Final Option

in the front seat, twisting his hands in despair. While I drove I talked on the car phone, first to Caufield’s answering service and then, a few moments later, to Elkin himself, whom they connected from his home. He agreed to meet us at the police station in twenty minutes. Next I called Elliott Abelman’s office expecting another answering service. Instead, the phone rang seven or eight times. Just as I was about to hang up, Elliott himself came on the line.
    “Hey Elliott, it’s Kate. You’re working late. I need another favor.”
    “What’s the trouble?”
    “Pamela Hexter’s just been arrested. I need you to send some more men to the Hexter house in Lake Forest, to Margot Hexter’s apartment in Hyde Park, and to Barton Jr.’s house in Evanston.” I gave him the addresses.
    “So they arrested the wife,” commented Elliott. “Better her than you. Do you think she did it?”
    “I have no idea,” I replied. “I’m on my way to the police station with her son. The funeral was this afternoon.”
    “Pretty gruesome for the family,” remarked Elliott.
    “You can say that again.”
     
    When we arrived at the Lake Forest Municipal Center, the modest parking lot nearest to the police station was already filled with cars including broadcast vans from all three networks. Video technicians swarmed over the steps laying cable. The harsh glare of TV lights illumined the night like flashes of mortar fire. So much for wanting to get there before the press. No doubt Ruskowski had tipped them off.
    I fished in my purse for the card that Ruskowski had given me the day of Bart Hexter’s murder. I dialed the number and explained to the sergeant who answered the phone that I was in the car with Mrs. Hexter's son and we wanted to get into the building without being tom to shreds by the mob in the parking lot. Would it be possible for someone to come to the other side of the building and let us in through the community center doors? No way, was his succinct reply. But he would be sure that a uniformed policeman met us at the doors of the police department to be sure no reporters followed us into the building. I hung up on him.
    I parked the car at the farthest corner of the parking lot and turned to Barton.
    “Listen,” I said. “I think we’ll be less conspicuous on foot. It’ll be awhile before they figure out we’re not reporters ourselves. But as soon as they do, they’ll be all over us. This is how we’re going to do it. Walk quickly. Don’t make eye contact with anybody, but don’t cover your face or you’ll be on the news looking like a Mafioso. No matter what anybody says to you, don’t answer. Until Elkin gets here you should conduct yourself as if the police have just made a terrible mistake.”
    “But they have,” protested Barton Jr.
    “Remember,” I said as we got out of the car and linked elbows. “Don't talk to anybody and don’t stop for anything.”
     
    Chet Ellway, the reporter from Channel Eight, spotted us first and let out the alarm. The media rushed us as a group, running with their microphones in the false daylight of the TV lights, cameramen lumbering under their heavy cameras, bringing up the rear. I felt the stutter in Barton’s stride as he saw them coming, and I pulled at his arm to keep him from slowing down. They shouted questions, hands grabbed at my sleeve as reporters jostled each other for position and jostled us in return. Barton, over his initial hesitation, turned his shoulder to the task, and together we pushed our way through the crowd.
    Two uniformed officers met us at the door, nightsticks at the ready. After the frenzy in the parking lot, the police station, neon lit and half-deserted for the night, seemed incongruous—almost sleepy. The desk sergeant informed us that Mrs. Hexter was in interrogation and pointed to a bench where we could wait. With an eloquent shrug he seemed to indicate that we might as well make ourselves comfortable for the night.
    “What happens now?” asked Barton Jr., too restless to sit.
    “We wait for Elkin Caufield to get here. Then they’ll let him go and talk to your mother.”
    “They’re going to let her go, aren’t they? They can’t make her spend the night in jail, can they?”
    “Elkin will do his best,” I assured him. Two semesters of criminal law, I reflected ruefully, were no preparation for real-life encounters with the criminal justice system. I had no idea how long they would keep Pamela Hexter before