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.”