“No,” I said quietly. “Lydia wouldn’t lie.”

He didn’t move. “Why do you want to know this?”

“That doesn’t concern you, anymore.”

“Then I’ve answered you now.” His profile was utterly still. “Please go.”

I let myself out.

His secretary peered up, ready to pass the messages spread in front of her. “Hold his calls,” I told her. “Just ten minutes or so.”

She looked at my face, and slowly took her hand off the telephone. I went to my office and waited for Culhane.

It was midafternoon before she called.

“Where are you?” I asked.

“Here. Home.”

“Already?”

“I was done by eleven. I got a twelve-thirty plane.”

“You should have phoned from there.”

She hesitated. “I could have. I didn’t want to.”

My head was pounding again. “There’s no problem, is there?”

“I got what you asked for, the partners’ names.”

“And?”

“Adam, there’s one of them you’re not going to like.”

“Who. Cade?”

“No.” I heard her inhale. “It’s your wife, Adam. Kris Ann Shaw.”

Thirty-four

THIRTY-FOUR

Culhane lived on the second floor of a two-story building in a complex twenty minutes from town. As I drove there the skies lowered and darkened and then light rain spattered on my windshield and the road turned slick and shiny. It was raining harder when I knocked on her door.

“You’re wet,” she said awkwardly.

I stepped into her living room: white walls and sliding glass windows opening to a porch where Swedish ivy hung. Culhane stood to one side, watching me, her expression stiff and cautious. “You’d better show me the papers,” I said.

She was still for a moment. Then she went to the kitchen and brought back a small pile of Xeroxes. The top paper was headed: “Napoleon Partners—Certificate of Partnership,” with signature lines for five partners. The last name was signed in a small, careful hand. The i in Kris Ann was looped. “Is it hers?” Culhane asked.

“It’s hers.”

She looked small and serious. “I’m sorry, Adam.”

“No need. It’s nothing you did.”

“But you still love her, don’t you?”

“At least the idea of her. Maybe that was never fair.”

“Please, tell me what this means.”

“It means that Henry Cantwell didn’t kill his wife.”

She stared. “Then you’re going to the police.”

I shook my head. “This is mine to do, Nora, like the story is yours. Surely you see that.”

She stood taut. “Call Rayfield. You’ve already been hurt. You’re begging for something worse to happen.”

I handed her the paper. “Then you’d better keep this for your story.”

“For Christ’s sake, Adam, don’t you see what you’re doing?” I started for the door. She grabbed my arm. “Damn you, you’re acting out the case that killed your father.”