“It isn’t good.” Eve laid her badge on the counter. “Lieutenant Dallas, Detective Peabody, to see Randall Wythe.”
“Yes, Detective Peabody arranged for an appointment. Just let me check with Mr. Wythe’s office.”
She tapped her earpiece. “Yes, Carson, the police officers are here for Mr. Wythe. Of course.” She tapped it again. “Mr. Wythe should be available shortly. His administrative assistant will come out to escort you back if you’d like to take a seat.”
“Okay. Where’s everybody else?” Eve gestured to the empty stools.
“We sent some of the staff home. This storm’s supposed to be a bruiser.”
“But you’re sticking it out.”
“I grew up in Wisconsin,” the woman said with an easy smile.
“I guess you see pretty much everyone who comes in. Have you met Daphne Strazza?”
The woman’s smile faded. “I haven’t, no. It’s terrible what happened. I hope she’s going to be all right.”
“She’s improving. You’ve met Dr. Strazza?”
“Yes, I have. He’s been a client for a very long time. Was, I should say.”
“Can you remember the last time he was in?”
“Not offhand, no. Some time ago. He and Mr. Wythe often meet at the club rather than here. Here’s Carson.”
Carson—skinny, long-necked, with short brown hair meticulously side parted—stepped through a wide doorway.
“Lieutenant, Detective, I’ll take you back to Mr. Wythe’s office. Ms. Midderman, Mr. Wythe said to tell you to switch to auto on the desk anytime you want to leave today.”
“Thank you, Carson, I’m fine for now.”
They followed Carson’s long, somewhat gawky strides down a wide corridor of offices, hushed as a church, past a meeting room or law library where a couple of young staffers huddled over laptops and talked in reverent whispers.
They turned beyond a break room, complete with kitchen and Vending, and continued down to glossy wood doors.
Carson knocked, waited for a quick buzz before pushing the pocket doors open.
“Lieutenant Dallas, Detective Peabody, Mr. Wythe.”
“Yes, yes. Carson, get us some lattes, then cancel anything I have for the rest of the day. I’m damn well going home.”
“Yes, sir.”
Carson went through a side doorway. Wythe leaned back in the big leather chair behind his massive desk, sizing up his visitors.
12
He had a scholar’s mane of shining silver hair around a ruddy, lived-in face with sharp, hard blue eyes and a beak of a nose. He wore his lawyerly suit—deep, dark blue with gray chalk stripes—with a precisely knotted red tie and the corner of a red handkerchief peeking out of his breast pocket.
“I knew Anthony for more than twenty-five years,” he said in a voice that seemed to hover on the edge of a boom. “I was just trying to calculate, and I believe I actually liked him about ten days out of that time. That said, I’m appalled by what happened to him, and to his wife.”
Wythe gestured, a flick of his hand, to the visitors’ chairs—leather, the color of port—facing his desk. “You might wonder at a lawyer volunteering that sort of information, but I knew him for nearly a third of my life, have no motive, and was in Miami—a friendly, annual golf tournament—from Thursday until Sunday evening. It’s easy for you to verify.”
“We will, if we find it applicable.”
Carson stepped back in with a tray holding three oversized cups. He served them competently, even as he sent sidelong glances toward the snow falling outside the window wall.
“Now cancel those appointments, Carson, and go home. Then you can cast worried glances out your apartment window instead of out of mine.”
“Yes, sir.” Carson stepped out, shut the doors.
“Why did you dislike Anthony Strazza?” Eve began. “Except for those ten days?”
“The short answer would be: He wasn’t a likable man. Surely someone with your skill and experience has already gleaned that. However, when I broke my leg and shattered my elbow several years ago in a skiing accident, I had myself airlifted to St. Andrew’s, and Anthony’s OR.”
Wythe lifted his arm, bent and unbent his elbow. “Not just good as new, better than. Same with the leg. I’d like to inquire about Daphne. I’ll need to speak with her before long, as the trustee and executor of Anthony’s estate.”
“She’s in good condition at this point, under a doctor’s care. I can tell you she has no desire to go back to her residence.”
“Understandable.”
“She’ll be clear to leave the hospital by tomorrow or the day after. At that time she’ll require funds.”
“Require funds?”
“She indicated she has none.”
“But…” He caught himself, sipped his latte. “I see. I can, of course, authorize that.”
“Why do you suppose Mrs. Strazza finds herself without the means to pay for a hotel, or whatever medical expenses she’s incurred over her insurance?”
“I can’t speak to how Anthony set up his household finances, Lieutenant.”
“But as his lawyer, the trustee and executor of his estate, you can speak to the terms of his will and his wife’s inheritance.”
“If she’s close to being released from the hospital, she should be well enough to speak with me.”