Miller narrowed his eyes. “I want a lawyer. Now.”
McHill just kept staring down, as if his worst nightmare was playing out right in front of his eyes, his lips moving as if he were mumbling to himself. Portius huffed. “Iama lawyer, in case you’ve forgotten, and I hate to say it, but Detective Donovan is right. They will get their hands on the file one way or another.” His shoulders slumped. “And you know as well as I do that what’s in there won’t make us look good.”
“Fucking damn.” The words came out like a hiss. Miller put a hand over his face. “Tell them.”
Portius turned back to George and Andi, furrowing his brows in a clear attempt at concentration. “After the incident that could have been misconstrued as rape, which it definitely wasn’t, Miss Clemént and Miss Garr wanted to press charges against us. As soon as we heard, we informed our fathers, and they took matters in hand. They sent two lawyers from my father’s firm to explain to Miss Clemént and Miss Garr how unwise it would be to take the matter to court. And because our fathers never did anything for free, not even for their own family, they froze our trust funds to punish us.” Portius made a face, as if he still couldn’t understand why his father had done such a terrible and unreasonable thing. For a brief moment, George felt something akin to respect for the three old men, but it winked out when Portius kept on talking.
“Miss Clemént and Miss Garr took their statements back and left Harvard shortly afterward. We thought our fathers would relinquish control of the trusts after a few months, once we had suffered enough in their eyes.” Portius pouted. “Instead, they saw to it that the trusts were dissolved, which took about six years, and the money channeled into their own pockets. They left us with nothing, saying we had to earn it back for having been so stupid, as if they had never made any mistakes.” Again he made a disgruntled face about the perfidy of it all. George had to fight the urge to throttle the man. He saw an opening in his last statement, one that could potentially lead to somewhere interesting.
“Your fathers made mistakes?”
“Quite a lot, and they always tried to hide them, but somebody with an inquisitive mind could find out a thing or two.” Portius now sounded almost hopeful, clearly picking up on George’s interest. He probably thought he could divert the focus back on the misdeeds of his father and his friends. Miller shot him a sharp look, while McHill was rubbing the tips of his forefingers together.
“And may I ask what you did find out?”
Portius hesitated. “What do we get if we tell you?”
As attempts at negotiating went, this one was pathetic. George gave it the consideration it deserved. None.
“You can go to sleep at night with the knowledge that you helped in the investigation of the murder of your fathers.”
Miller huffed, and Portius made a face. There was no reaction from McHill, who seemed to have slipped into a world of his own. George waited. After roughly two minutes, Portius relented. He really was a terrible lawyer.
“Our fathers weren’t squeamish when it came to conducting their businesses. They have left many angry people in their wake, which you surely already know. They also had their own transgression during their time at college, one that cost their fathers, our grandads, a lot more than what they had to pay for our mistake.”
George felt bile rising in his mouth when Portius referred to the rape as a “mistake.” A little sharper than he had intended, he asked, “You’re referring to Gideon Gartner?”
“You know about him?” All the wind left Portius’s sails. He must have thought this piece of information to be some kind of ace up his sleeve.
“Yes, we do. What I’d like to know is how you know about him. Your grandfathers did a very good job sweeping it all under the rug.”
“Yes, our grandfathers.” An ugly smile appeared on Portius’s face. “It’s interesting, the things a man with dementia can remember.”
He didn’t have to say more. George could imagine very well what had happened. It seemed David Hector Portius III did have a nasty streak in him.
“Did you know about this as well?” He turned to the other two men, who had been very silent. McHill just nodded, still rubbing his fingertips, his eyes focused on the repetitive motion. Miller shrugged.
“You already know our family life was difficult. Any ammunition we could get, we took.”
As sad as this statement was, it explained a lot. George wondered if he should try to pry some more names from the three men, though he was sure they wouldn’t know more than Shireen had found. He glanced at his partner. Andi shifted in his place, slightly changing the angle of his body. He wanted George to change directions. “Who paid for the last semesters of your tuition? After your fathers cut you off?”
A sharp intake of breath from Miller and some nervous shuffling from McHill. Portius seemed resigned. “You found that out as well?”
“What can I say, our IT department is on top of things.”
“We honestly don’t know. The money came through university channels, though the dean made it clear it was specifically for us. We didn’t question our luck, though.”
“Could it have come from your mothers?”
At that, Miller snorted. “Surely not. Theodora would have never wasted money on me, and Sophia and Tamara… just no.”
“Did they know what you did and were appalled?” George insisted.
Miller opened his mouth, but Portius beat him to it. “I have to say it again, we did nothing, and no, our mothers didn’t know. Our fathers thought it best to keep them in the dark about most things, and they preferred it that way.” He started fiddling with his tie. “We always suspected the money was coming from old acquaintances of our grandfathers. Even though my own grandfather had dementia at the time, he still had his lucid moments, and Lester and Dominic’s grandfathers were still fit for their age.”
“And they did this for their grandsons out of the goodness of their hearts?” George couldn’t believe it.
Portius laughed, the sound hollow and resigned. “What are you thinking, Detective? Of course not. If it really was them, and we don’t have any proof of that, they did it because otherwise we would have had to drop out, which would have stained the family names.”
