Bayard was looking from me and Elton to his car, not sure he and his valuable machine belonged near us. I crossed the street and greeted him cheerily. “I don’t have much time,” he said sternly as I tapped in the code for the front-door lock.

“No, I know: you’re a busy man,” I soothed him. “I, of course, have nothing else to do, so I don’t mind when you’re fortyfive minutes late.” He flushed and murmured something about his daughter and the hospital. Nyaa, I thought: the first person to apologize loses.

Edwards turned down offers of refreshment and aggressively moved my desk chair into the area where I meet with clients.

I sat on the arm of the couch. “So tell me why you broke into Olin Taverner’s apartment on Thursday and then pretended to your family you’d been in Washington until Catherine was shot.”

“I wasn’t-“

“No, no, you’re a busy man, let’s not add to your burdens by sifting through lies. We both know you were there; you weren’t wearing gloves.” “Yes, I was,” he started, and then bit his lip midsentence.

He’d never been interrogated-he’d fallen for the easiest trick in the book. “We’ll take that as a `Yes, I was there.’ Catherine will find it thrilling when she learns you’re a housebreaker-it’ll make you seem younger, more daring in her eyes. Not to mention your mom, who thinks you’re on the stodgy side.”

His jaw dropped. “I-my daughter is too young to understand why I might have to do something unorthodox.”

I smiled sweetly. “And your mother is too old. So what was in those files Taverner kept in his locked drawer?”

“You know so damned much, you tell me.”

“Bayard, for a smart guy, you’re not so bright. Rick Salvi may be in your family’s pocket, but Chicago’s Captain Mallory is starting to pay serious attention to New Solway. He can call on some of the working cops out in DuPage to do a real criminal investigation out there. So stop stalling, because the next time you do, I’m on the phone to the captain.”

He smacked his thigh with a balled-up fist. “I’m Olin’s executor; I had a right to be there.”

“Then why break in through the patio? Why not go over to Julius Arnoff’s office and present your credentials and get him to let you in?” When he didn’t say anything, I said, “Is it because Arnoff is really the executor and your Spadona Foundation is one of the heirs? Is it because you didn’t want anyone to know you weren’t really in Washington on Thursday? Had you flown out on Sunday and killed Marcus Whitby, without realizing the important papers were in Taverner’s desk?”

Bayard turned pale. “That’s an outrageous accusation. I did not kill Marcus Whitby or any other person.”

“Including Olin Taverner?”

“Especially not Olin. He-was an important figure in my life.” “More important than your father,” I suggested.

His lip curled in a scornful smile. “Certainly more important than Calvin, who barely registered my existence.”