The Mystery Before Christmas

“I had the same thought. It occurred to me that Vern accused Dennis of hitting Buford to divert attention from himself, but in reality, all he did was bring attention to his own actions. Have you spoken to Vern?”

“I have. He swears that he didn’t kill Buford. He swears that he heard about Buford being hit over the head during a discussion with a group of guys at the bar. I suppose that might be true, word does tend to get around in a small town, especially with the bar crowd, but I’m keeping my eye on Vern as well as Ford.”

“And Dennis?” I asked.

“Dennis told me that he and Buford did argue on the evening he died, but he swears he went to his girlfriend’s house directly after the argument. I checked with the girlfriend, who lives in Aspen, and she confirmed that Dennis was with her for the entire night and into the following day.”

“So, it sounds like Dennis is in the clear. Is there anyone else on your list besides Ford and Vern?”

“I have one other lead, and it might actually turn out to be a good one.”

“And what is that?”

“Darby Willis told me that Buford recently inherited a pretty good chunk of change from his sister after she passed away this past summer. Darby didn’t know how much Buford had inherited, but he was pretty sure it was a significant amount, whatever that means. The really interesting thing about this inheritance is that Buford and his sister, Hilde, were estranged, and as far as Darby knew, the two hadn’t spoken in forty years.”

“It seems odd that the woman would leave money to a brother she hadn’t spoken to for all that time.”

“I thought so as well, so I did a little digging. It turns out that Hilde has a son who was expecting to inherit her entire estate. When the son, whose name is Jason, found out that his mother gifted more than a quarter million dollars to his uncle, a man he’d never met, before she died, he retained an attorney and tried to challenge the gift.”

“Why would she do that?”

“She’d been ill. I think she knew that she only had a matter of days or maybe weeks to live, so she went ahead and gifted the money to her brother. Maybe she knew her son would challenge the gift, so she wanted to head him off. It’s hard to say.”

“So, what happened when the son challenged the gift?”

He was successful in getting a judge to agree to temporarily freeze the account his mother had put the money into after making the case that his mother was dying and not in her right mind when she made the gift. When the court attempted to freeze the account, they found that there was only a hundred dollars left. Apparently, the bulk of the money had been withdrawn the day after Hilde gifted it to Buford.”

“So, Buford must have anticipated a problem and withdrew the money.”

Cass nodded. “Apparently. The thing is that no one has been able to figure out what he did with the money. He didn’t open additional bank accounts, nor does it appear he made any investments, at least not any that can be tracked. He hasn’t made any large purchases, nor was the money found in his house after he died.”

“I didn’t really know Buford, but based on what I’ve heard, it seems like he was the sort of guy who might have stuffed the money in his mattress.”

“He was totally that sort of guy,” Cass agreed. “But we’ve looked in the mattress, and in the root cellar, and even in the oven. The money simply is not on his property.”

I had to admit the fact that Buford had come into a significant amount of money before he died did lend an interesting twist to the situation. “Okay, so if Buford had the money at his home at one point and someone found out about it, maybe someone killed him and stole the money.”

Cass tossed a thick rope for the dogs to chase. “I suppose that is as good an explanation as any, but there are still a lot of unanswered questions, beginning with why this woman left such a large amount of money to a brother she’d been estranged from for forty years.”

“That does seem odd,” I agreed.

“And even if we can figure that out, we need to figure out why Buford withdrew all the money from the bank, and what he did with it once he liquidated.”

“And, of course, you’ll want to know if all of this is related to his death.”

“Exactly.”

I squatted down to greet a pair of terriers. “Have you spoken about the money to the people who were closest to Buford? Had he told anyone about his inheritance?”

Cass began picking up the toys in anticipation of wrapping up the play session. “I just found out about this today, so I’ve only had time to speak to a couple of Buford’s friends. Those I’ve spoken to swear they had no idea that Buford had come into any money. As I already mentioned, after he withdrew the cash, it seems to have simply disappeared. Buford didn’t change his lifestyle, nor did he make any large purchases.”

“So, if someone killed Buford in such a way as to make it look like an accident and then stole the money as we’ve speculated, who even knew about it to carry out that plan?”