Chapter 27
“Noel, I read through the proposals last night,” Cavin shared in the kitchen after saying hello to Mrs. Madelyn who let him in the front door of the candy shop thirty minutes prior to his shift.
“The proposals? Both of them?” Noel asked with a deliberate emphasis on her wording. “That huge document Walter and Georgia gave us and the heavy packet your father mailed?”
“Yes, I studied every sentence and dissected the more important ones,” Cavin explained.
“You read every page?” she questioned again, astonished. “Every word?”
“Yes,” Cavin replied.
“No wonder you look so tired.”
Cavin wiped his eyes overlooking the comment. “I think I discovered something we need to look into before you make a decision.”
“Okay,” she accepted appreciatively, remembering the time on the clock after he kissed her goodnight and realizing he must have barely slept. “What did you find?” she wanted to know.
“Well, I prefer not to get your hopes up, so I need to ask you a few questions and look at some other legal documents and financial statements with your permission,” Cavin stated.
“I don’t understand. The offers are what the offers are, right? I mean, what else is there to consider?” Noel questioned.
“I need you to trust me,” Cavin insisted. “I also need the day off, please,” he requested knowing it would take time to dig into the particulars.
“Sure,” Noel agreed, assuming she had little to lose at this point.
“I need to see your corporate tax reports from last year and your quarterly reports from this year,” Cavin requested.
Noel’s face suddenly displayed confusion. “Walter has all of those documents,” she explained. “I simply meet him at his office to go through the numbers and then sign the paperwork and write the checks.”
“I thought you might say that,” Cavin responded. “So, he does not provide copies for your records?”
“No, he says with everything being electronic there is no need for printed copies. Also, he knows how confusing all the business accounting is to me. Dad used to handle all the taxes, so ever since he passed away, Walter took the reins.”
A lightbulb began to glow so brightly in Cavin’s head that he wondered if golden rays flowed from his ears. “How long has Walter been handling the Beaufort Candy Company’s taxes?”
“Well, you see Walter’s father passed not long before my family’s accident. At the time Walter was working for a large firm in Virginia, but his dad willed the local accounting practice to him, so Walter moved back here to run the business and manage his family’s properties.”
“That is interesting,” Cavin replied, not sure what to think of this news. “Did your dad like Walter?” he asked.
Noel snickered. “Not at all. He loved his dad, but Walter is greedy. Dad talked about switching accountants after Walter took over the company, but he said he had some unfinished business to handle with Walter.”
The light in Cavin’s head grew even brighter. “Things are starting to make sense,” he stated.
“How come?”
“I think I am onto something, but again I want to wait to explain my theory because I could be wrong, and it would take a lot of time which is one thing we do not have. There is a lot going on here, and I am trying to understand all the motives.”
Noel wondered what that meant, but like Cavin said it seemed to make sense to wait. “Dad always said Walter seemed more interested in buying his client’s buildings than helping them build their businesses,” she mentioned. “His family owns a lot of property in town.”
“Your dad was a smart man,” Cavin concluded. “Do you think Walt will let me look at the tax records?”
Noel shrugged. “I guess if I were with you, he might,” she said as she glanced at her watch. “But I have to open the store, and without you here to help in the kitchen, I’ll have to spend a little more time prepping today.”
“Right, sorry about that,” Cavin apologized genuinely.
“I can call Walter and tell him I gave you permission to look at the company’s taxes,” Noel suggested.
While that sounded like a good idea, Cavin decided he didn’t want Walt to see this coming. Cavin already saw how territorial the guy seemed, and if Walt was capable of what he suspected, Cavin didn’t want to give the man and his lawyer friend, Georgia, any extra time to cover up the evidence.
“Actually, I have another idea that will give me access to some of the data needed,” Cavin mentioned. “You have point of sale software here at the store, correct? With the capability to look at daily, monthly, and yearly sales?” he checked.
“Yes, we do,” Noel reported. “I look at it every day. Walter also gives me a document with daily, monthly, and yearly sales goals we need to reach to cover all the expenses.”
Cavin furrowed his brow. “Oh, really?” So, he gave Noel access to that printed document but not her tax records. Cavin held his finger to his chin for a moment as the wheels in his mind churned. “Do you ever meet those goals?”
“Rarely,” Noel confessed although embarrassed. “That’s why I have to sell the building and my equipment so that I don’t lose everything.”
“Do you know the individual amounts of your expenses?”
Noel shook her head side to side. “No, I place all the orders, and Walter handles the invoices. Everything goes straight to him to save me time. Even though I don’t care for him, that’s one thing I have been thankful not to have to deal with, and he hasn’t gone up on the accounting rates, at least not yet. ”
Cavin felt all jittery inside, and he hoped that after he cracked this case, Noel’s brother would change his mind about his investigative abilities. Something fishy was transpiring here, and Cavin was going to get to the bottom of this murky water.
“Interesting. Do you have time to show me the point-of-sale platform really quickly?” Cavin didn’t typically look at data on such interfaces, but ultimately, he often analyzed numbers that came from that very source.
“Yeah, I can actually pull it up on my phone and give you a quick tutorial of the application before we open, and then you can spend however much time you need researching the numbers.”
Cavin grinned. “That will be perfect, and I will be right here in the store with you for a while in case you need any help,” he mentioned. “I would also like to see the goals Walter created.”
Noel spent the next ten minutes reviewing the point-of-sale program with Cavin, ultimately directing him to the numbers of interest. With Noel’s permission Cavin snapped photos of the data and of the goals.
Like Noel mentioned previously, the mark Walter created often seemed to be missed.
However, Cavin previously researched candy store statistics for the purpose of his own proposal for Beaufort Candy Company, and the sales at Noel’s store far exceeded the revenue needed to turn a relatively healthy profit in this industry.
“After spending time working in your kitchen and familiarizing myself with your processes, I realize you make everything from scratch in-house using top-quality ingredients, so your costs are probably higher than the average candy store,” Cavin pointed out to Noel after digging through the data while she mixed ingredients in the kitchen for a fresh batch of salt water taffy.
“Are there any other expenses, especially significant ones, you can think of outside of normal operating business expenditures?”
Noel considered the question as the machine in front of her churned and stretched the taffy, pulling it like extremely elastic rubber bands. “Well, having a waterfront shop causes the insurance to be a bit high due to the threat of flooding from hurricanes,” she explained.
“I have already calculated that,” Cavin confirmed although hurricanes weren’t top of mind at Christmastime.
“We don’t pay rent because we own the building,” Noel pointed out.
“Right,” Cavin noted, and what you own might be worth way more than you realize, he thought.
Cavin asked a handful of other questions about expenses and then did more math while studying the numbers on the spreadsheet he created on his laptop. Thankfully he still possessed the computer, but it would probably only be a matter of time before his dad thought about confiscating it.
“I have run all the numbers, and some things are not adding up,” Cavin conveyed, wanting to leave it at that for now.
“Do you think we are in a bigger hole than I imagined?” Noel asked. “Do you think that is why Walter’s offer is so low?”
Cavin wanted to reveal his suspicions to Noel so badly he could barely contain himself. “No, I do not believe the hole is bigger,” Cavin assured her with confidence. In fact no hole seemed to exist.
“That’s good news,” Noel uttered.
Cavin shut his laptop hastily and jumped up from the stool he sat on all week while helping Noel prepare candy. Taking a deep breath, he once again realized how good this kitchen smelled. He never visited a place in all his life that smelled better.
“I need to head over to the register of deeds office,” Cavin announced.
“Okay,” Noel replied appreciative of his diligent work. She had no idea what he was searching for, but his determination was evident. “I hope you find what you are looking for.”
Cavin didn’t necessarily want to show up at the local register of deeds office in person because if his theory was correct, he had no idea who else could be in cahoots with Walter and Georgia.
However, the property information he previously viewed online, which he double checked again last night, didn’t match his conclusion. So, no other option existed.
A cold breeze blew across his cheeks as Cavin made the brief walk from the candy shop to the register of deeds office.
Once he arrived, a kind older lady with a monotone voice and gaudy glasses showed him all the same property documents he saw online although it took her ages to dig each one out of a file cabinet and flip through the pages with him.
Noel’s building showed as deeded to Beaufort Candy Company, Inc.
with Noel listed as the sole owner. Cavin expected to see Keaton’s name listed as well, but it wasn’t although that wasn’t a big deal.
The records showed the property being passed down from Noel’s parents to her.
The adjacent building’s deed belonged to Walter Benson’s family’s company with his name listed as the owner.
Similar to Noel’s, the documents showed the property being handed down from his father.
All of this information didn’t add up when it came to the proposal .
. . because the official documents from Walter Benson to Noel Puckett showed Walter Benson as the prospective buyer of a property that included both buildings, and Noel Puckett as the seller who legally owned both buildings.
The major red flag was that in the proposition, the title was under Noel’s current building’s address, but the details showed that such property consisted of both buildings—something that neither she nor anyone not knowing how to decipher the fine print would have ever noticed.