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I had been taking notes and made a line for the brand-new name. “And do you know him? Does he travel in your social circle?”
“Not in mine. His money’s too new. But he has a place in the Hamptons, and Evan took me there with him for the weekend.”
“Drugs?”
“Drugs were just the tip of the iceberg. That weekend was insane. I mean, whatever debauchery you can think up, Detective, it was there. You could have it.”
“Okay.”
“And then Sunday night, he flew us to Vegas on his private jet, and we were there as his guests for a week.”
“Okay. So while you were with Evan and this guy Clay, did you see any drugs change hands?”
“No. But Evan made a big production of saying that he had an even smaller plane than Clay’s that belonged to his father’s business but was his to use whenever he wanted.”
“And so, because you’re not stupid, you got that he was offering to transport drugs?”
“Yes.”
I made some more notes. “So, Evan started doing this that weekend?”
“Pretty sure.”
“And this was when?”
“About a year ago.”
“Did you hang out with him after that?”
“No, not really. As you know, my father and my brother were waging a war for the business. The first part of it is settled, but my dad wants Prentiss––he’s another of my dad’s sons––to take over Sutter now that the board has informed him that they unequivocally will not reinstate him.”
“But Aaron makes the board and the investors money,” I couldn’t help but remark. “There’s no way they’ll hand over the reins to someone brand-new.”
“That’s true, but a protracted legal battle would still be wearing on everyone.”
“Sure,” I agreed, because it was easy. “So you’ve been with your brother, which means that Evan Polley’s drama was sort of lost on you?”
“Yes.”
“But your belief is what?”
“I think Clay Wells murdered Evan because he either didn’t want to move the drugs anymore or he thought he had done enough for Clay to be paid off. I’m not sure. I don’t know how much of Evan’s debt Clay took care of, but I do know that the drugs themselves were what killed him.” His eyes locked on mine. “They were, weren’t they?”
“Yes, they were,” I told him, because Deena had confirmed it for me the first day. “Evan Polley was shot postmortem. He was killed by an overdose of uncut cocaine in his system.”
“I figured it was something like that.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
I closed the file. “I think we’re good, unless you have something else to tell me.”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
He nodded.
