Chapter 8

It was obvious to the detectives that the pizza parlor was a popular hangout for students. There were a dozen of them crowded around a few tables, their strident voices almost overriding the music blasting out tunes at ear damaging decibels. Then they spotted a guy sitting by himself in a corner booth. He was a tall, rangy and athletic looking with a shock of long hair that hung over his ears.

“I guess that’s him,” May said as she and Kevin began making her way through the noisy students whose chairs partially blocked the aisle.

Rory looked up from a half finished burger and fries as the detectives approached his table.

“You Rory?” Kevin asked. Without being invited he sat down beside him while May sat across the table.

“Yeah, what’s up?” You the dude with my jacket? Where is it?”

“First we got a few questions to ask you about it,” Kevin replied as he flashed his detective’s shield at him.

“Police,” May said. She opened up her coat to display her detective’s badge.

Rory’s mouth gaped opened to display the half chewed burger.

“Hey, what did I do? I didn’t do nothing,” he retorted while trying not to choke on the food that was stuck in his mouth. Rory had a hard time swallowing it as he looked back and forth at the detectives with a worried look on his face.

“Hey, no worry,” Kevin said. “All we want is some information about this wild weekend party.”

“Yes, you co-operate and tell us everything we want to know and you’re in the clear, but if we think you’re holding something back then we just might think of some charges.” May warned.

Rory nodded. There was a worried look on his face. “Sure, sure, anything you want but I gotta tell you, I don’t remember much ... you know,” he stammered.

“We’ll be the judge of that,” Kevin stated.

“For starters, how about telling us the address of the house and who owns it.” May asked, anxious to end the small talk.

“Not too sure of the owner’s name or the exact address as far as that goes,” Rory said.

“What? You just end up a wild party, not knowing who your host is and where the damn place is even located.” Kevin snorted in derision.

“Yeah, yeah. That’s right. You see after we won the league hockey trophy we all wanted to celebrate so Alex Demichuck said just leave it to him. He set everything up. Said he had a great place to party. I think he might have said it was his uncle’s or something. He even arranged for a party bus to pick us up and take us home. That way we could drink our asses off ... you know really cut loose, without having to worry about getting home. None of us wanted to drink and drive, you know.”

Rory looked first at Kevin and then May. When they remained silent, he continued.

“That’s the truth I swear it. You see we were already half loaded from drinks and toasts at the victory banquet. Then, when the party bus arrived we just climbed into it and discovered it was full of all kinds of liquor so nobody paid much attention to where it was taking us.”