by Kathi Daley
After making sure that Paisley was settled in with Gracie, I headed into the house and up to the attic. Alastair followed behind. Once I’d opened the window to let in some fresh air, I pulled out my cell and dialed Cass’s number.
“Good morning. It’s nice to hear from you this morning.”
“First thing before I forget, Gracie is grilling ribs tonight. You’re invited,” I jumped right in. “Second of all, I just picked Paisley up from her house, and she told me about a man with a snake tattoo who visited Bobby at some point before his death, looking for something Bobby owed him. I thought it might be important.”
“I’ve already spoken to Snake. Bobby lost a gold pocket watch worth about fifteen hundred dollars he inherited from his grandfather to Snake during a poker game, and Snake had come by the house to collect it. That’s the exchange that Jolene overheard.”
“The man’s name is Snake?”
“The man’s given name is Theodore Puddle, but he goes by Snake.”
Theodore Puddle? I supposed I’d go by a nickname as well. “So, you don’t think he killed Bobby?”
“I don’t. Snake is a scary-looking guy. It seems that is intentional on his part. He runs an illegal high stakes poker game in the area, and I suppose the image he projects like a man who means business helps with his ability to collect what is due him. I know he’s gotten into a few physical altercations in the past, but as far as I know, they’ve all been minor skirmishes to make a point. I have no reason to believe he’d kill anyone.”
“Were you able to verify his alibi?” I asked.
“Actually, I was. Snake was with a man who goes by the name Toad. He has a tattoo of a huge toad on his face. Anyway, while Toad isn’t normally the sort I’d consider to be a reliable alibi, I was able to confirm with Alex that Snake and Toad had stopped by the bar on the day Bobby died and didn’t leave until a half an hour after he did. If he did go straight home after leaving the bar, which I suspect, and if he was shot immediately after entering his home, as I also suspect, Snake couldn’t be the killer.”
Well, that was disappointing. It did seem that Paisley had a pretty decent theory. “Do you have any new theories since the last time we spoke? I feel like the case has hit a bit of a wall.”
“I have to admit this investigation isn’t coming together the way I’d hoped. I’ve spoken to most of the neighbors to the right, to the left, and across the street for five houses in each direction, and no one saw anything that will help. I also spoke to the man who lives on the street behind Bobby. They share a back fence. He mentioned a man with a blue cap in the area too, but he didn’t have any more information than that, other than to say he heard the shot too. Unless I can find someone who knows who the man in the blue hat was, I’m not sure that lead will help, but I am continuing my search, and there were a few neighbors who weren’t at home when I was by who I want to catch up with.”
“Did you find anything in Bobby’s phone or bank records?” I asked.
“No. They seem pretty routine. The bank records show his paycheck being deposited, but most weeks, Bobby took most of that out in cash, which I assume he drank and gambled away. There were some cash deposits, which might have resulted from those instances when he actually came away from a poker game a victor. I’m still trying to track down the source of those deposits, but several of them were for more than a grand. As far as outgoing money, there were a few checks for utilities and regular bills, but it did appear he was behind on all his obligations.”
“I guess his being behind with his child support is sort of how this all started,” I said. “If he hadn’t gotten the phone call from his ex-wife telling him to go home before he gambled away all his money, he wouldn’t have come through the door at the exact moment the person with the gun had been standing there waiting to shoot him.”
Cass paused. “You make a good point. I was able to verify that the ex-wife couldn’t have shot him, but I really hadn’t stopped to consider whether she still might have been involved in the whole thing. There were actually three people involved in the sequence of events that ensured that Bobby would die that afternoon. I’m not saying all three were intentionally involved, but it is an angle I hadn’t previously considered.”
“Three people?” I asked, trying to catch up with Cass’s train of thought.
“Bobby was at Jack’s Place where he’d been drinking and looking for a poker game on the day he was shot. If he had found a poker game, he wouldn’t have made it home until hours and hours after he actually did go home. If the person who shot him had already been inside the house when Bobby arrived, which I suspect, it seems unlikely they would have still been there hours and hours later if Bobby hadn’t come home early as he had.”
“So if the ex-wife hadn’t called Bobby and told him to go home, he wouldn’t have gone home when he did and quite possibly wouldn’t have been shot and killed by the intruder. At least not on that particular day.”
“Exactly. And when I spoke to Tamara, she said the reason she called Bobby and told him to go home was because someone she knew was at the bar and had called her to give her a heads up that Bobby was looking for a game.”
“And if that person hadn’t called her, she wouldn’t have called Bobby, who wouldn’t have gone home, and most likely wouldn’t have gotten shot,” I said, finally catching up to where the three people idea Cass was talking about came from. “Are you saying that all three were working together?”
“Not necessarily. And I’m not sure at this point that the goal was even to kill Bobby.” Cass hesitated and then continued. “There are a couple ways to look at this. Say the goal of the person who broke into Bobby’s home actually was to kill him. Say he went to Bobby’s to put a bullet in his head, but he wasn’t there. Maybe at this point, he suspected that Bobby might be at the bar, so he called someone he knew would be at the bar and asked if Bobby was there. Maybe this person confirmed he was at the bar, but the person at the house needed him to be home, so either the person at the bar or the person at the house called Bobby’s ex-wife and convinced her that she should call Bobby and persuade him to go home.”
“Okay, I guess that makes sense in a really convoluted sort of way. The person at the bar and the ex-wife might have been unknowing and unwilling accomplices to the killer. You said there were two ways of looking at it.”
“If the person in Bobby’s house was there to steal something and not to kill Bobby, he wouldn’t necessarily have wanted Bobby to come home, but maybe the person who called the ex-wife is actually the one to want him dead, so he called Tamara and set a series of events in motion that would end with Bobby’s death. Of course, it’s just as likely that no one wanted him dead. The person who shot him could simply have been at the house to execute a burglary, but Bobby showed up early, and the burglar shot him when he realized he’d be caught.”
“It seems that unless we can actually establish a motive, it’s going to be hard to nail this down. The list of suspects who would actually want Bobby dead is going to be different from the list of suspects who might simply have known that Bobby was at the bar and used that information to break into his home to steal something. Did Bobby have anything worth stealing?” I asked.
“Not really. The watch Snake was after had some value, but I’m not sure anyone would break into his home in the middle of the day to steal that. His home has been searched, and nothing of real value was found.”
“What if the person who broke in was after something other than an item with a cash value?” I asked.
“Like what?”
“Maybe photos or a letter or something that Bobby could use to hold over someone else.”
“You think Bobby was blackmailing someone?” Cass asked.
“You did say there were cash deposits that couldn’t be verified. Sure, Bobby might have won at poker from time to time and deposited the money into his account, but poker winnings aren’t the only explanation.”
Cass paused. I could see he was thinki
ng about things as a variety of emotions crossed his face. “Someone in the house looking for something related to a blackmail scheme actually makes a lot more sense than someone breaking into the home in the middle of the day to steal valuables from a man who didn’t have any,” Cass admitted.
“When Bobby came home early, the person who broke in was interrupted. Maybe he or she didn’t find what they were looking for. Maybe it’s still there to find.”
“I guess it wouldn’t hurt to take a look around. I’m assuming you want to come along.”
“I do. Do you want to pick me up?”
“I’ll be there in an hour.”
Chapter 19
There was still yellow police tape across both the front and back door of Bobby’s home. The crime scene guys had already finished doing their thing with fibers and prints and whatnot, but Cass shared that he had a gut feeling there was something more to find, so hadn’t released the house to the family yet. After Cass gave me gloves, he pulled on his own, and then he let us both in through the front door.
“So, any idea what we’re looking for?” I asked.
“No idea. But if our theory is correct and Bobby had some sort of evidence he was using to blackmail someone, he wouldn’t leave it just lying around. It would most likely be in a safe or perhaps a locked file cabinet. I guess let’s start in the room he used for an office of sorts.”
The room Cass referred to held a desk, bookshelf, file cabinet, sofa, television, and a couple tables. It looked like the room actually served as both an office and a den. Cass started by looking through the file cabinet, so I turned my attention to the desk. The drawers were unlocked, and most held items such as pens, pads of paper, old files, tax statements, and coupons. I didn’t see anything that would be worth killing the guy over.
The file cabinet held files, both current and quite old, so it took Cass a bit longer to go through everything than it had taken me.
I decided to turn my attention to the bookshelf. I wasn’t sure I’d find anything. Bobby hadn’t been much of a reader, and there were more magazines than books on the shelves. There were a few photo albums, which I did stop to thumb through. There were photos of family parties, both current and from Bobby’s childhood. There were school pictures and sports photos, both individual shots and team groupings. The photos seemed to be the normal sort of thing you’d find in most homes, so I doubted they’d provide anyone with much of a motive to kill a person, but based on an empty space on that shelf, it appeared one album was missing.
“I’m going to head into the bedroom to look around,” I said to Cass.
“Okay. I still have two drawers to go through here.”
I walked down the hallway and entered the bedroom. As to be expected of a bachelor pad, I found an unmade bed, clothes on the floor, a dresser with drawers hanging open, and a closet with shoes piled up in the center completely void of any sort of organizational system. Still, despite the mess, I didn’t see anything that would justify murdering a guy in cold blood. I shoved the clothes on hangers to the side. I’m not sure why. I guess I just watched a lot of cop shows. There was nothing on the wall behind the clothes, so I decided to search through the pockets of the jackets and pants that had pockets.
Again, I came up empty. Well, I came up empty until I came to a windbreaker that held a secret pocket inside the jacket. I’d had a waterproof jacket like this in the past. The pocket was small and designed to hold a key should you go running or hiking and needed to bring along your car or house key but didn’t want to carry it. I found a key inside the small interior pocket. I pulled it out and looked at it. “Okay,” I said. “What do you go to?”
I walked around the bedroom, but nothing that would require a key stood out, so I went back down the hallway to find Cass.
“That was good timing,” Cass said. “I’m just finishing up here.”
“Did you find anything?”
“Unfortunately, no. You?”
I held up the key.
“Where did you find that?” he asked.
“In the closet. In the pocket of a windbreaker. It might be a house key or car key that Bobby kept in the pocket for those times he went hiking or jogging, but I figure it could also be the key to something else. Something more important.”
“Any idea what?” Cass asked.
“No clue.”
He stepped forward and took the key from my hand. “It’s hard to tell what this might fit. I guess we can look around for something with a lock. We can try the locks on the exterior of the home first to eliminate that possibility. It doesn’t look like a car key. At least not an ignition key; maybe it’s a trunk key.”
“Is Bobby’s car here?”
“In the garage,” Cass verified.
We started with the house, trying all the doors before going into the garage. It took quite a bit of searching, but we eventually found that the key went to a toolbox. After removing some power tools, Cass pulled out a photo album that was at the bottom of the toolbox, which I suspected was the one that belonged in the empty space on the bookshelf.
“This has to be it,” I said.
Cass opened the cover and began to go through the pages. “I think we might just have found our missing link.”
Chapter 20
The photo Cass found was an image of a much younger Hugh Lewiston, sitting on a log near a campfire ring next to the river chatting with a much younger Colin Woodford. Based on Colin’s appearance, Cass and I suspected the photo was taken on the day Austin Brady went missing. There were other photos in Bobby’s album from the same day the photo by the river was taken. After studying the photo for a moment, we realized that Bobby might have captured more with his images that he could ever have imagined at the time.
“I remember Toby saying that after the camp was set up, everyone split up. Colin went off by himself, Austin and Josh went off together, Bobby took off with his camera, and Larry and Toby went fishing,” I said. “I suspect that during this window of time, Austin was showing Josh the mine, Colin was buying drugs from Hugh Lewiston, and Bobby was recording the whole thing with his camera.”
“That does seem like a good theory,” Cass agreed. “One of the photos clearly shows Hugh handing a small packet to Colin. There is also a photo of Colin handing a sandwich to Hugh. I guess we finally know where that seventh sandwich went.”
“We’ll never prove any of this if we can’t get Colin to talk.”
“I’ll get him to talk,” Cass promised.
Cass wanted to drop me at home, but I was finally able to convince him to let me listen in on his conversation with Colin if I promised to keep my mouth shut through the entire interview and to sustain from printing anything I overheard during the conversation in the newspaper without his express written consent. I wasn’t going to print anything that would hurt Cass’s case. I wasn’t that kind of reporter, and he knew it. Cass had made a few calls and had tracked Colin down at the bowling alley, which is where we headed.
After we arrived, Cass pulled Colin aside and asked to speak to him. Colin, who had been practicing by himself, agreed to take a break.
“What’s up?” he asked Cass.
“I have reason to believe that you gave a hallucinogenic to Austin Brady on the day he died, which caused him to run in fear and eventually hide in the mine where he died.”
Colin tried to appear cool. I could see the struggle in his expression. “And who might have told you this lie?”
Cass didn’t answer, but he did pass the photo of Hugh talking to Colin to the man he was speaking to.
Colin appeared shocked. “Hugh told you that? He told you what happened? Why would he do that?”
Cass had never said anything about Hugh telling him anything, but I could see that the photo had served his purpose. Colin jumped to the conclusion that Hugh had talked, and Cass didn’t correct him.
“Hugh is trying to make a deal by throwing me under the bus,” Colin spat. “He was the adult, I was the kid. If anyone
is going to get a deal, it should be me.”
“Why don’t you tell me exactly what happened, and we’ll take it from there,” Cass suggested.
Colin blew out a hard breath. “Austin was a pain in my backside when we were kids. I was the oldest, the natural leader, but the kid seemed to make it his mission to counter everything I said with the opposite opinion. And it wasn’t just that. If I liked a girl, he liked the same girl. If I signed up for an afterschool activity, he’d sign up for the same activity. No matter what I did, he’d find a way to mess with me. After a while, I’d had enough and decided to fight back.”
“So, what happened on that campout?” Cass asked.
“Hugh was older than us. About fifteen years older. Everyone knew he sold drugs and that he wasn’t at all picky about who he sold them to. If you had money, he’d take you on as a customer. To be perfectly honest, I’d been buying weed from him for a year by then.”
He took a breath. Cass just waited. Eventually, Colin continued. “On the day in question, I went to see Hugh to buy some weed for our campout. I’d arranged ahead of time to meet Hugh by the river since he was trying to keep a low profile after almost being caught during a deal, and even offered to bring him something to eat. We got to talking after I arrived at the preset meeting location. I mentioned what a pain Austin was being, and he said that if I wanted to play a prank on the guy, he had the perfect way to do it. He told me that if I put this one little pill in Austin’s drink, it would mess with his head and get him to do all sorts of weird things. My plan was to use Bobby’s camera to capture him doing embarrassing things and then use the photos as leverage to get him to back off.”
“But it didn’t work out that way,” Cass prompted.
“No. I thought the pill would make Austin act silly. I thought it would make him run around naked, or act like a chimpanzee, or something like that, but instead, it made him see things. Terrible things that caused him to run into the woods in terror.” Colin’s voice caught. “We tried to find him after he ran off. We looked and looked, but we couldn’t find him anywhere. I was eventually able to convince the others that he would come back once he sobered up a bit. Of course, we never saw him again, so I guess that supposition was way off, but who knew the guy had found an abandoned mine.”