“That we dropped the ball on Sommers, and on Fepple,” Ralph said coldly. “Preston Janoff’s been over this with the head of agency management, wanting to know why we kept a relationship with a guy who produced a policy a month for us in his good years. Janoff’s agreed to make the Sommers family whole: we’ll send out a check tomorrow. On a total exception basis, as I said. But other than that-Vic, the Rossys’ guests know you’re a detective, they’re avid about American crime, it’s natural they should pump you. And tell me this: what earthly reason could Bertrand Rossy have for getting involved with a loser like Fepple, whom he never even heard of before last week?”

He was right. That was the crux of the problem. I couldn’t think of a reason.

“Ralph, I was hearing last night that it’s Fillida’s money that runs Edelweiss, that Bertrand married the boss’s daughter.”

“That’s not news. Her mother’s family founded the company in the 1890’s. They were Swiss, and they’re still the majority shareholders.”

“She’s a funny woman. Very chic, very soft-spoken, but definitely in charge of what’s said and done in the Rossy home. I gather she keeps close watch on what happens on Adams Street as well.”

“Rossy’s a substantial guy. Just because he married up doesn’t mean he doesn’t do the job well. Anyway, I don’t have time for gossip about my managing director’s wife. I have work to do.”

“Oh, kiss my mistletoe,” I said, but the line was dead.

I dialed back into Ajax and asked for Rossy’s office. His secretary, the cool, well-groomed Suzanne, put me on hold. Rossy came on in a surprisingly short time.

When I thanked him for last night’s dinner, he said, “My wife so enjoyed meeting you last night. She says you are refreshing and original.”

“I’ll add that to my resumé,” I said politely, which earned me one of his hearty laughs. “You must be pleased that Joseph Posner’s stopped haunting the Ajax premises.”

“Of course we are. Any day without a disturbance in a big company is a good one,” he agreed.

“Yep. It may not surprise you to learn he’s moved his protesters up to Beth Israel Hospital. He spun me some rigmarole, which he says you gave him, about you promising a private search of the Edelweiss and Ajax policies if he’d leave Ajax alone and haunt Beth Israel instead.”

“I’m sorry? This word is new to me, rigmarole.”

“Farrago-a bunch of nonsense. What could the hospital possibly have to do with missing Holocaust assets?”

“That I don’t know, Ms. Warshawski, or Vic-I feel I can call you Vic after our friendly evening last night. About the hospital and Holocaust assets you would have to talk to Max Loewenthal. Is that all? Did you discover any new or unusual information about that unusual piece of paper from Mr. Fepple’s office?”

I sat up very straight: I could not afford to be inattentive. “The paper is at a lab, but they tell me it was made at a plant outside Basel sometime in the thirties. Does that ring a bell with you?”

“My mother was only just born in 1931, Ms. Warshawski, so paper from that era means very little to me. Does it mean anything to you?”

“Nothing yet, Mr. Rossy, but I’ll keep your intense interest in it in mind. By the way, there’s a rumor floating around the street. That Alderman Durham only started his campaign on slave reparations after Ajax got worried about the Holocaust Asset Recovery pressure. Have you heard that?”

His laugh bounced along the line again. “The bad thing about being a senior officer is that one becomes too isolated. I don’t hear rumors, which is a pity as they are after all the oil that turns the industrial engine, are they not? That is an interesting rumor, certainly, definitely, but it is also news to me.”

“I wonder if it’s also news to Signora Rossy?”

This time he paused fractionally before continuing. “It will be when I tell her. As you gathered last night, no affair of Ajax is too small for her keen interest. And I will tell her we have another new English expression from you. Rigmarole. I left a meeting for this rigmarole. Good-bye.”

What had that netted me? Just about nothing, but I dictated it to my word-processing center at once, so I could study it when I wasn’t feeling so overwhelmed-I still had a bunch more calls to make.

I went back to Mary Louise’s notes first, before calling my lawyer. Freeman, on the run as usual, said he was convinced personally of Isaiah Sommers’s innocence, but the anonymous phone tip and the fingerprints weren’t good signs.

“Then I guess we need to find the real killer,” I said with dogged cheerfulness.

“I don’t think the guy can afford your fee, Vic.”

“He can’t afford yours, either, Freeman, but I’m still asking you to look after him.”

Freeman chuckled. “So this will get added to your unpaid balance?”

“I send you a big chunk of change every month,” I protested.

“Yep. You’ve gotten the balance down to thirteen thousand-before Sommers’s fees, of course. But you’ll go find me some evidence? Excellent. I was sure we could count on you. In the meantime I keep reminding the state’s attorney that Fepple had a date Friday night with someone using the name Connie Ingram. Whom he was anxious to keep you from seeing. I’m running, Vic-we’ll talk tomorrow.”

That outstanding balance at Freeman’s was one of my biggest headaches. It had gotten out of hand last year when I’d had serious legal troubles, but even before that it had always hovered in the four-figure range. I’ve been putting a thousand on it every month, but it seems like every month I also generate some new need for his billable hours.

I called Isaiah Sommers. When I told him that someone had ratted him out to the cops, he was flabbergasted. “Who could have done that, Ms. Warshawski?”

“How do you know she didn’t do it herself?” Margaret Sommers hissed on the extension.

“The cops had a tip. From a man, by the way, Ms. Sommers, who sounded African-American to them on the replay. My sources in the department say they’re pretty sure the call really was anonymous. I will keep looking into the situation, but it would be helpful if you could tell me of anyone who hates you enough to turn you in for murder.”

“You can’t keep looking,” he mumbled. “I can’t afford to pay you.”

“Don’t worry about that part. The investigation is getting big enough that someone else will pay the bill.” He didn’t need to know the someone would be me. “By the way, not that it’s much consolation when you’re worrying about a murder charge, but Ajax is going to pay your aunt the value of the policy.”

“Funny how that happened just as your bill was going to grow,” Margaret snapped.

“Maggie, Maggie, please-she just said someone else would be taking care of her bill. Ms. Warshawski, this is wonderful news; Margaret, she’s just worried. Like I am, too, of course, but Mr. Carter, he seems like a good lawyer. A real good lawyer. And he’s sure you and he together can get this bad business straightened out.”

It’s good when the client is happy. Trouble was, he seemed to be alone in his good cheer. His wife was miserable. As was Amy Blount. And Paul Radbuka. Me. Max. And most especially Lotty.

She had left the hospital for her clinic after her confrontation with Posner, but when I phoned, Mrs. Coltrain said Dr. Herschel wouldn’t interrupt her schedule to talk to me. I thought of her vehement outcry yesterday evening, that she’d never stinted a patient, that it was a relief to be in the hospital, to be the doctor, not the friend or the wife or the daughter.

“Oh, Lotty, who were the Radbukas?” I cried to the empty room. “Whom do you feel you betrayed?” Not a patient, she’d said that last night. Someone she’d turned her back on whose death consumed her with guilt. It had to have been someone in England -otherwise how had Questing Scorpio gotten the name? A relative was all I could imagine, perhaps a relative who appeared in England after the war that Lotty couldn’t cope with. Someone she had loved in Vienna, but whom the horrors of war had so damaged that Lotty turned away from her. I could see it, could see doing it myself. So why couldn’t she talk to me about it? Did she really think I would judge her?