to see you in person. I hope you didn’t make a special trip.”
    “I was in the neighborhood. What do you want?“
    “When the police searched Bart Hexter’s house on Sunday,” I inquired, “did they take any business papers away with them?”
    “Why do you ask?”
    “Hexter had promised to turn over some documents to me that morning pertaining to a CFTC investigation. When I looked for them at his house on Sunday I didn’t find them. Since then I’ve checked his office and they still haven’t turned up. Naturally I’ve been wondering whether the police might have them.”
    “We didn’t take any of his business papers.”
    “Then who did?” I asked.
    “How can you be sure he had them in the first place?” countered the detective. “According to his secretary, he’d canceled your meeting four times before Sunday. Sounds like he was avoiding you.”
    “Either that or he didn’t put the CFTC investigation high on his list. But doesn’t it strike you as odd that the files would just vanish? Not only that, but the backup computer files have been erased at Hexter Commodities. Someone came in and dumped them on Monday morning. It’s quite a coincidence. Hexter is murdered, and the records vanish. Sounds like there could be a motive in there somewhere.”
    “You lawyers are all alike. Something’s easy and you’ve got to make it hard. Hexter pissed somebody off, and that somebody decided to get even. This isn’t ‘Murder She Wrote.’ This is the real thing. You know how cops solve murders? Physical evidence, witnesses, confessions. You tell me how it was done, find me somebody who saw something, heard something, and I’ll show you who did it. I don’t give a fuck about motive. On the Orient Express motive might count for something, but not in Chicago. Fuck the why. Find out the how, and nine times out of ten it’ll give you who.“
    “So I guess you might be interested if I told you that Hexter used to keep a gun in the drawer of his desk at home. One of the maids saw it on Friday morning, but when I looked through his desk on Sunday it was gone.”
    “You took your fucking time telling me,” snarled Ruskowski.
    “I just found out today. A woman named Elena Olarte came to see me.”
    “The maid,” declared Ruskowski.
    “Yes. She wanted to know whether she’d been left anything in Hexter’s will. She claims that Pamela fired her because she knew that Hexter kept a gun in the house. She may just be a disgruntled employee trying to stir up trouble. I don’t know. But I can give you the phone number of the place where she’s staying.” I fetched the piece of paper from my briefcase.
    “She’s probably lying,” said the detective as I handed it to him.
    “What makes you say that?”
    “Because if there is anything that you learn on this job, one God-given truth,” replied Ruskowski wearily, “it’s that everyone lies.” He looked at me hard. “And I mean everyone.”
     
    I know that my secretary loves me because when Elliott Ableman asked her if there was someplace near the courthouse he could meet me for breakfast, she immediately suggested Lou Mitchell’s. You can have your freshly made brioche and your twelve-dollar grapefruit sections at your see-and-be-seen power breakfast restaurants like La Tour. Give me battered formica tables set into long rows so that you eat like loggers, elbow to elbow. Give me shoe salesmen, futures traders, bookies, and bail bondsmen. Give me the best