I jerk my chin at him and say, “Tell me what you know, brother.”
“I kept digging,” he says. “I couldn’t let it go. When it comes to rich assholes, their money is hard to track.”
“Yeah, they’re always trying to pay as little in taxes on it as possible,” I tell him.
“About Brennan,” Striker says. “Everyone keeps saying he comes from money. That his family’s loaded. That he can bond out, disappear, start over somewhere else, and maybe that’s all true, but Brennan has very little personal income, no investments, no house in his name, nothing of value that I could find.”
Mica perks up because we’re in his wheelhouse now. “I thought you said everyone in his family is a trust fund baby, that they have a legacy trust.”
He turns the laptop towards us, and I step closer. Numbers fill the screen. Accounts. Transfers. Trust documents. I lean down and read what he has highlighted. His sister is actually in charge of the trust.
“Brennan isn’t rich,” Striker continues. “He’s been broke for years. In addition to that, he’s got no assets of value in his name except one.”
My old man says, “Get to the point. As entertaining as all this is, getting to Emily is the priority.” He stops pacing. “Then where the hell did the money come from?”
Striker taps the screen. “He got a two-million-dollar life insurance policy. The beneficiary is the family legacy trust.”
Me, Jasper, and my old man are shocked, but not Mica. Money is his job, so he knows all about trust funds. He manages the one our family started years ago, the one that holds all our property and the modest amount of money we’ve accumulated.
He explains, “That’s actually not unusual. Many legacy trusts stipulate that anyone who draws from the trust must give permission for an insurance policy owned and paid for by the trust. It’s one of the many ways rich people keep their trust funds flush with cash.”
My old man asks, “What the fuck does this rich people shit have to do with my missing daughter-in-law?”
“Brennan’s sister controls the family trust,” Striker says. “Everything flows through her. Every dollar Brennan spends is because she gave him trust disbursements. That means when I followed the money, it all traced back to the accounts she manages.”
Jasper asks, “Are you saying that stupid fucker has been living off an allowance while out there murdering women and fucking people’s lives up?”
“Yes,” Striker says. “And not just recently. I can’t find any evidence that Charles Brennan ever had direct access to the trust. His sister gave him enough money to maintain appearances and keep him happy and not a cent more. This woman spends more on her fiancé than her brother, who is legally entitled to the trust money.”
I ask gruffly, “What are you gettin’ at? Say it plainly.”
“What I’m saying is two things. If Charles Brennan isn’t capable of managing his own trust fund money, how in the helldid he manage to kill and bury two women without his sister having the slightest inkling that he was off doin’ horrible shit? And secondly, when I match up the payments she made to his accounts and the timeline of the murders, her behavior seems suspicious at best.”
“What have you found out about the sister?” I ask.
“She’s Charlotte Brennan.”
“What? The who’s running for mayor?” I ask.
“The very same,” Striker mutters.
“So why didn’t we know this?”
“We did. I just wrote it off. Rich family, he had his trust fund, and she’s got a respectable political career. She wasn’t on my radar.”
I lean closer to the screen. “What about the fiancé? Do you think he might be the one involved instead of the sister? Maybe she’s covering for him?”
Striker doesn’t hesitate. “He’s involved alright. I believe he is the one who procured the poison.”
Jasper curses under his breath. “You’re sure? The cops didn’t say anything about the autopsy results.”
“Well, no,” Striker says. “They haven’t done the autopsies yet. But when I checked out the fiancé’s bank account, I found a transaction for a purchase from the hardware store in Proctor. Let’s just say, unless he’s dealing with a roach invasion of biblical proportions, that shit was used to kill those women.”
The pieces slide together in my head with a sick kind of clarity. “Brennan breaking into Emily’s cabin, holding her hostage, and coming back to burn it down seems impulsive, emotional, and messy. Poisoning is personal.”
Mica says what we’re all thinking. “Brennan doesn’t seem smart enough or patient enough to pull off poisoning of two different people months apart.”
“Where does she live?” I ask grimly.
