Кэти Дэйли - The Mystery Before Christmas [calibre]

“He must have been transported to the lake, assumedly in the trunk of someone’s car or in the bed of a truck. I guess you can check out everyone’s vehicle and look for blood.”

“Actually, Rafe is already doing that. So far, every vehicle he has checked is clean, but not too clean, if you know what I mean.”

“I do. If the vehicle had recently been scrubbed top to bottom, that would be suspect. What if the killer wrapped him in a blanket or a rug before transporting him? I suppose there might be something like that to find.”

Cass nodded. “Perhaps, but unless someone left a bloody rug out with the weekly garbage, I doubt we’ll find it without a search warrant. The same with the clothes the killer was wearing. They must have gotten blood on them.”

I got up and began pacing around the room. I paced at times when I had something heavy on my mind, and the death of two men in the community was heavy indeed. “Rupert seemed to have been a witness to the altercation between Ford and Buford. Maybe he knows more than he said.”

“I tried to talk to him again after Ford’s body was found, but he’s flown the coop. He does that. Fairly often, in fact. I called and spoke to Naomi, and she said she would keep an eye out for him. If he shows up, she’ll call me.”

“Do you think he had anything to do with Ford’s death? The fact that he disappeared right after his body was found seems suspect.”

He shook his head. “Not really. Like I said, it is Rupert’s way to come and go. If I really had to guess…” Cass’s cell buzzed. He looked down at the number displayed. “It’s Rafe. I need to get it.”

I nodded.

“Hey, what’s up?” he asked.

I watched as his eyes grew wide. “How much did you say?”

He whistled. “Okay. I’ll be right over.”

He hung up and looked at me. “That was Rafe. I think I know who was behind the Secret Santa money.”

My eyes grew wide. “Who?”

“Buford.”

“Buford,” I narrowed my gaze. “But at least half the gifts have been delivered since he died.”

“I know. There is a bit of a story to it. I need to go, but if you want to ride along with me, I’ll explain along the way.”

I stood up. “Okay. I’m game. I can’t wait to hear how is it that a dead man has been playing Secret Santa long after he died.”

As it turned out, after Ford’s body was found, Cass had been provided with a tip that it was possible that Ford might have a large amount of money hidden in his house. Cass had sent Rafe to check it out, and even though the crime scene guys had already been through the house, Rafe noticed a wall at the back of a closet that looked to have been painted recently. It wasn’t really obvious that the paint was fresher than the rest of the paint in the home, and it was the same color, but it did look to be slightly brighter. On a hunch, Rafe took a sledgehammer to the wall and found more than fifty thousand dollars hidden inside.

“Wait,” I said after Cass explained all of this to me. “If Buford was providing the money used for the Secret Santa gifts, why was the money in Ford’s closet?”

“My source suspects that after Buford was gifted the money from his sister, he decided to simply cash it in and get rid of it. My source isn’t sure why he would do that, but that is the theory. My source believes that, for some reason, Buford might not have wanted the money, but perhaps he didn’t want his nephew to have it either, so he came up with the idea to give it away. Assuming that Buford knew the nephew would be looking for the money, he might have decided to liquidate and then hide it at Ford’s place.”

“So Ford continued to play Secret Santa even after Buford died.”

“According to my source, Buford simply provided the money to someone else in the community who had the relationships and knowhow to select the recipients and arrange for the gifts. My source also said that they believe that the money was kept at Ford’s place until it could be distributed.”

I raised a brow. “Who is this source you keep talking about?”

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you that.”

I held my hands out in front of me. “Okay, wait. Let me make sure I have this straight. Buford is gifted a fortune from a sister he hadn’t spoken to in forty years. We don’t know why the siblings hadn’t spoken or why the sister left the money to Buford in the first place, but that seems to be what happened.”

“Yes. That is correct.”

I continued. “For reasons we also don’t understand, Buford didn’t want the money, so he decided to give it away. He enlisted the help of someone in the community with connections who would identify the Secret Santa recipients and make the arrangements for the gifts to be delivered.”

“Yes, that seems to be what happened.”

“So selecting recipients and delivering gifts would take some time, but Buford must have known that the nephew would come looking for the money, so he liquidated and hid the cash at Ford’s house. The money was distributed by Buford to the person in the community who was selecting the gift recipients for use in the Secret Santa campaign until he died, and then Ford continued to dole out the money in his stead.”

“Sounds like you understand what we believe has occurred.”

“And what is left of the money was still in Ford’s wall?”

“It seems so.”

I took a minute to let this sink in. “Okay, so if Buford trusted Ford enough to let him hang onto his money while it was being spent, why did the men fight on the day Buford died?”

“I don’t know.”

I bit down gently on my lower lip. “I do remember hearing that Ford and Buford had disagreed about something having to do with a favor Buford had asked of Ford. Maybe Ford no longer wanted to hold the money. Maybe the nephew had come around looking for it, and Ford felt that having it put him in danger.”

Cass gently bobbed his head. “I suppose that could very well be. The problem is that the only two who would know for certain if that occurred are Ford and Buford, and both are dead.”

Cass had a point. This was a theory that could never really be proven. “We know that both men had been drinking, so I suppose that a simple squabble could have escalated into something more.” I looked at Cass as he pulled off the highway onto the mountain road where Ford had lived. “So, what does this mean? Does knowing that Ford had all that money help us to know who killed him?”

“No, not for certain, but it does seem to me that the money might have been the motive behind the deaths of both men, and if that is the case, my money is either on the nephew or someone from the bar that the men confided in who decided he wanted his cut of Buford’s windfall.”

Chapter 24

Tuesday

The snow gently drifted on air currents toward the ground outside the attic window. As I did on most nights when I couldn’t sleep, I’d curled myself up inside the window with Alastair and a heavy blanket, and tried to focus on the beauty outside the window rather than the warring thoughts in my mind. The story Cass had come up with as to how the money had ended up in Ford’s wall was a good one. He refused to tell me who tipped him off to the possible existence of the money at Ford’s house, and who had been helping Buford and Ford with the Secret Santa gifts, but I’d given the matter a lot of thought and had come to my own conclusions. The question was what to do with that knowledge. I still hadn’t had the opportunity to speak to Dex. He’d been super busy yesterday, as had I. He did send along an email letting me know he loved the articles I’d turned in, and was looking forward to the third article in the series next week. He’d also asked me if I’d be willing to take on some extra assignments while Brock was out. I’d answered that I would be delighted to take on any extra work he might have, but for reasons unbeknownst even to me, I never did bring up my hesitation with the Secret Santa story.