“Well.” First she looks at the ceiling, then back to me, batting her lashes a little. “Yes. I thought you might know her. That maybe you were a friend.”
“You thought I might be able to intercede, is that it?”
“Was I wrong?” she says.
“No. Maybe a little naive,” I tell her, “but that was more than made up for by your seamless manipulation of the situation. I mean it was worth a try, friends being friends and all.”
“Yes. I thought she might listen to you.”
I laugh and click the little steel balls on the table one more time. “Actually I’ve only met her once. But even if we were bosom buddies, you’d have to think very highly of friendship to believe that Maggie Rush or anybody else would give up a claim on two million bucks based on that.”
“So she refused?”
“In words that I wouldn’t want to repeat in polite company,” I tell her.
Dana is up out of the chair, turns her back to me, the nails of one hand to her mouth as if she’s going to bite them to the quick. I gaze at her reflection in the mirror over the fireplace. She stands there, nibbling, pupils searching an invisible horizon as she contemplates her next move.
Suddenly she turns, looks at me, and says: “What do we do now?”
Before I can say anything, she’s sitting on the couch next to me, pushing the kinetic toy out of reach so that she has my undivided attention. Silk rubbing against the worsted wool of suit pants.
“I suppose you should call Nathan and give him the news,” I tell her. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. Probably go back to the office and get some work done.”
“You know what I mean,” she says. She reaches over and takes my left hand in both of hers. “You will help me, won’t you? You talked to the woman. You know how she feels toward me. She hates me. You know that Nick didn’t intend to leave her all that money. They were divorced.”
“That’s true.” I start to get up off the couch.
“You’re not going?” she says. “Please don’t go. You’re the only one who can help me. You talked to the firm. You know they treated Nick unfairly. You would think they would want to help now.”
“I talked to Adam Tolt.”
“And?”
“It seems he’d rather not get involved. As far as he’s concerned, it’s between you and the insurance company.”
This ratchets up her anxiety so that she squeezes my hand until the blood leaves my fingertips.
“You were Nick’s friend. You wouldn’t let them do this. I mean not to your friend’s wife. Tell me you wouldn’t.”
“You need to get a good lawyer,” I tell her. Harry would be proud of me.
“I’ve got one,” she says. “You.”
“No, I mean a lawyer who knows how to find his way around an insurance policy. Trap all those little wiggle words, nail down the exclusions, screw the definitions to the floor so the insurance company can’t move them around on you. And that settlement agreement Nick had with Margaret. I hope he had a good lawyer draw it up.”
“What do you mean?”
“Because that’s the key,” I tell her. “If that wasn’t drafted properly, well, let’s just say no lawyer, especially a good one who knows insurance, is going to want to waste much time on it.”
“You don’t think I have a chance?” I’ve seen people accused in capital cases with less apprehension etched in their eyes. “Have you looked at it?” she says. “The settlement agreement.”
“No. But contract law is not my strong suit.”
She drops my hand like a dead fish.
“Who, who should I get?”
“I don’t know.”
“You must know somebody. If it’s money, I can pay,” she says.
“I thought you were broke.”
“I can get it.”
“It’s not just money.”
“Then what is it?”
“Let me think about it for a few days,” I tell her.
“Oh, good. Of course. Take all the time you need. You must think I’m awful. I mean to get you involved like this.”
“What are friends for, right?”
“I knew you’d help me.” At the moment the friends she’s thinking about all have Grant’s picture engraved on them.
“Nick must have shared a great deal with you,” I tell her.
“What?” Her mind is other places.
“I mean about his work. What he did?”
“Not really.”
“From what he told me, the two of you were very close.”
“Well, yes, we loved each other, if that’s what you mean.”
“And I’ll bet there was pillow talk.” I look at her. She looks at me. I smile. She blushes.
“Well, a little.”
“Good. Then he must have told you about Jamaile Enterprises?”
She looks at me, a quizzical expression. “No. I don’t think so. What is it?”
“It’s a corporation-or was until it failed to pay its franchise tax fee.”
“What does it have to do with Nick?”
“He was one of the corporate directors.”
“I don’t know anything about it. I’ve never heard of it. He never said anything to me,” she says.
“I thought he might have, since the only other officer in this company was an acquaintance of yours.”
“Who is that?”
“Gerald Metz.”
Her eyes grow dark with this news, pupils shifting as she processes the information. “What? No. He never said a thing.” I can sense questions fulminating in her mind like popcorn over a hot fire. “When did they do this? Did Nick tell you?”
“Over a year ago, and no, Nick didn’t tell me.”
If she knows anything, you would not be able to detect it from the expression of confusion on her face. “I don’t understand.”
“That makes two of us. Nick told me you met Mr. Metz on the arts commission.”
“That’s right.”
“When was that?”
“I don’t know. Probably the first meeting I attended,” she says. “Now that you mention it, he seemed to know who I was.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. He just came up and introduced himself. Said, ‘You’re married to Nick Rush, aren’t you?’ ”
“Then he admitted he knew Nick?”
“No. I asked him, and he said he only knew him by name. He’d seen it in the paper. That sort of thing. With the kind of clients Nick had, he couldn’t keep his name out of the papers even if he wanted to, which he didn’t.”
I sit there silently mulling this information. Dana’s not looking at me. Instead her eyes are cast down at the carpet.
“How did you find out about this, this business thing between the two of them?”
“The police,” I tell her. “We were able to confirm…”
“The police?”
“Yes.”
