“Before I found out he was spying on his tenants, I sometimes invited the people I was helping over to my apartment,” he said. “I don’t always know their status when they first come to see me. If they’re illegal, I tell them that there’s not much I can do and refer them to an immigration lawyer I know. But what if Doleson spotted someone who turned out to be illegal? He could report me and I’d lose my green card like that!”
He snapped his fingers and shook his head sadly.
“It’d be your word against his,” I said.
“Yeah, but he’d have his digital photos,” Jorge said. “Hard to explain those away.”
“Digital photos?”
“He’s always taking pictures of people coming and going,” Jorge said. “He’s been doing it for years—no idea why.”
“I can guess,” Michael said. “Up until five or six years ago, the Pines was the sort of motel couples went to if they didn’t want to be seen together.”
“Yeah, it always was a dive,” Jorge said, wrinkling his nose as if remembering a bad smell. We all glanced back at the ramshackle building. With several inches of snow softening its contours and hiding some of the shabbiness, it looked almost habitable.
“And it was the only motel like that in Caerphilly County,” Michael went on. “So everyone knew where to look for their cheating spouses.”
“You mean people were still stupid enough to go there?” Jorge asked.
“You’d be surprised,” Michael said. “Not everyone was smart enough to take their infidelities out of the county. But what really did Mr. Doleson’s business in was when people found out he used his digital camera to take pictures of everyone who came there. And sold the evidence for a hefty fee.”
“You’re kidding!” I exclaimed.
Michael shook his head.
“He’d been doing it for years. Of course, until the last few years he used Polaroids. When people learned that he’d supplied evidence in a few bitterly contested divorces, his business disappeared completely. That’s why he converted the place to apartments.”
“Lucky he did,” Jorge said. “Or I’d still be sleeping on someone’s couch.” Caerphilly’s chronic housing shortage was legendary. “Anyway, even if he didn’t have anything to blackmail me with, just reporting me would cause a major hassle. I know people who have spent years trying to clear up completely bogus accusations.”
“But you think he was blackmailing other people?” I asked.
Jorge nodded.
“Everyone assumed his blackmail business folded when he converted the Pines to an apartment building,” Michael said. “I guess everyone underestimated him.”
“You know,” I said, “this could explain why they kept Dole-son on as Santa. Maybe he was blackmailing someone on the town council.”
“I wouldn’t put it past him,” Michael said.
“When they seize his blackmail files, they’ll find out,” Jorge said. “I’m sure that’s what the burglary is all about.”
“You think he kept his files at the Spare Attic?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Jorge said. “Most of the bins have walls made of chain link.”
“I know,” I said. “We still have a bin there.”
“But Doleson’s own storage place is a room with reinforced walls and a huge, fancy padlock on the outside.”
“You’ve seen it?”
“Not myself, but I’ve talked to guys who have,” he said. “And it stands to reason he wouldn’t keep anything really valuable in his unit here at the Pines. The walls are like cardboard.”
“Like?” I said. “The walls are cardboard, period. One night, when his neighbors were making a racket, Rob tried to pound on the wall and ended up putting his fist through it.”
“So the killer is someone Doleson was blackmailing,” Jorge went on. “And then the killer came to steal the incriminating evidence before the police have a chance to find it. This could break the case wide open!”
“Or confuse it,” Michael said. “After all, if Doleson was blackmailing a lot of people, the killer would be only one of multiple people desperate to remove incriminating evidence.”
Maybe Jorge believed his theory that the burglar had to be the killer or maybe he wanted us to believe it because it diverted suspicion from anyone who wasn’t the burglar. Telling us about Doleson’s attempt to blackmail him could be another very clever way to divert suspicion. I was suddenly glad I’d turned over the Blitzen sweatshirt to the police.