I hadn’t liked Harrington when we first met at the bank and I still didn’t like him. There was an air of false importance about him, a sense that what he said actually mattered. He had been somebody’s blue-eyed boy for too long. He needed to be stepped down a peg and I was just the guy, I figured, to do the stepping. I wanted to be sure, by the end of the night, after all was said and done, that he knew I had screwed his fiancée, and even though I hadn’t liked it much, he didn’t need to know that. Class divisions as clear as those between Harrington and myself always bring out my best, or at least my most petty.

I took a forkful of crab, swirled it in the mustard sauce, and swallowed. It was too good. Harrington was working on his swordfish. Caroline was still flaking her grouper with the tines of her fork, showing no inclination to eat despite the thirty bucks her fish cost. It was almost getting beyond awkward, so I thought I’d lob in the first of my little bombs and liven things up.

“Who,” I asked nonchalantly as I picked at my crab, “was Elisha Poole?”

Harrington looked up from his plate with a sharp surprise on his face. He glanced at Caroline, who rolled her eyes with boredom, and then back at me. “What do you know about Poole?”

“Bobby told me a little when I was at the house the other night.”

“Yes,” said Harrington, his pale cheeks darkening, “I heard you were there.”

I smiled a competitive little smile. One of the evening’s goals, at least, had been scored. “Bobby told me that his great-grandfather had bought the company from Poole just before he started pushing his pressure-packed pickles and that, later, Poole claimed he was swindled. Bobby said that Poole had cursed the whole family for it.”

“So that explains everything,” said Caroline. “I rather like the idea that we are cursed. It’s more comforting than knowing we screwed it up ourselves.”

“Everything Bobby told you is correct,” said Harrington. “It was Poole ’s company before Claudius Reddman bought it, one of a score on the docks canning produce. Poole was a tinsmith and started the company by tinning tomatoes and corn brought over from New Jersey. Claudius was first hired as an apprentice tinsmith but soon took on other responsibilities.”

“When did you learn all this, Franklin?” asked Caroline.

“I find it prudent to study the history of any family whose wealth I administer.”

“How did Reddman end up buying the company if he was just an apprentice tinsmith?” I asked.

“We’re not sure,” said Harrington, “but it appears that Poole liked his drink and as Claudius was able to handle more and more of the business side of things, Poole spent more time with a bottle. Poole ’s father was a notorious drunk, apparently, and so it was only a matter of time before it caught up with the son.”

“Can you get us more wine, Frankie,” said Caroline. “I’m suddenly thirsty.”

I gave Caroline a glance as Harrington snapped for a waiter and ordered another bottle.

“As Poole ’s drinking grew worse,” said Harrington, “Reddman started taking control of the company. Bit by bit he purchased Poole ’s stock, paying cash for the shares. The company wasn’t earning much in those days and Poole was finding himself falling into debt and so he took the money eagerly.”

“Where did the cash come from?” I asked.

Harrington shrugged. “There’s the mystery. But just before the company expanded production of its soon to be famous pickles, Reddman took out a loan to buy the rest of Poole ’s shares. By that time the company was in the red and Poole was apparently only too ready to sell out. It was quite the gamble for Claudius Reddman, taking a loan to buy a profitless company.”

“But it paid off, didn’t it?” I said. “Reddman became a wealthy man, an American industrial giant, and Poole was left to hang himself.”

“That’s right,” said Harrington, turning his attention back to his fish. “ Poole ended as an embittered old drunk who had pissed away his chance for a fortune, that’s one way to view him. Or, if you take his side, he was an honest, trusting man, swindled by an avaricious swine who built his own fortune off the carcass of Poole ’s life work.”

“Who is left to take his side now?” I asked.

“Pardon?”

“Who is around who still thinks Poole was swindled?”

“I don’t know,” said Harrington. “The Pooles, I suppose.”

“Are there any?”

The sommelier came with another bottle of wine, red this time, and poured a sip’s worth into Harrington’s glass. Harrington tasted it and nodded at the waiter and then said offhandedly, “I would think there are.”

“Where?” I asked.

“How should I know?”

“What about the daughter,” I said, “who lived in that house by the pond at Veritas with her widowed mother? You know the place, right?”

Caroline and Harrington glanced at each other and then away.

“Can you imagine her,” I continued, “living in that sagging little hovel, all the time looking up at the great manor house that her father had told her should have been hers? Do you ever wonder what she was feeling?”

“Probably gratitude that great-grandfather had given her a place to live,” said Caroline, who proceeded to empty her wineglass in three quick gulps before reaching for the bottle.

“Did you know Caroline was a Republican?” asked Harrington with an ironic smile I wouldn’t have expected from a banker.

“Somehow I don’t think Poole ’s daughter was gratified at all,” I said. “Have you ever seen that Andrew Wyeth painting Christina’s World? That’s what it must have been like for her, staring up with longing at the large house on the hill. Can you imagine it? She lived there until her mother died, in the shadow of that huge stone house. How twisted must her tender little psyche have become? That she ended up in an asylum is no wonder.”

“Who told you she ended up in an asylum?” asked Harrington with a curious puzzlement.

“The gardener, Nat. I asked about the old cottage on the other side of the pond and he told me.”

“How the hell would Nat know anything about her?” asked Caroline. “This is all ancient history. Jesus, has it gotten cold or something?” She swallowed a gulp of wine. “Can’t we talk about a cheerier subject than the Pooles, for God’s sake. Victor, you’re the mob lawyer, tell us about the mob war that’s in all the papers. It even made the Times. What about that attack on the expressway?”

“Amazing,” said Harrington.

“What happened to your face anyway, Victor?” said Caroline. “It looks like you were in a fight with a cat and lost.”

“I wonder if she had any children?” I said.

“Who?” asked Harrington.

“The Poole daughter.”

“Jesus, Victor,” said Caroline. “Why are you so interested in the goddamned Pooles? It’s enough to drive a girl to drink. Pass the wine.” I couldn’t help but notice that she was now completely ignoring her grouper and had begun to drink like, well, like a fish. I guess our conversation about her family had turned this into what her therapist would have called a situation.

“I’m intrigued by the whole of your family history, Caroline. You asked me to find out if Jacqueline was murdered. Well, after looking into it, now I’m sure that she was.”

“Is Victor acting as your lawyer?” asked Harrington, bemusement creasing his face. I found it interesting that he was more surprised that I might be lawyering for Caroline than that I believed Jacqueline was murdered.

She gave a half smile rather then attempt to describe our peculiar legal relationship.

“So that explains the check and the visit to Veritas.”

“You thought what?” said Caroline. “That he was a gigolo, maybe? Victor?”

“You also wanted me to find out who killed her,” I continued, ignoring Harrington’s laughter. “I think I now know who.”

“What?” said Harrington, his laughter dying quick as a scruple in a bank. “Who, then?”