Ehrengraf Settlement

Ehrengraf, his mind abuzz with uplifting thoughts, left his car at the curb and walked the length of the flagstone path to Millard Ravenstock’s imposing front door. There was a large bronze door-knocker in the shape of an elephant’s head, and one could lift and lower the animal’s hinged proboscis to summon the occupants.

Or, as an alternative, one could ring the doorbell by pressing the recessed mother-of-pearl button. Ehrengraf fingered the knot in his tie, with its alternating half-inch stripes of scarlet and Prussian blue, and brushed a speck of lint from the lapel of his gray flannel suit. Only then, having given both choices due consideration, did he touch the elephant’s trunk, before opting instead for the bell-push.

Moments later he was in a paneled library, seated in a leather club chair, with a cup of coffee at hand. He hadn’t managed more than two sips of the coffee before Millard Ravenstock joined him.

“Mr. Ehrengraf,” the man said, giving the honorific just enough emphasis to suggest how rarely he employed it. Ehrengraf could believe it; this was a man who would call most people by their surnames, as if all the world’s inhabitants were members of his household staff.

“Mr. Ravenstock,” said Ehrengraf, with an inflection that was similar but not identical.

“It was good of you to come to see me. In ordinary circumstances I’d have called at your offices, but—”

A shrug and a smile served to complete the sentence.

In ordinary circumstances, Ehrengraf thought, the man would not have come to Ehrengraf’s office, because there’d have been no need for their paths to cross. Had Millard Ravenstock not found himself a person of interest in a murder investigation, he’d have had no reason to summon Ehrengraf, or Ehrengraf any reason to come to the imposing Nottingham Terrace residence.

Ehrengraf simply observed that the circumstances were not ordinary.

“Indeed they are not,” said Ravenstock. His chalk-striped navy suit was clearly the work of a custom tailor, who’d shown skill in flattering his client’s physique. Ravenstock was an imposing figure of a man, stout enough to draw a physician’s perfunctory warnings about cholesterol and type-two diabetes, but still well on the right side of the current national standard for obesity. Ehrengraf, who maintained an ideal weight with no discernible effort, rather agreed with Shakespeare’s Caesar, liking to have men about him who were fat.

“‘Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep a-nights.’”

“I beg your pardon?”

Had he spoken aloud? Ehrengraf smiled, and waved a dismissive hand. “Perhaps,” he said, “we should consider the matter that concerns us.”

“Tegrum Bogue,” Ravenstock said, pronouncing the name with distaste. “What kind of a name is Tegrum Bogue?”

“A distinctive one,” Ehrengraf suggested.

“Distinctive if not distinguished. I’ve no quarrel with the surname. One assumes it came down to him from the man who provided half his DNA. But why would anyone name a child Tegrum? With all the combinations of letters available, why pick those six and arrange them in that order?” He frowned. “Never mind, I’m wandering off-topic. What does his name matter? What’s relevant is that I’m about to be charged with his murder.”

“They allege that you shot him.”

“And the allegation is entirely true,” Ravenstock said. “I don’t suppose you like to hear me admit as much, Mr. Ehrengraf. But it’s pointless for me to deny it, because it’s the plain and simple truth.”

Ehrengraf, whose free time was largely devoted to the reading of poetry, moved from Shakespeare to Oscar Wilde, who had pointed out that the truth was rarely plain, and never simple. But he kept himself from quoting aloud.

“It was self-defense,” Ravenstock said. “The man was hanging around my property and behaving suspiciously. I confronted him. He responded in a menacing fashion. I urged him to depart. He attacked me. Then and only then did I draw my pistol and shoot him dead.”

“Ah,” said Ehrengraf.

“It was quite clear that I was blameless,” Ravenstock said. His high forehead was dry, but he drew a handkerchief and mopped it just the same. “The police questioned me, as they were unquestionably right to do, and released me, and one detective said offhand that I’d done the right thing. I consulted with my attorney, and he said he doubted charges would be brought, but that if they were he was confident of a verdict of justifiable homicide.”

“And then things began to go wrong.”

“Horribly wrong, Mr. Ehrengraf. But you probably know the circumstances as well as I do.”

“I try to keep up,” Ehrengraf allowed. “But let me confirm a few facts. You’re a member of the Nottingham Vigilance Committee.”

“The name’s unfortunate,” Ravenstock said. “It simply identifies the group as what it is, designed to keep a watchful eye over our neighborhood. This is an affluent area, and right across the street is Delaware Park. That’s one of the best things about living here, but it’s not an unmixed blessing.”

“Few blessings are,” said Ehrengraf.

“I’ll have to think about that. But the park — it’s beautiful, it’s convenient, and at the same time people lurk there, some of them criminous, some of them emotionally disturbed, and all of them just a stone’s throw from our houses.”

There was a remark that was trying to occur to Ehrengraf, something about glass houses, but he left it unsaid.

“Police protection is good here,” Ravenstock continued, “but there’s a definite need for a neighborhood watch group. Vigilance — well, you hear that and you think vigilante, don’t you?”

“One does. This Mr. Bogue—”

“Tegrum Bogue.”

“Tegrum Bogue. You’d had confrontations with him before.”

“I’d seen him on my property once or twice,” Ravenstock said, “and warned him off.”

“You’d called in reports of his suspicious behavior to the police.”

“A couple of times, yes.”

“And on the night in question,” Ehrengraf said, “he was not actually on your property. He was, as I understand it, two doors away.”

“In front of the Gissling home. Heading north toward Meadow Road, there’s this house, and then the Robert Townsend house, and then Madge and Bernard Gissling’s. So that would be two doors away.”

“And when you shot him, he fell dead on the Gisslings’ lawn.”

“They’d just resodded.”

“That very day?”

“No, a month ago. Why?”

Ehrengraf smiled, a maneuver that had served him well over the years. “Mr. Bogue — that would be Tegrum Bogue — was unarmed.”

“He had a knife in his pocket.”

“An inch-long penknife, wasn’t it? Attached to his key ring?”

“I couldn’t say, sir. I never saw the knife. The police report mentioned it. It was only an inch long?”

“Apparently.”

“It doesn’t sound terribly formidable, does it? But Bogue’s was a menacing presence without a weapon in evidence. He was young and tall and vigorous and muscular and wild-eyed, and he uttered threats and put his hands on me and pushed me and struck me.”

“You were armed.”

“An automatic pistol, made by Gunnar & Swick. Their Kestrel model. It’s registered, and I’m licensed to carry it.”

“You drew your weapon.”

“I did. I thought the sight of it might stop Bogue in his tracks.”

“But it didn’t.”

“He laughed,” Ravenstock recalled, “and said he’d take it away from me, and would stick it — well, you can imagine where he threatened to stick it.”

Ehrengraf, who could actually imagine several possible destinations for the Kestrel, simply nodded.

“And he rushed at me, and I might have been holding a water pistol for all the respect he showed it.”

“You fired it.”

“I was taught never to show a gun unless I was prepared to use it.”

“Five times.”

“I was taught to keep on firing until one’s gun was empty. Actually the Kestrel’s clip holds nine cartridges, but five seemed sufficient.”

“‘To make assurance doubly sure,’” Ehrengraf said. “Stopping at five does show restraint.”

“Well.”

“And yet,” Ehrengraf said, “the traditional argument that the gun simply went off of its own accord comes a cropper, doesn’t it? It’s a rare weapon that fires itself five times in rapid succession. As a member of the Nottingham Vigilantes—”

“The Vigilance Committee.”

“Yes, of course. In that capacity, weren’t you supposed to report Bogue’s presence to the police rather than confront him?”

Ravenstock came as close to hanging his head as his character would allow. “I never thought to make the call.”

“The heat of the moment,” Ehrengraf suggested.

“Just that. I acted precipitously.”

“A Mrs. Kling was across the street, walking her Gordon setter. She told police the two of you were arguing, and it seemed to be about someone’s wife.”

“He made remarks about my wife,” Ravenstock said. “Brutish remarks, designed to provoke me. About what he intended to do to and with her, after he’d taken the gun away from me and put it, well—”

“Indeed.”

“What’s worse, Mr. Ehrengraf, is the campaign of late to canonize Tegrum Bogue. Have you seen the picture his family released to the press? He doesn’t look very menacing, does it?”

“Only if one finds choirboys threatening.”

“It was taken nine years ago,” Ravenstock said, “when young Bogue was a first-form student at the Nichols School. Since then he shot up eight inches and put on forty or fifty pounds. I assure you, the cherub in the photo bears no resemblance to the hulking savage who attacked me steps from my own home.”

“Unconscionable,” Ehrengraf said.

“And now I’m certain to be questioned further, and very likely to be placed under arrest. My lawyer was nattering on about how unlikely it was that I’d ever have to spend a night in jail, and hinting at my pleading guilty to some reduced charge. That’s not good enough.”

“No.”

“I don’t want to skate on a technicality, my reputation in ruins. I don’t want to devote a few hundred hours to community service. How do you suppose they’d have me serve my community, Mr. Ehrengraf? Would they send me across the street to pick up litter in the park? Or would they regard a stick with a sharp bit of metal at its end as far too formidable a weapon to be placed in my irresponsible hands?”

“These are things you don’t want,” Ehrengraf said soothingly. “And whyever should you want them? But perhaps you could tell me what it is that you do want.”

“What I want,” said Ravenstock, speaking as a man who generally got whatever it was that he wanted. “What I want, sir, is for all of this to go away. And my understanding is that you are a gentleman who is very good at making things go away.”

Ehrengraf smiled.

Ehrengraf gazed past the mound of clutter on his desk at his office door, with its window of frosted glass. What struck him about the door was that his client had not yet come through it. It was getting on for half past eleven, which made Millard Ravenstock almost thirty minutes late.

Ehrengraf fingered the knot in his tie. It was a perfectly symmetrical knot, neither too large nor too small, which was as it should be. Whenever he wore this particular tie, with its navy field upon which a half-inch diagonal stripe of royal blue was flanked by two narrower stripes, one of gold, the other vividly green — whenever he put it on, he took considerable pains to get the knot exactly right.

It was, of course, the tie of the Caedmon Society; Ehrengraf, not a member of that institution, had purchased the tie from a shop in Oxford’s Cranham Close. He’d owned it for some years now, and had been careful to avoid soiling it, extending its useful life by reserving it for special occasions.

This morning had promised to be such an occasion. Now, as the minutes ticked away without producing Millard Ravenstock, he found himself less certain.

The antique Regulator clock on the wall, which lost a minute a day, showed the time as 11:42 when Millard Ravenstock opened the door and stepped into Ehrengraf’s office. The little lawyer glanced first at the clock and then at his wristwatch, which read 11:48. Then he looked at his client, who looked not the least bit apologetic for his late arrival.

“Ah, Ehrengraf,” the man said. “A fine day, wouldn’t you say?”

You could see Niagara Square from Ehrengraf’s office window, and a quick look showed that the day was as it had been earlier — overcast and gloomy, with every likelihood of rain.

“Glorious,” Ehrengraf agreed.

Without waiting to be asked, Ravenstock pulled up a chair and settled his bulk into it. “Before I left my house,” he said, “I went into my den, got out my checkbook, and wrote two checks. One, you’ll be pleased to know, was for your fee.” He patted his breast pocket. “I’ve brought it with me.”

Ehrengraf was pleased. But, he noted, cautiously so. He sensed there was another shoe just waiting to be dropped.

“The other check is already in the mail. I made it payable to the Policemen’s Benevolent Association, and I assure you the sum is a generous one. I have always been a staunch proponent of the police, Ehrengraf, if only because the role they play is such a vital one. Without them we’d have the rabble at our throats, eh?”

Ehrengraf, thought Ehrengraf. The Mister, present throughout their initial meeting, had evidently been left behind on Nottingham Terrace. Increasingly, Ehrengraf felt it had been an error to wear that particular tie on this particular morning.

“Yet I’d given the police insufficient credit for their insight and their resolve. Walter Bainbridge, a thorough and diligent policeman and, I might add, a good friend, pressed an investigation along lines others might have left unexplored. I’ve been completely exonerated, and it’s largely his doing.”

“Indeed,” said Ehrengraf.

“The police dug up evidence, unearthed facts. That housewife who was raped and murdered three weeks ago in Orchard Park. I’m sure you’re familiar with the case. The press called it the Milf Murder.”

Ehrengraf nodded.

“It took place outside city limits,” Ravenstock went on, “so it wasn’t their case at all, but they went through the house and found an unwashed sweatshirt stuffed into a trashcan in the garage. Nichols School Lacrosse, it said, big as life. That’s a curious expression isn’t it? Big as life?”

“Curious,” Ehrengraf said.

“Lacrosse seems to be the natural refuge of the preppy thug,” Ravenstock said. “Can you guess whose DNA soiled that sweatshirt?”

Ehrengraf could guess, but saw no reason to do so. Nor did Ravenstock wait for a response.

“Tegrum Bogue’s. He’d been on the team, and it was beyond question his shirt. He’d raped that young housewife and snapped her neck when he was through with her. And he had similar plans for Alicia.”

“Your wife.”

“Yes. I don’t believe you’ve met her.”

“I haven’t had the pleasure.”

The expression that passed over Ravenstock’s face suggested that it was a pleasure Ehrengraf would have to live without. “She is a beautiful woman,” he said. “And quite a few years younger than I. I suppose there are those who would refer to her as my trophy wife.”

The man paused, waiting for Ehrengraf to comment, then frowned at the lawyer’s continuing silence. “There are two ways to celebrate a trophy,” he went on. “One may carry it around, showing it off at every opportunity. Or one may place it on a shelf in one’s personal quarters, to be admired and savored in private.”

“Indeed.”

“Some men require that their taste have the approbation of others. They lack confidence, Ehrengraf.”

Another pause. Some expression of assent seemed to be required of him, and Ehrengraf considered several, ranging from Right on, dude to Most def.

“Indeed,” he said at length.

“But somehow Alicia caught his interest. He was one of the mob given to loitering in the park, and sometimes she’d walk Kossuth there.”

“Kossuth,” Ehrengraf said. “The Gordon setter?”

“No, of course not. I wouldn’t own a Gordon. And why would anyone name a Gordon for Louis Kossuth? Our dog is a Viszla, and a fine and noble animal he is. He must have seen her walking Kossuth. Or—”

“Or?”

“I had my run-ins with him. In my patrol duty with the Vigilance Committee, I’d recommended that he and his fellows stay on their side of the street.”

“In the park, and away from the houses.”

“His response was not at all acquiescent,” Ravenstock recalled. “After that I made a point of monitoring his activities, and phoned in the occasional police report. I’d have to say I made an enemy, Ehrengraf.”

“I doubt you were ever destined to be friends.”

“No, but I erred in making myself the object of his hostility. I think that’s what may have put Alicia in his sights. I think he stalked me, and I think his reconnaissance got him a good look at Alicia, and of course to see her is to want her.”

Ehrengraf, struck by the matter-of-fact tone of that last clause, touched the tips of two fingers to the Caedmon Society cravat.

“And the police found evidence of his obsession,” Ravenstock said. “A roll of undeveloped film in his sock drawer, with photos for which my wife had served as an unwitting model. Crude fictional sketches, written in Bogue’s schoolboy hand, some written in the third person, some in the first. Clumsy mini-stories relating in pornographic detail the abduction, sexual savaging, and murder of my wife. Pencil drawings to illustrate them, as ill-fashioned as his prose. The scenarios varied as his fantasies evolved. Sometimes there was torture, mutilation, dismemberment. Sometimes I was present, bound and helpless, forced to witness what was being done to her. And I had to watch because I couldn’t close my eyes. I didn’t read his filth, so I can’t recall whether he’d glued my eyelids open or removed them surgically—”

“Either would be effective.”

“Well,” Ravenstock said, and went on, explaining that of course the several discoveries the police had made put paid to any notion that he, Millard Ravenstock, had done anything untoward, let alone criminal. He had not been charged, so there were no charges to dismiss, and what was at least as important was that he had been entirely exonerated in the court of public opinion.

“So you can see why I felt moved to make a generous donation to the Policemen’s Benevolent Association,” he continued. “I feel they earned it. And I’ll find a way to express my private appreciation to Walter Bainbridge.”

Ehrengraf waited, and refrained from touching his necktie.

“As for yourself, Ehrengraf, I greatly appreciate your efforts on my behalf, and have no doubt that they’d have proved successful had not Fate and the police intervened and done your job for you. And I’m sure you’ll find this more than adequate compensation for your good work.”

The check was in an envelope, which Ravenstock plucked from his inside breast pocket and extended with a flourish. The envelope was unsealed, and Ehrengraf drew the check from it and noted its amount, which was about what he’d come to expect.

“The fee I quoted you—”

“Was lofty,” Ravenstock said, “but would have been acceptable had the case not resolved itself independent of any action on your part.”

“I was very specific,” Ehrengraf pointed out. “I said my work would cost you nothing unless your innocence was established and all charges dropped. But if that were to come about, my fee was due and payable in full. You do remember my saying that, don’t you?”

“But you didn’t do anything, Ehrengraf.”

“You agreed to the arrangement I spelled out, sir, and—”

“I repeat, you did nothing, or if you did do anything it had no bearing on the outcome of the matter. The payment I just gave you is a settlement, and I pay it gladly in order to put the matter to rest.”

“A settlement,” Ehrengraf said, testing the word on his tongue.

“And no mere token settlement, either. It’s hardly an insignificant amount, and my personal attorney hastened to tell me I’m being overly generous. He says all you’re entitled to, legally and morally, is a reasonable return on whatever billable hours you’ve put in, and—”

“Your attorney.”

“One of the region’s top men, I assure you.”

“I don’t doubt it. Would this be the same attorney who’d have had you armed with a sharp stick to pick up litter in Delaware Park? After pleading you guilty to a murder for which you bore no guilt?”

Even as he marshaled his arguments, Ehrengraf sensed that they would prove fruitless. The man’s mind, such as it was, was made up. Nothing would sway him.

There was a time, Ehrengraf recalled, when he had longed for a house like Millard Ravenstock’s — on Nottingham Terrace, or Meadow Road, or Middlesex. Something at once tasteful and baronial, something with pillars and a center hall, something that would proclaim to one and all that its owner had unquestionably come to amount to something.

True success, he had learned, meant one no longer required its accoutrements. His penthouse apartment at the Park Lane provided all the space and luxury he could want, and a better view than any house could offer. The building, immaculately maintained and impeccably staffed, even had a name that suited him; it managed to be as resolutely British as Nottingham or Middlesex without sounding pretentious.

And it was closer to downtown. When time and good weather permitted, Ehrengraf could walk to and from his office.

But not today. There was a cold wind blowing off the lake, and the handicappers in the weather bureau had pegged rain at even money. The little lawyer had arrived at his office a few minutes after ten. He made one phone call, and as he rang off he realized he could have saved himself the trip.

He went downstairs, retrieved his car, and returned to the Park Lane to await his guest.

Ehrengraf, opening the door, was careful not to stare. The woman whom the concierge had announced as a Ms. Philips was stunning, and Ehrengraf worked to conceal the extent to which he was stunned. She was taller than Ehrengraf by several inches, with dark hair that someone very skilled had cut to look as though she took no trouble with it. She had great big Bambi eyes, the facial planes of a supermodel, and a full-lipped mouth that stopped just short of obscenity.

“Ms. Philips,” Ehrengraf said, and motioned her inside.

“I didn’t want to leave my name at the desk.”

“I assumed as much. Come in, come in. A drink? A cup of coffee?”

“Coffee, if it’s no trouble.”

It was no trouble at all; Ehrengraf had made a fresh pot upon his return, and he filled two cups and brought them to the living room, where Alicia Ravenstock had chosen the Sheraton wing chair. Ehrengraf sat opposite her, and they sipped their coffee and discussed the beans and brewing method before giving a few minutes’ attention to the weather.

Then she said, “You’re very good to see me here. I was afraid to come to your office. There are enough people who know me by sight, and if word got back to him that I went to a lawyer’s office, or even into a building where lawyers had offices—”

“I can imagine.”

“I’m his alone, you see. I can have anything I want, except the least bit of freedom.”

“Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater,” Ehrengraf said, and when she looked puzzled he quoted the rhyme in full:

“Yes, of course. It’s a nursery rhyme, isn’t it?”

Ehrengraf nodded. “I believe it began life centuries ago as satirical political doggerel, but it’s lived on as a rhyme for children.”

“Millard keeps me very well,” she said. “You’ve been to the pumpkin shell, haven’t you? It’s a very elegant one.”

“It is.”

“A sumptuous and comfortable prison. I suppose I shouldn’t complain. It’s what I wanted. Or what I thought I wanted, which may amount to the same thing. I’d resigned myself to it — or thought I’d resigned myself to it.”

“Which may amount to the same thing.”

“Yes,” she said, and took a sip of coffee. “And then I met Bo.”

“And that would be Tegrum Bogue.”

“I thought we were careful,” she said. “I never had any intimation that Millard knew, or even suspected.” Her face clouded. “He was a lovely boy, you know. It’s still hard for me to believe he’s gone.”

“And that your husband killed him.”

“That part’s not difficult to believe,” she said. “Millard’s cold as ice and harder than stone. The part I can’t understand is how someone like him could care enough to want me.”

“You’re a possession,” Ehrengraf suggested.

“Yes, of course. There’s no other explanation.” Another sip of coffee; Ehrengraf, watching her mouth, found himself envying the bone china cup. “It wouldn’t have lasted,” she said. “I was too old for Bo, even as Millard is too old for me. Mr. Ehrengraf, I had resigned myself to living the life Millard wanted me to live. Then Bo came along, and a sunbeam brightened up my prison cell, so to speak, and the life to which I’d resigned myself was now transformed into one I could enjoy.”

“Made so by trysts with your young lover.”

“Trysts,” she said. “I like the word, it sounds permissibly naughty. But, you know, it also sounds like tristesse, which is sadness in French.”

A woman who cared about words was very likely a woman on whom the charms of poetry would not be lost. Ehrengraf found himself wishing he’d quoted something rather more distinguished than Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater.

“I don’t know how Millard found out about Bo,” she said. “Or how he contrived to face him mere steps from our house and shoot him down like a dog. But there seemed to be no question of his guilt, and I assumed he’d have to answer in some small way for what he’d done. He wouldn’t go to prison, rich men never do, but look at him now, Mr. Ehrengraf, proclaimed a defender of home and hearth who slew a rapist and murderer. To think that a sweet and gentle boy like Bo could have his reputation so blackened. It’s heartbreaking.”

“There, there,” Ehrengraf said, and patted the back of her hand. The skin was remarkably soft, and it felt at once both warm and cool, which struck him as an insoluble paradox but one worth investigating. “There, there,” he said again, but omitted the pat this time.

“I blame the police,” she said. “Millard donates to their fund-raising efforts and wields influence on their behalf, and I’d say it paid off for him.”

Ehrengraf listened while Alicia Ravenstock speculated on just how the police, led by a man named Bainbridge, might have constructed a post-mortem frame for Tegrum Bogue. She had, he was pleased to note, an incisive imagination. When she’d finished he suggested more coffee, and she shook her head.

“I have to end my marriage,” she said abruptly. “There’s nothing for it. I made a bad bargain, and for a time I thought I could live with it, and now I see the impossibility of so doing.”

“A divorce, Mrs. Ravenstock—”

She recoiled at the name, then forced a smile. “Please don’t call me that,” she said. “I don’t like being reminded that it’s my name. Call me Alicia, Mr. Ehrengraf.”

“Then you must call me Martin, Alicia.”

“Martin,” she said, testing the name on her pink tongue.

“It’s not terribly difficult to obtain a divorce, Alicia. But of course you would know that. And you would know, too, that a specialist in matrimonial law would best serve your interests, and you wouldn’t come to me seeking a recommendation in that regard.”

She smiled, letting him find his way.

“A pre-nuptial agreement,” he said. “He insisted you sign one and you did.”

“Yes.”

“And you’ve shown it to an attorney, who pronounced it iron-clad.”

“Yes.”

“You don’t want more coffee. But would you have a cordial? Benedictine? Chartreuse? Perhaps a Drambuie?”

“It’s a Scotch-based liqueur,” Ehrengraf said, after his guest had sampled her drink and signified her approval.

“I’ve never had it before, Martin. It’s very nice.”

“More appropriate as an after-dinner drink, some might say. But it brightens an afternoon, especially one with weather that might have swept in from the Scottish Highlands.”

He might have quoted Robert Burns, but nothing came to mind. “Alicia,” he said, “I made a great mistake when I agreed to act as your husband’s attorney. I violated one of my own cardinal principles. I have made a career of representing the innocent, the blameless, the unjustly accused. When I am able to believe in a client’s innocence, no matter how damning the apparent evidence of his guilt, then I feel justified in committing myself unreservedly to his defense.”

“And if you can’t believe him to be innocent?”

“Then I decline the case.” A sigh escaped the lawyer’s lips. “Your husband admitted his guilt. He seemed quite unrepentant, he asserted his moral right to act as he had done. And, because at the time I could see some justification for his behavior, I enlisted in his service.” He set his jaw. “Perhaps it’s just as well,” he said, “that he declined to pay the fee upon which we’d agreed.”

“He boasted about that, Martin.”

How sweet his name sounded on those plump lips!

“Did he indeed.”

“‘I gave him a tenth of what he wanted,’ he said, ‘and he was lucky to get anything at all from me.’ Of course he wasn’t just bragging, he was letting me know just how tightfisted I could expect him to be.”

“Yes, he’d have that in mind.”

“You asked if I’d shown the pre-nup to an attorney. I had trouble finding one who’d look at it, or even let me into his office. What I discovered was that Millard had consulted every matrimonial lawyer within a radius of five hundred miles. He’d had each of them review the agreement and spend five minutes discussing it with him, and as a result they were ethically enjoined from representing me.”

“For perhaps a thousand dollars a man, he’d made it impossible for you to secure representation.” Ehrengraf frowned. “He did all this after discovering about you and young Bogue?”

“He began these consultations when we returned from our honeymoon.”

“Had your discontent already become evident?”

“Not even to me, Martin. Millard was simply taking precautions.” She finished her Drambuie, set down the empty glass. “And I did find a lawyer, a young man with a general practice, who took a look at the agreement I’d signed. He kept telling me it wasn’t his area of expertise. But he said it looked rock-solid to him.”

“Ah,” said Ehrengraf. “Well, we’ll have to see about that, won’t we?”

It was three weeks and a day later when Ehrengraf emerged from his morning shower and toweled himself dry. He shaved, and spent a moment or two trimming a few errant hairs from his beard, a Van Dyke that came to a precise point.

Beards had come and go in Ehrengraf’s life, and upon his chin, and he felt this latest incarnation was the most successful to date. There was just the least hint of gray in it, even as there was the slightest touch of gray at his temples.

He hoped it would stay that way, at least for a while. With gray, as with so many things, a little was an asset, a lot a liability. Nor could one successfully command time to stand still, anymore than King Canute could order a cessation of the tidal flow. There would be more gray, and the day would come when he would either accept it (and, by implication, all the slings and arrows of the aging process) or reach for the bottle of hair coloring.

Neither prospect was appealing. But both were off in the future, and did not bear thinking about. Certainly not on what was to be a day of triumph, a triumph all the sweeter for having been delayed.

He took his time dressing, choosing his newest suit, a three-piece navy pinstripe from Peller & Mure. He considered several shirts and settled on a spread-collar broadcloth in French blue, not least of all for the way it would complement his tie.

And the choice of tie was foreordained. It was, of course, that of the Caedmon Society.

The spread collar called for a Double Windsor, and Ehrengraf’s fingers were equal to the task. He slipped his feet into black monk-strap loafers, then considered the suit’s third piece, the vest. The only argument against it was that it would conceal much of his tie, but the tie and its significance were important only to the wearer.

He decided to go with the vest.

And now? It was getting on for nine, and his appointment was at his office, at half-past ten. He’d had his light breakfast, and the day was clear and bright and neither too warm nor too cold. He could walk to his office, taking his time, stopping along the way for a cup of coffee.

But why not wait and see if the phone might chance to ring?

And it did, just after nine o’clock. Ehrengraf smiled when it rang, and his smile broadened at the sound of the caller’s voice, and broadened further as he listened. “Yes, of course,” he said. “I’d like that.”

“When we spoke yesterday,” Alicia Ravenstock said, “I automatically suggested a meeting at your office. Because I’d been uncomfortable going there before, and now the reason for that discomfort had been removed.”

“So you wanted to exercise your new freedom.”

“Then I remembered what a nice apartment you have, and what good coffee I enjoyed on my previous visit.”

“When you called,” Ehrengraf said, “the first thing I did was make a fresh pot.”

He fetched a cup for each of them, and watched her purse her lips and take a first sip.

“Just right,” she said. “There’s so much to talk about, Martin, but I’d like to get the business part out of the way.”

She drew an envelope from her purse, and Ehrengraf held his breath, at least metaphorically, while he opened it. This was the second time he’d received an envelope from someone with Ravenstock for a surname, and the first time had proved profoundly disappointing.

Still, she’d used his first name, and moved their meeting from his office to his residence. Those ought to be favorable omens.

The check, he saw at a glance, had the correct number of zeroes. His eyes widened when he took a second look at it.

“This is higher than the sum we agreed on,” he said.

“By ten percent. I’ve suddenly become a wealthy woman, Martin, and I felt a bonus was in order. I hope you don’t regard it as an insult—”

Money? An insult? He assured her that it was nothing of the sort.

“It’s really quite remarkable,” she said. “Millard is in jail, where he’s being held without bail. I’ve filed suit for divorce, and my attorney assures me that the pre-nup is essentially null and void. Martin, I knew the evidence against Bo was bogus. But I had no idea it would all come to light as it has.”

“It was an interesting chain of events,” he agreed.

“It was a tissue of lies,” she said, “and it started to unravel when someone called Channel Seven’s investigative reporter, pointing out that Bo was at a hockey game when the Milf Murder took place. How could he be in two places at the same time?”

“How indeed?”

“And then there was the damning physical evidence, the lacrosse shirt with Bo’s DNA. They found a receipt among the boy’s effects for a bag of clothes donated to Goodwill Industries, and among the several items mentioned was one Nichols School lacrosse jersey. How Millard knew about the donation and got his hands on the shirt—”

“We may never know, Alicia. And it may not have been Millard himself who found the shirt.”

“It was probably Bainbridge. But we won’t know that, either, now that he’s dead.”

“Suicide is a terrible thing,” Ehrengraf said. “And sometimes it seems to ask as many questions as it answers. Though this particular act did answer quite a few.”

“Walter Bainbridge was Millard’s closest friend in the police department, and I thought it was awfully convenient the way he came up with all the evidence against Bo. But I guess Channel Seven’s investigation convinced him he’d gone too far, and when the truth about the lacrosse shirt came to light, he could see the walls closing in. How desperate he must have been to put his service revolver in his mouth and blow his brains out.”

“It was more than the evidence he faked. The note he left suggests he himself may have committed the Milf Murder. You see, it’s almost certain he committed a similar rape and murder in Kenmore just days before he took his own life.”

“The nurse,” she remembered. “There was no physical evidence at the crime scene, but his note alluded to ‘other bad things I’ve done,’ and didn’t they find something of hers in Bainbridge’s desk at police headquarters?”

“A pair of soiled panties.”

“The pervert. So he had ample reason to pin the Milf Murder on Bo. To help Millard, and to divert any possible suspicion from himself. This really is superb coffee.”

“May I bring you a fresh cup?”

“Not quite yet, Martin. Those notebooks of Bo’s, with the crude drawings and the fantasies? They seemed so unlikely to me, so much at variance with the Tegrum Bogue I knew, and well they might have done.”

“They’ve turned out to be forgeries.”

“Rather skillful forgeries,” she said, “but forgeries all the same. Bainbridge had imitated Bo’s handwriting, and he’d left behind a notebook in which he’d written out drafts of the material in his own hand, then practiced copying them in Bo’s. And do you know what else they found?”

“Something of your husband’s, I believe.”

“Millard supplied those fantasies for Bainbridge. He wrote them out in his own cramped hand, and gave them to Bainbridge to save his policeman friend the necessity of using his imagination. But before he did this he made photocopies, which he kept. They turned up in a strongbox in his closet, and they were a perfect match for the originals that had been among Bainbridge’s effects.”

“Desperate men do desperate things,” he said. “I’m sure he denies everything.”

“Of course. It won’t do him any good. The police came out of this looking very bad, and it’s no help to blame Walter Bainbridge, as he’s beyond their punishment. So they blame Millard for everything Bainbridge did, and for tempting Bainbridge in the first place. They were quite rough with him when they arrested him. You know how on television they always put a hand on a perpetrator’s head when they’re helping him get into the back seat of the squad car?”

“So that he won’t bump his head on the roof.”

“Well, this police detective put his hand on Millard’s head,” she said, “and then slammed it into the roof.”

“I’ve often wondered if that ever happens.”

“I saw it happen, Martin. The policeman said he was sorry.”

“It must have been an accident.”

“Then he did it again.”

“Oh.”

“I wish I had a tape of it,” she said. “I’d watch it over and over.”

The woman had heart, Ehrengraf marveled. Her beauty was exceptional, but ultimately it was merely a component of a truly remarkable spirit. He could think of things to say, but he was content for now to leave them unsaid, content merely to bask in the glow of her presence.

And Alicia seemed comfortable with the silence. Their eyes met, and it seemed to Ehrengraf that their breathing took on the same cadence, deepening their wordless intimacy.

“You don’t want more coffee,” he said at length.

She shook her head.

“The last time you were here—”

“You gave me a Drambuie.”

“Would you like one now?”

“Not just now. Do you know what I almost suggested last time?”

He did not.

“It was after you’d brought me the Drambuie, but before I’d tasted it. The thought came to me that we should go to your bedroom and make love, and afterward we could drink the Drambuie.”

“But you didn’t.”

“No. I knew you wanted me, I could tell by the way you looked at me.”

“I didn’t mean to stare.”

“I didn’t find it objectionable, Martin. It wasn’t a coarse or lecherous look. It was admiring. I found it exciting.”

“I see.”

“Add in the fact that you’re a very attractive man, Martin, and one in whose presence I feel safe and secure, and, well, I found myself overcome by a very strong desire to go to bed with you.”

“My dear lady.”

“But the timing was wrong,” she said. “And how would you take it? Might it seem like a harlot’s trick to bind you more strongly to my service? So the moment came and went, and we drained our little snifters of Drambuie, and I went home to Nottingham Terrace.”

Ehrengraf waited.

“Now everything’s resolved,” she said. “I wanted to give you the check first thing, so that would be out of the way. And we’ve said what we needed to say about my awful husband and that wretched policeman. And I find I want you more than ever. And you still want me, don’t you, Martin?”

“More than ever.”

“Afterward,” she said, “we’ll have the Drambuie.”