Traces of Guilt

ELEVEN

Evie Blackwell

Evie slid the package of Oreos down the table to Ann, passing them right under the Nerf football being tossed from Gabriel to Paul with an occasional lob to Gabriel’s dad, Caleb. The guys “thought better” while in motion, or so they claimed. The dinner with the Thane family had been relaxing, and for Grace’s sake no one had talked work. But now they had regrouped at the post office to end the evening.

It was coming up on eight p.m. Wednesday night, late enough that Evie was mentally following longer strands of ideas, growing less cautious about which of them she decided to share with the group. The Florist case had turned into a concrete wall. Painful. “Review for me again, what did we learn today?” she asked over the minor din.

Gabriel answered as he caught the football from Paul, shot it over to Caleb. “Father and son spent two years tying themselves into knots over the fear the other had been involved in Frank Ash’s murder. The discovery of the body at the truck stop seems to have relieved that stress. Scott hadn’t done it, and given where the body was found, he no longer thought his son, Joe, could have done it. So knowing he had a relationship to rebuild with his son, he suggested they go camping for a few days. That fact itself is useful to know. Up until now, we thought the camping trip had been planned further in advance. Turns out the decision to go camping was made that week. So there’s even less opportunity for someone to hear about it, and come up with a plan to harm to the family.”

Evie nodded. “Good point.”

Paul hustled over to catch a bad throw, added, “We also know cash was being squirreled away for the last two years.” The ball sailed back to Caleb. “Which makes sense now we know Scott thought for those two years that his son had killed Ash. They were making contingency plans to leave town rather than let their son be questioned by the police should that day ever come.”

“You’ve earned another hat tip for finding proof,” Evie remarked. Ann was right-Paul was good at finances.

“It was a challenge,” Paul said with a smile. “Susan hid it well. To retire the house debt early, they were making double mortgage payments up until two years before their disappearance. Their checkbook still records the double payment, but the mortgage loan itself was only credited for a single payment. Susan was withdrawing half of it as cash-easy enough with her bank job. Over two years, Susan pulled twenty-eight thousand out of their accounts. If she got that creative, she probably found another couple of opportunities to slip cash out without being obvious. So, say they had pulled out forty thousand in cash. Who knows where they had that money stored? Most likely it was in the house safe, but it didn’t hold any cash when the police opened it.”

“They could have been killed by someone who wanted the money,” Caleb suggested. “Put a gun on the boy, ask the dad what the safe combination is. That would work.”

Gabriel was shaking his head. “No sign of violence at the house,” he replied, “and that requires someone to know what Susan had been doing. It took our financial guru here to identify the withdrawals twelve years later.”

“Also, anyone reconciling the bank cash drawer at the end of the day would see the regular withdrawals to cash each month,” Paul said.

“Any co-worker could see it,” Ann agreed, “but wouldn’t they assume it was cash for that month? They wouldn’t have reason to add up twenty to forty thousand piling up.”

“True. It would have to be someone Scott would trust to see inside the house safe, see the money was there,” Gabriel said.

“It’s family then,” Evie said.

Gabriel looked over at her with a frown.

“What?” Evie protested. “It’s the obvious answer to who would be around when Scott opened the safe-family, someone he wouldn’t think to worry about. Did a Florist family member have serious money problems, then all of a sudden get themselves out of debt? With no signs of violence at the house, it’s gotta be somebody who can get next to the Florist family without raising any flags, and who better than an extended family member who needs the money that’s sitting right there?”

Those who knew the Florists didn’t want to go there, but Evie realized it was the obvious answer. This could have been a family thing-most murders were. Someone wanted that cash and took it.

“No one comes to mind,” Caleb said slowly, “but we’ll think on it, Evie. If family came into that kind of money, it’s going to leave a trail.”

“What about the doctor?” Ann asked.

Evie glanced her way, interested. “Keep going.”

“You’ve got to figure Scott at least had dropped hints he would protect Joe if it came to that. The doctor maybe figures the family’s making plans to leave. The family’s paying his fees in cash-no checks to him are in the records. He would have reason to suspect they’re putting money in the mattress in preparation. And,” she said, holding up her Oreo cookie, “one person who did know about the camping trip is the doctor.”

Evie smiled. “I do like this thread.”

“What does he have to gain from harming the Florist family other than money?” Gabriel asked.

“It might be enough,” Ann replied. “If his own marriage was in trouble, or he needed bailing out of a financial problem. It’s worth another look at our doc.”

“It’s worth a closer look,” Caleb said. “I like it if only because it’s not someone from this county.” He threw the football back to Paul, who in a single motion caught it and shot it over to Gabriel.

Evie ducked and held up her cookie in protest when Gabriel considered sending the ball her way. She wasn’t giving up an Oreo to play ball. She decided to lay yet another possibility on the table. “The Florist family disappears. Their bodies are not found. In twelve years of searching, no one has turned up even a trace of their remains, their belongings, or their vehicles. Or the possible forty thousand in cash. At some point it means they aren’t out there to find. So let’s assume for a moment that they’re still alive.”

Paul stopped mid-throw. “A big assumption.”

“Add to that an even bigger assumption-they left of their own volition. No criminal intervention, no bad guy shows up. The family told their friends they’d meet them at the campground for three days of camping, and then deliberately they don’t arrive that weekend.”

“They intentionally disappear…”

Evie nodded. “We’ve only got the doctor’s word that everything was settling down that week after the discovery of Frank Ash’s body. I agree it doesn’t seem likely the son was involved, given where the body was found, and the shooting itself-three scattered shots from a.22 doesn’t sound like a cop. But maybe something else was in the mix that week that they didn’t tell the doctor.” Evie pointed at Ann. “You’re the storyteller, Ann. They’re alive, and they disappeared by their own choice. Run with that narrative. Where does it go?”

Ann leaned back in her chair, thought for a long moment, then slowly nodded. “The family packs to go camping, leaves their home, takes the cash, and deliberately abandons their lives. For now we’ll grant they had good reason to do so, tied to the convoluted mess they thought about each other related to the Ash murder. Maybe they ran to avoid an interview, to keep someone from falling under suspicion as a person of interest, to keep someone out of jail. Whatever the reason, it was serious enough to compel this drastic action. The fact the body was found could be the trigger. They’d been making contingency plans for a couple of years, things like the cash. Maybe they had time to prepare last details, maybe it’s a rush job on the fly to get away, but the decision is made.

“To establish a new life elsewhere, they’d need new IDs, new jobs. A way to settle in somewhere, blend in. But in the initial days, it’s narrower than that. They need a destination that can be reached overnight-the manhunt to locate them will be swift and frantic once they’re reported missing, and their faces will be all over state and national news, social media. They won’t be able to travel past, say, eight a.m. Friday without taking a huge risk, unless they change their appearances in radical ways and split up. Better to hunker down and wait out the media storm. And it’s going to be weeks or months before they’re out of range for a possible news story with their photos.”

Ann paused, and Evie put in, “Given how smooth and error-free this seems to have gone, I think they had time to prepare those details. To plan how to disappear, and with two years to prepare, what would they be doing during that time?”

“Accumulating cash,” Ann said, ticking the items off on her fingers. “Arranging new IDs. Getting copies of school records and doctors’ immunization records. Making preventative visits to the dentist and eye doctor. Securing at least three months of prescriptions they regularly take. Seeing family and friends… and while they can’t say goodbye, they do see them a final time. Probably securing a new firearm or two. They would need new phones; they couldn’t use their current ones anymore. New computers too-they can’t touch an existing account or online profile. And they can’t make it obvious they took stuff with them that wouldn’t be unusual to pack for a camping trip. The dad would probably be researching the trip and destination, planning the travel, with the mom handling their clothes and food. My guess is the son wouldn’t be in the loop until they were on the road and leaving town. They couldn’t risk telling him they’re leaving for good. He might slip up, tell a friend or a relative,” Ann finished.

“So, what on that list did the three of them actually do?” Evie asked. “There should be evidence if they were taking these kinds of steps.”

“Forty thousand is sizable,” Gabriel observed, “but it only gets them a year or two, even with careful planning. But since they left behind every asset they had-bank accounts, retirement funds, life-insurance policies, the home and land-that tells me they didn’t run. They even left their pets behind. Given they were hauling a camper, if they were leaving for good, they could easily have taken the pets along too.”

“Not if they were planning to travel far and fast, didn’t want that complication. Not if they were getting on a plane to somewhere like Alaska,” Evie speculated.

Paul smiled, and Evie realized she now had the family leaving town abruptly, leaving behind everything they owned, and catching a plane to Alaska. It was a bit of a stretch even for her.

But Caleb gave her some credit for even that far-out possibility. “Makes sense, Evie, in that it explains why the family or their vehicles haven’t surfaced somewhere. Knowing Scott Florist, though, I sure don’t think it sounds like something he would do.”

“It would mean Susan left her mother, who was fighting cancer,” Gabriel pointed out. “Scott walked away from a job he was good at, left behind numerous family members. Joe would have had to be trusted not to give anything away in order to keep them hidden. Given all that, wouldn’t they have waited for the evidence to develop, to confirm there was a good enough reason they needed to leave? They ran too early for all they were giving up.”

“A very good point,” Evie conceded.

“What if Scott Florist covered up the murder of Frank Ash?” Ann asked. “Hadn’t shot him, but moved his body, disposed of it behind the truck stop, that kind of thing? The father thinks he’s protecting his son by corrupting the crime scene. Would they maybe have run in that situation? The nice thing about the truck-stop location is that the land behind it is state land. It changes who investigates the murder.”

“Okay…” Caleb nodded slowly. “I buy that as possible. Scott learns what happened to Joe, goes out to confront Frank Ash, finds him dead of three gun shots, fears his son killed him, so he moves the body to try to protect his son. I could see Scott doing that.”

“If either Scott or Joe murdered Frank Ash,” Gabriel said, “they had a good reason to run. But short of that, even if Scott moved the body, why take off? He knew about evidence collection, so he’s not going to make an obvious mistake. Wait a few days before taking off, but only if the evidence points in your direction. It doesn’t make any sense to go before then. They stayed put for two years after Frank Ash disappeared, and then they leave when his body is discovered, but before any evidence is analyzed? Just doesn’t add up. No, Scott would wait it out. And Susan would insist they wait because of her mother. They would go camping, get out of easy reach, keep their ear to the ground on details of the investigation, and leave only if there was cause.”

“What were the dates on the Ash autopsy, the bullet comparison at the lab, those sorts of results?” Ann asked.

Evie looked it up in the files they had brought over on the Frank Ash case. “The autopsy was… the Monday after the Florist family disappeared. A look at the recovered slugs happened Tuesday but didn’t generate a match in the database. There’s nothing in the notes, the investigation, to raise an issue. You’re right, Gabriel, why leave before the evidence is analyzed? If you did want to take precautions, why not say you’re going on a vacation, then keep an eye on things. Come back if everything looks fine, or keep going only if there’s a question. Why run first? They were about to be free of this.”

Gabriel nodded. “Say they took off, thinking the Frank Ash investigation would incriminate one of them. They ran before the evidence had been analyzed. A couple of weeks pass, there’s nothing that points to them. The Frank Ash case went nowhere. Why not come back to town with a plausible story, return to their lives? ‘We went camping, and Scott got sick and gave it to me, so we took another week to recover before driving home.’ Keep it vague but consistent, and just return to their lives.” Gabriel looked around the little group, saw a couple of nods to that scenario.

“That would make more sense than staying away all this time over something they didn’t need to worry about,” Ann agreed. “If they’re still alive, they let a lot of people they love and who love them remain worried and, finally, devastated thinking they’re dead. That doesn’t seem like either Susan or Scott.”

“We only have the word of family that they haven’t been in touch. Who knows who might be lying to us,” Caleb said, laying that fact on the table.

“True.” Gabriel turned to his father. “But can you really see Scott letting cops do the level of search for the family that occurred here? He’d know what happens if he just disappears. He had options for how they could have left. He could have announced a sabbatical, that they were taking Joe traveling for a few months. Sounds sudden, but he could say ‘Susan and I have been talking about it, and we’ve decided after the recent miscarriage we need that break now.’ So they go rather abruptly, then over the following weeks and months give excuses about finding the perfect new place and decide not to come back here. If they wanted to leave town, they could do it in a way that wouldn’t leave their extended family in the dark and the cops searching for them. Think about it just in practical terms. If you want to disappear for some reason, the last thing you want is your photos all over the Midwest with overlapping law-enforcement agencies tracking you down. Instead, you’d come up with a reason to leave, as tenuous as it was, and slowly cut ties-a phone number changed, the address is old, that kind of thing.”

Evie could see Gabriel’s point. “You don’t make it so everyone’s urgently searching for you if your hope is to slip away,” she said. “So… they didn’t disappear on their own. And they’re not out there alive somewhere.”

“I’m willing to entertain both those ideas,” Gabriel said, “if you can figure out how we look for them. Their being alive certainly is a direction we haven’t pursued yet. But realistically, no. I think it’s a lot less likely than that the family was murdered.”

“Which brings us back to the possibility someone needed the money they’d accumulated,” Caleb suggested. “It’s at least a new suspect pool to consider, since we didn’t know about the money before.”

“That’s true,” Ann said.

Evie got up to stretch. Susan had been close to her mom, had left when she was sick, and she hadn’t returned for the funeral. Gabriel was right. It would take an awfully good reason for them to cut those ties so completely. “Maybe there’s a way we can prove they didn’t leave of their own choice,” Evie offered. “If they were raising cash, it’s likely Scott had secured in advance fake IDs for them. Who in this county or surrounding counties would he have gone to for that? We find the person he paid, we learn the names they would have been using. If we find those names were never used, we can rule out they left of their own choice.”

Gabriel looked over with interest. “That’s smart thinking, Evie.” He then asked his father, “Who made good fake IDs in your day?”

“I’ll have to think on it, but Robert Light comes to mind. He might be a place to start, or maybe Chesapeake Bob. They would have done the quality of work Scott would look for. If they didn’t make the IDs themselves, they would know others who could have. They’ll talk to me.”

“Thanks, Caleb.” Evie picked up a marker, added the item to the work list.

“All right, Evie,” Ann said, “you can eliminate that they left of their own accord if the IDs they acquired were never used. Or if they did go on their own, you’ll know what names they planned to travel under. Any other ideas floating out there?” Ann scanned the group.

Gabriel shook his head. Caleb did as well. Evie felt like she was burned out just coming up with this one. “I’m fried.” She put down the marker. Ann and Paul needed to be heading to the airport. Caleb needed to get home. Gabriel too. For the fifth day of her working vacation, it wasn’t so bad an ending for the day.

“I wish you luck with this tomorrow,” Ann said as she stood, gathered up her jacket and briefcase. “Paul and I will be back Friday evening. Rachel is coming down with us to stay the weekend with Grace.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Evie said. She could see a long Thursday and Friday ahead of her as she tried to put some details to what had been discussed tonight. If they could figure out what new names Scott had arranged to use, prove those names had never been used, it would confirm their murders, with the missing cash as a probable motive. If the names had been used, it would indicate the Florist family had left of their own accord, the money with them.

Either way, it would be critically useful toward solving the case. Evie would gladly take it. She said good-night to Gabriel and Caleb, then headed out with Ann and Paul. The vacation house would be quiet tonight with just Evie there, but she was okay with that. She was ready to crash and get some much-needed sleep.