His wife managed to smile at him.

“Told you most of what I know on the phone. But there was another little problem we had. Margaret was asked to be on the board of this company building day-care centers. Turns out one of the backers was a lawyer in Metarie who represents mob guys. The Picayune got ahold of it. We got her out. She gave the money back. Twenty-five grand a year. Real money for them.”

“You mentioned an ethics officer who vetted the finances of state officials.”

“Yeah. I checked after we talked. I should have remembered. But I was blind-trusted and never had to deal with it. His name was Cummings. George Cummings.”

“And where’s he now?”

“Maybe chatting up a storm with Bob. Died a few months ago. Prostate.”

“And the records of his review?” Addis asked. “Would they be somewhere?”

“Supposed to be,” Whalen replied. “All supposed to be preserved like holy texts until Kingdom Come. But you go try to find something in the state archives. They couldn’t even locate the central files of our first term when I was thinking of doing that book on the early years. Then there was a fire. They can’t even tell us what was lost.”

“Tell me about the accountant.”

“Griffith, Harris Griffith. Didn’t look like an accountant. Tall, thickly built fellow, with this full beard. Looked like a lumberjack. Don’t know how they chose him. But he got into trouble with the feds. He was the accountant for one of these S&Ls. The bank crashed, had to be bailed out, upwards to thirty mil. You know the drill: bad real estate loans, lending to directors, et cetera. The officers and directors got caught with empty pockets. So the feds went after the lawyers and the accountants who had signed off on reports saying everything’s jim-dandy. A while back, I got a call from Griffith. Asked if I could talk to Bob about him. I said, ‘Nope. Can’t do it.’ He said he understood. The feds kept after him. The firm kinda fell apart.”

Amelia was making a stuttering sound. She was pointing at her mouth. Whalen went to the kitchen and returned with a glass of water and a straw. He placed the straw in her mouth and held the glass for her. With his free hand, he stroked her head.

“Do you think that Mason could have been involved?” Addis asked.