“No.”
“Was there any mention of a deathbed confession in connection with another suspect?”
“No.”
“Then Rusty has to be their guy.”
Rory continued to study the screen. “You don’t like the theory that Rusty is our unsub. Why? As far as we know, he was the last person to see her alive. He had a vehicle on scene. He lived right down the road. He was encouraged by Deputy Dempsey to take part in the initial searches for her that evening, which he conducted completely on his own.”
“If Rusty intended harm to Deirdre, why did he call the accident in?”
“To cover his tracks. Given the location of the crash, he could safely assume someone else was sure to call it in.”
“Okay. This middle-aged guy, who, as far as anyone knows, up until now has led a completely blameless life—he was an ex-cop, in fact—is on his way home from work. He’s tired, his wife’s waiting with supper, and he comes across a crashed car and a stranded girl, knows everyone living along the road has probably seen the crash and knows the girl is there, knows the cops are probably going to show up any minute, but he twirls his mustache and thinks,Bwahaha!My chance has come!”
Rory opened his mouth, and I said, “And yes, I know the predator always has a plan, but doesn’t that seem far-fetched?”
I’m not sure why I was arguing so hard for Rusty’s innocence when he was my own alternate pick for Deirdre’s killer. I believed she’d accepted a ride from the wrong person. I just found it hard to believe that person was Rusty. Was that professional instinct or egotistical reluctance to let go of a pet theory?
“I don’t know. I do know that whatever did happen to Deirdre happened under those exact same unpromising circumstances.”
He was right. I frowned over it for a minute or two.
Rory smiled faintly, watching me. “Very often these types of crimes are about impulse and opportunity.”
“I know. I’m the guy who teaches criminology, remember?”
“I remember. But there’s a difference between theory and practical application.”
“Granted, but there are so manypractical, logistical problems with that theory. Like, how did he get Deirdre on the bus? How did he keep his wife quiet all those years? What did he do with Deirdre’s body?”
“She’d have willingly gotten on the bus. If I’m not wrong, that’s another theory. Deirdre told him she couldn’t risk a DUI, begged him for help, and he drove her somewhere, dropped her off, and kept his mouth shut about it.”
“And then what? Is he supposed to have dropped her in the middle of nowhere? Wouldn’t the idea be to drop her off somewhere where she’d be safe?”
“You’d think. And maybe he did. Maybe something happened to her way out of his ken and our crime-scene radius.”
“Also, this guy’s aschool bus driver. Is he really going to risk losing his job—and maybe losing his wife her job too because theybothdrove school buses—by using his bus to help this strange girl, who might or might not have been drinking, flee the scene of an accident?”
“Clearly, you don’t think so.”
“I really don’t. I think most people are not looking for the chance to behave like a character in a mystery novel.”
“But you have to agree Bailey is the guy with opportunity and means.”
“And his motive is that he’s a secret psycho?”
“You know as well as I do that motive can be hard to discern even when you have a solid suspect.”
There was no arguing with that, so I tried another angle. “I agree he had opportunity. I don’t know that he had the means. He wasn’t in good health, and he doesn’t appear to have owned a gun.”
Rory said flatly, “Everybody up here owns a gun. He was an ex-cop. He owned a gun.”
I retorted, “I’m pretty sure he wasn’t carrying it on the school bus.”
He shrugged. “We’re now in the realm of speculation.”
Hadn’t we been the whole time?