“That’s not important right now,” I said.

“Of course it is,” said Harrington. “Have you told the police?”

“The evidence I have is either inadmissible or would disappear before a trial at this point. I’ll need more before I go to the police, and I’ll get it, too. But the guy who killed her was hired to do it, I believe, paid. Just like you would pay a servant or a bricklayer or a gardener. And so the question I still have is who paid him.”

“And you suspect the answer is in our family’s history?” asked Caroline.

“I’m curious about everything.”

Harrington was staring at me for a moment, trying, I suppose, to guess at exactly what I was doing there. “You know, Caroline,” said Harrington, still looking at me, “I knew Victor was a lawyer, but law was not the game I thought we were playing here. Silly me, I thought you brought me here just to show off another of your lads.”

“I announced him as my lover at the house just to get mother’s goat,” said Caroline.

“And you succeeded. She was apoplectic.”

“Thank God something worked out right.”

“Well, then, let’s have it out,” said Harrington. “Are you, Victor?”

“Am I what?”

“Caroline’s lover.”

I glanced at Caroline and she reached for her wine and there was an awkward silence.

Harrington laughed, a loud gay laugh. “That was clear enough an answer. Now, I suppose, I must defend my honor.” He patted his jacket. “Damn, you can never find a glove when you need one to toss into a rival’s face.”

“Shut up, Franklin.”

“I’m sorry. You’re right, Caroline. I’m being rude. Don’t worry, Victor, what you and Caroline do after school is fine by me. All I want is for Caroline to be happy. Truly. Are you happy with Victor, Caroline?”

“Ecstatic.”

“Terrific then. Keep up the good work, Victor.” He turned back to his swordfish and lopped off a thick gray square. “Any help you need keeping her happy, you let me know.”

Caroline emptied her glass and let it drop to the table. “You’re a bastard, you know that.”

“Maybe I’ll order some champagne to celebrate.”

“A goddamn bastard. And you want to know something, Franklin. Victor’s amazing in bed. An absolute acrobat.”

I couldn’t stop my jaw from dropping at that.

“Well then, instead of the champagne I’ll call for the check, get you both back to your trapeze.”

“You’re too heartless,” said Caroline, her arms now crossed tightly against her chest, her chin tilted low.

“I wasn’t the one who invited us all out to dinner together.” Harrington picked up the bottle and said nonchalantly, “More wine, Victor?”

“Am I missing something?” I asked. “It sounds like I’m in the middle of an Albee play.”

“Yes, well, the curtain has dropped,” said Harrington, putting down the bottle. He looked at Caroline and the arrogance in his face was replaced by something tender and vulnerable. It was as if a tribal mask had suddenly been discarded. The way he looked at her made me feel small. “You have to understand, Victor, that I don’t care for anyone in this world as much as I care for Caroline. I couldn’t love a sister any more than I do her. She caught a bad break, getting born a Reddman. Any normal family and she’d have been a homecoming queen, happy and blithe, and she deserves just such blind happiness, more than anyone else I know. I’d die to give it to her if I could. I’d rip out my heart, bleeding and raw, and present it to her on a white satin cushion if it would turn her sadness even for a moment.”

Caroline’s sobs broke over the last few words of Harrington’s speech like waves over rock. I hadn’t even known she was crying until I heard them, so entranced I was by this new Harrington and his proffer of love. Caroline was hunched in her chair, thick mascara tears streaking her cheeks, and there was about this jag nothing of the rehearsed dramatist I had seen when she collapsed in the street with her gun that first day I met her. Whatever strange thing was between Caroline and Harrington, it cut deep. She was about to say something more, but she caught her lip with her teeth, tossed her napkin onto her plate, stood, and walked quickly away, toward the ladies’ room.

“She’s an amazing woman,” said Harrington after she had gone.

“Yes.”

“You’re very lucky.”

“I suppose.”

“Don’t hurt her,” he said, picking up his knife and slicing into a dinner roll.

“I may be wrong,” I said, “but I don’t think she’s in the bathroom crying over me.”

He sighed. “No.”

“What are you, gay?”

Harrington’s face startled, and then he laughed, a warm guttural laugh, charismatic and comforting. I watched him laugh and I couldn’t help but start laughing too. “No,” he said when he finally calmed and had wiped the tears from his eyes. “But that would have been so much easier.”

While we were waiting for Caroline’s return, Harrington, now under the assumption that I was Caroline’s lawyer as well as her lover, explained to me the intricacies of the Reddman demise. The family’s entire share of Reddman stock was in one trust, controlled by Kingsley, Caroline’s father. While the bulk of the dividends remained with the trust, a portion was designated for division to Kingsley’ heirs, the four children. When an heir died, each survivor’s share of the designated division increased proportionally. Upon Kingsley’s death, the shares in the trust were to be divided equally among the surviving heirs.

“How much?” I asked. I knew the general numbers, but I still liked hearing them.

“Right now, with three heirs, each share is worth about one hundred and forty-five million dollars, before taxes, but the share price has been rising so it may be more.”

“Uncle Sam will be happy with his cut.”

“Both Eddie and Bobby are considering moving to Ireland permanently to defray taxes.”

“And they say patriotism is dead. It’s funny though, talking about so much money, but I thought it would be more.”

“Yes, well, over the years many of the shares have been sold, to pay the expenses in maintaining the house and other properties, and a large stake has been put into a different trust, pursuant to the direction of a former trustee.”

“Which trustee?”

“Caroline’s grandmother.”

“And who are the beneficiaries of that trust?”

“I don’t know. It is not being run by our bank and the documents are sealed.”

“Any ideas?”

“Not a one.”

“I heard a rumor that Charity Reddman, Caroline’s grandaunt, ran away after she became pregnant. Any possibility that the trust could be for the benefit of the child or the child’s heirs?”

“Possible, I guess. But you can’t honestly suspect some mysterious heir of Charity Reddman of being responsible for Jacqueline’s death.”

I shrugged. “Tell me about the life insurance policies.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Five million, term, on each heir, premiums paid by the trust. The beneficiary of the policies was designated by the trust as the surviving heirs.”

“So if one killed off another,” I said, “that one would get a third of five million?”

“That’s right.”

“Nice motive,” I said, thinking of Edward Shaw and his gambling debts. “Except I was under the impression the money from Jacqueline’s insurance went to her church.”

“Yes. Jacqueline changed the beneficiary just before her death.”

“Did her brothers and sister know?”

“She wanted me to keep it quiet, so I did.”

“And so when she died her brothers and sister were in for a nasty surprise.”

“Some were none too pleased,” admitted Harrington. “And neither, of course, was the insurance company. It was ready to pay the death benefit but now it’s holding off payment until all questions of Jacqueline’s death are answered.”

I was surprised at that, wondering who had raised the questions with the insurance company, but before I could follow up, Caroline returned. Her eyes were clean of mascara and red, her face was scrubbed. She looked almost wholesome, about as wholesome as you can look with a diamond in your nose. She didn’t sit, instead she placed a hand on my shoulder.