The Twelfth Card

were to go under he’d lose his job and most of his fortune?”
    “I suppose so. But why would it go under? It’s our most profitable unit.”
    Rhyme looked at Wesley Goades. “You’re up.”
    The lawyer glanced briefly at the people across the table, then down again. The man simply could not hold eye contact. Nor was he given to Rhyme’s pointed explanations—and occasional digressions. He said simply, “We’re here to inform you that Ms. Settle intends to file a lawsuit against your bank seeking restitution for her loss.”
    Hanson frowned and looked at Cole, who gave them a sympathetic look. “On the facts that you’ve given me, making a tortious claim against the bank for infliction of emotional distress probably wouldn’t get very far. See, the problem is that Mr. Ashberry was acting on his own, not as a bank officer. We’re not responsible for his actions.” A glance toward Goades, which may or may not have been condescending. “As your fine counsel here will tell you.”
    Hanson added quickly to Geneva, “But, we’re very sympathetic to what you went through.” Stella Turner nodded. They seemed to mean this sincerely. “We’ll make it up to you.” He offered a smile. “I think you’ll find we can be pretty generous.”
    His lawyer added what he had to: “Within reason.”
    Rhyme regarded the bank president closely. Gregory Hanson seemed nice enough. Boyishly fifties, an easy smile. Probably one of those natural-born businessmen—the sort who was a decent boss and family man, did his job competently, worked long hours for the shareholders, flew coach on the company dime, remembered his employees’ birthdays.
    The criminalist almost felt bad about what was coming next.
    Wesley Goades, however, exhibited no remorse whatsoever as he said, “Mr. Hanson, the loss we’re talking about isn’t your corporate officer’s attempted murder of Ms. Settle—which is how we phrase the act—not ‘emotional distress.’ No, her suit is on behalf of Charles Singleton’s heirs, to recover the property stolen by Hiram Sanford, as well as monetary damages—”
    “Wait,” the president whispered, giving a faint laugh.
    “—damages equal to the rents and profits that your bank has made from that property from the date the court transferred title.” He consulted a piece of paper. “That’d be August 4, 1868. The money’ll be placed in a trust for the benefit of all of Mr. Singleton’s descendants, with distribution to be supervised by the court. We don’t have the actual figure yet.” Finally Goades looked up and held Hanson’s eye. “But we’re ballparking it conservatively at around nine hundred and seventy million dollars.”

Chapter Forty-Three
    “ That’s what William Ashberry was willing to kill for,” Rhyme explained. “To keep the theft of Charles’s property a secret. If anybody found out and his heirs made a claim, it would be the end of the real estate division and might even drive the entire Sanford Bank into bankruptcy.”
    “Oh, well, now, this’s absurd,” the lawyer across the table from them blustered. The two legal opponents were equally tall and skinny, though Cole had a better tan. Rhyme suspected that Wesley Goades didn’t get out on tennis courts or golf courses very often. “Look around you. The blocks’re developed! Every square inch is built on.”
    “We have no claim to the construction,” Goades said, as if this were clear. “We only want title to the land, and the rents that’ve been paid with respect to it.”
    “For a hundred and forty years ?”
    “It’s not our problem that that’s when Sanford robbed Charles.”
    “But most of the land’s been sold off,” Hanson said. “The bank only owns the two apartment buildings on this block and this mansion.”
    “Well, naturally we’ll be instituting an accounting action to trace the proceeds of the property your bank illegally sold.”
    “But we’ve been disposing of parcels for over a hundred years.”
    Goades spoke to the tabletop. “I’ll say again: your problem, not ours.”
    “No,” Cole snapped. “Forget it.”
    “Ms. Settle is actually being quite restrained in her damage claim. There’s a good argument to be made for the fact that without her ancestor’s property, your bank would have gone under altogether in the eighteen sixties and that she’s entitled to all of your worldwide earnings. But we’re not seeking that. She doesn’t want the present shareholders of the