“He was nice, ok? You saw how the rest of them are. Cal was never like that. Everybody loved him.” Then his resolve broke, and he started to cry in earnest.
Auggie put an arm around him, and after a moment, he pulled Orlando against his shoulder. Orlando sobbed for a couple of minutes while Auggie hugged him. Auggie’s gaze came up to Theo’s, and then Auggie flushed. But he didn’t look away, and Theo was the one who broke first.
“What about money, Orlando?” Theo asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe. We can go look through his papers. I don’t know if we can get current bank statements, but maybe my parents can help.”
“You don’t know if he owed anybody money?”
“I know he borrowed money from Dad to start the business. He and Wayne borrowed it together. But they paid it back pretty quickly. They’ve done really well.”
“Something with training?”
“Yeah. Private lessons, private coaching, private training. People call it different things, but that’s what they do. Basketball, tennis, football, softball, soccer. It’s still catching on; they’re pretty much the only ones in town who do it, and they’re doing well because everything’s so competitive these days.”
“They’re good at all those sports?” Auggie asked. He had pulled Orlando onto the bed, and he sat with his arm around the other boy still.
“Pretty much. Cal played tennis, Division I, and Wayne played football. He was DI too. Everybody in the family’s played at that level. Well, you know. Except me. Sometimes they get the girls to help out with pointers, because Chris played softball and Pam played basketball and Billie played soccer, but that’s the exception. Most of the stuff they do themselves. They’re making really good money, I think.”
Theo glanced at Auggie, and Auggie gave a tiny shake of his head.
“What about personal reasons? I know you said everybody loved Cal, but sometimes people carry a grudge, something that might seem insignificant to anyone else.”
Orlando hesitated. Then he said. “Maybe Genesis.”
“Who’s Genesis?”
“My ex-girlfriend.”
“Girlfriend?” Theo said.
“Cool it,” Auggie said.
“I’m bi,” Orlando said, blushing. “She and my brothers had some sort of argument about breaking a contract. I don’t really know. I mean, my dad told me it was all fine, and she and I . . . we weren’t dating anymore by then.”
“That sounds like a money problem,” Theo said.
“Ok, well, I didn’t really think about it that way.”
“How are we supposed to help you if you don’t tell us important details like that?”
“He’s going through a lot of shit,” Auggie said. “Will you back off?”
“What about his girlfriend?”
“Jessie? She’s not really his girlfriend.”
“She seemed pretty mad when she thought he was cheating on her.”
“What?”
“Never mind,” Auggie said. “I’ll tell you later. Anyway, she’s out of the picture. I stalked her on social media; unless Aunt Marissa’s sixtieth birthday party was an elaborate, deepfake hoax with three hundred collaborators, Jessie was out of town the whole weekend when Cal was killed.”
“Come on, Orlando. What else? Bullies growing up. Or people that Cal bullied. Or his crazy exes. Or a player he hurt in college. Or a private coach he ran out of business.”
Orlando just shook his head. “You don’t get it. He wasn’t like that, and he didn’t do anything like that. He was a great guy. Um, except for, you know. The drugs.”
Theo tried a few more times, but he couldn’t get anything else out of Orlando. Auggie walked Orlando back to his room, and then he came back and shut the door.
“If they’re making that much money,” Theo said, “the brother has a motive.”
“Are you kidding?”
“You met him. He’s an asshole.”
“You’ve been an asshole since we got here. Does that make you a murderer?”
“He has a motive, Auggie.”
“Ok, fine.”
“And the Volunteers.”
“Who?”
“The Ozark Volunteers. The white trash, neo-Nazi dicktuggers who stomp around and pretend they’re serious shit. They control most of the drug trade in this part of the state.”
“I thought Cart said it didn’t look like a drug deal gone bad.”
“He did. But Cal was into drugs, and that can go wrong a lot of ways. Maybe he and a friend were using, they fought, and it was an accident. Or maybe someone killed him for his stash, but they missed that baggie you found. I’m just saying we can’t close it down.”
After a moment, Auggie nodded. “Is there anything else we need to talk about? Because if not, I’m going to text Dylan.” He looked like he tried to resist, but then he said, “He’s the one with the puppy.”
“Just one