“Mrs. Rubiano is a very strange woman,” he began. “She believes that I can somehow find out who killed her husband. She actually tried to hire me to do this.” The remaining hundred-dollar bills in his pocket suddenly felt like lead plates. “I am also working on recovering some abandoned funds—that’s what I do. Her husband started on the case after I said I wasn’t interested. At first she was very insistent that I go after this money, but as of last night, she told me to drop it. Flat out, no discussion. She is a forceful and resourceful woman, if somewhat inconsistent in her moods and desires.”

“He’s lying. I don’t buy a word of it,” Kasabian said.

Ted recognized this for the gambit that it was. The detective wasn’t challenging the facts; he wanted to provoke a response. Kasabian probably had a good side to him. Nice to his kids. Only beat his wife when she deserved it.

“I wouldn’t in your shoes,” Ted said with an insincere smile. “But there’s more. Later on last night I was approached at the Mets game by a steroidal man who made vague but believable threats indicating that if I did not get this money for Mrs. Rubiano, I would be forced to endure his presence again.”

“Did this guy have a name?” Duran asked.

“We didn’t exchange business cards,” Ted answered.

“Tell us about this abandoned-funds thing again,” Duran said.

This was safe ground, and he now had enough information to make a story out of it. Ted recited his standard pitch about how he went about doing the research, making a deal, and petitioning the court. Then he described some of the oddities of this particular case, omitting any mention of Miller’s mental condition.

“So you’ve got the missing pages from the court file, the fact that someone basically stole those buildings from Miss Miller, and the involvement of those Russian hoods. I think there’s something very suspicious about the whole thing.” Ted felt smug and didn’t mind if it showed a little.

“Hoods?” Kasabian said.

“What?” Ted said.

“You said ‘hoods.’ Not ‘gangbangers,’ ‘thugs,’ ‘punks,’ or even ‘mobsters.’ You said ‘hoods.’”

“Guilty. I watch too many old movies.”

“And you’ve got an active imagination, I would guess.” Kasabian’s sneer said that he didn’t have much appreciation for imagination.

“I want to hear about this guy who talked to you at the ball game,” Duran said. “Describe him and tell me exactly what he said.”

“I don’t remember the exact words,” Ted said. The “asshole” chant was all that came to mind. “But when I told him that Cheryl wanted me to drop the money thing, he didn’t believe it.”

Kasabian almost rolled his eyes. “So, she’s Cheryl now?”