“What are you saying, Scott?” Webster put down his coffee cup. “Disgruntled parents whacked the Baldwins because their kid couldn’t get into Harvard?”

Oliver said, “Remember that mother who tried to murder a sixteen-year-old classmate of her daughter’s because the other kid made cheerleading squad and her daughter didn’t?”

“That was extreme.”

“Well, so is this,” Oliver said. “Someone paid lots of money to Mervin to get little Jimmy into the big H, and the Baldwins failed to work their magic.”

“So why not return the money?” Wanda asked.

“What if there was no more money to return?” Oliver said.

“Maybe the guy was broke,” Martinez said. “He sure spent a lot. One hundred and twenty grand to live in a beach condo while his house was being remodeled.”

Decker said, “Did the Baldwins owe money?” No one spoke. “So let’s look into it.”

Webster said, “Could be he owed money. Or could be he owed favors. Sometimes money and favors have a definite connection. You do favors in order to avoid paying money.”

Wanda said, “So what did poor Ernesto have to do with any of this?”

“Wrong place at the wrong time?” Oliver suggested.

“I’m not so sure about that,” Decker said. “Ernesto had fallen in with some edgy folk before all this happened. He could have been the target.”

“I agree,” Martinez said. “You should see these PEI weirdos. Besides, Oliver, you don’t kill just because your kid doesn’t get into Harvard—”

“Maybe it was Stanford.”

Martinez turned to Decker. “You agree with me, right?”

Decker shrugged. “You should have heard Jake talk about what kids are doing nowadays to get into the right colleges.”

“You should have heard what Maryam Estes said about it,” Oliver said. “You wouldn’t believe it.”

Marge said, “Prep courses for the entrance exams, prep courses for the prep courses. And this is after they take prep courses to get into the right high schools and middle schools. And of course you have to go to the right elementary school to even be considered by the right high schools. Which leaves us with pre-school. You know that kids have to apply for these hoity-toity nursery schools.”

Wanda made a face. “How do you test kids for nursery school? They can’t read.”

“Shapes,” Marge answered. “Counting to ten. Colors.”

“Well, what if your child is two and still sucks her thumb?”

Marge said, “According to Maryam, if your child gets rejected, it’ll be an uphill battle.”

Wanda said, “Maryam sounds idiotic.”

“I don’t disagree, Wanda, but thems are the facts,” Oliver stated. “Twenty grand a year so you can brag that your kid can tell the difference between a triangle and a square.”

Decker spoke to Martinez. “Apparently the parents are very cutthroat about this kind of thing.”

Martinez said, “So who’d you bribe to get Jacob into Johns Hopkins?”