This was no way to picture a summer hockey camp. There were police cars everywhere. There was police crime-site ribbon around the boathouse, Buddy’s 4x4, even his sleeping cabin.

“Am I going to get my tape recorder back?” Data wanted to know.

Just like Data, Travis thought–from another planet. Who cared about his stupid tape recorder? He, Travis, had seen a dead body and he couldn’t get Buddy O’Reilly’s dead, empty stare out of his mind. He and Nish and Sarah were prime witnesses. They had found the body, and the bullet, and the blood. And Data wanted to talk about his tape recorder? Give me a break, Travis thought.

Muck and Morley Clifford had taken charge. They had called the police, and the police had brought along an ambulance. Men in white coats removed Buddy’s body on a stretcher. It had been covered with a blanket when they carried it from the boathouse to the ambulance, but it was still a body. And everyone watching felt ill thinking that Buddy O’Reilly was dead, no matter what they may have thought of him alive.

“I saw him close up,” Nish told the boys in “Osprey.” Travis didn’t bother disputing Nish’s tale. He knew Nish hadn’t seen much. Travis and Sarah had seen everything. But he wasn’t about to start bragging about it.

Muck had phoned the parents in the morning. Some were already staying at campgrounds and lodges in the area, and they arrived immediately. Others were coming from down south.

Several of the parents had wanted to take their children away immediately, but the police said everyone was to stay where they were for the time being. They wanted to interview everyone who had been in either camp, just in case they knew something or had seen something, perhaps without even realizing it might be important. Some of the parents got angry about this, saying there was still a murderer about. But Sarah’s father and Travis’s father held a parents’ meeting in the main lodge, and at the end of it everyone was agreed, if a bit uneasy, to let the kids stay on. The only condition they asked for was that police be stationed at the camp, and the police were only too happy to comply.

“Who do you think killed him?” Andy asked Nish when the boys in “Osprey” were supposed to be resting.

“I have no idea,” said Nish. “Maybe he killed himself, for all we know. He could hardly have liked himself.”

Travis shook his head. “There was no gun. Whoever shot him left with the gun.”

“But there was a bullet,” said Nish.

“Yeah, there was a shell.”

“What kind?” asked Lars.

“How should I know?” said Travis. He knew nothing about guns. He didn’t want to know anything about guns.

“Do you think you could ask about my tape recorder?” Data asked.

Nish threw his pillow at Data’s head.

 

No one seemed to be organizing any activities, so the boys stood around with everyone else and watched the police at work. Men in suits went into the boathouse and came out carrying dozens of plastic bags, some seeming to hold nothing. There was a police boat drifting over the area between the island and the main camp, and two scuba divers were in the water.

“They’re searching for evidence,” Nish announced.

Travis shook his head. Anyone who’d ever turned on a TV set would know that, he thought.

One by one, the police were taking everyone who had been at the camp into the camp office and interviewing them. Two police talked to each of them, and another policeman wrote down everything they said.

Travis told the police his story exactly as he remembered it. He had no idea who might have wanted to hurt Buddy O’Reilly.

“Did you see Mr. O’Reilly and anyone arguing or fighting in the past few days?” the older policeman asked.

“No…”

Muck! Suddenly the scene outside the arena, when Muck had slapped Buddy’s face, flashed through Travis’s brain. There had been a fight–well, almost a fight–and it had been Muck Munro, the Screech Owls’ coach, who’d been arguing with Buddy O’Reilly.

Travis’s voice must have given him away. The older policeman looked up from his notes. He cocked an eyebrow over his reading glasses.

“You’re sure of that, are you, Travis?”

Travis squirmed. He felt sick to his stomach. He knew Muck hadn’t done it, but he also knew he had to tell the truth. He had to tell the policeman every single thing he knew.

“Well…”

Travis checked later with Nish. Nish had found himself telling the same story. He seemed almost ashamed, as if he’d let the coach down, but Travis assured him that they had to tell everything. It wouldn’t matter. The police would soon learn, if they didn’t already know, that Buddy O’Reilly was an ass and that all kinds of people had words with Buddy.

“What about Roger?” Travis said suddenly.

“Roger?” Nish asked, puzzled.

“The caretaker who quit. He and Buddy fought over the gun, remember?”

“Yeah…right!”

They looked at each other, filled with confidence, then instantly filled with dread.

“But Muck took the gun away from Roger,” Travis said.

“I know,” said Nish. “I just remembered.”

Travis decided he had better go and speak to the police again. They had to be told about Roger and the fight with Buddy. And if they had to be told about that, then they had to be told about the gun and where it had gone. But it couldn’t possibly have been that gun that shot Buddy, could it?

The police already seemed to know everything that Travis could tell them about the incident with the gun.

“The rifle Mr. Munro took is missing,” the older policemen told Travis.

Missing?

“Mr. Munro says he put it under the spare mattress in his cabin, but it’s gone now. Do you know what kind of rifle it was, Travis?” the older cop asked.

“No.”

“It was a .22.”

It meant nothing to Travis. What was a .22?

“The shell you found in the boathouse,” he continued, staring up at him over his reading glasses, “it was also a .22. Did you know that, Travis?”

“No.”

Travis really didn’t know what kind of rifle it had been, or what kind of shell he had found, but there was no doubt that the policeman was giving him this information in order to check his reaction. And what exactly was his reaction, Travis wondered, as the police excused him and thanked him for coming back with new information? He knew now that the gun Muck had taken away from Roger was a .22-calibre rifle. And he knew that a .22-calibre shell had been found in the boathouse. And as far as he knew, Muck had the only .22 around.

Travis felt sick to his stomach for about the sixth time in less than a day.

After he got back outside, Travis leaned against the side of the office building, catching his breath and waiting for his stomach to settle. A stand of pine and cedar grew close against the office, and Travis was hidden from the view of anyone approaching the door to the building.

A policeman walked up the path, carrying a long plastic bag. Inside was a rifle!

Travis stayed put. A window above his head was open, and he realized he could hear the voices of the men inside. The policeman carrying the rifle knocked.

“Yes, come in.”

“Travers here, sir. The divers found this off the far shoal.”

“A .22-calibre?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you speak to Mr. Munro about this?”

“He just keeps saying he put it under the mattress in his room and that was the last he knew of it.”

“What about the box of bullets?”

“Mr. Munro says that he disposed of them.”

“Disposed of them?”

“He says he took them down to the dump the same day he took them from the caretaker.”

“He says that, does he?”

“Yes, sir, he does.”

Travis could almost feel the grin grow on the older policeman’s face.

“Well, that’s very convenient–but he may have forgotten one thing.”

“What’s that, sir?”

“We have a dozen witnesses who told us he ejected live bullets from that gun and then ground them into the earth with his heel. We find them, we don’t need the box of bullets to see if there’s a match.”

“Yes, sir–I’ll put some men on that right away.”

“Good work, Travers.”

Everything began to move so fast that Travis’s head couldn’t keep up with his spinning stomach. The police investigative unit set up behind the shed where Roger had fired at the rabid fox, laying out a grid of stakes and string and beginning to dig with small shovels.

Nish and Travis and Andy stayed and watched them search. They were there when the first policeman shouted that he had found something almost at the centre of the grid. With rubber gloves on, he picked up a bullet and dusted it off with a small brush. Another policeman brought a plastic bag over, the bullet was dropped in, and the bag sealed.

“Silver casing on the shell, wasn’t it?” said Andy.

“Looked like it,” said Travis.

“Same colour as the one we found in the boathouse,” said Nish.

“Doesn’t mean a thing,” countered Travis.

But he knew exactly what it meant. He believed absolutely that Muck had tossed the box of bullets away. That would be just like Muck: they could have the rifle back eventually, but no bullets. He wouldn’t have done it to hide anything, because Muck had nothing to hide. But what if the bullet they had just found matched the shell found in the boathouse? Only Muck had had access to those bullets, and now the police would think Muck had hidden the rest on purpose.

The boys watched the policeman dig up two more bullets. Each one was placed in its own plastic bag and carried away to the camp office.

Travis decided to return on his own to his window and see if he could learn anything.

 

“They’re from the same batch.”

Travis could make out the voice of the older policeman. He could sense satisfaction in the man’s voice.

“The shell casing from the boathouse is an exact match with the three bullets we dug up. We’ll need full forensic confirmation, but this is good enough for me. We have a rifle that someone tried to dispose of, a rifle that has been fired recently. We have a match in the bullets now, even though Mr. Munro claims he threw the original box of shells away. And we have the gun hidden in Muck Munro’s cabin.

“I think, gentlemen, it is time to pay a call on our Mr. Munro.”