He didn’t answer. He had steered her away from the night MacIver had declined to be photographed spending money he had intended to conceal. Leland couldn’t help wondering himself, it was too interesting. As a public accountant MacIver had moved in business circles and there was no telling how much he had picked up about the tangles of the law. He had done his clients’ taxes—Mike did Leland’s and Karen’s—and the law was that the accountant was as responsible for errors as the man whose name appeared at the top of the form.

Leland sat up as he felt himself trying to move ahead and gather together what he had learned. Somehow MacIver had made his start and acquired the money for the divorce settlement. And from there, he had gone on to accumulate a quarter of a million. He could have been made a loan by his mother; it supported the things Norma had just said about the mother’s attitude toward her son—but Leland didn’t care about that; MacIver had been an accountant, nothing more, and in five years and some months he had earned enough to save two hundred and thirty-two thousand dollars. No one had said that he had worked very hard. He had gone out, courted a second wife, married her, set up a new home. He had gone to the racetrack regularly. Leland was sure that MacIver could have won all his money; he would have been paying taxes on it right along or his estate would be tied up at this moment while back taxes were being determined. How MacIver had made his money and why he had died—if, indeed, his death had had anything to do with his money—remained as veiled as they had been yesterday when Norma had entered Leland’s office. Seeing it all in these terms, Leland could feel the despair of which she had spoken. They would get so close, and no more. They would have to give it up.