Duck the Halls(94)

“But he was suspicious of everybody,” I said. “How was anyone supposed to know he was right about Riddick?”

“Precisely! The boy who cried wolf!” The chief leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head. I recognized the welcome signs that he was in a good mood and felt like sharing the details of his case. “And unfortunately Mr. Vess was rather fixated on the notion that Riddick was stealing money. All Riddick had to do was keep the cash and bank accounts clean and he could steal the church blind without Vess being any the wiser.”

“But if Vess had suspected Riddick for years—do you mean this was going on even before Mrs. Thornefield’s estate?”

“It’s been going on nearly twenty years,” the chief said. “Though on a much, much smaller scale,” he added, seeing my shocked expression. “Apparently early in their working relationship, Dr. Womble, the previous rector, recognized that Riddick might be finding it difficult to manage on the relatively modest salary the church was paying him. So the good doctor encouraged Riddick to take any little items he might find useful from the rummage sale donations.”

“‘Little items’?” I said. “Like that silver Tiffany tea service Mother was burbling about before church this morning?”

“It began with little items,” the chief said. “But it wasn’t long before Riddick realized the true value of the items donated by more affluent parishioners. That’s when he began his practice of replacing valuable objects with cheap counterparts purchased in thrift shops. He also started pretending to sell some of the donated items to antique stores and thrift shops—supposedly for larger sums than they’d bring at the rummage sale. But of course he was selling his thrift shop purchases, not the donations.”

“He’s lucky no one ever recognized any of his thrift shop junk.”

“It’s not luck,” the chief said. “He stuck to thrift shops at least three hours’ drive away.”

I shook my head in amazement.

“Riddick, of all people,” I said. “And for twenty years?”

“He was only doing it on the large scale for the last six or seven years,” the chief said. “Until your mother came along. She’s the reason he was leaving Trinity.”

“Mother? I thought it was Robyn.”

“Robyn annoyed him,” the chief said. “All that emphasis on efficiency and decluttering was going to make it harder to run his racket. But his problems really began when your mother was elected to the vestry. Riddick could tell everyone else on the vestry that a thrift shop had offered a few hundred dollars for some old threadbare rugs and they’d say ‘Great!’ Your mother would want to see the rugs first. She’d almost shut him down even before Robyn arrived.”

“Good for Mother!” I exclaimed. “But I guess he couldn’t resist going for one more big score with Mrs. Thornefield’s estate.”

“Yes,” the chief said. “He was hoping to use the disruption arising from the change in rectors to cover his tracks. At first, the pranks alarmed him. Having dozens of inquisitive Baptists swarming all over the church must have made him nervous. But he soon realized that if he kept the pranks going, he could exploit them to help him pull off his final theft. And to get rid of Mr. Vess, whose suspicions were finally becoming inconvenient.”

“Don’t tell me—after hearing Mother go on about the valuable furniture for the last three or four months, Vess finally took a look at the junk in the basement and figured out what was up?”

“No.” The chief was wearing what could only be called a Cheshire Cat grin. “Riddick was planning to move to the greater Los Angeles area, and he was looking for someplace to stash his loot. In late October, he made the mistake of using his office phone to call a storage locker company in Van Nuys. Apparently Vess reads every line of the church phone bill, and when he saw a ninety-cent long-distance charge that didn’t seem legit, he couldn’t rest till he got an explanation. He’d been bugging everyone about it. What if he called the storage place and they gave him Riddick’s name? So Vess had to go.”

“Good grief,” I said. “I remember all that fuss about the ninety-cent phone call. Our budget’s tight, but not that tight.”

“Won’t be tight at all when we recover what Riddick embezzled,” the chief said. “It’ll be at least a million.”

“A million dollars?” My jaw fell.

“At least.”

“Well, that answers another question,” I said, when I finally got my voice back. “I was still having a hard time believing anyone would commit a murder over a bunch of old furniture, but a million dollars?”