He looked at Liam, defiance in every line of his face. “You’ll notice I never told you about that when you asked what went on at the party.”

“I noticed.”

“Never would have, either.”

“No.”

Something about Liam’s certainty that Blue Jay Jefferson did not snitch on his friends seemed to put heart into the old fart. “And then last night,” he said, and stopped.

“Houten started talking,” Liam said when it appeared Jefferson needed a prompt.

Jefferson took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Yeah. All about his fucking monograph and how Erik had been trying to ruin his reputation since he was a fat little brat.”

Liam started putting the pieces together in his mind and almost knew what Jefferson was going to say next.

“Hil found the cave thirty years ago. Just like Erik he figured out that the old folks used that spur of rock for a dock. He found the cave—he got around better back then—and he found the artifacts inside it.

“The problem was he didn’t know anything about them at the time he wrote his paper ten years before, after which it was way too late for a man like Hil to climb down. He knew he had to get rid of the artifacts, because if someone found them everything he’d ever done would be called into question. He was about to load up when he heard the kids’ voices from the beach. The Petroff boy was first in the cave and Hil panicked and hit him. He went out after Erik. Erik ran but he held on to his baby fat until puberty burned it off and at ten years he couldn’t run very fast, so Hil caught up with him, gimp and all, and laid him out, too.” He nodded at the cane. “That thing is not just another pretty face.”

Liam didn’t smile.

Jefferson shook his head. “Hil said he thought he’d killed him, Erik. He was terrified when he heard the boy was still alive, and so relieved when he heard he couldn’t remember anything about that day. I think he was always afraid he might, though. I think it was always in his mind.”

“What did he do afterward?”

If possible, Jefferson looked even grimmer. “This ain’t easy to tell and won’t be easy to hear. Hil went back into the cave and he, well, he made the boy’s body fit through that crack in the wall. Garvey told me about it and I don’t know how Hil managed, but he did.”

“Why didn’t he at least drag Erik’s body into the cave?”

“Got spooked, said he heard voices.” Jefferson shrugged. “Probably his imagination. He was scared enough telling the story, I expect he was fucking terrified at the time. He wasn’t ever a man prone to violence, Sergeant, especially since he never in his life had enough muscle to punch a hole through so much as a Kleenex. I reckon the situation just got away from him.”