Faithless in Death (In Death, #52)(73)
Eve crossed over, took a tube of Pepsi, cracked it. “Feeney and/or McNab can brief us on the recorder placed in Gwen Huffman’s ’link, but the questions are: Who put it there, and why? To track her, certainly, and whoever did knew about the affair and her orientation. Did this individual kill Byrd to protect Huffman from exposure? If so, why—who stands as protector and why? Natural Order gains more if she’s cut off by her parents, but they’d risk embarrassment. Her parents are longtime, prominent members about to put on a big society wedding and merge with another prominent and wealthy family they hope to draw into the order.”
“So do they take the money now, let the Huffmans deal with some humiliation, have the daughter cut off? Or,” Roarke continued, “do they guard their investment, look to the future? It’s a bit of a gamble, but the Caines are worth quite a bit.”
“They’re going to cash in either way, right?” Yancy looked from Roarke to Eve. “And you factor in they eliminated a lesbian—it’s not hard to see how they’d justify that. And mixed-race, too. So, well, two strikes.”
“That’s how I see it. The killer planned enough to plant the recorder, but the murder, that was spur of the moment. Cold, but impulsive. The timeline tells us that. Bitch is going to screw up this merger. That’s what it was to them, a merger.
“Beyond the racism, the bigotry, the misogyny, and all the rest, Natural Order’s a big, fat business, and its business is money, power, and control.”
“It’s kids, too.” McNab stepped back in. “That’s the future, guaranteed. Huffman’s been groomed for this, right? She’s been caught once being herself and re-a-fucking-ligned. She’s been smart enough to play along, and greedy enough to. But her purpose, according to this goddamn cult, is to marry the rich white guy and pop out some rich white kids. Their dad, their grandparents are more likely to go along once there are kids. Even if not, the kids are going to have trust funds, that’s the culture. But you can’t get there if Byrd rings the bell.”
“We have to tie that thread to the order, and knot it tight. The order has big piles of money, and big piles of money buy lots and lots of lawyers. They’re going to have some judges, some politicians, and, I hate to say it, some cops on their rolls.”
“They do have considerable wealth,” Roarke said. “Still, a great deal of it’s tied up in real estate. The Tribeca properties, for instance. The rent doesn’t quite cover the taxes, the maintenance. There’s depreciation, of course, and other ways, but they take a loss on those properties. And I’ve found a handful of others nationally that do the same.”
“The cart driver said they have a farm system.”
“They have several farms, ranches, orchards, which provide much of their food and resources. I’ll look deeper, but they don’t seem to be particularly profitable. They provide housing, schools, services for their laborers and staff at minimal rates. Laborers are also paid at minimal rates.”
“When did you get all this?”
“I ran some searches while you were briefing. Shallow at the moment, but enough to give me a sense.”
“And your sense is they’re losing money with all this?”
“They are, yes, but then if you want your personal vision to spread, you need teachers to teach that vision, schools and facilities where your natural order is enforced. Someone farms the land, and that puts a little in his pocket, but he’s a roof over his head, doesn’t he? His children have a free, private education teaching the values—so to speak—he subscribes to.”
She could see it, yes, Eve thought she could see the overall plan. Sort of, to her mind, a long and intricate con.
“But how do you sustain that—and accumulate enough money to buy a freaking island—if you’re plowing your profits into the ground?”
“They make up for it, and quite well. Members are required to tithe twenty percent of their income. I suspect, once I scratch a bit more, I’ll find fees. Very likely quotas to be met, and deductions when they’re not. It’s very likely many of their wealthier members agree to bequeathing large sums to the order in their wills.”
“They don’t have to pay someone like Ella Foxx, do they?” Eve asked. “She’s no one. They’d have more no ones. Slave labor.”
“And with all that, Wilkey spends lavishly on a personal level. Several homes, two private shuttles, a jet-copter, a yacht—in his name. His older sons each have their own shuttle, and two homes each. The younger lives in the house at HQ and/or on Utopia Island, according to his data.”
“The daughter said she had a place in the city.”
Roarke angled his head. “There’s nothing in her name, but I’ll look into it further. Their official data lists their annual salary at about ten million for Wilkey, three-point-six for his older sons, one-point-two for the younger, and the daughter in the mid–six figures. None of those will be near to accurate.”
“So maybe we can toss tax evasion and fraud in there when we bag them. Okay.” She took another turn around the board. “McNab, what can you tell us about the recorder on Huffman’s ’link?”
“The ’link was damaged in the recycler, so we had to work around that. Lucky for us, the internals, including the tracker, held up with minimal damage. The tracker with recording features is illegal, unauthorized. No ID number so not law enforcement or military, as it’s required. I’m going to say no for the spooks and their kind, too, because it just wasn’t good enough. It’s decent, but it’s not that caliber. And that’s why it got the echo. It was breaking down. You’d get audio and video—probably clear for the first while, then the vid would get blurry, the audio echoes.”