If Tim had been with me when Ned gave his statement, he would have found a way to argue that Jasper survived. There was an element of willful ignorance to Tim’s attitude. I knew he’d draw a different, much less dramatic conclusion, like that Jas knew what was coming and took off while he still could. If he did, I’d tell Tim he was wrong. Why leave Abella behind? Jasper was about to propose to the girl, yet he’d abandoned her in a house with two greedy, angry, unscrupulous people who were out of options. And if Ned was such good friends with Jasper, why did he wait all day to reveal critical information that could help us solve this case?

The text I’d been waiting for from McIntyre finally came while I was finishing my message to Tim. I didn’t waste any time calling her back.

“What’d you find?”

“No ‘hi, Maureen’? No ‘how’s tricks?’”

I laughed. “Sorry. Eager beaver, I guess.”

“As you should be. I’ve got news.”

Sheriff McIntyre had done extensive digging. Some of the facts she reported I’d already unearthed for myself, and to my dismay nothing she added pointed a big foam finger at any one of our witnesses. Nobody had a criminal record, and aside from Miles’s divorce from Jade’s mother, there was nothing unexpected in the way of publicly recorded relationships. In keeping with their respective accounts, all the guests lived in Manhattan. Abella was newly unemployed, but her LinkedIn updates suggested she was actively looking for a job. If she was counting on Jasper for financial help, she was at least smart enough to have a backup plan.

The transfer of power at Sinclair Fabrics from Baldwin and Rachel to Bebe and Flynn also checked out, and it appeared Ned’s description of the business’s financial health was bang on. By poking around on Twitter, Mac discovered Sinclair Fabrics was soon to be the subject of a magazine feature. A freelance reporter had bombarded the company’s Twitter account with inflammatory questions about Attitude and the increasingly competitive textile industry. Domestic suppliers were mostly doing well, and a push on the part of the federal government to buy American meant products like the Sinclairs’ were in high demand. Even considering the competition there should have been enough business to go around, so the reporter wanted to know why the company wasn’t capitalizing on the opportunity. McIntyre got the sense the piece wouldn’t be favorable. The writer’s attempts to snag a quote from a Sinclair heir ended with the company ignoring her requests, but that didn’t mean a story wasn’t imminent. Just one more source of pressure for Bebe and Flynn.

Like Ned said, Camilla Sinclair sold her boat—a “gorgeous 46-foot 2005 Riviera 40 Flybridge,” whatever that was—the previous year for close to $600,000. McIntyre tracked Miles to a law office in Midtown, where he provided general counsel to companies without in-house lawyers. From what McInytre could tell, he’d never worked for Sinclair Fabrics.