“Yeah, but I’m okay with it,” he said. “My mom and I have to live in this town, Lily, and Gina’s right—your grandmother totally runs this place. This whole thing could backfire on us and my uncle has been dead for thirty years. Plus, I feel like I know Spence well enough to think that he wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to us because we were trying to solve his murder. I doubt he’d think it was worth it.”
I lifted my chin and looked at him. Really looked at him. He was such a wise person for someone so young.
“Let’s keep going,” I said. “We can both decide if and when we find anything that breaks the case open.”
“Deal,” he said. He let go of my shoulder to reach into his backpack and pull out his tablet. He typed something quickly and hit ENTER.
“I found Grady Weaver,” he said. “Maybe that’s the best friend Mrs. Greeley said he got in a fight with.”
“Do you think he’ll talk to us about Ben?”
“Only one way to find out,” Cole said, putting the yearbooks and his tablet back in his backpack and motioning me to follow him out. We waved to Gina on our way through the front door, hopped in his car, and took off.
Fifteen minutes later, we were sitting in front of a nice, two-story, A-frame house with teak-colored shingles and a cabin-in-the-woods feel. There were no signs of life on the property, even though the windows were large enough to give a view of the living room.
I rubbed my palms on my shorts. I was nervous. “We’re really doing this?” I whispered.
Cole grinned at me. “You don’t like talking to strangers much, huh?”
I grinned back. “I talked to you that first day, didn’t I?”
“Thank God,” Cole said, patting his heart. “I never would’ve gotten over it if you hadn’t.”
I laughed, and just like that a lot of my nervousness vanished. “Okay, let’s do this.”
We got out of the car and walked along the front path. Leaning close to Cole, I said, “You can do the talking.”
He chuckled. “Can I? Gee, thanks.”
I nudged him with my shoulder, and he smiled. Just as we were about to walk up the three steps to the door, we heard from behind us, “Can I help you?”
We both froze. Cole turned around first. “Hi,” he said. “Mr. Weaver?”
A good-looking middle-aged man with a square jaw, olive skin, and dark hair graying at the temples, stood in the drive with a garden hose.
“You guys collecting for the school?” he asked.
“No, sir,” Cole said.
“Well, good, ’cause I don’t have anything to give you. So, what do you want?”
Cole cleared his throat. “My name is Cole Drepeau, sir. I think you knew my uncle, Ben Spencer?”
At the mention of the name, Mr. Weaver’s eyes widened. “Spence was your uncle?” he said. “You’re little Stacey’s kid?”
“Yes, sir,” he said.
Weaver came forward to us and stuck out his hand. “Man!” he said as he pumped Cole’s hand up and down. “You look just like him. And you’re as big as him.”
Cole seemed to stand up a little straighter under the man’s scrutiny, and I could tell he was pleased.
“So what brings you by?” Weaver asked, finally noticing me and offering me his hand, too.
“I’m doing a school paper on my uncle,” Cole said. “And I wanted to talk to some of his friends and see what he was like.”
Weaver considered Cole for a minute. I didn’t think he believed him. “A school paper?” he said. “Didn’t you guys just start classes?”
“Last week,” I said. “We were given an assignment in our English class to do a research paper on someone from our family tree who had an impact on the family in some significant way.”
Weaver pointed back and forth between us. “You two in the same class?”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
“Who’d you pick?” he said to me.
“My grandfather.” Weaver studied me and there was doubt in his eyes so I added, “Dr. William James Bennett.”
Weaver’s brow shot up in surprise. “You’re a Bennett?”
I held up my hand. “Guilty.”
“Huh.” Weaver’s expression became neutral. Turning back to Cole, he said, “Your uncle was a great guy. One of my best friends. He’d help anybody out of a bind, and give you the shirt off his back. Spence was one of the best people I ever knew.”
Cole beamed with pride. “Thanks,” he said. “There’s just this rumor going around that’s sort of bugging me, though.”
Weaver cocked his head. “The UCLA thing?”
Cole blinked. “Uh, yeah,” he said, pretending like he knew exactly what Weaver was talking about. “Can you clear that up for me?”