“Was there something especially difficult about MacKenzie Graham’s death?” I asked.

“All deaths are difficult. But MacKenzie had hanged himself, as I understand it.”

“But why?” Larry Yosano was startled into speaking.

“He was at that age,” Arnoff said. “In my experience, the unhappy of the Earth either learn to live with it by the time they’re fortyfive, or they decide they no longer can make the effort. It was particularly unfortunate that Darraugh found his father’s body. I believe his father didn’t know Exeter had sent him home. MacKenzie was very attached to his son. I doubt he would have killed himself, at least not then, had he known Darraugh was there.”

I tried to digest this. “By Ms. Graham’s account, it was an unhappy household. Why did she and Mr. Graham marry in the first place? And why did they never move into a place of their own?”

“Had you known Mrs. Matthew Drummond, you would have understood the answer to both questions. Mr. and Mrs. MacKenzie Graham both caused their parents considerable anxiety when young, as Mr. Lebold explained the matter to me. Both Mrs. Drummond and Mr. Blair GrahamMr. MacKenzie’s father, that is-thought marriage would settle the two young people down. Of course, when I came into the firm, Mrs. Drummond was sixty-five, but she was still a formidable power. In fact, she refused at the outset to work with-” Arnoff broke off.

“She wouldn’t work with a Jewish lawyer?” I suggested.

“She had old-fashioned prejudices,” he said primly. “When Theodore Lebold made me a partner, a few took their business elsewhere, just as some did when we brought Yosano here into the firm, but most of New Solway saw then, as they do now, that Lebold, Arnoff still has their interests very much at heart.”

CHAPTER 24

Scuba Diver

Twilight softened the pond’s surface, blurring the tangled nest of weeds so that only the lily pads showed. Even the dead carp looked as if it might be merely floating near the surface waiting for a fly to land.

When I left Arnoff’s office, I’d thought about returning to Chicago and leaving the pond until the morning, but that would have meant yet another drive out to the western suburbs. After all, it was going to be dark under all those weeds whether I went in at six in the morning or six at night.

All I had left in my thin arsenal was the dogged desire to find what Taverner had told Marc Whitby. Arnoff had dropped hints that I should be able to sort out. He clearly was proud of knowing the secrets swirling around New Solway. Like indiscretions that Calvin Bayard should never have committed to paper. Or at least made sure were far from his son’s prying eyes.

I negotiated the turn onto the East-West Tollway, and joined the milelong backup at the tollbooths. Arnoff had said no one, not even Taverner, ever seriously believed Calvin Bayard was a Communist. So what else had he done that had shocked his son into becoming ultraconservative? And done on paper?