Shay looks up at Joe. Then she glances at me. I can tell this is something she doesn’t want to talk about in front of me. Or maybe, I suddenly realize, she doesn’t want to talk about it with Joe.
“Billy,” she says, her voice faint. “We called him Billy. He was one of us. When we decided to disband the group, he disappeared. I don’t know what happened to him. Neither did his family. They never discovered what happened.”
“Imagine my surprise,” Joe says, “when I ran Hank Hobbs through our computers and discovered that you tried to bring charges against him for the murder of William Applegate.”
“It was a long time ago,” Shay says.
“And six weeks ago, Hank Hobbs tried to get you fired from the wetlands project. Said he wouldn’t give a contribution unless they fired you. There is a million dollars at stake.”
Shay smiles faintly. “I guess he held a grudge.”
“You never told me about it.”
“It was a work problem.”
I am watching both of them carefully. They are speaking in low voices, but I can feel Joe’s anger and Shay’s fear.
“Why don’t you tell me about it now,” Joe says, and I realize with a chill that he has his professional voice on. Shay is no dummy; she feels it, too.
“Billy was always so intense,” she says. “We all took our environmental work seriously, but for Billy, it was like life and death. He used to get so angry when anybody would goof off, when we’d go swimming or have a softball game. He used to browbeat us about our lack of commitment. So he wasn’t exactly popular with the group.”
Joe sits down at the table. “Go on.”
“Then we had this breakthrough. Billy somehow got his hands on a secret file that showed that Monvor had falsified data regarding outflow pollutants. There was going to be an inquiry, and they decided to stonewall it by producing a false set of data. Billy had the file in his duffel. But then our campsite was burgled, and the evidence was stolen along with some personal items. We all had a huge argument. Billy basically accused someone—he didn’t know who—in the group of betraying us and stealing the file. Everyone was furious, and that was the beginning of the end. The group just fell apart. We had no evidence to expose Monvor, and we weren’t even friends anymore. Billy just…he went ballistic. This was the end of everything he’d worked for. That night, he took me aside. He told me he was going to Monvor’s headquarters to confront Hank Hobbs. He believed that Hobbs had bribed one of us to destroy the file. He left. I never saw him again.”
“And when the police investigated, you pointed them to Hobbs.”
“Of course,” Shay says. “That’s where he was headed. But I don’t know…it was soon after that I put everything together. I think Billy might have committed suicide. Or else he just took off. He was truly troubled, and his relations with his family…they weren’t the greatest. I really don’t think he was murdered. I don’t think I believed it at the time. I was caught up in it all, and I don’t think I was thinking straight. Now, I’m embarrassed at accusing Hank Hobbs. I think that’s one reason I never told you about this, Joe.”
The light has been growing for some time now, and sunshine is beginning to streak through the windows into the kitchen.
“Why did you come here, Joe?” Shay asks. “Why are you interested in Billy Applegate now?”
“Because the drowned body has been identified,” Joe says. “It’s Hank Hobbs.”