Page 91 of Race to Save Her

Katie saw the young man with blond hair combed back clearing out a stall. “Casey?” she said.

The young man looked up. “Yeah, who wants to know?” He spoke with sarcasm.

“We’re detectives from the Pine Valley Sheriff’s Department and we wanted to ask you a few questions,” said McGaven.

“About what?”

“About you and your friend Timmy shooting at the Bates house.”

He stopped cleaning and put down the pitchfork. “I’ve already been through this with the cops here.”

“We know that, but we wanted to know why you did it,” said McGaven.

“I dunno. Something to do,” he said, shrugging his shoulders.

“I see,” said Katie. “You’re not in trouble, but we think you can help us with a case of ours.”

“I don’t see how.”

“Can you tell us who the man was who told you to shoot at the Bates house?” she said.

“What man?” He shifted his eyes downward.

“Can you tell us how he contacted you?” she pushed.

“Look, I don’t want to get in trouble or Timmy either. I didn’t tell the detective from Rockview anything.”

“You’re not in trouble. But we really need to know for a case of ours,” she said.

“I’m sorry that you were there—we didn’t know—honest.”

“It’s okay. Can you help us?” said Katie, trying to sound more like a friend than a cop.

“I… I… don’t know.”

The detectives waited for the young man to come clean and tell them what they suspected and needed to know.

“Okay, this doesn’t go any further, right? We were paid to spray some bullets, not to hurt anyone,” said Casey.

“Of course,” said Katie. She thought about how this man they were trying to trail could get people to do things for him without being forceful. That was a dangerous ability.

“Timmy and I, we were just kicking around and went hiking a ways up and we came across what we thought was a camp area. We’d never seen it before.”

“Did you have your guns?”

“Yeah.”

“So was it a campground?”

“No, that’s just it and why it seemed kind of strange.”

“What did the camp look like?” said McGaven.

“It wasn’t a camp, just a space. There was this guy… kinda weird… It was like he just suddenly showed up from nowhere.”

There was a rattling of a stall and a few horse snorts and neighs.

“What did he look like?” said Katie.