A Fatal Debt

“She fired the gun at me. There’s probably a bullet in the woodwork over there,” I said. “You’re wasting your time.”

Pagonis sighed heavily, as if feeling the weight of every frustration and misdirection she’d faced during the investigation. I could see it dawning on her that the only charge she could bring against me was assaulting Greene’s killer. The paramedics had now turned Nora on her back and were checking her reflexes and her blood pressure.

“I subdued her with an intramuscular shot. Five milligrams of Haldol and two of Ativan. The syringe is over there,” I called across to them, pointing to the middle of the floor where I’d dropped it.

“Okay, let’s find somewhere to talk,” Pagonis said. She beckoned to us, acknowledging A

She gestured at Nora, who was being lifted onto a gurney by the medics and was about to be wheeled away to an ambulance. Hodge gave me one last hostile look before following. A

We walked into Nora’s study and sat near the window.

“So what the hell’s been going on?” Pagonis said.

“Shouldn’t you read me my rights?” I said.

“Forget it,” she said wearily. “You’re not under arrest. You’re not going to be under arrest. You’re just a witness. Okay?”

I should have refused to talk to her and called Joe, but I wasn’t too worried anymore and I felt a bit sorry for her. So I started to talk and explained the story as best I could, with A

It was a small thing that had made me first question Nora’s story: the image of her by the Range Rover in Green-Wood Cemetery. It was the vehicle in which A

The Range Rover had meant nothing to Pagonis. The Shapiros inhabited a world with so many houses, so many cars, even a jet, that they wouldn’t have wondered at the use of one vehicle. But to anyone who knew Nora, it jarred. She hadn’t been infantilized by wealth like Harry: she knew her way around the world.

“Oh, shit,” Pagonis said finally. “I don’t know how we’re going to clean this up. You’ll have to provide a statement. Doctor, I don’t understand you. One minute you won’t tell us anything about Shapiro, the next you’re tackling his wife.”

“She wasn’t my patient,” I said.

After living through Joe’s diminishing faith in my prospects of survival, I enjoyed seeing his face when I told him what I’d been doing the previous day. I’d got back from Yaphank with A

“You’re kidding me, right?” he said.

“It’s all true.”

We were sitting in his office on a su

“It’s over,” he said. “Finito, kaput.”

Coming from a professional pessimist, that was surprisingly categorical. I’d worked out that Harry not having killed Greene had to be good for me, but I wasn’t sure if my responsibility transferred wholesale to Nora. It turned out, however, that my retort to Pagonis about Nora was the crucial legal point.

“There’s no wrongful death here, not for Episcopal, anyway, and no misconduct. You weren’t treating Mrs. Shapiro and you didn’t discharge her, so you’re not responsible for what she did. It’s got nothing to do with you.”

“Pagonis said they’d want to interview me again.”

Joe dismissed that with a wave of the hand. “Sure, they might want to find out what happened. You seem to know a lot more about it than they do. But there’s no civil case and the grand jury testimony’s irrelevant. Baer will have to put that in the trash. You made a judgment that Shapiro was safe to be discharged, and guess what? You were right. You could have flown around the world in their Gulfstream and it wouldn’t matter. The wrongful death is on Mrs. Shapiro, and they can wrestle it out with Mrs. Greene.”

I gave Joe the treat of calling my father with the news, since he deserved it for what I’d put him through. While he did that, chuckling happily over legal points that appeared to amuse them both, I sat with my coffee and the buzz of A

Joe showed me to the elevator in an expansive mood, putting his hand up to my shoulder as we waited for its arrival.

“Take care of your father. I’ll see you soon.”

“I’ll tell you the whole story one day.”

He had a gleam in his eye as he held back the elevator door for me. “Ben, as your attorney, I don’t want to know.”

“Can I show you something?” Lauren asked.

We were in the parlor floor of her house and she led me to a table in the corner, on which stood a maroon instrument case. She snapped open the latches with her long fingers and lifted out a violin. I could tell that it was valuable even though I knew little about them. It had a faded golden patina, and the pattern on the back as she swiveled it over was striped like a tiger’s fur. Near the edge, where the chin rest was clipped to the body, the polish was worn away.

“It’s lovely,” I said.

“Isn’t it? It’s a Guadagnini, made in 1773. I never thought I’d ever own a violin like this-I bought it at Sotheby’s in London two years ago. It cost me?340,000.”

“That’s a lot of money.”

“It is. I learned the violin when I was young, but I was never quite good enough to play professionally. I became a banker, and you know what? It meant no one had to lend me this. I could buy it for myself. That’s what money means to me-this violin, and this house. My husband said the money would do better in Treasuries.”

She laughed and stroked the instrument. Lauren seemed to have made the opposite transition in personality to Nora. Her sharpness and wariness had eased, replaced by someone I could imagine having a nap in Gabriel’s chair-or even being a friend in another life. When I’d called, she’d invited me to visit her as if our last encounter were forgotten. She made coffee and we sat under the crab apple tree in her yard.

“I wasn’t sure about you for a while,” I said. “You lied to me about not having seen Harry. You’d been to Riverhead. That stamp was on your hand.”