“Honey, if it’ll make you happy you can study every photo in it. It’s not much of anything, but she got herself the nicest little box to keep their papers in. Trust Hattie to pay more attention to something for the dogs than to her own records.… More tea, honey?”

When I turned it down she bustled into the front of the house. She was back in a minute, carrying a black lacquer box about eighteen inches long by four deep. It was a beautiful piece, inlaid with a brightly painted picture of a dog resting its nose on the lap of a girl as the two sat under a pear tree. The workmanship was so good that the lid fit firmly inside the box but came out with only a gentle tug. I found myself staring at an out-of-focus portrait of Bruce.

“I want to get back out to my plants, honey. You can just leave it on the table when you’re done looking at it. And be sure to help yourself to more tea if you want some.”

I thanked her and carefully started pulling papers from the box. Underneath Bruce’s face was a group picture of the other four dogs standing at the back fence. She’d somehow persuaded them all to get up on their hind legs and put their paws on the railing. Although also out of focus, it was a pretty cute shot. Maybe it would cheer her up to have it next to her hospital bed. I put it to one side to take with me on my next visit.

A series of photos of what must have been earlier dogs lay below those two, along with Bruce’s Kennel Club paper and papers for other dogs long gone. A handful of yellow news clips told of Mrs. Frizell’s glory years when she’d shown black Labs and won prizes for them. No one had ever suggested that she’d done something that disciplined.

Finally, at the bottom of the box, I found a small bundle of personal papers. The title to the house. And three bonds, each with a face value often thousand dollars. Coupon bonds paying seventeen percent, issued by Diamond Head Motors.

41

A New Breed of Banker

I stared at the bonds for a long while, trying to will them to reveal something more than their face value. Or face valuelessness. In February Mrs. Frizell had closed her account at Lake View, transferred her funds to U.S. Met, and bought thirty thousand dollars of Diamond Head paper. Since her letter to Lake View explained that she was going to receive 17 percent interest at U.S. Met, it seemed like a fair bet that the bank had sold her the bonds. And that meant … something so ugly I hoped it wasn’t true.