Final Option

banking laws of Bermuda are very strict. Indeed, inviolate confidentiality is one of our most valued assets—one that brings much banking business to the island.”
    “Surely,” I countered, “the banking laws of Bermuda provide for the sudden death of an individual.”
    “They do. When Bart Hexter opened these accounts, he named his brother, William Hexter, as trustee. Now that we have been notified of your client’s death, we will be sending Mr. William Hexter the appropriate notification form.”
    “Billy Hexter died in a car accident six months ago.“
    “Well then, there really isn’t anything further I can do for you,” said Martindale primly.
    “Surely if I have his brother’s death certificate faxed to you we can move on this. Your customer is dead, the account trustee is dead....”
    “Ah, but these are all joint accounts,” interjected Martindale while I did a double take. “There is a co-signator on each of them, and to the best of our knowledge, that co-signator is very much alive.”
    “How do you know?” I demanded, as the cold hand of foreboding fastened itself around my entrails.
    “Because a significant amount of money was transferred out of one of the accounts this morning.”
     

CHAPTER 23
     
    I tried everything I could think of to persuade Edmond Martindale to divulge the identity of the co-signator on Hexter’s accounts, short of falling to my knees and begging. And I certainly would have tried that ploy if I’d thought there was a whisper of a chance that it would have worked. But with each approach, I came up against the Chinese wall of the privacy provisions of Bermuda banking law. No matter what tack I took, the response was always the same—Bart Hexter had set up the accounts so as to protect the identity of himself and the co-signator.
    I left the bank discouraged and depressed. The information I had come to Bermuda to gain seemed even further beyond my ken, while the information I had obtained unsettled me deeply. I left the bank and walked aimlessly toward the waterfront, trying with little success to order my thoughts.
    Even though it was late in the day the sun was still high, so I stopped at a garish little shop that catered to tourists. I bought myself a big T-shirt, plastic thongs, a towel, and a bathing suit. The shop stocked only bikinis. I chose the most modest one I could find, but even o, I was sure that I could have folded it up, top and bottom, and mailed the whole thing to Cheryl in a letter. My purchases made, I hailed a taxi and instructed the driver to take me to Horseshoe Beach.
    The cabby dropped me off at the end of the path to the Pavilion and agreed to come back for me in an hour and a half. Amid tan and sandy bodies preparing to return to their hotels, I slipped into my new bathing suit. I rolled up my business suit and put it in a rental locker along with my briefcase and headed for the ocean.
    It was as wonderful as I remembered: white sand as fine as powder, crystalline sky, and water of impossible, heartbreaking aquamarine. I laid out my towel and, feeling a little self-conscious with my white skin and microscopic swimwear, ran splashing through the surf into the water. I swam out beyond the breakers, feasting on the huge, uninterrupted vista of ocean, comforted by my smallness in the scheme of things. I dove down into the water, felt my hair shake loose like silken seaweed along my spine. I flipped over onto my back, blinking in the sunlight. I had come to Bermuda for answers and found instead another dead end. Hexter was turning out to be a bigger pain in the ass dead than he was alive. I floated on my back, bobbing on the surface for a long time, carried by the gentle motion of the waves.
    Screw Hexter, I thought to myself.
     
    When I got back to my hotel room, there was a message for me to call Edmond Martindale. I phoned him immediately.
    “I’ve been giving your problem a great deal of thought,” he said in his cricket-fields-of-Eton voice. “It’s been discussed at the highest levels of the bank as well. My wife and I are having some people round for dinner tonight, but I was rather hoping that afterward you’d be able to drop in and continue our discussion.”
    “I’d be happy to,” I replied eagerly. “Where do you live?” He gave me the address.
    “Let’s say ten-thirty, if that’s not too late for you,” continued the banker. “I’d rather that all our guests had gone before you arrived. Actually, I’d rather