Murder.com by Haughton Murphy

one?”
    â€œGood Lord, no. What a strange idea!”
    After a delayed cup of coffee, Reuben called Bautista to report on the encounter with Gino Facini the night before. The detective told him that there were not any new developments on his end, other than a nasty crack in a tabloid gossip column wondering why Marina’s—the “moneyed Marina’s”—killer had not been tracked down.
    â€œI think we’d better have our own look at Mr. Facini,” he told Reuben. “Where do we find him?”
    Reuben gave him the address of the Dockers loft, along with a warning, which mystified Luis, to “watch out for carrots.” Then he told the detective about Edward Joyner’s murder.
    â€œHomicide seems to be spreading over here like Asian flu,” Reuben said. He told Luis that the case had apparently been assigned to a detective named Muldoon. Luis said he was actually in the next office; he’d talk to him and get back.
    Within the hour, Bautista called. Joyner’s body had been found in a pool of blood in the living space of his loft apartment, with multiple stab wounds to the chest. No sign of struggle, no sign of robbery or theft, no sign of breaking and entering. No obvious clues; the only theory was that the deed had been done by someone who knew the young lawyer.
    â€œI’ll keep in touch with Muldoon,” Bautista promised.
    Reuben paid a call on Eskill Lander once again, explaining that he wanted to inquire about Edward Joyner’s divorce.
    â€œYou getting involved in this one, too?” asked Lander, in an exasperated tone that again implied that he thought that Reuben was a meddler. He complied, however, and got up and paced his office as he filled in the details.
    â€œWhat a mess! Dealing with the divorce bar. Not a pretty bunch. Joyner had his own lawyer, but when his wife’s attorneys wanted to garnish his wages and try to attach his assets under our firm’s 401(k) plan, Charlie Parkes asked me to interfere. Digging into the facts, it seemed quite clear to me that Joyner was in the wrong.”
    â€œRuss Townley told me the wife helped him out through law school and then was dumped when they got to New York,” Reuben interrupted. “An old story, that.”
    â€œNot quite the usual story in this case. She was the one who initiated the divorce when she found out he was carrying on with a young lady lawyer from the Lenox, Ashford firm. But she was not entirely blameless. She was a Brazilian—how he met her at the University of Alabama I don’t know—and I suspect she married Joyner to get a green card. I also think they had grown tired of each other by the time of the divorce. But the adultery part infuriated the wife, and she was determined to make the whole thing as painful as possible for her philandering husband, financially and otherwise. And she did.”
    â€œWas it ultimately settled peaceably? Without litigation?” Reuben asked.
    â€œYes, after months of Mickey Mouse by her damnable lawyers. The striking thing to me was Joyner’s attitude. He always acted like he was God’s gift to mankind and had a self-righteous outlook on the whole proceeding. He never, never acknowledged his own misconduct. A real shit, in other words, dressed in rather flashy Paul Stuart tweeds. He also had a slight mid-­Atlantic accent—rather strange for a white-trash boy from Alabama.”
    â€œWhat happened to the wife?”
    â€œNo idea. May have gone back to Brazil, for all I know.”
    â€œWell, muito obrigado , Eskill,” Reuben said.
    â€œWhere the hell did you learn that?”
    â€œRio. Many years ago. It means ‘many thanks’ in Portuguese.”
    â€œ Mille grazie , I never would have guessed it.”

Twelve
    A Respite at the Club
    Reuben decided that, before questioning Jerry Gilbert, as he had told Russ Townley he might do, he needed a break at his favorite haunt, the