“I don’t recall.”

“No?” Teddy leans in. “Did you and Jay have a lot of arguments?”

“You don’t have to answer that,” his lawyer says. He’s neatly groomed, with stark white hair. His bright blue eyes fix a warning on Teddy.

“Right.” Teddy pulls out the phone sheet. “On September seventeenth, Jay texts you to say, ‘not cool bro.’ To which you respond, ‘you know the rules.’ Jay responds that he thought it was ‘bullshit.’ And you tell him to ‘pay up.’

“Do you remember now?”

A shift from his lawyer, but he doesn’t say anything.

“Jay was a great guy,” Michael says, opening his arms like Jesus giving a blessing.

I roll my eyes.

“But he lived like a pig. The pledges clean up after parties, but cleaning bedrooms is everyone’s own responsibility. Some of the brothers were messier than others, so last year, we voted on an infraction and fine system.”

“What’s that?” Oliver asks like he’s genuinely interested.

“Periodic room checks and an anonymous complaint box. You can have two infractions each semester, but the third earns you a fine. And if you don’t clean your room after any infraction, it also results in a fine.”

Next he’ll say they came up with some kind of chore wheel. Ask about the gambling, I will Teddy. Ask about Jay’s car.

“What do you do with the money?”

“It goes into our alcohol budget—for the brothers over twenty-one, of course.”

“Of course.” Oliver nods. “It’s a win-win. Clean house and more booze.”

“Exactly.” Michael doesn’t smile, but he looks pleased with himself, and I assume this was his idea.

“So Jay had a few infractions and didn’t want to pay the fine?” Teddy asks.

“He had nine.”

“And how much did he owe?”

“One hundred and eighty dollars.”

“That’s it?” Teddy asks. “I got the impression that wouldn’t have been much for someone like Jay.”

Michael raises an eyebrow. “It wasn’t.”

“So why wouldn’t he pay?”

Michael presses his fingers into a triangle. “If I had asked him to buy a few handles of vodka, it wouldn’t have been a problem. But, pay a fine for his mess?” He shrugs. “Jay only wanted to spend money on fun stuff.”

“Don’t we all,” Oliver says with a tight laugh. Teddy shifts away from him.

“That must have been frustrating,” Teddy says.

“You don’t have to answer that,” the lawyer murmurs.

Michael ignores him. “Just part of the job.”

“So you called him out at a meeting?”

“Not just him. It’s part of fraternity business. Who owes what. Listing the names publicly keeps everyone accountable.”

“But Jay didn’t like it.”

“No one does, but it has to get done.”

“Do the other brothers tell you to fuck off?”

“They know better.”

“So you must have been pretty pissed when Jay told you to.”