THIRTY-TWO

At eight the next morning I met Clayton at his office. The papers I’d asked for were stacked on the desk in front of him. “Maybe,” he said carefully, “you can sort of explain this, so I can pretend to know what I’m doing.”

“Pretend to who? You’re a bank officer, we’re your counsel.”

He frowned. “Roland’s our counsel.” “Then you’d better tell me straight out.”

“All right.” Clayton paused to rub the bridge of his nose. “Roland called after Henry shot himself. He said that until reports were made to the feds, we should say nothing to anyone except him or people he sent. He specifically mentioned you.” He looked embarrassed. “Somehow he managed to float across the notion that you were on the way out.”

“Then I need your help.”

He looked down at the stack of papers. “What do these have to do with Henry’s suicide?”

“I won’t know until I see them. Please, it’s important to me.”

Clayton grimaced. “You’re buying trouble, Adam.”

“No,” I said flatly. “It’s a favor I’m asking. Really.”

Clayton hesitated, searching my face. Then he pushed the papers across the desk.

The top packet was headed “Loan File: Rue Napoleon Center.” I began reading hurriedly through its pages. “At the cocktail party you said this got the bank into trouble. How?”

Clayton leaned back in his chair. “Okay,” he sighed. “Three months back this man Broussard came to us wanting a loan for Rue Napoleon Partners. They’d bought an area of old warehouses in New Orleans and were renovating it as condominiums and a shopping mall. The project was going bad; the area’s shabby and they’ve had overruns on construction that left them cash-short. Their problem was that they’d borrowed several million already and without more money from us they’d have to stop building. If that happened they’d be forced to sell the property at less than they’d borrowed, and paying back the rest might have wiped out Broussard and his partners. So it was a salvage loan and I didn’t like it.”

“Why’d Broussard come to you?”

“He came to Henry. That bothered me, too. Broussard’s a ‘new South’ hustler, one cut below nouveau riche. I didn’t understand why Henry wanted the business.” He winced. “It turned out there was a lot about Henry I didn’t understand.”

I finished the first file. “This says the bank loaned Broussard four-and-a-half-million dollars on January sixth.”

Clayton nodded. “Henry pushed it through over everyone’s objections. Our only collateral was the property. As I said, that’s no collateral: if Rue Napoleon Partners were forced to sell it they couldn’t have paid off what they’d already borrowed, let alone us. About two weeks after we made the loan a federal bank examiner came to audit our loans and said the same thing. He gave Henry a choice: nine hundred thousand dollars more collateral, or nine hundred thousand dollars less loan. Henry looked ill.”

“Which way did he go?”

“There wasn’t any choice. They had no more collateral. We had to reduce the loan by nine hundred thousand dollars.”

“What did Broussard do?”

“It’s in the next file. He threatened to sue on the grounds that we’d committed the extra money and then ruined him. That went on for over a month. Henry became totally irrational, tried everything to save the loan and couldn’t. But Broussard never sued and the partnership’s finishing the project. Maybe he found money somewhere else.”

I lit a cigarette. “I think he did, Clayton.”

Clayton’s face went slack with comprehension. “Lydia?”

“The sequence fits. Look: in early January Henry brought Broussard to the bank and got him a loan you should have never made. Late that month the examiner forced you to reduce it by nine hundred thousand dollars. For over a month thereafter, Broussard fought to get the loan restored and Henry tried to help him. They gave up in early March. And on March fifteenth Henry stole eight hundred thousand from Lydia’s account.”

“So you’re saying that Henry had a cut in Napoleon Partners, and was bailing himself out.”

“That’s consistent with what he did. Do you have papers showing who the partners are?”

“No.” Clayton frowned again. “Henry was supposed to get those, and never did.”

“Then I’ll try to find out.”

He shook his head. “What difference could it make? Henry killed Lydia and stole the money, and now that he’s dead his reasons don’t matter anymore. You should be looking to Roland and your job, and to getting it together with Kris Ann before it’s too late.”

I stood. “I’ll be all right, and Krissy, too. Just don’t tell anyone what I’ve asked you. Not yet.”

Clayton’s round, troubled face gazed up at me. “Rennie and I like you both, Adam. Why would I make this worse?”

I nodded. When I closed the door to return to my office he was still staring after me.

A clean copy of the motion waited on my desk. I sat, reading and not seeing, and then snatched the telephone to call Nora Culhane.

She wasn’t in. I left messages and spent the day waiting.

She returned the call around five. “I’m surprised,” she said.

“I need your help.”

“Why?”

“Your boss, people at the station—they can’t know.”

“You sound crazy, Adam.”

“Look, are you interested or not?”

“Yes, okay—off the record. What is it?”

“I think I know why Henry Cantwell stole the money.”

“Go on.”

I explained what I learned at the bank. When I was through she asked, “Why are you telling me this?”

“I want you to fly to New Orleans.”

“For what?”

“Go to the parish recorder’s office and check the name and address of each partner. Make copies. Do whatever you have to do to find out who they are. After that you can use the information any way you want.”

“Why can’t you do your own errands,” she said tartly.

“I can’t leave now. There’s something else I have to do.”

“Then if you want my help, be honest. Does all this relate to Lydia Cantwell’s murder?”

“I’m not sure. It depends on what you find.”

“Adam, the station can’t send me unless I at least tell them something.”

“Get sick then. Charge the ticket and I’ll pay for it.”

“You’re serious.”

“Yes.”

“Then let me think about it.” She hung up.

I paced and smoked cigarettes. An hour later she called to say that she would fly out in the morning. “I hope you find what you’re looking for,” she said.