Good heavens, she thought to herself, isn’t this a grand fantasy? I’m really making this guy Babcock into a regular Dudley Do-Right.

When Carmela was halfway down the corridor, hurrying to meet Billy, one of the lemon bars slipped off the plate. Tumbled end over end and landed with a splotch, the white powdered sugar spilling out around it.

Nice going, klutz.

Carmela wrinkled her nose and stared down at the mess.

Okay, one lemon bar down, one to go. We’ll deal with this happy little accident on the return trip.

AT FIRST CARMELA THOUGHT BILLY HAD STOOD her up. She pushed open the heavy metal door, leaned out, peered into swirling darkness as rain pelted down and lightning strobed in the sky overhead.

Then she saw him. Walking swiftly toward her, splashing haphazardly through puddles of standing water. Billy’s head was tucked down and the collar of his dark blue pea coat was turned up against the battering wind and rain.

“Billy, over here,” Carmela called, waving to him.

Billy ducked through the doorway in a cold wash of rain, then the door snicked shut behind him.

Carmela put a hand on Billy’s shoulder and exhaled slowly. The boy looked cold and drenched, his youthful face tired and drawn. “I was worried you wouldn’t show up,” she told him. Now that he was actually here, she wasn’t sure exactly how to proceed.

Billy faced her as he slowly dripped water on the marble floor. “Do you have the money?” he asked tiredly. His eyes sought out the plate she was clutching. “What’s that?”

“Lemon bar,” said Carmela, thrusting the plate into his hands. “Listen, Billy, did you know about Barty’s storage space across the river?”

Billy accepted the plate and frowned. “I knew about it, yeah.”

“You used to go over there with him?” she asked.

The boy shook his head. “Nope.”

“But you talked to Barty about it?”

Billy gave a shrug. “Not really. I just heard him mention it a couple times.”

“To people in the store?” Carmela asked.

Billy thought for a minute. “More like on the phone, I think.”

“On the phone,” repeated Carmela.

“Yeah,” said Billy. “He was probably talkin’ to the delivery guys. I think that’s where Barty had ’em take the really crappy stuff.”

“You’re sure?” asked Carmela as, around the corner, she heard a sudden shuffle of footsteps.

Carmela touched a warning finger to her lips… Shhhh… as she and Billy flattened against the wall.

The footsteps stopped, then there was the distinct jingle of keys. Someone must be letting themselves into one of the offices, Carmela decided. Maybe Natalie?

She peeked around the corner, caught a flash of rich red silk. No, that had to be Monroe Payne in his Peking Opera costume. Probably come to fetch Glory’s Founder’s Award. The presentation was probably going to kick off fairly soon and Glory would receive her fancy engraved trophy now that she was back on her feet.

Okay now, how am I going to find Edgar Babcock… and drag Billy to meet him?

There was a sudden cry of dismay, then Monroe uttered a single low word: “Damn.”

Oops, thought Carmela, I think Monroe Payne just stepped in that lemon bar.

She poked her head out slightly to take a look. In the dim light she could see Monroe hopping along, trying to scrape something off the bottom of his shoe. Yellow goop, no doubt.

Sorry, Monroe.

As Carmela and Billy stood there in silence, someone else came clattering down the hallway. There was a low exchange of voices, something about a disgruntled donor, and Carmela also heard Monroe mutter, “Idiot food-service people.” Then Monroe and whoever it was that had spoken to him hurried back down the hallway, away from them.

Now it was Billy’s turn to stick his head around the corner for a quick peek.

“Are they gone?” hissed Carmela.

Billy nodded.

“Come on, then,” said Carmela, plucking at his jacket. “Let’s go.”

But Billy was suspicious. “Go where?”

“Uh… just down the hall a little. We’ve got to talk.”

Reluctantly, Billy allowed Carmela to pull him down the corridor in the direction Monroe Payne had just retreated.

When they got to the now-decimated lemon bar, Carmela glanced down at the mess, then paused. What the…?

“What’s wrong?” asked Billy.

“Got to get more light,” she muttered. “Take a closer look at something.”

Monroe Payne’s office door was open a couple inches. Voilà. Perfect. In his haste, Monroe had left his office unlocked.

Pushing the door open, Carmela’s eyes searched the darkness. A small lamp burned on Monroe ’s expansive mahogany desk. But not enough candlepower for her purposes. Carmela searched around the door frame for a light switch, finally found it, hit it with her hand.

Yellow light spilled into the hallway and Carmela was finally able to get a good look at the splotched lemon bar.

“What?” asked Billy, shifting nervously from one foot to the other, obviously aching to get the hell out of there.

But Carmela’s eyes had traveled to the wide arc of powdered sugar that was spread out around the mess in the corridor.

“Oh no,” she breathed.

Carmela bent down on one knee, staring, not quite believing. And like a cartographer reading the latitude and longitude of a map, her index finger traced above a faint gridlike pattern that was imprinted in the spill of powdered sugar.

“What?” asked Billy, picking up on her radical shift in attitude. “You look like you just saw a ghost.”

“Close,” said Carmela hoarsely. She grabbed Billy by the lapels, pulled him into Monroe ’s office. “We’ve got to check something out,” she told him.

“What?” he asked.

“Shhh,” she said as her eyes flicked around his office, taking everything in.

Monroe Payne’s office was twice the size of Natalie Chastain’s. He had a large executive desk, two leather club chairs facing it, and, over by the window, a nice-looking round wooden conference table with four chairs pulled in around it. Two of his walls had floor-to-ceiling bookcases stacked with oversized art books, Chinese ceramics, pre-Columbian vases, Greek urns, and some rolled-up Japanese hand scrolls. Exactly the mishmash of objects you’d expect to find in a museum director’s office.

Carmela’s eyes fell on a closet door.

Let’s just take a quick look-see.

She pulled at the closet door, grimaced as it swung open with a loud creak.

And found… clothes. Thud.

There was a khaki raincoat, a couple light blue shirts, a gray tweed sport coat, a couple striped rep ties tossed carelessly over a wooden hanger.

Carmela stared at these items, bit her lower lip, exhaled slowly. And wondered if her snap assumption about Monroe Payne had been that off base.

Hmm. Maybe.

She dropped to her knees, pawed haphazardly around on the closet floor. And came up with… what else?… a pair of shoes. Nice brown leather wing tips that looked to be maybe a size ten or eleven. She picked one up and held it for a moment, the leather feeling cool and slick in her hand. Then, pulling in a deep breath, Carmela turned one of the wing tips over.

And saw the letters GC imbedded in the rubber.

GC! Ohmygod!

Carmela righted the shoe, peered inside. Giorgio Cortina. GC was Giorgio Cortina, the shoe’s Italian manufacturer. A men’s shoe manufacturer!

Carmela closed her eyes and a shiver of excitement coursed through her.

Bartholomew Hayward and Monroe Payne must have had business dealings together. Business dealings that went terribly wrong!

Is this enough evidence to tie Monroe Payne to Bartholomew Hayward’s murder and clear Billy? It has to be. Carmela paused, thinking hard. But what about motive?

No. She decided she had to forgo worrying about motive for now. The first order of business was for her and Billy to get the hell out of this office and find Lt. Edgar Babcock.