The Lesson of Her Death

this
useful
knowledge.
    “No,” Barrett said, “I want to know how much money you want.”
    “It sounds like you’re just asking me to name a figure.”
    Barrett lifted both eyebrows this time.
    She stalled. “Well, what’s the interest rate?”
    “Prime plus two.”
    “You should know there’s a collateral problem.…”
    “We’re not interested in collateral. We’re interested in you paying us back when you’re supposed to.”
    “We’ll do that. We’re trimming expenses and we’ve already fired three hundred and twelve employees. We’ve hired a financial advisor and he’s cutting—”
    Barrett looked at his watch. “How much?”
    The dean inhaled nervously. “Eight million.”
    “Done.” Barrett smiled.
    “That’s it? You’d write a check to us just like that?”
    Barrett snorted a laugh. “Not a check of course.”
    “Eight million dollars in
cash?”
she whispered. He nodded. “Isn’t that … risky?”
    “It’s riskier with checks, believe me.”
    “I guess we could put it directly in the bank.”
    “No,” Barrett said cautiously, “that would be inappropriate.” The big word stumbling under his urban drawl. When the dean looked at him quizzically he added, “What most of my clients do is keep it in their own safe and pay it out in small amounts. If you have to bank it make sure it’s in different numbered accounts of less than ten thousand each.”
    “That’s a rather strange requirement.”
    “Yeah, Washington comes up with some funny rules.”
    The dean’s education was expanding exponentially. “Your business is headquartered in Chicago?”
    Barrett said, “Among other places.”
    “And what line are you? Is it banking?”
    “A number of lines.”
    Dean Larraby was nodding. “I don’t suppose I should ask where this money comes from.”
    “Ask whatever you want.”
    “Where?—”
    “Various business enterprises.”
    The dean was nodding. “This isn’t illegal, is it?”
    “Illegal?” Barrett smiled like an insulted maître d’. “Well, let’s look at the broad scenario. I’m lending you money at a fair, negotiated rate based on prime. You pay it back, principal and interest.” His eyes swept up to a portrait of a sideburned former dean. “That doesn’t sound illegal to me.”
    “I suppose not,” she said. The dean looked out on the quadrangle then back to the William Dean Howells rug. She wondered if she should ask directly if she had just committed her school to a major money laundering scheme but decided it might be insulting or incriminating and the risk of either was enough to put the kibosh on the question.
    She looked out the windows and saw a lilac bush bending in a spring breeze. This reminded her of Whitman’s poem about Lincoln’s death, and free-associating she recalled that the last time she cried was in college on the wet afternoon of November 22, 1963. She now felt her eyes fill with tears though this time they came from relief and, perhaps, joy.
    She said, “I guess we have a deal.”
    Barrett kept a noncommittal, what-a-nice-office-you-got smile on his face. He said, “You go up to ten million, I’ll shave the points to one and three-fourths.”
    The dean said, “Mustn’t be greedy now. After all, we have to pay it back.”
    “Yes, ma’am, you’ve got to do that.”
    Wynton Kresge said, “He’s checking. He’s regular Army. Put some salute in your voice when you talk to him.”
    Corde picked up the receiver and listened to the hollowness of a phone on hold. He was in his office and Kresge was at a desk two feet away. Propelled by nervous energy, both stood rather than sat.
    After two minutes a crisp voice came on the line. “Deputy Kresge?”
    “Yes sir, I’m here and I have on the line Detective Bill Corde, who’s heading the investigation.”
    “Detective Corde,” the voice said forcefully, “Detective Sergeant Franklin Neale up in Fitzberg here. You five by five, sir?”
    “Five by five,” Corde said.
    “Well, sir, I understand we may have one of your perps down here.”
    “That’s what Wynton tells me, Detective. What’ve you got?”
    “Well, that Polaroid you sent was a dead end. We checked deeds and leases for a Gilchrist. Negative that. We knocked on doors of the buildings shown in the pics and naturally got negatives there too. But we did some brainstorming and stroked the folks at credit card companies. As best we can tell there’s a male perp, cauc, early forties, no distinguishing, using