He turned his phone so they could see the pictures he’d downloaded that morning. “I’ve got this idea that one of them followed Williams to the quarry and killed him. Then left the gun to make it look like it was a deal gone bad. Jude just picked it up.”

They examined each shot carefully as Shaw scrolled through the images.

At the end, Carli shook her head and tugged at one of her—hard to count—dozen or so earrings. Michael said, “Nope. I mean, I guess somebody else could’ve done it. But we didn’t see any other cars there.”

Shaw thanked them and said, “Good coffee by the way.”

Carli gave a whatever smile.

And Shaw returned to the camper.

Because Erik Summers was under eighteen, Shaw contacted his father and asked if he could have a conversation with the boy—in the parents’ presence. The man said, “What, you think Jude’s innocent?” He gave a cold laugh.

“I’m just looking into the case, for his parents.”

“Erik didn’t do anything wrong. He got sucked in by those older assholes.”

“I just want to show your son some pictures. See if he recognizes anyone. They’re men who might’ve had a motive to kill Williams.”

From the phone there came another harsh laugh, raw, almost unhinged. “You crazy? Jude Sterling’s a psycho. Of course, he killed that dealer. You stay out of my way. You try to talk to my son, you don’t know the crap you’ll be in.”

The tone suggested he kept a shotgun near the door.

Shaw asked if he could at least leave a number in case he changed his mind.

The father hung up on him.

The fourth student, Travis Lanford, was willing to talk. Shaw met the lanky blond young man outside a Lions Club, where he’d just attended an NA meeting.

The boy—a star football player, Shaw had learned—said, “The quarry, what happened there, it fucked me up. I started meetings the next day.” He explained that he’d been hooked on meth for more than a year. He was ruining his life but he couldn’t do anything about it—until the “wake-up call”: the shooting. He’d been sober since then.

Shaw asked if he’d seen Jude in the clearing.

“No. Erik and me, we didn’t even know it was Jude with the gun until we were in Mike’s car and booking out of the place. We heard the shot and it was like, shit, and we just took off.”

Shaw explained his theory that another dealer might have killed Daryl. He showed him the pictures of the dealers, and Travis looked them over closely. “No, never seen any of them. Sorry.”

“Appreciate you looking.”

“You don’t think he did it?”

“I couldn’t really tell you. Just have a gut feeling he’s innocent.”