Difficult being a euphemism, of course.
Strictly alphabetical was the only way to go, she decided.
With a cup of tea steeping at her elbow, she opened her laptop and began. Her very first call was to the woman she’d added as a walk-in last night, Louise Alsobrook.
“Oh, you poor dear!” was the first thing Ms. Alsobrook exclaimed after Nadia’s stiff explanation. “Didn’t somebody among your volunteers have a safe?”
“Unfortunately, no,” Nadia said. “And really...I don’t think any of us dreamed of something like this happening. The community has been so supportive. I’ve been involved with charity events in a larger city before and nobody worried about securing the money until the bank opened.”
“Greed can happen anywhere,” the woman said practically. “Well, I just looked online, and the charge to my credit card hasn’t been presented. I’ll ask my credit card company to put a stop on this number and issue a new card. In the meantime, I’ll put a check in the mail for the same amount, or even some extra. Because a lot of what’s gone must have been cash, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, unfortunately. Thank you so much, Ms. Alsobrook,” Nadia said fervently. “This is...such a nightmare, and you’ve been very kind.”
“Oh, honey, I know all of you worked so hard. Now, should I send it straight to the aid organization?”
“Yes, please.” She asked that Ms. Alsobrook add a note to let Bill Jarvis know that it was a replacement for the stolen credit card slip. He’d agreed to keep track so that the auction organizers knew who had sent money and how much.
“I’ll send that check first thing tomorrow,” Ms. Alsobrook promised.
Eyes stinging, Nadia ended the call, made a note and allowed herself a few sips of tea before she reached for the phone again.
* * *
ARMS CROSSED ATOP the white-painted fence, Ben watched foals with legs too long and spindly for their bodies gamboling in the field as their mothers grazed placidly. Gary Edgerton bred, raised and trained horses destined to be harness racers or to pull an Amish buggy. His wife was the quilt enthusiast, but both had attended the auction and spent a substantial amount.
Having heard approaching footsteps, Ben wasn’t surprised when a man’s voice came from behind him.
“A lot of money on the hoof.”
Ben turned to see Edgerton watching him rather than the mares and foals. “Cute little buggers,” Ben commented. “How old are they?”
“A couple weeks old up to three months. The last few broodmares are due any day.”
Ben knew next to nothing about horses. He’d never thrown a leg over one in his life, although he’d now ridden in a buggy and had become accustomed to the splats of manure decorating the streets of his town, as well as to the hitching rails as common as they would have been in the nineteenth century.
“Why the age spread?” he asked. “I thought foals were born in spring.”
“Mares don’t all come into season at the same time. Some breedings don’t take, so we have to wait until she’s ready again for a second go-around.”
Edgerton offered a tour, but Ben asked for a rain check.
“Guess you go at it hard when this much money is missing,” the guy remarked.
“Ms. Markovic called?”
“This morning. She and Allison had words.”
“And why is that?”
The horseman snorted. “Woman comes out of nowhere, charms her way into taking the lead on the auction, leaves with the money and, oh, oops, reports it stolen the next morning. You’re in the wrong job if you’re credulous enough to believe crap that smells a lot worse than my manure pile.”
From long practice, Ben hid his irritation successfully. “Allison thinks the same?”
“Hell, yes!” Expression bullish, Edgerton glared at Ben. “Slick a scheme as any I’ve ever heard of.”
“She put a lot of money into starting that business,” he said mildly. “Sure, Ms. Markovic would walk away with some money, maybe sixty, seventy thousand in cash. But if most people think the same as you and your wife, her business will go under. I don’t think she’d come out of it much, if any, ahead.”
“Sixty thousand bucks on top of what she recovers by selling the building and the business? That’s not a bad take. And then she can move on, pull the same shit somewhere else.”
Unwilling to argue the point, because, yes, he was already considering that very scenario, however unlikely he believed it to be, Ben steered him to recollections of Friday. Mrs. Edgerton had attended the quilt sale earlier in the day Friday and spent money there, as well as a larger amount at the evening auction. Edgerton offered the names of a few people who weren’t already on Ben’s list but sneered at the idea any of them would steal.
“These are folks who have lived around here their whole lives,” he insisted, as if that was all Ben needed to know about them.
Choosing not to point out that he’d arrested more than a few longtime residents for crimes ranging from misdemeanor shoplifting to rape and negligent homicide, Ben ascertained that the missus was up at the house and went to talk to her.
She was even sharper-tongued than her husband had been. Ben drove away without having learned anything useful, but with a sour taste in his mouth and a cramp of pity for what Nadia must be experiencing.
There were more people he should talk to, but he was increasingly doubtful that he’d learn anything new. He needed to get a more complete list of volunteers from Nadia... With a grimace, he corrected himself. He should get that list from Julie Baird or Katie-Ann Chupp. Because, much as he disliked the idea, Nadia remained his only potential suspect right now. Katie-Ann—yeah, he could count on her for complete honesty. But this, if memory served him right, was church Sunday for the Amish. With no child missing, no dead body, he couldn’t justify bothering her before tomorrow.
* * *
BEN HAD WORKED BEFORE with Tricia Mears, the deputy prosecuting attorney who was waiting for him at the station. Thanking her for coming, he escorted her to his office. As soon as he shut the door, she said, “I have your warrant.”
He needed to search Nadia’s financial records, something that also would have to wait until morning, when banks opened. If she really were a thief, she’d hardly be brazen enough to deposit the money. If she found a secure enough hiding place, she could filter the cash slowly into her finances with no one having a clue.
“You drag a judge out of church to get this signed today?” he asked.
Maybe in her late twenties, tiny and blonde, she grinned. “Wouldn’t dare. But I was parked in Judge Greenhaw’s driveway when he arrived home after church. He asked if this couldn’t have waited, but he didn’t seem to really mind. And, like everyone else in town, he already knew about the theft.”
“Did he have an opinion, too?” Ben asked drily.
“Hadn’t had occasion to meet her, he said, but he understood why you had to look at her first.”
“Thanks for getting right on this,” Ben said.
Vibrating with energy, she perched on the edge of the seat she’d taken across the desk from him. “Anything else I can do for you?”
“Not yet. What I’d like is to find out where everyone who attended that auction stands financially, but I kind of doubt Greenhaw would go for such a sweeping warrant.”
“That’s safe to say.” She rose to her feet. “Unless you’d like to...well, throw around ideas, I need to show my face at my grandparents’ for Sunday dinner.”
He waved her off. “Go.”