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jovial
mood, despite the fact that he had two nasty scratches on his left cheek.
    "Actually, in truth, this time there may be no one to blame," I said. "Sometimes,
things just happen. I take it you've seen the story in the Clarion ?"
    "Yeah. That Hal Gross is okay. Not a single reference to, well, you know."
    "I figured he'd be true to his word. I'll let him know how much we appreciate it. I
had no clue that the woman you rescued was George McCormick's daughter."
    "Me, neither."
    "You ought to marry her," I told him. "She's probably worth millions."
    "I just might," he agreed with a smile, "right after she joins AA and stays
completely sober for five years. She must have had a hell of a hangover."
    "Would this be Robin McCormick?" Diana asked.
    He eyed her warily. "Yeah, why?"
    She flashed a knowing smile and held out a pink phone message slip for Maurice.
"She called at eight forty-five, asking to speak with you. Evidently, she's smitten."
    He didn't look pleased. "Or remembered that Adam picked up the dinner check
she had volunteered to pay." He took the paper and stuffed it into his coat pocket. "Thanks.
I may call her."
    "Also, Adam, a woman named Joyce Markowsky is keen to meet with you."
    "Markowsky?" I said. "That doesn't ring any bells. What--"
    "She said her husband died over the weekend. She'd like to meet with you."
    My law clerk, Ann Stivornik, had joined the group. Her office was around the
corner from the reception area. Ann was one of those rare women who apparently cared
nothing at all about her personal appearance. She was never slovenly or disheveled, but she
always seemed to be wearing the same navy blue skirt and jacket. Her hair had no
particular style and I'd never noticed makeup or perfume.
    "That's the name of the man who died at the opera house," she said in her flat
monotone. "Karl Markowsky. I looked him up online. He was an accountant, with a firm
called Pennington, Markowsky, Barbereau & Thomas." She made a face. "Their
receptionist must cringe every time the phone rings and she has to spit all that out. They
ought to shorten their name."
    "Unfortunately for them, they're going to have to do just that," I said. "They lost
their number two partner Saturday night. I'd bet--"
    Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the elevator doors out in the main hallway
slide open. Joe Stone came striding out. My first impulse, as it always was when Stone
showed up, was to head down the hallway and slip out the side door. But I knew it would
just delay the inevitable. Besides, I knew he had seen me seeing him. I decided to be
gracious, and walked over to the door to let him in.
    "Good morning," I said. He was in uniform, which of course meant this wasn't a
social call. With Stone, it was never a social call, which was just fine with me. I couldn't ever
imagine us being drinking buddies.
    "Yeah," he muttered. "Where can we talk?"
    "How about in here?" I stepped across the reception area and opened the door
to the library, which doubled as our conference room. I knew he hated meeting with me in
my office. Whenever we were there, he had a habit of standing in front of my desk, as
though sitting down might be construed as some sort of concession. Maybe as a child, he
spent too much time in the principal's office. Or it might have had something to do with the
signed apology from him that hung in a frame beside my desk, the result of his having gone
berserk years earlier and arresting me without probable cause.
    In any event, I decided to spare him the discomfort.
    The conference room was the centerpiece of our office suite, nearly four
hundred square feet, with a high ceiling and rows of mahogany shelves overflowing with an
eclectic collection of books I'd accumulated. At the north end, there was a round conference
table, twelve feet in diameter, with a surface of brown tourmaline marble. As Stone well
knew, a man had been bludgeoned to death in that room a few years earlier. That murder
set off the chain of events that