John rolled down his window and stuck an elbow out. “People started hooking up. I was with Heather.”
“Really?” Will didn’t say it in a scandalized parent’s voice, the way Cindy would, but with a sharp snap of skepticism. John looked at him with hate.
“I guess Zack fucked all three girls,” John said darkly. “Maybe the girls played with each other, too. I don’t know. I passed out.”
Will made him answer it again. He sounded credible.
“I watched Zack and Heather bumping nasties, if you really want to know the truth,” John said. “I didn’t want to see any of it, but they woke me up.”
“Why would you get on the boat with these kids, John?”
“I didn’t want to! Heather and I were going to have a picnic at Sawyer Point. Only us. I asked her out. Thought she liked me. Then that douche nozzle pulls up in his fancy boat and she wanted to go. She invited me. Zack would have been happy to leave me at the wall.”
Will took it in and said nothing.
“Are you carrying your knife?”
The boy stiffened in his seat and nodded.
“Let me see it, please.”
John reluctantly reached in his pants pocket and handed it to Will, who switched on the dome light and unfolded the knife, which locked in place. It was heavy and all black, with a web-textured steel handle and spear point. “Blackhawk!” was emblazoned on the surface of the blade. It was very sharp. Although the blade looked a legal length, the whole unfolded knife appeared almost eight inches long. He examined it for dried blood; found none. John could have cleaned it. The Gruber autopsy showed such brutal knife wounds that it was difficult to determine the shape or edge characteristics of the blade, but it probably wasn’t serrated. This blade wasn’t serrated.
Will asked John if he had bought the knife. He said he had ordered it online for eighty dollars.
“And tell me again why you would carry a knife?”
“So I’d feel safe.”
“Ever been in a knife fight?”
“No,” John said softly.
“Ever use this knife for anything?”
He shook his head.
The motion made Will’s own headache worse. He should have popped some Advils. It was probably only stress. Or a brain tumor.
“John, let me give you a scenario. While your friends were partying and high, or sleeping, or whatever, you unlashed the Zodiac from Zack Miller’s boat and went downriver. You climbed on Kristen’s boat. You threatened her with the knife and made her handcuff herself. Then you stabbed her over and over again…”
“No…No…” He was sobbing again.
“Then you got back to Zack’s boat, tied up, and you have an alibi for when you all discover her later.”