I looked at her narrowly: she knew, but she wouldn’t tell. I turned my attention to the money. “Tell me about the invoices, Jeannine.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Sure you do. You just said he’d promised no one would ever know. I called about them Saturday night—left a message with your son Paul. What did your husband do next?”

She shed a few more tears but in the end it came out that she didn’t know. They got back late. Paul had left the message by the kitchen phone. When Clayton saw it, he went into his study and shut the door. He made a phone call and left a few minutes later. No, not in the Alfa. Had someone picked him up? She didn’t know. He was very upset and told her not to bother him. It was about one-thirty Sunday morning when he went out. That was the last time she ever saw him.

“Now tell me about the invoices, Jeannine. He was padding them, wasn’t he?”

She didn’t say anything.

“People would give him bids on Eudora Grain cargoes and he would log the orders at one price but bill them at another. Is that right.”

She started crying again. “I don’t know. I don’t know.”

“You don’t know how he worked it, but you know he was doing it. That’s true, isn’t it?”

“I didn’t ask, as long as the bills got paid.” She was sobbing harder.

I was losing my temper. “Did you know what your husband’s salary was?”

“Of course I knew what Clayton earned.” Her tears stopped long enough for her to glare at me.

“Sure you did. And you knew ninety-two thousand, however good it looks compared to the other girls at Park Forest South High, or whatever it was, wasn’t enough to pay for a boat. This house. Your designer clothes. The kid at Claremont. Those high-ticket cars. The Izod T-shirts little Terri runs around in. Dues at the Maritime Club. Just out of curiosity, what does the Maritime Club run you a year? I was betting twenty-five thousand.”

“You don’t understand!” She sat up and stared at me with fierce, angry eyes. “You don’t know what it’s like when all the other girls have everything they want and you’re making do with last year’s clothes.”

This sounded like a real heartache to me. “You’re right—I don’t. My high school, most of us girls had a couple of dresses we started with as sophomores and wore out the door when we graduated. Park Forest South may be a bit tonier than South Chicago—but not a lot.”