If She Heard (Kate Wise Mystery #7) - Blake Pierce Page 0,39

into the interrogation. It was quite clear DeMarco had chosen to play the bad cop. That left the kind-hearted and understanding role for Kate.

“What about the questions set you off?” Kate asked.

“It’s been almost two years, you know? But everyone in town thinks I gave Jonathan Bowen the alcohol that caused that accident. People call my phone and leave threatening messages. Sometimes they play audio clips of car crashes from movies. Sometimes they’ll act as if I can run to the store and grab a six-pack for them.” He paused here and Kate grew a little uncomfortable when she saw that he was starting to cry. “Someone…last night, someone called. It was one of the crash recordings and then someone told me I should have been behind that wheel. It’s just…I’ve had enough of it.”

Kate and DeMarco remained quiet for a moment longer. DeMarco broke the silence ten seconds later when she asked: “Did you, Mr. Schuler? Were you the one that supplied the alcohol to Jonathan Bowen?”

“No. I swear it.”

“How about any other times?” DeMarco leaned in here, as if about to reveal some huge conspiratorial secret. “That is not what this case is about. I can’t promise you won’t be charged for anything, but that’s not what Agent Wise and I are interested in right now. But we need to know because your insider eye to these parties might be exactly what we need.”

He started nodding almost right away. It was slow at first, as if his mind wanted to confess but his heart did not. The moment the tears started cascading down his cheeks, though, Kate knew they were on the verge of some sort of revelation.

“Three times,” he said. He sniffled back the tears and fought away an emotional breakdown. It took about twenty seconds, but he finally managed to continue on without melting down. “I did it three times. And when I did, it was only beer. At the time, I told myself it was okay because it was beer, not liquor. To my knowledge, there were never any accidents, though one senior did get pulled over later that night and had his license taken away.”

“On those three occasions, was Jonathan Bowen ever present?” Kate asked.

“Once that I know of. But that was several months before his accident.”

“What about the murder victims?” DeMarco asked. “Vanessa Fenton, Mariah Ogden, and Kayla Peterson…were they ever at any of the parties?”

“Again, Kayla is the only one out of those three that I can specifically remember. And I don’t recall her ever being at those parties.”

“Have you attended any high school parties since you were fired?” Kate asked.

“Just one. It was pretty clear no one wanted me there. It was one hell of a wake-up call. I just…I don’t know. I realized what I had become…”

“There were no confrontations with anyone there?” Kate asked.

“No.”

“Mr. Schuler, why do you think you were singled out as a potential guilty party after Jonathan Bowen’s accident?”

“I don’t know. The only thing I can figure is that at some point, maybe a student did tell their parents they saw me at one of those parties. Or maybe rumors just started to circulate at school and someone else on the faculty heard it. Word got around, but because there was no proof, I don’t think anyone dared believe it. But then, when there’s an accident as tragic as that one, people will quickly build a rumor up to be the gospel truth. I was an easy target because of the rumors, and that was all she wrote.”

“Only they weren’t rumors,” DeMarco pointed out.

Kate personally felt that Schuler was a dead end. She was sure they could go back and check school records to see if he was lying about not having known Mariah or Vanessa. But if it was proven true, they were doing nothing more than bullying him over his stupid past mistakes. As far as she was concerned, he did deserve a bit of bullying, but the phone calls he was getting was taking it a bit too far.

“Rumors, truth, whatever,” Schuler said, finally starting to wipe his tears away. “It might sound like I’m trying to play the victim card here, but I don’t think the mistakes of my past should result in the rest of my life being ruined. These phone calls and the harassment…it’s too much.”

“Have you reported it to the police?” Kate asked.

“I tried. But given that everyone in Harper Hills assumed I’m at fault, my complaints weren’t taken