The Mystery Before Christmas

Chapter 23

Cass was in his office when I stopped by. I immediately noticed the colorfully decorated tree on the corner of his desk. It was one of those live trees they sold at the market. I wasn’t certain if he’d brought it in himself or if someone from the community had brought it by, but it did make the place feel a bit festive.

“So, how did your talk with Dex go?” Cass asked shortly after I’d taken a seat. We’d talked about the chat I’d planned to have with Dex, and he knew how nervous I’d been about it.

“It didn’t go. I guess Brock has taken a leave from the newspaper until after New Year’s, and Dex had to cover a house fire, so he wasn’t in when I stopped by to drop off my stories.”

Cass frowned. “I haven’t heard about a house fire.”

“The house that burned down is outside of town. I suppose the main dispatch might have sent someone from the Rivers Bend office. It might even be closer to where the fire occurred.”

“Was anyone hurt?”

“Gabby says no. Which is good. It is too bad the family who lived in the house lost their home, but at least no one was home when the fire broke out. While devastating, it could have been worse.”

He nodded. “Yes, it could have been. So what’s going on with Brock?”

“Family stuff. It sounds like he is working on it, which is good, but I’m afraid that leaves me in a bit of a pickle. We talked about the fact that I’d decided that I didn’t want to identify Secret Santa even if I do manage to figure out who he or she is, which at this point, isn’t a given, so I’d planned to pass the story along to Brock, but now that he’s out on leave…”

“There is no one to pass the story to.”

“Exactly. I suppose that’s Dex’s problem, and he could do it himself if need be, but I can’t do that to him. I’d feel like I was bailing on a sinking ship. I still don’t want to do the story for all the same reasons I didn’t want to do it the last time we spoke, but I also don’t want to add to the pressure Dex must be feeling by telling him that I decided not to write the story I promised I would write and he is depending on me to provide.”

Cass leaned back in his chair. He rocked gently front to back. “You are in a tough situation,” he admitted. “Maybe you can convince Dex that it is a bad idea to reveal Secret Santa’s identity. If you can, then you can write a lovely Christmas Eve piece minus the big reveal.”

“That would be ideal, but with the Post in the mix, I doubt he will go for it.”

“Yeah,” he said, blowing out a breath.

“I let Gabby know that I was free to take on some additional assignments if Dex needed my help. I’m hoping that if I can help him fill the void left by Brock’s absence, he won’t fire me when he realizes that I was unable to finish my assignment.”

“Perhaps, but it seems that unable to finish might be easier to stomach than unwilling to finish. If you are able to identify Secret Santa, but then refuse to give him up, I have a feeling Dex might take that personally. If you do your best, but simply can’t figure it out, I’m not really sure how he can fire you over that.”

“So, I should just continue to look for Secret Santa, but maybe not too hard?”

He shrugged.

“Don’t you think he’ll see through that? Maybe I should just be honest and take whatever consequences might come my way as a result.”

“I suppose that might be the best way to deal with things, but I wouldn’t wait. He might not be able to give the story to Brock as you hoped, but if you wait to tell him that you are unwilling to deliver the story he wants until it is too late, it seems to me that he’ll be twice as mad.”

“I know you’re right. I’ll let him know what is on my mind when we have our meeting. Maybe I will be able to convince him that not unmasking the guy really is the best thing to do for everyone involved.”

“That’s the spirit. A positive frame of mind wins out every time.”

“I guess,” I said, lifting a shoulder. “So, how are you doing with your cases?”

“Not as well as I’d like. We know Ford was definitely murdered. As I mentioned earlier, the trauma to his head is a lot more evident than the trauma to Buford’s head. Still, I suspect the same person is behind both deaths. It looks as if Buford might have been hit where he fell. The blow to Buford’s head didn’t bleed, so it is hard to know for certain. Ford’s wound, however, bled quite a lot. We found blood in his living room, so we assume he was killed in his home and then transported to the lake.”

“So was there other evidence?”

“CSU is going over everything. They are looking for fingerprints and other physical evidence. The thing is that Ford has never been a good housekeeper, and things have been really bad since Buford died. The crime scene guys are never going to be able to pick out evidence such as clothing fibers in all the mess.”

“That’s too bad. Any clue at all as to who might have killed him?”

He slowly shook his head. “I suppose that the killer must be someone known to both Buford and Ford. Given the fact that Buford froze to death as a result of passing out, which could have been caused by the blow to the head, it does seem possible that the whole thing was just a terrible accident. If that is true, then the killer might even have confided in someone.”

“Like Ford.”

“Exactly. But then once Ford was brought in on the secret, the killer started having doubts about Ford’s ability to keep his secret, and once he was brought in for questioning, he panicked, so he killed him to keep him quiet.”

“That explanation works for me, but how are you going to prove it?”

“I’m not sure. Yet. But I do plan to continue to work on it until I catch a break. It’ll happen. It always does. Eventually.”

“Have you spoken to any of the men’s mutual friends? Maybe Ford wasn’t the only one who knew what happened to Buford, assuming that is even what is going on, which at this point is pretty much nothing more than a shot in the dark, I suppose.”

“I’ve interviewed everyone who is a member of the lodge both men belonged to as well as everyone who hung out at the bar they frequented. I’ve found that there are a lot of theories as to what is going on and who might be involved, but so far, I haven’t found a consensus of any sort. Ford ended up in a frozen lake, so if there was ever any physical evidence on his body, it is most likely long gone, but I do have people looking for anything that will better define what happened.”

“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.”