Savannah read the torment on his face. “Surely you don’t blame yourself for what happened on that bridge, Cole,” she said.

Cole looked over at her. “I wouldn’t call my little speech at the pep rally standing down, would you?” His eyes returned to Curtis. “So there it is. I was afraid that if I mentioned the threats to anyone, the game would be called off. If it had been called off, none of us would have been at that river last night. Whoever did this, whether they thought I was on that bus or not, still wanted to make sure that the Jackrabbits didn’t take the field last night.”

“And you really have no idea who attacked you?”

“Curtis, it doesn’t take a genius to suspect that it was someone connected to one of our opponents in some way. Stanton High? Elmwood Heights? Who knows? I’m pretty sure they were my age, high school guys. As for who it was, your guess is as good as mine.” He told the sheriff it was his turn to talk now.

Curtis slowly sat back down and lifted a file folder from his desk. “The ones who caused that bus crash didn’t do a hell of a lot to cover up the crime. In fact, they were downright stupid. We found footprints all over the place, at least twenty, twenty-five sets of them. With the exception of a few, they all had the same tread pattern. Leads one to wonder what kind of group wears the same type of athletic shoes.”

“A football team,” Savannah said.

Curtis nodded, then read from the file. “We believe that pickup you saw is registered to one Edmond Larkin, father of Tommy Larkin—one of the captains of the Elmwood Badgers.”

Cole threw his wet T-shirt against the wall. “The fuckin’ Badgers! Figures.”

“It was their off-week,” Curtis said. “They were the only team not scheduled to play last night.”

It was a conclusion Savannah had come to on her own over the past two hours. Combining Internet research with what Kip Sampson had told her about the Badgers, she had boned up quickly on the subject of local high school football. The fact that Elmwood wasn’t scheduled to play last night made it easy to suspect their involvement.

“We all know how well the Badgers have played this season,” Curtis said. “I’m guessing that with all the media attention they’re receiving, and the interest their players are getting from big-time college scouts, some of those boys didn’t want to risk having to meet the Jackrabbits in the district game. ’Course, we can also take into account the bad blood between the two towns.”

Hickham crossed the room. His pensive eyes stared distantly out the window.

“What is it, Dad?”

“This Tommy Larkin. Are we to assume he’s responsible for the whole thing?”

“Jimmy, it’s my job not to assume anything,” Curtis said.