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way, Mrs. Swaitkowski, are you a member here? I haven’t seen you.”
    I shook my head.
    “Nope. Pulled a string.”
    “Must have been a very strong one.”
    “The strongest.”
    “Interesting. Pardon me for asking this, dear, but do you feel it’s entirely appropriate to join me at my table without an invitation?”
    “It’s entirely inappropriate. You can tell me to get lost anytime you want. But I’m really hoping you can talk to me for a few minutes about Sergey Pontecello, who, by the way, has just been murdered.”
    “That’s what the police are telling me, though I find it hard to believe.”
    “Really?”
    “Who would bother killing Sergey? Not a bad sort, underneath. My sister never brought home sick puppies or injured birds, but she did have a taste for tin-plated European nobility like Sergey. The surprising thing was she married this one, probably because he came with some independent wealth. Modest, but enough for them to live reasonably well without actually doing much of anything.”
    “So if they had money, why the mortgages?” I asked.
    “Had money. Past tense.”
    “Where’d it go?”
    “I thought you were his lawyer. Surely you discussed this with him,” she said, neatly cutting off that line of inquiry. While I thought about how to get back on track, she said, “I think you’re getting the wrong idea, Miss Swaitkowski. Despite myself, I liked the little prig. Somewhat full of himself but harmless.”
    “He thought you were trying to heave him out of his house,” I said.
    “Sergey was terribly upset with me, and I can’t blame him. It wasn’t his fault that he lost his house.”
    “I looked up the tax records. Sergey and your sister are still listed as owners of the property,” I said.
    She smiled a kindly smile.
    “A formality, dear. I was trying to break it to him gently.”
    “You’re holding paper on the place. That’s also in the records. Was Sergey aware of that?”
    “Awareness wasn’t the man’s strong suit.”
    “So with your sister dead, you’re reclaiming the place,” I said.
    “One doesn’t reclaim that which one already owns. It’s our family home. It belongs to my family.”
    “You and the kids? Don’t they live around here somewhere?”
    Something moved across her face, but it went by too fast to interpret. She covered the moment by seeming to discover there was a half inch of scotch left in her glass.
    “I have all the information with my attorneys. Including my sister’s will. You should probably speak with them,” she said.
    “Sure. Who are they?” I asked.
    “Atkins Connors and Kalandro in East Hampton. Ask for Sandy Kalandro. I’m sorry about Sergey, I truly am. But I shouldn’t discuss this any further. You’re an attorney. You understand.”
    She looked at her watch.
    “This may seem silly to you,” she said, “but I now only have fifteen minutes to finish my crossword. Doable, but difficult.”
    “Not silly at all. Routines are important,” I said, as if I thought that were true.
    She smiled at me with the type of forced smile that would stick there until I got out of her hair. I was far from done with her, but I had to be happy with what I had.
    “Thanks for your time. Sorry to bother you,” I said, jumping up from the table. “Just one thing.”
    “Yes?”
    “Did you really lock him out of the bathroom? All he wanted to do was brush his teeth.”
    She leaned back in her chair and lost the smile.
    “Mrs. Swaitkowski, please, sit down.”
    I did.
    “Before I committed myself to humanitarianism, I taught anthropology at the University of Arizona,” she said. “Before that I earnedmy Ph.D. in organizational psychology, focusing on corporate power structures.”
    No shit, I said to myself, but acted as if I knew that already.
    “There is nothing known of the intricacies and convolutions of human behavior that I haven’t studied in fine detail,” she said. “From the jungles of New Guinea to the City of London I have