Merry Market Murder(53)

“What’s that?” I pointed to a gun-like trigger mechanism that was stored on a shelf with a full supply of cans with yellow labels. The mechanism had a long tube that was in a loose circle on the floor, and it was attached to a generator.

“I believe it’s a flocking gun. You attach the can and shoot the contents at a tree,” Sam said.

I looked at him with raised eyebrows.

“White stuff to flock a tree, make it look like it has snow on it.”

“Oh.”

The shelves were full of other, less interesting things like hammers and a couple wrenches. It was a poorly stocked garage, tool wise, but a desk in a back corner proved to be much more interesting.

“What a mess,” Gellie said as the three of us stood in a half circle around the paper-and-file piles.

“I’m going to have someone come out and process the items on the desk, Gellie, but I’ll take a quick look first. You okay with that?”

Gellie shrugged. “Don’t think it matters one way or another if I care, but I don’t. If it helps you find Reggie’s killer, all’s the better. I’m going back inside, though. You two don’t need my help.”

Sam flipped a switch, which illuminated the garage with a healthy supply of yellow-fluorescent light. I would have preferred to open the garage door, but I knew we shouldn’t do something that might disrupt the evidence, if there was, in fact, evidence.

“At least he’s somewhat normal,” I said. “He really did have a computer and a printer; the printer’s also a fax machine. He’s not as strange as his gorgeous but uptight house makes him seem.”

“Uh-huh,” Sam said distractedly as he looked at the items on the desk and then pushed buttons on the printer/fax. “I’d like to find the fax number or a sent and received log, but I think I’ll let the crime scene people figure it out.”

From what I could see, Reggie’s organization resembled how my dining room table sometimes looked, though my paperwork messes were usually in stacks more than they were just papers everywhere.

“Sam, this is weirder than I thought—maybe not normal,” I said, though it was more me thinking aloud than to get his attention.

“How do you mean?”

“It’s messy, really messy. Even messy people—myself included—have a system to their mess. This looks like someone rifled through it, maybe looking for something.”

“And if they found it, we’ll never know what it was.” Sam pulled out his phone and started snapping pictures.

“Do you really think the other officers didn’t look out here?” I asked.

“They said there was no computer, but this isn’t a crime scene so there’s a chance they weren’t as thorough as we all should be. We asked Gellie about Reggie’s activities. If they didn’t ask, they might not have thought about a desk being in the garage.” Sam stopped snapping pictures, looked through the ones he’d taken, and said, “Okay, let’s see if we can see anything interesting.”

The usual paperwork suspects were everywhere—invoices, statements, supplies bought, and trees sold. The most curious thing about the mountain of papers was that some pieces were old, from as far back as ten years ago. The file drawers were full to overflowing, presumably with even older paperwork, but there was neither rhyme nor reason to the filing system.

“Hmm,” Sam said as he opened a file he’d wrangled out of one of the packed drawers.

“What’d you find?” I asked.

“It’s all about the Ridgeways,” he said as he held it so I could look, too.

There were articles and pictures of Denny, Billie, and Ned Ridgeway from over the years. Mostly there were articles that highlighted the Ridgeway farm, but there were also articles about social events that one or some of the Ridgeways had attended. The dates on the articles went back as far as 1991.

“I suppose it would be okay to keep a file about your competition,” I said as I glanced at the pages, which Sam was quickly flipping through. “The Ridgeways were much more successful than Reggie ever was. Maybe he was jealous.”

Sam rubbed his chin. “Maybe, but everyone keeps telling us that he didn’t have a Christmas tree farm to be successful, and that’s becoming more and more obvious. We haven’t figured out where all his money came from yet, but we’re working on it—family money, textiles, probably nothing surprising. He could have done more to find more customers. Shoot, just a picture of the setting around here in some sort of advertisement would have garnered a bunch of attention. I’ll take this one with us.” He closed the file, stuck it under his arm, and then sat down on the creaky office chair.