Кэти Дэйли - The Secret Of Logan Pond

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.”