Book 2-Alex Bishop in Follow That Mystery

Alex Bishop in Follow That Mystery

     Alex and his friends stood looking at the ground beneath the pines. "Yep.  These needles didn't just fall yesterday.  The piles' are about a foot deep," Alex said, and then kneeling down and taking another look at the other bottles lying there.  "You have a really good eye Dawn," Nick said, "How did you ever find that bottle in all that camouflage?"

     "The sun was shinning on the bottle just right and I saw a gleam of light on it or near by," she answered, "So I walked over to investigate what it was."  While the others continued to look around among the trees, Alex whispered, "Thank you God."  Lee was coming up behind him and added, "Amen" to his sentence. " I sure am glad he's on our side in this thing."

     Alex and the others' excitement grew as Alex brushed the needles off of another bottle.  "This one is in one piece too," Glenna squealed.  "This is great!" Chet said, watching as Alex put it in a bag.  "So if the fingerprints on the bottles match Dave's prints on file....Um, but how do we prove that he wrecked his car and drank all these beers the night that Sandra died?"  Matt asked of anyone.

     "We'll prove it,"  Fletch said confidently.  "We just got started in this case, we have a whole lot of questions to ask of the people involved and a whole lot of clues to find."  "But this is a good start!"  Sam said with a big grin.  Alex grinned back at him,  "That's right.  It is a good start."  "And if nothing else," Anna put in, "all this can be used as a scare tactic to lay on Dave and his father."  "You'd make a good detective some day,"  Alex told her.  She giggled and then said, "And give up photography?  Nah."

     Alex and the others took their evidence back into the cabin and laid it on the dinning room table.  There were several bottles hidden in those pine needles, and Lee and Matt had found a few other pieces of tail light, one was of good size.  The teens couldn't wait to show their evidence to Detective Burns and Anna's parents.

     Alex also hoped that the evidence they had collected would make Detective Burns and Anna's parents realize, they were doing the right thing by trying to get Sandra's case re-opened.  He thought this one was going to be a hard one to solve.  "Now where were we?"  Dawn asked,  perusing her notes as though their reviewing of the case had not been interrupted.

     "Were up to the point where Dave was driving recklessly, in our point of view, I should say for now,"  Fletch began, "and Sandra was no doubt trying to make him slow down or stop the car," Fletch ended, opening his spiral and re-reading his own notes.  "So how many of us agree that Dave was able to drive the car back here to the cabin?"  Anna asked.

     "That's the way that makes sense to me,"  Glenna said, looking around at the others.  "Can I have a show of hands?"  Anna asked.  Every hand in the room was raised.  "If he didn't drive the car back he would have had to get help," Fletch suggested, "and I don't think he wanted anyone else in on what had happened."  "I agree," Sam said. 

     "So when he gets back he lays Sandra at the rivers' edge then goes to bed,"  Chet said, ready to make a note in his spiral.  "Yep," Lee agreed.  "And then what?  He waited a few minutes, probably after he changed, because....wait a minute," Lee pondered, leaning forward and staring around at them all, and lastly landing on Alex's face.

     "If we're right and there was an accident, you'd think that Dave would have been somehow hurt also," Lee pointed out.  "That's a good point Lee,"  Alex said, his eyebrows in a question mark.  "It pains me to bring this up,"  Anna started, and Alex could see the stress on her face, "But it may not have been a car accident.  At least not one out on the road.  Maybe the only accident was here at the cabin involving the tree."