Torch Scene by Renee Pawlish Page A

that fire is looking at some serious prison time.”
    Pommerville steepled his hands and rested his chin on his fingertips. “What brings you to me?”
    “You were his business partner,” I said, “until things went wrong and you took him to court.”
    “And I lost.” The hard look remained on his face. “That doesn’t mean I killed him.”
    I tipped my head, acknowledging that. “Maybe. Maybe not.
    “I’m not sure what you want from me. I didn’t like Nick and I haven’t spoken to him in years, but that doesn’t mean I killed him.”
    “What happened with Jupiter Data?”
    “I met Nick when I was an IT consultant with Deloitte. I was –”
    I held up a hand. “What’s Deloitte?”
    He looked at me like I was a dunce. “They’re a huge consulting company. I was an associate partner and he was a client. I worked with him a lot, and we started talking about what we could do in the big data sector. After a while, we decided to start Jupiter. We pooled our money, worked our butts off, and tried to grow it into a viable business.”
    “And?”
    He put his hands down and leaned back in his chair. “Nick was cooking the books, stealing money on the side. I handled the IT side of things and I didn’t find out about what he was doing until it was too late. I lost everything.”
    “So you trusted Nick and he screwed you over?”
    He nodded. “That sums it up. I’d known him for years. I knew how he worked and our idea was great. Jupiter should’ve taken off.” He hesitated.
    I waited him out, knowing if I kept my mouth shut, he’d most likely keep talking.
    “What I didn’t know was that he’d developed a gambling problem. That’s why he started stealing money from the company, to pay off his gambling debts.”
    “How’d you find out about the gambling?”
    “I didn’t, at first. My first clue that something was off was when I got a couple of calls about Jupiter being behind on some bills. I talked to Nick and he said he’d taken care of them. He was slick with his lies and I didn’t suspect anything at first. Then the calls increased and I started checking things out. That’s when I found out we were behind on a lot of things. When I confronted him, he tried to talk his way out of it, said he’d invested the money elsewhere and that it would help us in the long run. We were still a small shop, just the two of us and occasionally some contract consultants, and we were both travelling a lot, so it was hard to nail him down.”
    “What does this have to do with the gambling?”
    “I’m getting to that.” He frowned and the wrinkle lines returned. “It wasn’t until it all started spiraling out of control that I began putting things together. First, we were both making great money, but he never seemed to have any. He complained that he’d just been through a nasty divorce and his ex-wife got everything and he was paying her, but I knew that wasn’t right, because other times he’d say he was glad he’d broke clean from her, that he didn’t owe her alimony or anything. Then he never seemed to have his car around. Nick liked to be flashy and he owned a Mercedes, a real nice one. Had to cost a good bit, but suddenly he wasn’t driving it anymore, and when we were in town together, he’d ask me to drop him places after work. And,” he wagged a finger at me. “One of those places was a little dive restaurant on East Colfax, east of downtown. Not the type of place he’d normally go to. I asked him why he was eating there, if the food was that good, but he dodged the question. I wondered if he was buying drugs there, and I finally confronted him. Instead of telling me what was going on, he threatened me and said to stay out of his business. Things were getting ugly then. He was always on edge and the business was about to fold, so I took the final steps to dissolve Jupiter and get away from him. But by then I had to use my own money to pay bills and taxes. Then I spent a year in court