“I’m not sure if I love your analogies or if they’re plain stupid. Baking, really?”
“You love my analogies, and you know it. Now stop with the snickering and draw a nice green arrow from McHill to Miller.”
“So we are using green for business relations again? What happened to them being yellow?”
“Cut it out! I just thought it would be nice to shake things up now and then, but I’ve since seen the error of my ways! We stick to your boring old system. There, you’ve won.”
Andi made a face when George threw his hands in the air and waggled his butt. The man could be so insufferable sometimes. After George had carefully drawn the green arrow between McHill and Miller, Andi kept on reading. “In the past three years McHill has started to withdraw himself from his company, giving his managers more responsibility. He has only done a few highly lucrative deals. There’s no mention of his son in regard to his company.”
“What about those more dubious dealings Shireen mentioned?” George had his red marker poised. Andi searched the pages.
“There’s a few companies with a red flag, meaning Shireen wants to investigate them more closely. None of them ring any bells for me, though. Most of them seem to be in Africa and South America.”
“Mmm.” George drew two red arrows, marking them with A and S.A. “What else?”
“I’m sure this comes as an absolute surprise to you, but McHill’s law firm is Portius, Dayson & Partners, and David Hector Portius II is listed as his personal lawyer.”
Another green arrow appeared. “Let me guess, Portius is also Miller’s personal lawyer?”
Andi changed documents. “Yep.” He looked at the triangle in the middle of the whiteboard, now consisting of three green arrows for business relations and three blue ones for personal interactions. Andi followed a hunch and opened the file for Portius.
“Bingo. Miller also invested money for Portius.” Another arrow was drawn, pointing from Miller to Portius. Andi scanned the pages again, looking for something else and finding it. “And both Miller and Portius have invested in McHill’s company.”
George drew yet another arrow. They both stared at the thick lines connecting the three men. “I think it’s safe to say whoever killed them did it because of something they did as a group. How long have they known each other?” George changed to the black marker, ready to add the information. It took Andi some time to find it, because it wasn’t money-related and therefore at the end of Shireen’s preliminary report. “Practically all their life. They attended the same private schools, and all of them graduated from Harvard. They were members of the same fraternity, all of them in leading positions, of course. If I didn’t suspect them of having been awful people, I’d say it’s almost romantic. They even died together.”
George shuddered. “I’m not sure I share your definition of romantic.”
“Aw, come on, a relationship that spanned decades. If that’s not romantic, I don’t know!” Teasing George was fun.
“Speaking of relationships, what do we have about the marriages of the three?” And they were back to business. George had already written the names of the three wives, as well as Lawrence Miller’s first wife, on the whiteboard.
“No public scandals. Not even when Miller divorced Angelica Worthington. He was, of course, represented by Portius, Dayson & Partners. There are no details about the settlement, but I guess we can safely assume it was either so generous Miss Worthington didn’t have any objections, or they found something incriminating to keep her quiet. Chances are fifty-fifty.”
“That would make her a prime suspect, even if her revenge was ice-cold.” George stared at the blue lines connecting the wives with the victims. “And why would she go after McHill? I can’t see what he might have had to do with the divorce, apart from being Miller’s friend.”
“Don’t forget her son said she’s in Haiti. I wouldn’t cross her from the list of suspects, but she doesn’t hold the pole position either.”
George shook his head. “No, she doesn’t. So far, we don’t have contenders for it. Are the wives connected? Apart from their husbands being friends?”
Andi scanned the documents again. “Shireen hasn’t put down a lot about them, but it doesn’t seem so. Sophia is old money. Angelica was from Haiti, from money as well. Tamara’s parents were immigrants from Asia who made it to upper middle class here. Theodora, Miller’s second wife, is the only one who doesn’t have a wealthy family at her back. It says here she was a teacher before she married Lawrence Miller.”
“If they are friends, it’s because of their husbands.”
“Do you think they’re not?” Andi didn’t know much about relationships, apart from what he had learned through his work. And most of that was unpleasant.
“I think they surely are acquaintances, and perhaps they have formed some bonds, but probably more out of habit than anything else.” Nevertheless, George connected the four women with blue lines, which created a wheel around the triangle of the victims.
Andi went back to the documents, searching for anything else they could put on their chart. To his dismay he didn’t find anything substantial. Looking at the long list of business partners—and therefore potential enemies—Andi knew it would take Shireen time to get to the bottom of it all. Before he could voice his displeasure, his cell chimed with an incoming message from Evangeline.
“Let’s go downstairs. Evangeline has some news.”
George put the marker back, took a swig from his by now surely cold coffee, and fell in step next to Andi. “I hope she can shed some light on how exactly they died.”
Andi nodded. Some light would be nice. Something they could work with. He dreaded what he’d have to do if there wasn’t anything.
Evangeline greeted them with a little more energy than the day before. “Ua mai le taeao. You two look like you could use some good news.”
Andi felt himself perking up immediately. “You know who did it? We just have to make the arrest?”
