Free Rose Hill by Pamela Grandstaff Page A

because the older two, now seventeen, were much more interested in drinking, parking, and necking with their girlfriends. Neither Scott nor Ed had a girlfriend who was willing to do any of that, nor a car in which to do it. For teenagers, a one year age difference can seem like a decade. Scott and Ed were still very much boys that summer, while Patrick and Sam were anxious to prove they were men.
    Brad’s older brother, Theo, home for the summer and eager to remind his younger brother who was in charge, bullied Brad constantly and viciously. Their mother and sisters were away, visiting relatives in the UK, so there was no one to intercede on Brad’s behalf. Their father considered physical violence a normal part of family relations. To him it was just part of the toughening up process that turned sensitive boys into men who could easily kill any living thing, and were willing to use any underhanded means necessary to gain more money and power.
    The day the picture was taken, the boys spent the morning fishing in Bear Lake, drinking icy sodas from a battered metal cooler, munching on sandwiches and corn chips provided by the Eldridges’ cook. They had three weeks until Scott and Ed began wrestling practice and Brad tried out for junior varsity football. Sean just ran track, so he didn’t have anything to do until the next spring.
    To them it was just another long, sunny day in the middle of summer, most of which had been spent riding bikes, swimming and fishing in the lake, or playing pickup baseball games in a dirt lot down by the river until it got too dark to see. Two days after the picture was taken, on the morning of July 4th, a group of girls paddling canoes across the lake found Brad’s lifeless body floating face down among the cattails beyond the boathouse.
    Because the lodge was outside the city limits , the investigation into Brad’s death was performed by the county sheriff’s office. Brad’s friends were all questioned. Scott and Ed had spent the morning with some other boys, setting off fireworks down by the river, until the fire chief came and ran them off. They spent the rest of the day swimming in the city pool, eating popsicles they got for free from Hannah, who was working at the concession stand. Sean said he was with his brother Brian, helping out at their uncle’s service station all day.
    Brad’s father may have wanted to quickly put the loss behind him, or just didn’t want any scandal attached to the Eldridge name, but for whatever reason, he applied considerable pressure on the county to wrap up their investigation by the day of the funeral. He only waited for his wife and daughters to get home in order to have the service, and then sent them all away immediately after. Brad’s father may have grieved terribly, but if he did so, it was done in private.
    The official determination was death by accidental drowning. Brad was known to swim across the lake and back on occasion, and it was decided he probably experienced a cramp and drowned. Everyone knew Theo like to grab kids and hold them under the water until panic set in, only to let them up, gasping and crying, so he could laugh at them and repeat the performance. Most of the kids who had experienced this torture thought that was probably what happened, that Brad’s death was a horrible accident. Brad’s closest friends thought it might not have been an accident at all.
     
     
     
    Scott wanted to take the photo and letter to show Ed, but under the circumstances, with his good friend a suspect in Theo’s murder, he knew he shouldn’t. He considered showing it to Maggie instead. Sean was her brother; maybe she would know something that would help.
    He heard Sarah enter the station and ask Frank where he was. On impulse, Scott put the card and photo into the copier and had just enough time to produce a photocopy, slip it under the machine, and return the evidence to the table before she walked into the break room.
    Sarah looked