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“That sounds like the last thing I want to do—sit in a classroom. Maybe we’ll stay under the radar for now.”
“Sounds like a plan to me,” she murmured as she shot another U-turn in the middle of the block, reversing their direction again. “If anyone wants to see our investigator license, I say we show them the online badges we earned from Cops R Us.”
“That’s not remotely funny.”
“Really? Cause I’m pretty sure it was kinda funny. We should start referring to ourselves as a pair of websleuths interested in solving cold cases rather than private investigators. We could go to the copy store in town, the one that sells office supplies, and have two ID cards printed up and laminated with the name of our blog across the middle.”
Lucien made a face. “We don’t have a blog.”
“So? We could start one.”
“I don’t know, Brogan. That sounds more like two kids playing Nancy Drew than a grown married couple who wants to help families find answers.”
“You’re missing the point. Two websleuth bloggers helping families find answers don’t stick out for any reason. They’re a dime a dozen online. Unregistered private eyes, on the other hand, are not so fortunate. Private eyes get harassed. We could make our ID badge look like a simple business card touting our online websleuth blog,notas private investigators. Maybe start a blog with a logo and everything—without breaking any of those pesky state laws identifying us as private detectives. Every day in the online world you read about an amateur websleuth who got involved in a case and helped solve it. Didn’t you see that True Crime show Sunday night where the producers interviewed the two websleuths who tracked down a serial killer? That could be us. Who knows? We might even ID the Zodiac one day.”
Lucien’s eyes twinkled with mischief. “That idea might work, the business card angle, improve on the one we have already.”
“I like the sound of websleuths better anyway. Don’t you? Referring to ourselves as private investigators seems so 1990s. Now let’s go talk to Trey’s parents. They don’t care what we call ourselves as long as we figure out Trey wasn’t the killer.”
“You have a point. This case requires a lot of research going back to 2001, maybe further. I don’t relish talking to grieving parents.”
“Neither do I, but it’s the only place to start.”
4
Gerald and Susan Rescher’s modest three-bedroom ranch was located a short three blocks from the crime scene. Now in their early sixties, the couple still worked their regular jobs. Gerald continued his forty hours a week as a painter, catching work with contractor crews in the area who were renovating older homes. Susan worked as an administrative assistant for the county, a position she’d held for more than thirty-five years. The two seemed over the moon that someone showed an interest in their son’s case.
“I can’t believe you really came,” Gerald said as he showed them into the living room. Assorted photographs of their son plastered the walls—Trey in his T-Ball uniform, scores of school pictures from first grade to freshman year, and others depicting Trey at family outings.
Brogan noted Trey’s slim build. He couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred and ten pounds soaking wet. He was short for his age—possibly five feet five inches—but had an incredible smile and sparkling blue eyes.
Susan already had coffee brewing and had sliced lemon cake to go with it. “Help yourself.”
“You didn’t need to go to so much trouble,” Brogan said as she found a place to sit on the sofa.
“It’s nice to have company,” Susan reiterated. “We don’t get many visitors, reporters maybe, but not visitors. People we’d known all our lives stopped having anything to do with us once the police announced Trey was responsible. Our entire church group voted to show us the door.”
“We think the police got it very wrong,” Lucien revealed, picking up a dessert plate with a chunk of cake and a fork. “And we intend to prove it.”
“You’re not just saying that to get us to cooperate with you for some blog post, are you?” a cautious Gerald wanted to know. “Over the years, you can’t imagine how many people made promises to help when they really wanted an interview from us. At first, we fell for it. But we’re smarter than that these days.”
“We’re not here for an interview,” Lucien assured him. “Trey’s involvement in the double murder doesn’t make any sense. The truth is, Brogan and I think Trey happened upon the crime in progress. He saw little Elliott running out of the house to escape the killer and tried to help him get away as best he could.”
“Picture your son trying to help a toddler,” Brogan interjected. “But the killer, the real killer, caught up with both boys. I’m sorry how harsh that sounds.”
Susan swallowed hard and dropped down into a comfy recliner. She looked over at Gerald. “We always thought that might’ve been what happened. The police wouldn’t listen to us. Not for a minute. They didn’t want to understand our boy at all. Trey was fascinated with superheroes. If he saw someone in trouble, he’d jump right in—sometimes without considering the consequences.”
“That’s what happened at school the night of the spring science fair,” Gerald offered. “After it was over, Trey caught a classmate trying to break into the vending machine in the teacher’s lounge. He chased him off. But then, he was the one who got caught by the assistant principal.”
Susan nodded. “Before that, Trey had never been in trouble unless you count the time he snatched a neighbor’s dog out of their backyard because he thought the owner was abusing her. My son loved animals so much. He even had one of his own until he went missing, a sweet miniature collie named Oscar. Those two went everywhere together.”
“Except on the paper route,” Gerald explained with a chuckle. “Trey was afraid Oscar might get hit by a car while he was on his bike delivering papers. That boy had to fight the dog every morning to get out of the house without taking him along.”
“In hindsight, maybe that was a mistake,” Susan offered. “If Oscar had been with him that day—” Her voice trailed off, the implication hopeful.
Brogan sought to change the tempo. “If it’s any consolation—I’m sure it’s not—but I doubt Oscar could have changed the outcome.”
“You’re probably right. That dog missed Trey for the rest of his short life. You see, Oscar died less than two years later. I’m sure his death was from a broken heart. He was only eight. Do you have dogs?”
