Page 115 of Nash Falls

“Daughter missing, husband on the run? I’m surprised she can function at all.” Rhett shook his head and then an idea came to him. He thought it through for a few beats and said, “I have to tell you, I would have trusted Walter Nash with my life. I never saw any of this coming. Now Walter’s disappeared and you think someone might have killed my father? It seems weird, you know? So close together.”

Ramos stiffened and said, “Would Nash have any reason to wish your father harm?”

“Walter? My father? No, I… I can’t believe that.” But Rhett made certain not to sound too sure of that.

“Well, you couldn’t believe he would do what he did to his daughter and the security guard, correct?”

Rhett slowly nodded as he thought through the next phase of his plan with the detective. “But there is something, I don’t know if it’s connected, but it was odd.”

“What was odd?” asked a clearly interested Ramos.

Rhett leaned forward, and, though they were alone, spoke in a low voice. “My father approached me a while back and told me to give Nash a raise and more bonus money.”

“Hewasan employee. Wasn’t that the sort of thing your father would do?”

“No, not at all. I run Sybaritic, not my father, and compensation decisions go through me. Now, Nash was already being richly rewarded. A little too much, if you want my honest opinion. And my father was acting a little funny when he asked me. Like he didn’treally want to do it. But I did what he asked because he wasmyboss, not because Nash deserved the extra money. I can get you the paperwork. It’s all there.”

“I’d appreciate that, thank you. Any idea as to why your father did that?”

“I do know that Nash had spoken with one of our rivals about joining them. Now, Nash has a lot of institutional knowledge about how we operate. It would not be good if he jumped ship.”

“Did your father know about that?”

“He was the one who told me.”

“So the extra comp could have just been to keep Nash at your company?”

Rhett shook his head. “To tell the truth, there was just something fishy about the whole thing, Detective. My father had never done that before. Nash was a good man, but he was no superstar. I don’t know why my father would have treated him special. Unless…”

“Unless what?”

Rhett looked embarrassed. “My father has had an eventful life. Three marriages, some scandals, some shady business partners. If someone had gotten ahold of something… well, really bad, and held it over him?”

Ramos tensed. “You think Walter Nash was blackmailing him?”

“I can’t say for certain, of course. But since my father just found out he was dying? Maybe he told Nash to screw off. Or maybe my dad told Nash that he was going to expose him as a blackmailer.”

“That definitely could be a motive for murder,” noted Ramos. “Could he have gotten into your father’s home?”

“He’s been there many times over the years. For all I know my father gave him the gate code and a key to the house. He’d been an employee for nearly two decades. And he could have left his car down the road and maybe gotten in over the back wall, since you found the video footage on the gate was clear.”

“I see.”

“I’m just speculating. I have no proof, you understand,” addedRhett quickly, even as he evaluated the impact his words had had on the detective.

“Thank you nonetheless, sir. I will follow up.”

After Ramos left, Judith rejoined him.

“What was that all about?” she asked anxiously.

“Nothing important,” replied Rhett.

He left her and immediately phoned Laurel Burke to finalize his ironclad alibi.

Please God, don’t let there be any cameras around Burke’s place showing me arriving after my father was dead.

CHAPTER