I reached for my glass and drank, the whiskey burning down. “So,” I finished slowly, “what really happened is that eight hundred thousand dollars of the bank’s money disappeared and Lydia’s statement of account kept the auditors from catching on.”

Clayton’s cheeks blotched. “What are you saying?”

“Clayton, how many people know about this?”

“Just us. Why?”

“I think someone’s embezzled eight hundred thousand dollars.”

His mouth fell open. “Who?”

“Who could alter Lydia’s account statement?”

“The computer programmer, clerks—I suppose anyone at the bank. Hell, I could have. But to do that to cover embezzlement wouldn’t work. Lydia—the customer would raise holy hell as soon as we mailed out her interest statement. She’d open that sucker and—” His lips stopped moving.

“Unless she were dead,” I finished.

“Oh, my God.”

“We can’t let this out.”

“We’ve got to.” His voice rose. “There’s Rayfield, reports to the Feds—”

“I mean just until we get to Henry. Maybe there’s some reason. We can’t go running off.”

“Sure.” Clayton nodded and dabbed his forehead. “Sure.” The word fell emptily into the long silence that followed and then Cade walked in.

Twenty-eight

TWENTY-EIGHT

When he saw me Cade stared in anger and surprise. Then he limped to a chair in front of Clayton. From his pallor the shattered hip was hurting.

“Well,” he demanded, “what’s the problem?”

The question was for Clayton, its rough edge for me. Clayton hung between speech and the dread of speaking. “There’s eight hundred thousand dollars missing on Lydia’s account statement,” I cut in, “and no withdrawal slip.”

Slow comprehension leeched the anger from Cade’s face and voice. He turned to me. “Do the police know?”

“Yes. And Henry’s out of pocket. Clayton tried finding him and couldn’t.”

“You’ve told no one else, Clayton?”

“No, sir. I wanted your advice.”

“Then I’d better see the account statement.”

Clayton passed the single paper, and Cade gripped it tightly in front of him while he scanned. “Rayfield’s got that,” I told him.

“Good God.” He looked up at Clayton. “Adam and I need to talk somewhere. Please, you just stay put and don’t say a word to anyone. We’ll be back.”

Cade led me down the hall toward Henry’s office. It was past five and the bank was empty, but Cade shut the door before taking Henry’s chair. He leaned over the desk, staring moodily past me, fingers drumming silently, uncharacteristically, on the glass top. “You’re wondering why I never told you about Henry.”

The irrelevance of that surprised me. But I nodded, saying, “At least I’d have understood the tension between you and Rayfield.”

“It was Henry’s place to tell you, not mine.”

“So you let him lie.”