Hedging (A Smith and Wetzon Mystery)

Xenia?”
    “You wouldn’t believe her. She’s manic. Twoey knows someone in the federal prosecutor’s office. She spent three hours at Saks this morning recovering.” Should she mention the will? No. What was the point? It would raise Bill’s presence between them again. It didn’t matter anyway.
    “I did some checking into Veeder’s finances,” Silvestri said.
    She heard just the barest of hesitation in his voice.
    “What is it? Was he keeping half a dozen mistresses?” Her joke fell flat.
    “His wife’s money is in a family trust, run by her brothers and parceled out monthly for her care. Before she got sick and he set himself up in his own place, and a separate life, the interest from her share of the trust was an annual gusher. The family didn’t approve of his other life. They were sympathetic with his situation but—”
    “They didn’t like the public flaunting.”
    “You could say that. They’re old line money. They hated the gossip.”
    She swiveled in Sean’s chair and looked out at their garden. The magnolia tree was showing winey buds. “What about his practice? It was always high profile.”
    “Sometimes high profile cases pay, sometimes they’re just high profile, but in the last six months he was turning down cases. He never talked to you about it?”
    “No. Not much of a relationship, was it?”
    Silvestri kept his speech noncommittal. “He had an expensive apartment and an expensive office and staff.”
    “A nice way of saying he was broke?”
    “The Bellemore case came at the right time. He put his apartment on the market, sold his practice—”
    “He was selling his apartment? And his practice? Silvestri, Bill would never have done that.” She thought, I was right. He never intended to come back, and wasn’t going to tell her. It hurt. How could it not? What exactly was it that she and Bill Veeder had had? Did it have no meaning at all?
    “Maybe you didn’t know him as well as you thought, Les.”
    “I guess I didn’t. The son, selling the apartment—he loved that place, selling the practice—”
    “He owed money everywhere, and my guess is he was into the sharks big time. He represented McLaughlin, who asked him to convert cash into diamonds through a dealer on the Coast and you can guess the rest.”
    “God, Silvestri, you’re telling me Bill made a deal for the diamonds with those thugs in the gray Mercedes?”
    “There was no other car, Les. He came with them, and it was probably going to be a hold up. Come on, ten million in diamonds? They’d make it look as if they were taking him hostage and drive away with the diamonds. It would be the great payoff. They’d rough him up a little and let him out somewhere so he could call the police.”
    “And he was off the hook to the loan sharks. Or they would kill him and close their books.”
    “But they didn’t get the diamonds and Veeder was dead, so they were out a bundle.”
    “Which is why they were looking for me. They thought I had the diamonds.”
    “You did.”
    “I must have been deaf, blind, and dumb not to see Bill’s problems. There was something really final about his going to L.A. I wouldn’t go with him, and I don’t think he was surprised. I certainly never met anyone with him who seemed like a thug ...”
    “They have some veneer on them these days. Especially the second generation Russians. They even wear Gucci loafers. You wouldn’t have known.”
    “The men in the Mercedes were the Russian mob?”
    “Word on the street is, Veeder was into their loan sharks.”
    She shivered. “I guess the son won’t get anything in Bill’s will.”
    “Not unless he had money stashed away offshore. The will, if there is one, has to be filed for probate, and you can bet the IRS will be checking that out.”
    “There is a will. I had a call from a Mr. Farber, who must be the lawyer he sold the firm to. About a reading of the will.”
    “You’re mentioned?”
    “So it appears.” She waited for him to ask more, but he didn’t so she didn’t offer the when and where. “Will I see you later?”
    “Yup. I still have to do some checking on this Farber and Gorodet, who bought Veeder’s practice. One of my detectives went up to see them about the Dorley murder. She said they were smooth and tanned and manicured.”
    “They’re probably criminal defense attorneys Bill knew from the courts. Is there anything new on Carolyn’s murder?”
    “Veeder paid her two thou a week