My list of chores for today consisted of a trip to the newspaper to meet with Dex and to turn in the articles I had ready for him to have formatted. I also wanted to speak to him about both Bobby’s death and the progress I’d made on the Austin Brady case. I remembered that Dex had known the boys in question and had even planned to go along on the camping trip until his father had put an end to it. I supposed if anyone would have an opinion about what might have happened, other than the boys involved, of course, it would be him.
After I met with Dex, I planned to go to the wellness center and have my first workout. There were a lot of options to choose from, but I was really out of shape and wanted to start out slow. I hoped as time progressed, I’d begin to feel more like the self I seemed to have left behind after the accident.
Monday was also my day to pick Paisley up from school and give her a piano lesson. I was really hoping to connect with Cass at some point today as well.
“Busy day ahead?” Gracie asked when I went down for coffee.
“The busiest. I wanted to tell you both,” I said, including Tom, “that I had the best time last night. It was really special to share an evening in the yard by the lake with the people I love the most.”
“It was a special evening.” Gracie agreed. “And the first of many.”
“I loved the steaks, but let’s try ribs next time,” I suggested, smiling at Gracie. “You have always made the best ribs.”
“I think ribs would be a great choice for our second cookout. It seemed as if Ethel had a nice time last night,” Gracie referred to Paisley’s grandmother. “She seems to be doing better.”
“I agree. I know we take her food all the time, but it might be nice to invite her over more often,” I said. “Paisley practically lives here between the sewing and piano lessons, so I imagine Ethel gets lonely.”
“I agree,” Gracie said. “I’ll invite her to dinner one evening this week. So how is your article on the Austin Brady case going?”
“Slowly, but I feel like I’m gaining a better understanding of what went on. Cass has been helping me with the interviews and research, but with Bobby Brighton’s death, I’m not sure he’ll have time to continue to commit to the project.”
“I guess a current murder would take precedence over a long-ago missing persons case,” Gracie agreed.
I looked at Tom. “I’ve learned that Bobby hung out at Jack’s Place. I know you pop in there from time to time. Did you know Bobby?”
“Sure. Not that we hung out together or anything, but I know who he is, or I guess I should say who he was. It seems to me that he was one of those bar patrons who spent a bit too much time chasing the bottom of the bottle if you know what I mean.”
“I do. Has he always been that way?”
Tom slowly bobbed his head. “Bobby seemed to be the sort who might have demons he needed to keep at bay. Sometimes he was fine, even for long periods of time, but then something would happen to wake those demons, and he’d be back to the bottle.”
“Do you think his demons had anything to do with Austin’s disappearance?” I wondered.
“Perhaps. It seems like that would be a hard thing for a kid to deal with.”
“He wasn’t the only camper to make it back to town. Toby seems to be okay. I don’t really know the others.”
“Some folks deal with stress better than others,” Tom pointed out.
I supposed that was true. Maybe Bobby wasn’t the sort to do well with stress of any kind, and maybe he would have been that way even without the trauma of losing a friend.
Once I finished my coffee, I got ready and headed into town. I hoped Dex liked the articles I’d written about the new health and fitness center in town, as well as the upcoming spaghetti dinner and raffle. They were short human interest stories, but at this point in my career, I’d take whatever I could get. I was sure he’d put Brock on the Bobby Brighton murder, as he should since Brock was the newspaper’s lead reporter, but I still had the Austin Brady case, which I hoped would open the door to other investigative pieces.
“Morning, Dex,” I said as I sat down at the desk across from him. “Did you get the two human interest pieces I submitted this morning?”
“I did, and they both look fine.”
“I haven’t had a chance to use my membership at the new health spa yet, but I plan to go a couple times this week, so I’ll write a follow up for next week. The list of classes is impressive. I guess it’s the quality of the instructor that will make the difference between an enjoyable and unbearable class, however. Once I have a chance to try a few out, I’ll offer my opinion.”
He leaned back in his desk chair, crossing his arms across his chest in a familiar move. “Sounds good. How’s the Austin Brady story going?”
“It’s going. I guess you heard about Bobby.”
He nodded. “I did. I’d been worried about Bobby for a while. I really hoped he’d figure it out and pull himself together before things ended the way they did.”
“Do you think that Bobby was shot due to a decision he made or an action he’d taken in the past year or so?”
“Don’t you? It makes sense that whatever Bobby was engaged in that made someone angry enough to shoot him, must have been a recent action.”
“Perhaps. Especially given the fact that according to the few folks I’ve spoken to about things, Bobby seemed to have made a lot of enemies lately. It did occur to me, however, that Bobby being shot could be the result of our digging around in the Austin Brady case.”
Dex frowned. “Why would looking into the Austin Brady case result in Bobby’s death all these years later?”
I folded my hands on the desk. “When Cass and I spoke to Toby on Saturday, he said that he remembers Bobby acting frightened after Austin went missing. Toby said that as far as he knew, Bobby never indicated to anyone that he knew anything specific about Austin’s disappearance, but he did say that Bobby wasn’t himself.”
“Bobby was always the weak link in the group,” Dex admitted. “Josh and Colin were both in eighth grade that spring. They were pretty full of themselves since they were getting ready to go into high school the next fall. Bobby, Larry, Austin, and I were in seventh grade, and I seem to remember that Toby was in first or possibly second grade. Toby wasn’t one of the gang, and as has been mentioned in the past, he was only with the group because Josh’s mother made him bring him along.”
“So Josh and Colin acted like the leaders of the pack.” I assumed.
“They did. Josh was a nice kid who took his leadership role mostly seriously, while Colin simply wanted to push us younger kids around. Colin had a tough home life. His father was a drunk, and the whole situation was dysfunctional. The poor kid was going through something that year. An identity crisis perhaps. I know he was pushing back hard, which caused him to make some bad choices.”
“What sort of bad choices?” I asked.
Dex drummed his fingers on the desk. “He started smoking tobacco and pot, and he seemed to always have a bottle of something alcoholic in his backpack, even at school. There has been talk that the older boys had been drinking and smoking weed Friday. If that’s true, and I have no reason to think it’s not, you can bet it was Colin who brought it.”
“Josh was older and therefore a leader, but he was basically a nice kid, and Colin was also older, but sort of messed up and tended to bring deviant behavior to the group. What did Austin, Larry, and Bobby bring to the party?”
“Austin was a rebel of sorts. He was only in the seventh grade, so he didn’t possess a natural leadership position based on age the way Josh and Colin did, but he had a really strong personality, and there was no way he was going to let the older kids tell him what to do. Colin and Austin were going at each other all the time by that spring. I guess you could say they were friends as they’d always been, but they’d been involved in several physical altercations with each other leading up to the campout. In fact, I think Colin went on that camping trip with a brand new shiner, courtesy of Austin.”