Renee Bayard smiled faintly. “Augustus Llewellyn muscled his way into becoming a journalism giant against a great deal of opposition-he was

launching T-square about the time my husband acquired Margent magazine. None of the big banks would fund a venture by a black publisher. My guess is that Augustus is simply unwilling to make the white journalism establishment a present of one of his reporters’ work.”

“Didn’t Grample help him out?” Catherine said, continuing to twist the edges of her notepaper. “I thought he put together the consortium-” “Yes, darling, but we’re not talking about your grandfather right now. Why don’t you finish your interview with Ms.-“

I fished a card out of my briefcase. “Warshawski. If you know Mr. Llewellyn, do you think he’d be willing to talk to you about what Marcus Whitby was working on?”

She gave a grim smile. “The fact that my husband helped him get financing doesn’t make him an automatic ally of mine, but if I have time I’ll try to call him.”

Elsbetta appeared in the doorway. “Mrs. Renee, excuse me, a man is calling from a television station. Are you wanting to talk to him?”

Ms. Bayard cocked her head to one side. “You don’t know what it’s about, Elsbetta? No?” She brushed Catherine’s forehead with her fingertips and steamed out of the room as quickly as she had entered it.

“Your grandmother has a lot of energy,” I remarked. “Running a publishing house and looking after you-I couldn’t do it.”

“No one wants you to,” Catherine said. “You can stop bugging me now and go home.”

“I think I should give you a tip first. For Vineleaves.” I sat down again, facing her. “You told your grandmother a lie about Darraugh Graham and-no, don’t interrupt-it’s one she can easily check. The two of them know each other; when she asks him if he referred you to me, Darraugh will be astonished and he won’t bother to hide it.”

She flushed. “You could ask him to say I had called.”

“Why would I want to do that for a girl who’s been lying to me and stiffing me? I admit I terrified you by tackling you Sunday night, but I still don’t know why you were at Larchmont Hall the same night that Marcus Whitby died there.”

“It was a coincidence,” she muttered. “Can’t you believe that?”

“Not really. You’re a pretty accomplished liar-your grandmother, who’s known you your whole life, believes what you’re saying.” In the background behind us the phone kept ringing, and then the doorbell.

Catherine’s mouth set in a mutinous line. “I did not know this man was out there dead. And I never heard of Marcus Whitby, just because he was on the local news, which I don’t watch. And I am not the person he was meeting out there.”

“So who were you meeting at Larchmont?”

“That isn’t any of your business. Believe what you want, be with the sex police if you want, I’m not going to tell you.” Panic was rising in her voice. “There is someone in the old Graham house. And you know a way in that doesn’t trigger the alarms. What is it, I wonder?”