be heading home.”
“But how?”
“How would he know they had been drinking at all?” Kate asked.
“Because he had probably seen them that some point that night,” Gates offered.
“Most likely,” Kate agreed.
DeMarco looked to Gates and asked: “How hard would it be for you to get together a list of all DUIs in the area over the last two or three years?”
“Not long. And you’d be surprised…it’s not too long of a list. But…yeah. It’s mostly going to be people between the ages of sixteen and twenty-five or so.”
“Thanks,” DeMarco said. She then nodded toward the sheet of paper Kate had placed back on Gates’s desk. “In the meantime, what do you say we go meet with Carol Foster?”
“You won’t have a hard time finding her either,” Gates said. “Her and some of her friends get together once a week at Esther’s Place on Monday afternoons. Sort of a MADD meeting, I guess, though I’d bet it’s really just an opportunity to gossip.”
“What time?” Kate asked.
“Five o’clock. Like clockwork.”
Kate checked her watch and saw that it had somehow already come to be four o’clock. She grinned, as a meeting with Carol Foster and her friends seemed to be written in the stars.
“Esther’s Place seems to be the only place to get together for dinner and drinks in town,” DeMarco said. “Is it the hotbed for police calls on the weekend?”
“Not as many as you’d think. It used to have a pretty bad reputation for serving underage kids, but that got cleaned up several years ago. Now the owners are professional and do everything they can do curb underage drinking.”
“You know this for certain?”
“I do. I swing by there at least three times a month unexpectedly. They don’t appreciate it, but they understand and are hospitable about it.”
“You trust the establishment?” Kate asked.
“Yes. Plus, this is a small town. Every bartender is going to know just about everyone’s face. That eliminates any so-called accidents where a bartender might forget to card someone on a busy night.”
“This will be our second visit since we arrived,” Kate said with a laugh. “If we keep showing up, they’ll know our faces, too.”
***
It was almost exactly the same as when they had met with Kayla Peterson’s friends, right down to the same booth. Only now, the women sitting at the table were about twenty-five years older and had drinks in front of them. Sadly ironic, Kate thought as she sat down and introductions were made.
Gates had done them the favor of calling Carol Foster to let her know that the agents would be arriving. According to Gates, she had been ecstatic about the news, pleased to know that finally someone seemed to be taking the underage drinking in this town seriously. When Carol shook Kate’s hand as she and DeMarco sat down, Kate instantly got a bad vibe from the woman. Maybe it was her smile or the fact that the head of the local MADD chapter was having a cocktail out in the open at five in the afternoon—she wasn’t sure.
“Sheriff Gates told me you two are in town to try to figure out who has been killing these beautiful young women,” Carol said.
“We are,” Kate said.
“So—and please forgive me for saying so—it confuses me as to why you’d need to speak to us.”
Us consisted of Carol and two other women. The others had introduced themselves as Paulette Manning and Ava Fears. Paulette looked to be pushing fifty and had one of those humorless smiles that always seemed to be painted on the faces of those seeking approval. Ava looked to the exact opposite. She was clearly uneasy with the meeting, looking sheepishly at the agents from under a curtain of jet black bangs.
“One of the suspects we were questioning mentioned your name. Said you laid into him in the middle of a grocery store because you thought he had been supplying underage kids with alcohol.”
“I suppose that was Howard Schuler,” Carol said. “I’m sure there are a few others in Harper Hills, but he was the most prominent on our list because of his position at the high school.” She chuckled here and then asked: “Was he trying to throw me under the bus?”
“No, nothing like that. He was telling us how everyone blamed him for the accident that took the life of four people, included a teenager and a baby.”
“Oh, it was his fault,” Paulette chimed in.
“Do you have proof of that?” DeMarco asked.
“No, but everyone knows he—”
“Everyone knowing something does not make it