Dutch Blue Error by William G. Tapply

stones of the walk.
    Beyond the garden walls on all sides rose four- and five-story buildings. Each of them, I imagined, opened onto a similar little island.
    After a few minutes, Deborah came out and sat in the chair. She handed me my mug of tea. “You forgot this. I warmed it up for you.”
    “Thanks,” I said. “You trying to be nice to me?”
    “My mind must have been wandering. It won’t happen again.”
    “See that it doesn’t,” I said.
    She shrugged. “So what now?”
    “I don’t know. Be nice if we could come up with the stamp.”
    She nodded. “It would. Somehow I’m going to have to pay Philip off.”
    “He wants alimony?”
    “Not alimony. Philip and I pooled our savings to start up my business. Ten thousand dollars four years ago, plus some bank loans. It was a one-person real estate office in Concord then. Well, me and a part-time secretary. Philip never had a thing to do with it except for that initial investment. Now I’ve got seven other women working for me—four brokers, one salesperson waiting to take her broker’s exam, a full time secretary, and an accountant. We own the office building we’re in. And I’m negotiating to set up a branch in Littleton and another in Acton.” She looked sharply at me. “I want to buy out Philip, it’s not that. But he won’t accept his original share. He wants what he thinks is his share of the worth of the business. Half. Take the past couple of years, our projections, our investments—we’re computerized for MLS, very up-to-date—he figures that comes to a bit over two hundred thousand. Not bad for a five-K investment four years ago, eh?”
    “Not bad indeed.”
    “So his lawyer is putting on the pressure. My business is not very liquid. My capital is tied up. You can’t grow with a lot of liquid capital lying around. I have a big debt to manage, and don’t want to take on another big one to buy out Philip.”
    “Well, now you have your father’s estate.”
    She looked sharply at me. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    I spread out my hands. “Only that now you should be able to take care of Philip.”
    “Exactly what are you implying?” Her silver eyes snapped.
    “I’m not implying anything,” I said. “Just pointing out the obvious. Hell, this house alone…”
    “This house, Mr. Coyne, is heavily mortgaged. My father ran up big bills with the decorators. Beacon Hill townhouses don’t move easily these days. The city’s reevaluating. Taxes are skyrocketing. Don’t you try to tell me I’m better off now that my father is dead.”
    The idea was startling to me, and her eyes, while they were staring intently into mine, seemed to twinkle in ironic amusement, as if the joke were on me. I made a show of looking for a discreet place to flick the long ash that had gathered at the end of my cigarette. I found a patch of bare dirt behind a white rock. When I looked back at Deborah she was smiling.
    “Well, anyway,” I said casually, “I hope you’re getting good legal advice.”
    “My, you are an ambulance chaser, now, aren’t you?”
    “Like I told you, you can’t afford me. I don’t want your business.”
    She waved her hand. “A joke. I don’t even trust lawyers.”
    “Me neither,” I said. “But I would like to buy that stamp for my client.”
    “If I can find it, you can buy it,” she said.
    I took my cigarette butt back into the kitchen, stuck it under the faucet to make sure it was out, and tossed it into the fireplace. Deborah latched the French doors behind her.
    “Aren’t you afraid someone else will break in?” I said.
    She flapped her hands. “My father said this was perfectly safe. No one could get in, he said. The walls outside are too high. And the back is completely surrounded by buildings. It’s a whole maze of walled gardens out there. Someone would have to come from someone else’s garden, over the walls, to get in through here.”
    “Someone did,” I observed.
    She nodded. “So it