in the harbor, and Wall Street when the stone wall it was named for was still in place. I am beginning to wonder whether Sarah is regretting that she didn’t go shopping. Finally I hear footsteps on the landing overhead. They move quickly down the stairs. When I turn to look up, I see the face I saw on Leno, a little thinner than I remember on the tube.
“Mr. Madriani.” He holds out his hand as he reaches the bottom step. “Richard Bonguard.” He is younger and a little taller than he appeared on television, and his smile is broad. If he retains any reticence regarding our meeting, he covers it well.
I take his hand, and we shake. “Good to meet you.” We pass a few pleasantries until he realizes that there is someone behind him, standing in his shadow. “This is my daughter, Sarah.” He turns to look, takes her hand, and shakes it as well.
“So do you practice with your father?”
“No. No. Just on vacation,” she says.
“Oh, good, then it’s not all business.” He smiles, large and buoyant, an affable soul. We talk about the trip, the endless hassle that is now American air travel. Finally he motions us toward a set of double doors off the entry hall. “We can talk in here. Janice, maybe you can bring us some coffee. What would you like?”
“Just some water,” I tell him.
“Bottled water, Janice.”
He asks Sarah, and she begs off again.
He leads us through some double doors, what used to be the front parlor, now a sizable conference room with a large oval table in the center ringed by comfortable executive leather chairs. “Have a seat, wherever you want.”
Bonguard settles into the chair at the small curve of the oval, the head of the table to my left. Sarah and I take the two closest chairs, our backs to the door, Bonguard to my left and Sarah on my right.
“Is this the first time you’ve been to New York?” Bonguard asks her.
“No. I’ve been here twice before. But I was pretty young.”
“Then you have to stick around for a while and enjoy the city. Tell your dad to hold over for a few days, and I’ll get you some Broadway tickets,” he says.
“That would be great.” Sarah’s ready to put the arm on me.
“I wish we could. Unfortunately, business calls.” I am the ogre.
“I regret that we have to meet under these circumstances,” he says.
“I agree. I do appreciate your willingness to talk with me.”
“Oh. No problem,” he says. “Why not? After all, you’re just doing your job. I can’t imagine how I can possibly help you, but ask away.”
I know that the cops have already talked to him. This was reflected in the investigator’s notes immediately following the murder. They caught up with Bonguard before he could leave San Diego. I mention this.
“Yes, I talked to them,” he says. “Not that I wouldn’t have cooperated, but they didn’t give me much choice. They threatened-” He stops, thinks for a moment. “‘Threatened’ may be too strong a word. They intimated that they might be compelled to name me as ‘a person of interest’ with the press if I didn’t tell them everything I knew.”
A fact that of course was not in the investigator’s notes.
This, according to Bonguard, was because he was the last person to see Scarborough alive, except for the killer.
“You can imagine what that would have done to my business,” he says. “Half my clients would have bailed on me before morning.”
I am packing a subpoena for Bonguard to appear at trial. It is in my coat pocket. Depending on what he says here, it may or may not stay there.
“It was fortunate for you that the police landed on Carl Arnsberg so quickly,” I say.
“One person’s misery is another’s relief,” he says. “But so that there’s no misunderstanding, I have no problem talking with you. I talked to the police, I’ll talk to you. Fair is fair,” he says. “So how can I help you?”
“I suppose you knew Mr. Scarborough as well as anyone. Do you know anyone who might have wanted to kill him?”
“Besides your client, you mean?”
“My client had no reason to kill Mr. Scarborough.”
“Of course.” He smiles at me. “Well, as to the issue of potential suspects, you might say that you have an embarrassment of riches. As you may have guessed by now, Terry was a man who went out of his way to collect enemies, most of them anonymous. I’m told that more than a little of his fan mail included death threats, though I suspect that most of these were from cranks who had no intention of carrying them out. Still, it may be grist for your mill,” he says. “As for me, the long and short of it is, I don’t have a clue as to who killed Terry or why. If you don’t mind my asking, why are the police saying your man did it?”
“Based purely on circumstantial evidence that places him in the hotel room at the wrong time,” I tell him.
“That’s it?”
“As far as I know.”
“I have to assume they have something to go on. Of course, I make no judgments,” he adds.
“Good. Do you mind if I take a few notes?”
“Not at all. Let me ask you,” he says. “Have you talked to your client about the possibility of a book?”
I take out a small notebook and pen from the inside pocket of my coat. “No.”
“You might want to think about getting the rights,” he says. “Depending on what happens, the level of publicity.” He’s looking at me from across the table over the top of his coffee cup. “From what I see in the papers, he doesn’t have a lot of money. It could help in defraying your fees.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“You should,” he says. “And feel free to call me if you need any help.”
“You said that except for the killer you were the last person to see Mr. Scarborough alive?”
“As far as I know.”
“Do you recall arriving at Scarborough’s hotel room that morning?”
He nods.
“Did you let yourself into the room, or did Mr. Scarborough let you in?”
“I didn’t have a key. He had to let me in.”
“The door wasn’t open?”
“No.”
“Did you try it?”
“Why would I do that? It was a hotel room. They’re always locked.”
“But you didn’t push on it to find out, or turn the doorknob?”
“No. I told you.”
“And when you left the room, after your meeting with Mr. Scarborough, do you recall, did he accompany you to the door, or did you let yourself out?”
On this he ponders for a moment. “As I recall, he had finished up shaving, in the bathroom. We talked. He was tired, said he wanted to get some rest. You know, I can’t remember, but I think I let myself out.”
“Can you recall when you left, did you hear the door close behind you?”
“I don’t know. How do you remember something like that? You realize that the cops asked me the same question. Why is it important?”
“I’m sure they did.” I don’t answer his question.
“Are you sure that it latched all the way closed?”
“I didn’t check it, if that’s what you mean.”
“Did you hear it close?”
“I can’t remember. I wasn’t paying that much attention. Sometimes I check my own door when I’m staying in a hotel, but I don’t usually check anybody else’s.”
“Can you tell me what the two of you talked about, you and Scarborough in your last meeting?”
“What do authors and agents always talk about? Book sales, how his tour was going. The usual,” he says.
“As I recall, Scarborough’s book was doing pretty well at that time.”
