Bartles shrugged. Apparently, he was either too hung over, or just plain old not smart enough to come up with a lie. “Okay, maybe I know him, but I didn’t have anything to do with any car stealing.”
“We know that, son,” Sam said in his friendliest voice. “Now, I’d like to show you some photos just to make sure we’re talking about the same person.”
Sam gestured toward the dirty brown-plaid sofa, and Bartles slumped on it while Sam and Jo each took a chair. Lucy sat on the floor between them. Sam tossed a photo of Scott Elliott on the coffee table. It was a nice photo of him with his hair combed back and a smile on his face. Jo didn’t know where Sam had gotten it, but it looked like a photo for a work badge.
“Is that the guy?” Sam asked.
“And you say there’s a reward for this information?” Bartles asked.
“Yep.”
“Yes, that’s Scott Elliott. But like I told you, I wasn’t involved in anything illegal with him.”
Bartles stared down at the photo. He adjusted the package of frozen corn on his head. “Hey, wait a minute. Some guy was asking about the stolen car and Elliott last night in the bar.”
“Oh really?” Sam asked.
Bartles frowned. “I’m not getting in the middle of anything bad, am I?”
“Nope, not at all. No one will know you spoke to us.”
Bartles’s frown deepened. “Well, if no one knows I talked to you, how can I collect the reward?”
“It’s all done anonymously,” Sam assured him.
“Okay. Well, I haven’t seen Scott in a while anyway.”
Sam glanced at Jo. No surprise there. Scott was dead. Apparently, Bartles didn’t know that.
“Did he mention anything about the car? Or where he was going with it?” Sam asked.
Bartles adjusted the bag of corn again and looked down at his bare feet. “Nope.”
It didn’t take a degree in psychology to know that Bartles was lying. Even Lucy could tell, as evidenced by the way she glanced up at Jo.
Sam took out another photo, this one of Forest Duncan, and placed it on the coffee table. “Do you know him?”
“No, man. Why are you asking about all this?”
“And you don’t know about anything else that Scott Elliott was into?”
“No. Like I said, I only told him where Gram kept the keys. It’s not like I went with him or was into anything that he was into.”
“Well, you must have known him pretty well to tell him where your grandmother kept the keys,” Sam prodded.
Bartles’s eyes darted from Sam to Jo as he realized he’d messed up. He jiggled his leg nervously, the frozen-corn package crunching as his hand tensed on it. “No, I didn’t know anything.”
“Really? Because if you don’t tell us what you know, you could be in deep trouble, and I don’t mean with the cops.” Bartles’s eyes jerked from the photos on the table to Sam.
“Huh?”
Sam tossed another photo on the table, this one of Scott Elliott in the shallow grave.
Bartles’s eyes widened. He jumped up from the chair, the freezer pack thudding to the floor. “Shit! What happened to him?”
“Someone killed him. Guess he knew too much. Now, don’t you want to make sure we find the person who did this and put him away before he thinks you might have known too much?” Sam asked.
“Okay. Shit.” Bartles paced the room nervously, the freezer pack thawing on the floor, forgotten. “Okay. I did some stuff with Scott. We hotwired a few cars. But I swear I didn’t get into anything that would get anyone killed. And I swear I don’t know that guy in the other picture.”
“But you must’ve known something about what Scott Elliott had going on?” Sam leaned back in the chair, as patient as ever. “Come on, Danny, we know you guys all talk.”
“I don’t know anything. I swear.” Bartles continued pacing before he stopped in front of the coffee table. “Well, he did have something going on up north. I have no idea what, but by the way he talked, it was something big. I was trying to cut my association with him because ...” He pointed at the photo of Elliott in the shallow grave. “Well, you know, because I didn’t want to end up like that.”
“Drugs?” Jo asked.
Bartles shrugged. “He didn’t talk much about it, but probably.”
“So how do you know it was someone up north?” Sam glanced at Jo.
“One day, we were driving around, looking to score some pot, and he got a weird call.”
“From who?”
“No idea, but he U-turned and got all serious about following some guy. Said he was a cop from up north.” Jo straightened in her seat. Even Lucy came to attention, sensing that this was important.
“A cop? What was his name?” Sam asked.
“I don’t know.”
“When was this?”
“I don’t know. Beginning of summer.”
“Well, what did you do? Did you meet up with him?” Had Tyler been distributing drugs down here?
“No, it was weird. We followed him, but it must have been a wild goose chase because all he did was go into Penny’s Peak Ski Area.”
“Why? Did he drop something off or meet someone? Why were you following him?”
Bartles shrugged. “I guess he just wanted to see what he was up to.”
Jo glanced at Sam. This didn’t make much sense. If Tyler was working with Scott Elliott, why would he have been secretly following him?
“What did you see?”
“Nothing. That’s why it was weird. The ski area’s closed. It’s summer. But I guess the cop must’ve just been hungry, because he got out and went to the vending machines.”
“Was the cop tall with dark curly hair cut just below his ears?” Jo asked.
“Yeah, that’s the guy!”
She locked eyes with Sam. She’d just described Tyler Richardson.
“Scott seemed really disappointed that the cop hadn’t done anything more than get a candy bar. I wasn’t sure exactly what he was expecting, but by that time, I knew he was into some weird shit, and I didn’t want to get into it. I figured the less I knew, the better,” Bartles slumped back down on the couch. “You don’t think the people who killed him are going to come after me, do you?”
“Nah, I don’t think so. We’ll make sure they don’t,” Sam said. “Can you tell me where the ski area is?”
“Yeah.” Bartles seemed more than eager to help them now, probably wanting the cops to put the bad guys away before he ended up in a shallow grave. “It’s right off of exit eight, about two miles to the east. You can’t miss the signs.”
“Okay, thanks.” Sam got up, and Jo and Lucy followed him to the door.
Just before they stepped out into the hallway, Bartles yelled, “Hey, what about my reward?”
Sam turned around and looked at him. “Don’t worry. We’ll mail it to you.”
They stepped into the hall and made a beeline for the Tahoe.
Chapter Twenty-One
The ski hill wasn’t hard to find. The dirt parking lot was empty. The tall metal terminals and cables of the chairlift cut a path up the hill. Sam figured they put the chairs away at the end of the season. In the winter, the place would bustle with skiers in colorful snow gear, but now it was so quiet you could practically hear the grass grow.
The mountain was simply an overgrown hill compared to what Sam was used to up north, but for skiers who didn’t want to drive the extra few hours to the Canadian border, this was a fairly popular place to ski. There was a nice lodge at the top, also closed for the season. Here at the bottom was a building that sheltered vending machines. “This must be where Tyler stopped,” Jo said.
“We don’t know for sure that it was Tyler.” Sam followed her to the building. The vending machines were set under a roof with the sides open. A few machines were visible from the parking lot, but as they got closer, Sam saw the row extended out of sight to the corner of the building.
“No, but it’s a pretty big coincidence he fit Tyler’s description. And he was from up north.”
“What do you think he’d be doing here at the vending machines?” Sam asked. “And do you really think Bartles was telling us the truth?”