Kenzie stepped close to Ted. “Can you trust him?”

“I think a fifty-dollar bill would buy everything he knows, but someone’s got to know to ask him,” Ted said. “I think we’re okay.”

“Can Lester walk?”

Ted looked down at him. Lester was milking his moment. “With encouragement.”

Kenzie stepped between them, facing Ted and close enough to give them a moment’s privacy. “Does this mean you’ve resolved those ethical concerns you were so worried about?”

Ted met her eyes. “No problem.”

-37-

-37-

They spent the afternoon huddled in Kenzie’s tiny office at the church. Lester, because of his wounds, got the comfy chair. Kenzie took an ancient secretary chair behind the desk, and Ted paced or perched on the cold radiator. They hashed and rehashed plans for the next day and the meeting with the Judge.

“I need him to say something—anything—incriminating with Lester close enough to get it recorded,” Ted said. “He expects me to be begging him for help. It will make him less cautious.”

“What makes you so sure he’ll let his guard down?” Kenzie asked.

“Jill. That’s his focus. If Jackie takes a fall for defrauding Miss Miller, he believes Jill will be devastated. He will do anything to protect her. Including talking to me.”

“Jackie’s the spouse, right?”

“My ex-wife’s wife, yes.”

“She’s also counsel for Barbara Miller on the buildings the old lady lost,” Lester said.

Kenzie looked at Ted with raised eyebrows.

He nodded. “It gets complicated. It looks like Jackie—Jacqueline Clavette—did a piss-poor job of protecting her client’s interests.”

“And maybe she’s behind the surplus-money angle,” Lester said.

“This is all speculation,” Ted said. “Without the full file, I can’t say for certain that Jackie screwed up. Intentionally or not.”

“He’s a lawyer,” Lester said. “I’m not. Jackie did it. Guilty.”

“Either way, she’s key,” Kenzie said.

“But here’s my question,” Ted said. “If she is the one who put it over on Miller, and she’s the one who managed to hide a million plus bucks in surplus money . . .” He paused.

“No ‘if’ about it,” Lester said.

“Then why aren’t the Russians beating her up?” Ted asked.

Lester grunted, which Ted took for support. Outside an ambulance went by at speed, the siren’s Doppler effect peaking in an instant and the sound immediately fading into the background of what passed for normal in the city. The three of them, all deep in thought, took no notice.

Kenzie spoke first. “I see three possibilities. One, she’s working for the Russians. The surplus money will end up in their pockets. She’ll find some way to deliver it.”

“Based on character alone, I’d have to rate that unlikely,” Ted said.

“I agree,” she said, “but not based on her character. Theirs. Those guys wouldn’t trust a woman.”

Lester nodded his agreement.