The Deadliest Option by Annette Meyers Page B

poisoned.”
    “I know that. I meant, what kind of poison? How was it done?”
    “That is confidential information.”
    “In other words, only you and the murderer know?”
    He gave her what could only be described as a snide look. “You got it.”
    “Okay.” She accepted that. “Fire away.” She settled back in her chair. That meant it had probably happened at the banquet with everyone watching. No. She was guessing. That didn’t necessarily hold up. It could have been something slow-acting, something administered at home, if he went home or—
    “Hoffritz.”
    “He’s probably going to run Luwisher Brothers. He is already. He’s been a partner for a long time. Has to have accumulated a lot of stock. Very smart and very Southern—Alabama, I think.” She smiled brightly at Silvestri and thought, actually, he’s a devious, lying Southern snake and would have done absolutely anything to get rid of Goldie so that he could run the company. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Mo was writing volumes and was having trouble keeping up. Good.
    “Destry Bird.”
    “Smooth. Probably number two now that Goldie is gone. Very upper-class Virginia. V.M.I., I think. He and Hoffritz are a formidable team. The brokers refer to them as Search and Destroy.” And don’t turn your back on either one , she thought.
    “What, Les?” Had he read her thoughts?
    She masked her sentiments and remembered how the two men had surrounded Goldie at the head table just before Goldie got up to speak—and to die. “Was it in his Jack Daniel’s?”
    Mo looked up quickly, but Silvestri was impassive. Too late. Whatever had killed Goldie had been found; it was in Goldie’s drink.
    In her mind she heard Goldie’s voice—for it had been his voice, she was certain now—from the men’s room, saying, “Over my dead body.”
    “Did you remember something, Les?” Silvestri leaned across the desk, his question an accusation, his eyes intent on hers.
    She closed her eyes to keep him out and saw the head table again. “Only that everyone was crowding around Goldie. People came over to pay respects.”
    “Some respect,” Metzger said.
    She shook her head. “I really didn’t see anything unusual.” She saw Chris gesturing vigorously and spilling Goldie’s drink. Someone had replaced it.... She looked up and found Silvestri reading her. She shrugged and gave him wide-eyed innocence.
    “Douglas Culver,” he said, reading from a worksheet.
    “He’s head of financial services. A really nice guy. Another Southerner. Atlanta this time, I think. The easiest guy there to talk to.” She remembered Dougie’s look of distaste when Ellie had collapsed on him. Either he didn’t like women or he didn’t like Ellie.
    “Neil Munchen.”
    “Neil runs the telemarketing program.” She uncrossed her leg and recrossed in the other direction. She felt she was sitting in a pool of perspiration.
    “Telemarketing?” Mo asked, looking up from her notebook. She took a last acrid puff of her cigarette and ground the butt out on Silvestri’s floor. She was wearing red pumps.
    “Cold calling. They have cold callers and leads from Dun and Bradstreet and elsewhere from all over the country. The callers place the calls, qualify the banking and background on the lead and then the broker gets back and pitches the stock of the day, usually something the firm is pushing.”
    “Sounds like a bucket shop operation,” Mo said. “What smart, rich dude would tell an absolute stranger private financial information over the phone?”
    Wetzon smiled, glad to find someone who was more naive than she was. “They do, and they buy stock like that. Heads of corporations, wealthy people, smart people. It’s a very successful program—that is, the firm makes a lot of money from it and so do the brokers. Really intelligent people get conned, too.”
    “I just don’t get it,” Mo said, looking at Silvestri. “We put these creeps out of business whenever we find