Seeley could think of no way to say no. It wasn't the demands of the trial that concerned him; he could handle those. What he couldn't manage were Judy's expectations and the possibility that he would fail them.
“What have the police told you?”
“Nothing, really. Bob spent the day at his office. They're trying to track down who he had lunch with, but they know he had dinner with Chris.”
“Palmieri?”
She nodded. “Would that be unusual?”
“They were preparing for a major trial. It would be unusual if they didn't have dinner together.”
“They went to an Italian place in the Marina they both liked. Chris was the last person to see Bob.”
Not the last, Seeley thought, just the last one the police knew about.
“Were there any new people your husband met who he talked about?”
She started to shake her head, then stopped. “When I took Lucy to the airport this afternoon-she's on her way to France with the school choir-she told me that once, when Bob picked her up from choir practice, she saw him sitting in the auditorium with the other parents, but when practice was over, he was gone. She went into the hall, and he was by the staircase, talking to another man, a stranger.”
“When was this?”
“Maybe a week or so before Bob died.”
“Did she describe the man?”
“No. Bob told her he was involved in a case he was working on.” She looked away for a moment. “God, I miss him.” It wasn't a complaint, just a statement of fact.
“Have you told the police about this?”
She shook her head. “I just learned about it.”
“Do you think she could describe the man?”
“I suppose so. She comes home in five days. The trip was planned long before Bob died. We're trying to make everything as normal as we can.”
“Did she tell you anything else about the man?”
For the first time since they met, Judy smiled. “Maybe it was going to France, her remembering.”
“What's that?”
“Lucy said the man spoke English, but he had a French accent. Could that be a connection? That the man Bob was talking to was French?”
“I'll make some phone calls,” Seeley said.
“That's all I was hoping for.” Her eyes, filled with hope, told Seeley what he already knew-that he should have said no.
Seeley nodded in the direction of the tent. “Are you interested in the auction?”
“No,” she said, turning to go. “I just came to see you.”
The crowd now overflowed the tent and Seeley took a place by the entrance. He recognized the trim white- haired man on the stage as a former pro quarterback, and later coach, who had gone on to make a comfortable fortune with a string of auto dealerships. The white tennis shirt and light-colored slacks showed off his tan and he moved about the stage with an athlete's grace. He spoke softly into a handheld microphone about his connections to the Hill School-his daughter was a graduate and his grandson was the school's present quarterback-and then, raising his voice and blinking into the make-shift spotlight, he cried, “So let's do something for the kids!”
A younger man who had been waiting at the back of the small stage came forward, took the handoff of the microphone with a flourish, and started the bidding. “Thanks to the generosity of the San Francisco 49ers organization, and our longstanding friendship with the coach, we're auctioning off a full game day, including access to the field and locker rooms, access to the press box, and dinner and photographs with the team. Bidding starts at $5,000!”
The bidding moved rapidly around the tent with hands gesturing eagerly. At the side of the stage, an older man in tie and blazer-the headmaster, Seeley concluded-watched intently, as solemn and self-possessed as the prime minister of a small country, his eyebrows rising at each $500 increment. Seeley saw Renata, her arm linked with Leonard's, behind the raised arm of a bidder. When the arm lowered she saw him and tipped her wineglass in his direction.
At $18,000, the bidding slowed, and when it reached $22,000, it stopped. The coach came to the auctioneer's side-Seeley saw at once that this had been planned; it was an act-and leaned into the microphone. The crowd was going to have to do better for the kids, he said, and, just to make it more interesting, he was throwing in travel to the game on the team's private jet, lodging for the night at the team hotel, and all meals with the team. “But,” the coach said, “I don't want to hear any bids unless they go up a thousand dollars at a time.”
A few feet from Seeley, just inside the entrance, a man's hand shot up. “Twenty-three thousand!” Under the youthfully cut gray hair, the man was red-faced and glassy-eyed, and it didn't surprise Seeley to see a large tumbler half filled with whiskey and ice in the other hand. The woman next to him, jewelry flashing, rubbed his back vigorously.
“Twenty-four!” The bid came from closer to the stage. The bidder rose from his chair and repeated, “Twenty-four!”
The bidding moved even more quickly than before, to twenty-five thousand, then thirty. The other bidders dropped out at thirty-five, and it became just the two men trading bids. The auctioneer turned to one man, then the other, before his rival even shouted his new bid. With each bid, the coach punched the air.
The bidder close to Seeley said to the woman, whose hand was still on his back, “I can't stop him. I knock him down, he just gets up.” His face was bloodred. “Forty-two thousand!”
“Forty-three!”
“Well, just keep getting up and you knock him down!”
“Forty-four!”
The bidding stopped at $45,000 and the buzz in the crowd height-ened. Faces turned to the man by the entrance. “Go,” the woman barked into the man's ear. “Go! Go!” He wouldn't look at her, but just shook his head.
The coach stepped forward and this time he took the microphone from the auctioneer. His voice still mild, he said, “I want twice this money for the kids. I don't want to hear fifty thousand, I want one hundred thousand, and I know one of you men has it in you to do it.”
There was a collective hum before the crowd went silent again.
“For my part of the deal, I'll double the pot: whoever wins gets to take his best buddy on the trip with him. But this time, the bids go up five thousand dollars.”
“Fifty thousand!” cried the bidder by the entrance.
A heavy hand clapped Seeley's shoulder. “If he was smart,” the voice said, “he'd offer to take the other bidder to the game. They could split the bid and the auction would be over. They'd each save themselves a bundle.”
Seeley turned and at once recognized the face, pale and moonlike behind rimless glasses, from the cover of a business magazine. Joel Warshaw's only arresting feature was his melting, almost liquid brown eyes, the kind that gets beagles extra pats on the head.
“Fifty-five!” came the cry from close to the stage.
Warshaw said, “You know the Bible story, half a baby is better than none.”
“If I remember right,” Seeley said, “it's half a loaf.” How deformed was the man's character that he would so profoundly mangle the point of the Old Testament story? “It's for charity.”
Warshaw shook his head. “Charity's no excuse for stupidity.” His hand touched Seeley's elbow. “Take a walk with me.”
Seeley followed Warshaw down the gravel path. It had grown dark while he was watching the auction, and spotlights mounted in the trees now illuminated the sculptures and the grounds. The saxophone was gone, and the only sound was an occasional roar from the auction tent. Warshaw bent to adjust a pink-ribboned stake, one of dozens planted every twenty feet or so along the periphery of the property. He was a round man, and the effort of bending and rising showed in his face. The business magazine story put Warshaw in his late thirties, but the unlined face made him look younger.
“Deer,” Warshaw said, wiping his hands on his trousers. “They knock the stakes over.” He continued on
