“Hey, what’s up?” Cass asked.
“I just got back from my interview with Larry. He told me something in confidence, and I agreed to keep his name out of things. I want to share something with you, but it needs to be off the record.”
Cass hesitated.
“It’s nothing that you can prove anyway. At least not at this point. But it might explain what happened. If you want to act on what I tell you, you’ll need to promise me that Larry will be treated as a confidential informant.”
“Did he confess to anything that I might, at some point, want to prosecute him for?”
“No. I don’t think so.”
“Okay. Then I will promise to keep Larry’s name out of things and to treat him as a confidential informant. Up to a point, at least.”
“Okay,” I said. “I trust you to use discretion and do what is best for everyone involved. Larry was hesitant to talk after all these years, but it seems that one of the boys put a hallucinogen in Austin’s drink on the night of the campout. He started seeing and hearing things which caused him to run into the woods screaming, as a monster only he could see, seemed to him chase him away from the campfire.”
“What?”
“I’ll explain further when we have a chance to meet. The main thing I wanted to ask is if either the cops or the search and rescue squad searched the old mines in the area when they were looking for Austin.”
“I’m not sure. I can find out. Why do you think he might be in a mine? They’re cold and dark and pretty spooky.”
“Austin was running from a monster. What if he knew there was a mine entrance that was big enough for him to squeeze through, but not big enough for the monster that was chasing him? Maybe he knew where the mine entrance was located because he’d explored the area before and decided to hide there.”
“Okay. Say that’s what happened. Why didn’t he head back to camp when the drug wore off?” Cass asked.
“I don’t know. But I think we should look at the idea that Austin knew the best way to get away from the hallucination chasing him was to squeeze into a place where the hallucination couldn’t follow.”
“But it was a hallucination. It could follow him anywhere,” Cass pointed out.
“Maybe so, but the anonymous informant described the hallucination Austin was running from as a large bear, Bigfoot, or some sort of large monster. Austin didn’t know the image was only in his mind. To him, it was real. If I knew the location of a tiny hole leading into a mine or cave and Bigfoot was after me, I might think that was a good hiding place. Especially since it was dark. It’d be hard to find a new place to hide in the dark, so I’d head for a place I already knew about.”
Cass let out a breath. “Okay. I need to finish what I’m doing. How about if I pick you up in about an hour. We can have dinner and discuss your theory. If Austin did duck into a mine or cave, do you have any idea where that might be?”
I glanced at the magazine with the map of caves and mines in the area. “I have a good idea of where to start.”
After I hung up with Cass, I picked up the magazine, curled into the attic window seat, and studied the map. I found Logan Pond, and then I traced the underground systems near the pond. The major openings to the mines weren’t located all that close to the pond, but there were underground tunnels everywhere. Maybe Austin had found an air vent of some sort and slipped into the mine that way. Door size entrances would be easy to notice, and I would assume the search and rescue folks would have checked them out, but a small hole created to provide fresh air that might be tucked behind a rock outcropping or a screen of bushes might be just the sort of place an inquisitive twelve-year-old would find.
If Austin had managed to crawl into a small opening to the tunnel system that he might have found earlier in the day or even during a prior visit, why hadn’t he crawled out? The only thing I could come up with was that once he’d made his way into the mine, he’d either gotten trapped or injured himself and couldn’t crawl out. The whole thing was just so disturbing. I really did want to solve this case and figure out what happened to Austin Brady, but I hoped with every fiber of my being, that poor child hadn’t died all alone in a cold and dark mine he’d found his way into but couldn’t find his way out of.
Chapter 12
Cass picked me up just over an hour after I’d spoken to him. He’d already gone home and changed, so Milo wasn’t with him. He suggested a nearby steakhouse, which was fine with me. Although the restaurant served food that was good enough to be considered fine dining, it was really more of a casual, if somewhat expensive, option.
“So let’s start off by you filling me in on your conversation with Larry,” Cass jumped in after we’d ordered scampi with rice and vegetables.
“You mean my conversation with my anonymous informant,” I reminded him.
“Yeah, okay, if that’s how we need to play it. What exactly did this informant tell you about the night Austin disappeared?”
I filled him in on the details of the conversation Dex and I’d had with Larry, including the fact that Colin had slipped Austin a drug which had caused him to see things and that Colin had also threatened the other boys to keep their mouths shut about what went on or else.
“Seems like a big lie to keep given the situation,” Cass said.
“I agree. My informant agreed. He told Dex and me that in the beginning, he was certain that the police would find Austin, and everything would be okay, so he wasn’t overly worried about the lie. By the time he realized Austin would not be found, he felt it was too late to contradict the story he and the others had been telling everyone for days.”
“I guess you know that I spoke to Colin today,” Cass said. “He told me a much different story than the one Larry told you.”
“Oh. What did Colin have to say?”
“His story about what happened on the first day of the campout was very similar to the story Toby and Larry told. The one big difference is that while Larry said Colin slipped a hallucinogen into Austin’s drink, which caused him to run away from the campsite in terror, Colin said that he, Josh, and Austin were the last three up after everyone else had gone to bed. He said they were discussing the plan for the following day, and he and Austin had different ideas about how things should go. According to Colin, Josh sided with him, and Austin got mad and stormed off. He then said he and Josh went to bed at that point. He and Josh were sure that Austin would cool down and slip into his own tent once he did. Colin said he was as surprised as anyone was when they woke up, and Austin was gone. He shared that even then, he figured the guy was around somewhere, and they’d eventually find him, but they never did.”
“And you never picked up an odd vibe from Colin that he was lying at any point?” I asked.
Cass shrugged. “I won’t go that far. He was definitely lying about something. The question in my mind is which part of the story he was lying about.”
“What do you mean, which part?” I asked.
“It seems that everyone failed to mention the part about the older boys drinking and smoking weed. I suppose that might be the lying vibe I was picking up. There is also the part where Colin drugged Austin. If that did occur, he certainly didn’t admit it, so that might be the lie I was picking up. Then there was the fact that according to Larry, Austin ran away in terror, thinking a monster was after him, whereas Colin told me with a straight face that Austin simply got mad and took off in a huff. That might have been the lie I was picking up.”
“Or they are all lies, and you were picking up on that,” I pointed out.
“Perhaps. It’s a tricky situation mostly because Austin is missing and most likely dead, Josh and Bobby are definitely dead, Toby was too young to be part of what was going on, and Colin and Larry are telling very different stories. One of the two is obviously lying. Heck, maybe they’re both lying. Without some sort of proof one way or the other, all we really have is one witness’s word against the other.”