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could figure it out himself--much less tell his daughter--how he had failed," she says. "I

think it really hurt him because he had done so much for everyone there. . . . He felt like

everyone had turned on him. He would just sit and cry."

Soon after, Pettit went on a job interview, and, according to Lara, was asked for his

resume. "He'd been the president of Lehman Brothers," she says, "and he was being

asked for a resume! " He walked out of the interview.

The last time Lara saw her father was on January 19, 1997. They were driving to a

relative's christening in Connecticut and he insisted they stop at a bank, because he was

determined to sell all the Lehman stock he held, which was now worth $6.8 million. Lara

tried to stop him.

"I said, 'Are you kidding me? Why?' And he said, 'I can't--out of pride--I can't hold on to

this.'" There and then, he sold all his Lehman shares.

Father and daughter spoke over the phone a few weeks later. Lara's sister, Kari, was

going to come up and stay in Maine with Martha and Chris for the weekend before his

birthday; Kari had not come to stay before. Kari, like the rest of the Pettit family except

for Lara, had so far refused to visit with Martha. She was bringing a new boyfriend. Chris

was lighthearted and excited.

(He had found his family's freeze-out of Dillman hard to bear since he had helped each of

them in so many ways. He had gotten his brother, Andrew ("Andy"), a job as a director at

Lehman. His aunt, Elizabeth ("Liz"), also worked at the firm. She traded commercial

paper. According to Lara, he was also bankrolling three of his seven siblings' families,

who repeatedly asked him for money. He appeared to give it gladly, so he was hurt by

their sudden distance.)

Lara says that when she hung up the phone, she was smiling. It was good to hear her

father happy again.

Dillman and Pettit spent a good deal of that winter in her cabin in Maine, where Martha

had grown up. It was a modest home, and they were going over their plans to build a

bigger house nearby so that they could host all their children.

They were thrilled that Kari, then a graduate veterinary student at Tufts, and her new

boyfriend, Rich, who was a computer software engineer, had accepted Martha's invitation

to stay on the weekend of February 15, several days before Chris's 52nd birthday. "It was

a big deal, a turning point for Dad," says Lara.

For dinner Saturday they ate lobsters and drank wine. Kari recalls that her father was in

excellent spirits, that they had a wonderful conversation.

It was Kari who suggested that they go snowmobiling after dinner--f un but dangerous in

the dark. Kari knew, however, that Lara and her boyfriend had done it only a few

weekends before and found it exhilarating.

She didn't know that Lara had also been scared out of her wits.

"There are stumps in the ice you just can't see. With four of us on the snowmobile at least

we stopped him going too fast, but it was dangerous," recalls Lara.

Kari asked Rich and her father to not get on the snowmobiles until she made a quick

drive to the local store for cigarettes.

When she returned she saw that they'd left without her. Martha was inside. And suddenly

there was Rich in the driveway, covered in blood, calling for help. He and Chris had been

snowmobiling and hit a stump. Chris had fallen, his helmet had been dislodged.

Kari told Lara what happened next. "When my sister's boyfriend went over to him, he

was still alive, but he had a blunt head injury. Rich couldn't carry him . . . so he just left

him and went running around to nearby houses. . . . He was covered in blood, banging on

people's doors, trying to get someone to call for help. He couldn't get anyone to open

their doors. He finally made his way back to Martha's cabin. He said, 'Come with me!

Come with me! He 's still alive!' But by the time the police came, it was too late."

Martha was questioned by the police since the accident occurred on her property and on