That was a distinct possibility. Ryan could picture a pissed-off boyfriend tracking down Brad to have it out.
"And that's the crux of this whole investigation, isn't it?" Mariah asked. "The reason Brad didn't go out the front door is probably the reason he ended up dead that night. But if we can't figure out the reason..."
She'd hit the nail on the head. Ryan believed that the reason Brad was dead was tied to why he didn't leave the bar the way the rest of them had that night. The big question was could he ever figure out what was going on?
"You've talked to all of Brad's friends and family," Knox said. "No one knew of anything strange going on."
"Except for Isla," Ryan said, his tone laced with frustration. "I haven't been able to talk to her."
"We'll definitely talk to her tomorrow," Knox promised. "Even if we have to have the cops bring her to the precinct. No more excuses."
"And Brad didn't show up at the airport or get on the plane," Mariah said. "Does that mean that we can assume that he never left the bar and construction site that night?"
Taking another sip of his now lukewarm beer, Ryan pondered that question. "We know he didn't get on the plane, and TSA didn't find any sign of him entering the airport when they investigated back then. Yes, I think we can say that it's likely that Brad didn't leave the area that night."
"This is good. What else can we say for sure?" Knox queried, pointing to the file. "We know that he was hit on the head, probably with that metal pipe found with his body. We know that the wound was on the side of his head, above his ear so there's a fifty-fifty chance that he was facing his attacker. We don't know if he had any defensive wounds because of the state of the body years later."
"We know that he was in touch with bookies," Ryan said. "We know that he spent a lot of money on women, partying, and booze. We also know that he had some struggles that semester in school but he pulled out good grades in the end."
"We know that he was cheating on Caroline," Mariah added. "We know that he was sleeping with Isla, and probably other women as well. We also know that Caroline was planning on ending it with Brad."
That was it. No one else spoke until eventually Knox broke the silence.
"Well...that's not a lot," he conceded. "But that's how these cold cases are. Nothing until you finally get a break. Let's hope that our talk with your friend Isla goes better tomorrow."
Mariah's phone buzzed with a call from her parents so she went into the bedroom to talk, leaving Ryan and Knox in the living room.
"I'm going to play Logan here," Knox said. "What's your gut telling you? That's what he'd ask."
Logan Wright's gut instincts were legendary. He'd caught a serial killer with them, after all.
Ryan didn't have to give it much thought. That was the point. Listen to his gut, not his brain.
"Not that my gut is anything like Logan's, but I'm kind of feeling like maybe the gambling isn't what got Brad killed. That there might be something else out there that we don't know. Mariah made an excellent point that Brad could find the money to pay his debts. Hell, he could have even come clean with his dad and Skip would have paid them. He was close with his parents and they wouldn't have let anything happen to him."
Knox nodded approvingly. "Mariah is a smart one. I'm leaning toward your theory as well. He had money to burn, basically, and while he might have been gambling big it doesn't seem like he was having any trouble from it. So then it has to be something else."
Something else. But what?
"Or a random tragedy," Knox added. "He may have pissed the wrong person off or been in the wrong place at the wrong time. It may have been completely unforeseen and nothing he brought on himself."
"Is that what you think?" Ryan asked. "The old chaos theory explanation?"
It wasn't out of the realm of possibility.
"Look at the crime. A hit to the head by a piece of metal that was probably lying on the ground near where they were standing. This isn't premeditated anything. This is a crime of passion or opportunity. A bookie's enforcer doesn't come to collect a debt but not bring his own weapon. That's not good planning. At least that's what my gut is telling me."
"I can't argue your logic."
"That leaves us one big open question, though," Knox replied.
"And that is?"
"Why in the fuck didn't your friend exit the bar through the goddamn front door? It doesn't make any sense."
The whole investigation was beginning to go in circles, all leading back to Brad having a fun evening with not a care in the world.
Until he was hit on the head with a pipe.
Ryan wasn't sure they'd ever know what truly happened that night, and he was afraid that this was one case he wasn't going to be able to solve.
25
At some point last night, it had been decided that Mariah would accompany Ryan and Knox when they talked to Caroline and Danny again. They'd gone back and forth but eventually felt that if Caroline became upset it would be good to have Mariah there to be a shoulder to lean on.
Mariah was fine with the decision and anxious to see Caroline again. Both she and Liza had made a vow to keep in touch with their friends from the past a bit better, and this was step one in that plan. She and Caroline had drifted apart, and they didn't have to be best friends who talked all the time, but they didn't have to be strangers either. There had to be a happy medium somewhere.
If Danny and Caroline thought it was strange that they were back to ask more questions, they were too polite to say so. As before, they were invited in and offered refreshments by the pool by the smiling couple. Knox was introduced and he made fast friends with the family dog. It was love at first sight between the two of them.
"I'm sorry that we have to bother you again," Ryan apologized when they were all settled around the table. It was a typically hot summer day so Danny had opened the large striped umbrella to shelter them from the sun. "But I have a few more questions that have come up during the investigation."
Danny put his arm around his wife's shoulders. "As we said before, we have no secrets. You can ask us anything you want."
Clearing his throat, Ryan took the lead on asking the questions. That had also been decided last night. Knox had said that he would stay mostly out of it, if possible. He was there for back up only if Ryan missed a follow-up question.
"During the investigation we've found that Brad was communicating with several bookies on a daily basis. Based on the amount of money he was withdrawing and depositing in his account, we think he was heavily involved in gambling. We were wondering if you were aware of this."
Caroline's eyes had gone wide and even the usual unflappable Danny looked shocked.
"Gambling?" she repeated. "Are you saying he was addicted to gambling? Because I know that he placed bets from time to time. He'd tell me about them. I never thought it was a big deal."
"You think this is what got him killed?" Danny asked, before anyone could answer his wife. "That he owed money and they murdered him?"