dived right in, and that the cat watched her suspiciously when she came out of the kitchen to set up her board.
She decided her best tactic there was ignoring Galahad until he pretended nothing was wrong and never had been.
She studied the board as she worked, and went to her auxiliary unit to print out more ID photos. She pinned Candida and Aston to her board, and Alva Moonie’s housekeeper.
Connections, she thought, and began to make them. Candida to Alva—former friends, lovers. Both rolling it in. Candida to the vic through the audit. She added Candida’s money man, and a note to do a run on him.
She aligned the vic’s family on one side, her coworkers on the other. And took a good look at James Arnold and Chaz Parzarri, making another note to contact the hospital and get the rundown on injuries and prognoses.
Roarke, she saw, was in work mode. With his hair tied back, sleeves pushed up, he looked relaxed about it. Who knew why some people found numbers so damn fascinating.
She sat at her auxiliary unit, and dived into what she considered the much more interesting prospect of digging into people’s lives.
Arnold, James, age forty-six. On his second marriage, nine years in. The first gave him two children, one of each variety, and hefty child-support payments. He’d added another kid—female—with the second marriage.
He looked like an accountant, she decided. At least the clichéd image of one. Pale, a slightly worried expression on his thin face, faded blue eyes, thin sandy hair.
The sort who looked both harmless and boring. And, she knew, appearances were often deceiving.
He had an advanced degree, and had been a teacher’s assistant and a dorm monitor in college.
Nerd.
He’d worked for the IRS for six years, then had gone into the private sector with a brief and unsuccessful two years between trying to run his own business out of his home.
He’d been with Brewer for thirteen years.
Decent salary. She figured anyone who crunched numbers all damn day probably deserved one. Good thing, as his oldest kid’s college tuition took a greedy bite.
No criminal, but a shitload of traffic violations, she noted. And, hmmm, the second kid had some juvie knocks. Shoplifting, illegal possession, underage drinking, vandalism. A long stint in rehab. Private rehab. Pricy.
His wife had recently given up her professional parent stipend to go back to work as a paralegal.
While finances balanced, as far as she could tell, money had to be tight. How did it feel, poring over all those accounts loaded with cash, stocks, trusts, whatever, while you had to work and calculate just to make the mortgage?
Interesting.
Chaz Parzarri, age thirty-nine, single, no offspring. He had the kind of dark, sulky looks some women went for. Chiseled bone structure, a lot of wild curls. He didn’t, to her mind, look like an accountant. But he, too, had the advanced degree and the government experience—was all that required?
She glanced up, over to Roarke, wondered if he knew, but didn’t think it was important enough for the interruption.
His education advanced largely on scholarships—Chaz was a bright boy, she mused. Born in New Jersey to a waitress and a cab driver, with three siblings. Tight money again, at least in his background.
He’d turned that around, steady work, smart investments—she assumed—and had himself a condo on the Upper East Side only blocks from work.
No criminal. Traffic knocks, too, but not in Jim Arnold’s league. Mostly speeding.
Some people were always in a hurry. Maybe Chaz was in a hurry to get rich.
She put them aside to let them stew and read Peabody’s report on her interview with Jasper Milk, then Carmichael’s on her and Santiago’s interview with the interior designer.
Still letting it stew, she got up, programmed coffee, and came out to set a mug on the desk for Roarke.
“Thanks.” He leaned back to look up at her. “What’s the cost?”
“A couple of answers and/or opinions.”
“I can afford that.”
“Are you getting anywhere?”
“Of course.” He smiled, picked up the coffee. “Let me tell you up front, this is unlikely to be a snap. Two of these are big companies with subsidiaries, charitable foundations, payrolls, expenses, depreciations, and so on. I’ll need a basic overview on all of them. Don’t expect I’ll find a handy column marked Monies I’ve Embezzled or Misappropriated or That Were Never There in the First Place.”
“What does that last one mean?”
“That sometimes companies or people within them fudge in the opposite direction to mollify stockholders, potential clients, or investors and their BODs—and hope to