He continues, "She claimed to have seen Brady there but gave little more than what might be extrapolated from our description of him. She was the one found with blood-soaked clothing, explained away by trying to save her grandmother. Then there's the shredded food pack. If Brady killed the hunting party for their supplies, he'd have taken much better care of that. Instead, it was abandoned and ripped apart by animals. You just don't want to admit you're considering her because you're afraid it reflects badly on you, thinking a kid could do something that horrific."
He looks over. "So, am I close?"
"Uh, dead on, actually."
"Good. Proves I'm making progress with this detective thing. And that maybe my view of people is a little more jaded than you'd like to think."
"Or just that I'm rubbing off on you."
He puts his arm around my shoulders. "Sorry, Detective. I'm pretty sure it's not possible to have lived my life up here and be completely unaware of what people are capable of doing to each other. I just don't like to jump to that for the default. Innocent until proven guilty. Good until proven evil. And there's a huge spectrum between those two poles. What matters is where you want to sit on that spectrum, and where you try to sit if you have a choice. Like when you need to shoot a hostile who's about to kill me."
I say nothing.
He glances at me. "You think I don't know that's bugging you, too? I'm the one who screwed up back there. I tried to avoid killing that man, and all I did was sentence him to a slow death. They had no chance of crawling back to their camp. No chance of being rescued. No chance of surviving. The sniper who shot that hostile did him more of a favor than I did in trying to just wound him."
"You--"
"I'm not looking for redemption, Casey. Just stating facts. I learned my lesson. Doesn't mean I won't leave someone alive if they can get to help, but I won't make that mistake again. Either way, I killed a man today, too."
"Have you ever . . . ?"
"No," he says, and shoves his hands in his pockets. "No, I haven't."
We are back in the clearing where the three settlers were massacred. I have watched Brady's expression the whole way, waiting for the flicker of recognition, of concern, of worry. Why are we returning him here? Is there something we might find that will prove he's guilty?
He must be guilty, right?
No. That is the hard truth I've come to accept. The likelihood that Harper killed these settlers. That Brady's claim of innocence is correct. At least in this.
As we approach, he gives no sign that he recognizes the location. We enter the clearing, and he's looking around. Then he's checking his watch, as if wondering whether we're stopping for the night.
"Turn around," I say.
He does. He's been quiet. Past the point of denials. Past the point of anger. Just exhausted and resigned to whatever his fate might be.
Earlier, I patted him down for weapons and found only Kenny's knife, which I have returned. Brady claims he had a stick, too--he'd sharpened it with the knife, as a spear, and he'd been proud of his ingen
uity in that. He'd been unable to find anything to eat out here, but at least he had a sharp stick. Or he did until we crawled into that cave and he had to abandon it outside.
Now I more thoroughly pat him down, and he has nothing but crumbs in his pocket. Apparently Devon had delivered cookies to Val while she sat with Brady, and before Brady escaped, he shoved them into his pocket. A survival plan as pathetic as that sharp stick.
Those crumbs clearly came from sugar cookies rather than our protein bars, and Brady seems as weak as one might expect after three days. That does not mean I accept that Jacob made a mistake about seeing him with another man, eating our old bars. I'm just not sure how to reconcile that, so I've put it aside.
The lack of food isn't ironclad proof that he didn't kill the hunting party. Yet there is also the most damning evidence for a homicide detective. His clothing.
Brady is wearing what he left Rockton with. Right down to his socks and boxers. As filthy as his clothes are, I see no more than a smear of blood on his shoulder, as if he'd wiped a bloodied nose after fighting Brent.
Whoever killed the settlers had slit one man's throat. Stabbed another. Brutally murdered a woman. That much blood won't come out by rinsing your shirt in a mountain stream.
I would not take this evidence before a court of law--not unless I was a defense attorney, desperate to get my client exonerated. Brady might have taken off his shirt for the attacks. He might have hidden whatever food and supplies he stole from the settlers.
But I cannot continue to say he even makes a good suspect.
Which leads to a very uncomfortable admission. That he might actually be telling the truth . . . about all of it.
Brent's death was manslaughter, rather than murder. As for Val, I don't know how she died. I wasn't able to recover her body to autopsy it. I wasn't even able to get to her body for a closer look. I can only say that she was dead in that river, with no obvious signs of trauma.
Yet there are other things that don't fit.