Calculated in Death (In Death 36)

“So your instincts tell you all of them are wrong in some way.”

“Yeah, that’s been a problem.”

She rose now as well, joined him at the board. “So, elimination. Keep going.”

“All right. How do you massage your books—and it has to be in the books—if you don’t understand how they work in the first place? Young-Sachs is dim and incompetent. Greedy, sure, but more lazy.”

“Okay, let’s bump him down for now. Take another.”

“All right then, staying with the same company we’ll take Tyler Biden. He’s a loose cannon. Quick temper, and has difficulty instilling loyalty in his employees. He’s got an idiot as the CFO.”

“Yeah, which made me think it would make it easier for him to screw around the numbers.”

“Agreed, but his CFO has, by all appearances, a very bright admin, who’s also sleeping with the CFO. And if you’re any judge, she’s in love with him, or at least emotionally attached. More difficult to persuade said admin into covering something up that would, should it come out, blowback on her lover. And on her as it would be well known through the company that she’s doing her boss’s job.”

“That’s a good point, but—”

“Not finished,” Roarke said, getting into the spirit of it now. “He’s an ambitious, angry man, who’d know that many believe, perhaps rightfully, he only has his position with the company due to nepotism. He has a lot to prove. He enjoys the money, the status, yes, but he wants respect. Whoever’s doing this, or involved, would have to align several others, as you said, in order to pull it off. And they’d know he couldn’t make it on level ground. That would be important to him.”

She followed the line of thinking, but wasn’t quite convinced. Still, she nodded. “Okay, we’ll bump him down for now, too.”

“As for Pope,” Roarke continued. “Sometimes things are exactly what they seem. The man does his job reasonably well according to my information. He lives comfortably, but not ostentatiously. He yields power and authority to his half brother. His older and more domineering half brother. He’s well liked by those who work with and under him, though he’s certainly considered a lightweight. If he wanted more, he could have more simply by asserting himself, but that falls outside his comfort zone. It’s difficult for me to see him orchestrating something illegal through his mother’s company—his devotion to her is well known—and ordering or condoning the murder of the auditor. A mother herself.”

“Okay, I couldn’t really see him either. We could both be wrong and he’ll turn out to be some criminal mastermind, but it doesn’t play for me. Pretending to be a schlub all the time would be too damn much work, and for what?”

“Schlub?”

“Yeah, he comes off as one. Alexander despises him.”

“Yes, and that’s an open secret on the business world’s grapevine.”

“If something’s open,” she pointed out, “it’s not a secret.”

“True enough. It’s a poorly kept secret.”

“Okay, so we’ve got the why nots. Let’s hear your why.”

“I want coffee.”

“Me, too,” she realized, then huffed out a breath when he cocked an eyebrow.

“I’m the expert on this one,” he reminded her.

“Yeah, yeah.” She grabbed up the dishes on her way to the kitchen to deal with the coffee.

“You know,” he said from behind her, “we could have a droid take care of that—clearing the dishes, serving the coffee.”

“I see enough of Summerset.”

“Amusing.”

“I thought so.” She shoved the dishes in the washer. “Why would we need a droid looming around up here?” Especially since they almost always gave her the mild creeps. “It only takes a minute to deal with.”

“Agreed. A lot of people at a certain level of privilege wouldn’t think of doing something so simple for themselves as clearing a table or making their own coffee. Maybe taking care of a few small, basic tasks helps keep a person from sliding too deep into any of those seven deadly.”

She handed Roarke his coffee, picked up her own, leaned back on the short counter. “You’re betting Alexander doesn’t load his own dishwasher.”

“I’m betting he’s rarely, if ever, spent any appreciable time in his own kitchen. Pride’s as hungry as greed in some, and he’s proud of his status, his wealth, his position. He employs five full-time domestic staff, three part-time, and subsidizes them with three domestic droids.”