“I’m in Eagle River, Bobby. Renee Bayard just shot Benjamin Sadawi.” “Give it to me fast, Victoria. And straight, no frills.”

I gave it to him straight. Mostly straight. Not too many frills. I told him how Catherine ran away with Benji yesterday afternoon, at which he interrupted: How did I know? It wasn’t because I had known where Benji was and helped him escape?

I sidestepped that issue and told Bobby about the phenobarb, about

Calvin Bayard’s nurse with her seizures. I even told him about Calvin’s secret deal with Olin Taverner, although I choked over the words, hardly able to utter them.

“Renee helped broker that deal fortyfive years ago, Bobby. Marc Whitby stumbled on it and went to ask her about it. She wasn’t going to let Calvin’s secret see the light of day. She’d built her life around making him into the great man; she wasn’t going to let the world see him as lesser. She probably killed Olin, too.”

“Your say-so?” Bobby was sarcastic.

“The family lawyer has a copy of an agreement Calvin Bayard and Olin Taverner both signed. I don’t know its details, but the firm is Lebold, Arnofl: If he’ll let you read it, it may make everything clearer.”

Bobby grunted in my ear. “So what got the kid involved in this?”

“He saw Renee Bayard put Marcus Whitby into that pond last week. Right before he died, Benji said he saw Renee drive up in some kind of vehicle that wasn’t a car; he watched her put Marc’s body into the pond. Remember that golf cart I told you about on Sunday? It would have been so easy for her.”

I had been picturing how she’d worked it. She would have invited Marc to meet her-privately: “Keep it to yourself so there isn’t a possibility of Llewellyn hearing about it,” she would have said. “You don’t want to ruin your career by having him know you talked to me.” Marc played his cards close to his chest-everyone agreed to that-so Renee could have counted on his silence.

Catherine was spending that Sunday night in New Solway; Elsbetta had the night off. Renee invited Marc to Banks Street, gave him his favorite bourbon doctored with Theresa’s phenobarb. As soon as he started feeling ill, before he lost consciousness and couldn’t walk, she would have hustled him to his car-“I’d better get you to the hospital,” I could imagine her saying, the organizational genius at work.

When Renee reached Coverdale Lane, Marc would have been barely conscious. She could safely leave him in the car, go under the culvert, get a golf cart, push his body from car to cart and drive him to the pond.

Bobby listened to me all the way through, but he was skeptical when I finished. “Picturesque, but no proof.”

I almost stamped my foot in frustration. “If I’m right, that cart in the equipment shed will have evidence for your forensic techs to find. It would be great if they got to it before the golf course repaints it or trashes it.”