“Is he able to get around?” I asked.
“Actually, he gets around pretty well,” Naomi said. “He has a car which has been outfitted with hand controls and a travel wheelchair that is light and easy to manipulate. He can get himself in and out of the chair, and he’s able to get the chair in and out of his car, so he hasn’t lost a beat in some ways, although he can no longer do construction.”
“Do you think he’d shoot Bobby?” I asked.
Naomi shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe. He is hanging onto a lot of anger, and he knows his way around a gun. Before the accident, he used to go hunting all the time.”
“Does Cass know about the situation between Jimmy and Bobby?” I asked.
“He knows,” both women answered.
“Cass is a good cop. I’m sure he’s already considered everything we’ve discussed,” Naomi said. “I’m sure he’ll talk to Jimmy and Tamara. Cass has spent his share of time at Jack’s Place as well, so he’ll know to talk with Alex about what might have been going on in Bobby’s life.”
“Alex?” I asked.
“She’s a bartender at Jack’s. Basically, she’s one of the guys and tends to know what’s going on with all the regulars. If Bobby was into something, she’ll know about it.”
“Wait,” I said. “Are you talking about that pretty redhead who looks like she just walked off the cover of Playboy Magazine?”
“Sounds about right,” Naomi said.
“Cass introduced me to her a couple months ago. She showed up at a restaurant where we were dining. He told me her name was Alex, but he didn’t mention that she was a bartender. Honestly, I assumed she was a model or possibly a movie star vacationing in the area.”
“Not a model, but not just a bartender,” Hope said. “Alex is doing online classes to get her MBA. I think she’s hoping to either buy Jack’s when he’s ready to retire or start her own bar if he won’t sell to her.”
“Good for her,” I said. “So, the guys who hang out there tend to talk to her?”
Hope nodded. “Alex is this really unique combination of ambitious businesswoman, girl next door, and every guy’s fantasy. She’s not only beautiful, but she’s smart and knows what she wants. She can hang with the guys as well as anyone. She’s known for her ability to toss an ax or down a few shots with the bar’s clientele. She’s won the annual dart tournament three years in a row, and she isn’t afraid to spew four-letter words around like candy, which the guys seem to appreciate.”
“The guys not only know and like her, but they trust and respect her. If they had something they wanted to get off their chest, they’d talk to her,” Naomi said.
“And Cass knows her well?” I asked.
“Sure. They used to date,” Naomi informed me.
Suddenly, my admiration for the woman turned an ugly shade of green, which really wasn’t fair since I’d made it clear to Cass that we could never be more than friends.
“So about the Austin Brady case,” I said, deciding to change the subject mostly because I figured that Cass would be all over the Bobby Brighton shooting and wouldn’t need my help, but also because thoughts of Cass with the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen wasn’t sitting quite right with me. “Cass and I spoke to Toby Wallis this morning.” I then took a few minutes to fill them in on the conversation. “The fact that Toby mentioned that Bobby seemed frightened a couple times seems even more important now given the newest development.”
“So, do you think he knew something about Austin’s disappearance?” Naomi asked. “Something he’d been sworn to keep to himself, but now that you were looking into things, someone out there was afraid he’d spill after all these years.”
“It fits the situation. Six boys go camping, but only five make it out alive. The body of the sixth is never found, so no one knows for sure what happened to him, but foul play seems to be a logical explanation. The five surviving boys all swear they don’t know a thing, but what are the odds they were lying? Maybe they were lying to protect someone, or maybe they were lying because the person who asked them to lie swore to hurt them if they didn’t. The boys are scared, but they figure they can’t do anything to help Austin at that point, so they decide to clam up so as not to become the next victim.”
“It’s a decent theory, but can you prove any of it?” Naomi asked.
“No. It’s really just a story I’m telling myself. But it does seem odd that no one knows anything. I’d find the stories the boys told to be more believable if they weren’t so similar.”
“Callie makes a good point,” Hope said. “I read through the witness statements, and the interviews given by the remaining boys were so similar as to seem rehearsed. The only one that was different was Toby Wallis’s statement. If something happened and the older boys all decided to cover it up, I don’t think he knew the truth.”
I sat forward slightly. “Okay, so Josh, Bobby, Colin, and Larry were all in on the secret. Whatever happened occurred when Toby wasn’t around, so they all agreed not to bring him in on whatever was going on. I guess we should assume at this point that Austin was dead; otherwise, it seems the boys would have tried to help him rather than covering up whatever happened. The four survivors sharing the secret take some time to get their story straight before going into town to get help, so even though they were interviewed separately, they all had the same script from which to answer any questions that were asked. Toby said that Bobby seemed to be the most fearful after Austin went missing, so maybe he was the weak link. The friend the others dreaded might rat them out. But he didn’t. He managed to keep it together, and the others thought they were safe. Well, at least Colin and Larry might have thought that since Josh died a long time ago.”
“And then you start asking questions, and maybe Bobby started to sweat again. Maybe he even said something to one of the other two about the guilt he’d lived with and how it had affected his life,” Hope said. “I suppose the others might have thought that he was a real risk, so either Colin or Larry shot him.”
“Do either of you know Colin or Larry?” I asked.
“Larry moved a long time ago, so no,” Hope said. “I know the name, but I really don’t know him.”
“Yeah, me neither,” Naomi agreed.
“And Colin?” I asked.
“Yeah, I know Colin,” Hope said. “He seems like an okay sort of guy. He’s married to a woman named Babs, and he works down at the lumber mill. He’s actually a foreman of some sort. I think he does okay. He and Babs live in a nice house, and they both drive nice vehicles.”
“Does he seem like the sort of person who would shoot someone in cold blood to protect a secret?” I asked.
“No. But I suppose that before anyone can determine whether or not someone would kill to protect a secret, you’d really need to know what the secret was and what the fallout would be to his current life.”
Hope was right. It would be hard to know if someone would kill without really knowing or understanding why. I wasn’t sure how Bobby’s death was going to affect Cass’s ability to help me out with the Austin Brady case for my story, but I did realize that Austin Brady’s disappearance was the case I’d been assigned by my boss, so it would be best if I stayed focused on that.
Chapter 7
Monday
I hadn’t seen or talked to Cass at all yesterday. He’d texted to let me know he was knee-deep in interviews relating to the shooting and would call me today. I was sorry he missed the cookout the rest of us had enjoyed last evening, but I did understand that he had a job to do. It sounded like he had a lot of leads to work through. Hope, Naomi, and I had only identified a few motives which would have been easy enough to check out, so chances were that Cass had information that we didn’t, which led to his long list.