It did seem that Tucker’s affection for Charlie transcended the mentor-protégé model. I didn’t know yet if their relationship had a sexual side to it, but even if it didn’t, some emotional bonding, almost like a father and son, had apparently taken place. That sure as hell would have given me sweaty palms had I been Blaire Wentworth.
“Did you see something of yourself in Charlie?”
“I guess I did,” he answered slowly. “There were vast differences, of course, more than there were similarities, but I found him so remarkably receptive to ideas.”
“What were some of the differences?”
“Well, he was better with people than I am; he had an uncanny ability to make them open up. Most people, myself included, like to talk about themselves. You know, you ask someone what they do for a living, not because you’re interested, but because you want them to return the favor and allow you center court for an hour or more. Well, when Charlie asked, he was genuinely interested; he did everything but take notes. It made him very easy to like.”
“And hard to get to know.”
The smile of reminiscence stayed on his lips. “Yes. He kept his cards close.”
“Did your daughter ever meet him? What did she think?”
“Blaire? I don’t know that she thought much about him either way. We spoke business mostly, when he came over. She has little interest in that. I must tell you that my daughter and I do not have much in common. We spend a lot of time together, mostly over meals, but I don’t think either one of us is very interested in the other.”
I nodded without answering. I disagreed, of course. From what I’d learned over the past four days, I thought both Wentworths had quite a bit in common.
I decided to drop Blaire from the conversation and concentrate on her father and Charlie again. “So whose idea was it to create ABC?”
He seemed instantly more relaxed. “His. Actually, I should say it was his ambition, and perhaps my idea. He had shown himself so good at the game that I thought it would be a waste to see him disappear down some huge corporate black hole on Wall Street. Communications being what they are nowadays, there was no reason why he couldn’t set up shop right here and be a successful independent. The idea didn’t really take shape until I heard Arthur Clyde was looking to get back in the game.”
“Why was he such a factor?”
Wentworth raised his eyebrows at my lack of knowledge. “Oh. Well, Charlie could never have done it all by himself. I mean, he was bright and ambitious and a real go-getter, but he was no magician. No one man can both drum up business and watch the market, not as an independent operator. If you’re a Shearson or an IDS rep, you can do both because those companies supply your research; all you have to do is be a good salesman and have a thorough grasp of the basics. But Charlie couldn’t do it all alone.”
“You were there.”
He smiled, but I could tell there was no humor. “So was Arthur, and Arthur is a born analyst. I’m not. The trick here is to know your limitations.”
It was a straightforward statement, but I couldn’t help feeling it also contained an element of warning. Throughout this latter part of the conversation, I’d wondered how much he knew of our recent activities concerning ABC. Surely his buddy Arthur had called him first thing after hearing of Charlie’s death, and definitely after we’d walked out with all his business files. And yet Wentworth hadn’t spilled a drop of all that.
“Was your involvement with ABC limited to introducing Charlie to Arthur?”
“That was the gist of it. Of course, I was free with any advice I might have had.” He chuckled briefly. “Much to Arthur’s dismay. I’m sure he kept wishing I’d go on a long vacation.”
“You didn’t put any money into setting it up?”
He waved the notion away with his hand. “Oh, no. That would have been just the wrong thing to do, as I saw it. Charlie had an inheritance, and lord knows Arthur is no pauper; I felt it would be best if the two of them put their own money at stake. I’ve always felt it’s the element of risk that makes the real artist in this business. If you’re not betting your own money, then why should you care if you win or lose?”
I kept watching his eyes, which had told me much of his pain and loss earlier. Now they were clear and cool and calculating, his body language relaxed and almost jovial. I couldn’t believe a man could so overpower his own grief, unless he had a dire need to focus on something more important, or more threatening.
Since his guard was now so blatantly up, I felt I had little to lose in the chess game I’d been imagining a while back. “You probably heard we subpoenaed all of Charlie’s business records and correspondence.”
The smile remained in place, but barely. “Yes. I believe Arthur told me. He was quite upset.”
“That he was. He even had a court order issued from the bench, not that there was much point.”
“No?”
“Not really. We’d pretty much gone over what we wanted by the time the order was served. You actually did more than just introduce Clyde to Jardine, didn’t you? In fact, after they set up ABC, you steered quite a bit of business their way.”
“That’s true, I did. Are you saying I did something wrong?”
“No, no. I do feel I ought to warn you, though, that the ABC records we studied will be subpoenaed again, Mr. Wentworth, with an eye toward your involvement in that operation. We don’t for a minute believe it was pure paternal benevolence.”
He rose to his feet, pale, tight with fury, and stared down at me. “I challenge you to find a single scrap of evidence that I benefited from Charlie’s business. He was a friend; moreover, he was the son I never had, unless you find that too maudlin to believe. If you carry this idea too far, I will add to your string of lawsuits, only mine will have the balls of an elephant. It will ruin the police department, the town, and you personally, because it, unlike your insinuations, will be based on facts.”
I too got to my feet. “I never said you’d benefited from ABC. In fact, I think just the reverse. I think ABC’s success was based entirely on your priming its pump. It’s true that Charlie had an inheritance, and that the paper trail indicates he put it all into the business, but I don’t think he did, not really. You didn’t let him. You told him that, win or lose, he wasn’t risking that eighty-five thousand dollars; that even if the business went belly up, the money would reappear in his account.”
He stared at me for a long while, his eyes searching mine. He glanced briefly out the window, a jerky, awkward movement. His voice, when it came, was muted. “There’s nothing illegal in that.”
The decent thing then would have been to leave. Unfortunately, that wasn’t an option. Being softhearted had not been Wentworth’s only offense, and I had to tell him I knew that.
“Maybe not, but making money through insider trading is, even if the beneficiary is somebody else. And there’s the matter of the Putney Road Bank’s pension fund, and how it came to be entrusted to the care of a fledgling investment firm, one of the founders of which had until recently been washing cars and waiting tables. And what about Arthur Clyde? He wasn’t fool enough to throw his money in with the likes of Charlie Jardine-Christ, he could barely stand the man. What did his involvement cost you?”
Wentworth didn’t answer. He stood mutely before his expensive armchair, surrounded by his daughter’s taste for opulence, his head turned toward the extravagant view.
I showed myself out. There was no hard evidence of the allegations I had just made, and maybe there never would be. The man, after all, was no novice. But it was clear that Tucker Wentworth, for all his cynical philosophy, had become a sentimental old man and may have broken a few laws to prove it. But I doubted he was a murderer.