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They find the gunshot residue on his left hand- Cheryl will use this later, to deny what she knows to be true; Jason was right handed, so he couldn't have. It's faint; the water washed most of it away, but undeniably, it's there.
The coroner calls Alice Cooper first, then Sheriff Keller (when the rumours hit the papers the next day, Cheryl will cry. But more on that later).
Keller curses a lot - could this case get any worse? - , but looks into whether Jason had ever owned a gun.
He hadn't, which leaves rather a dead end, in addition to the dead body.
The thing that gets the sheriff really thinking is that if Jason didn't die on July Fourth, wasn't killed by a reckless scout's bullet-
There had to have been another gunshot, on July 11, and someone would have heard it- if it was in town, impossible not to hear.
But no one had come forward, and presumably many would have heard-
Unless it was at the river all over again, and no one had been there save for Jason and his killer.
Another dead end, unless...
Jason had been tortured, surely enough to rouse a scream, and yet that had gone unreported too. Unlikely in a town where everyone knows everyone and everybody's business.
So it wouldn't be preposterous to assume that Jason had been tortured near where he had been shot- the river. But that could hardly have been missed for an entire week if it was in the open-
Keller was up and running before he'd even finished his thought.
He couldn't find it at first, hanging branches obscuring its entrance, but the wind gave it away, pushing the branches too far back for them to be against a rock face.
The cave was dark, little light let in by the branches. He moved to turn on his torch, the brightness illuminating what he had both hoped and been afraid he would find.
Blood dry and old, but recognisable was high on the slick cave wall, high enough to be the aftermath of that fatal gunshot.
Lowering his gaze, his eyes caught on more blood further down the wall. This blood was no chaotic splatter however, this was deliberate, and it spelled out a word: Polly.
*
Alice Cooper wears pretty silver cuffs that afternoon as she exits her house, head held high and barking instructions at her husband. Betty hangs out the window, eyes narrowed, watching until the sheriff’s car fades from view.
The calm demeanour falls away when they reach the station, swapped for indignation.
“Sheriff Keller, on what evidence are you making this arrest? If I had killed Jason Blossom, do you think I’d be dumb enough to tell the whole town how much I despised him?” Alice’s raised eyebrow mocks him.
“Have you ever owned a gun?” Keller asks, straight to the point.
Alice sighs, “We have a gun in my husband’s name. It’s never been fired.”
“I’ll need to see it. Will your husband cooperate if I send someone over to look at it, or do I need to get a search warrant?”
“Warrant,” she smiles sweetly, then, “I do so hate to be an inconvenience.”
Keller groans in frustration. “Wait here.”
*
The warrant takes less time than expected to get- everyone wants to get this murder solved, Keller suspects, and fast.
They don’t find the gun.
Hal Cooper is practically useless, crocodile smile pinned on his lips. “I expect my wife will be home shortly. Just because the Blossom kid wrote my girl’s name on some wall doesn’t mean my wife had anything to do with it.”
Keller grunts. Maybe Hal is right. Alice had probable cause, but so could others. Jason’s writing Polly didn’t necessarily mean-
“Hal,” Sheriff Keller says slowly, “How did you know he wrote that?”
Hal Cooper’s face falls, and his eyes glaze as they frantically search his mind for answers, excuses.
There are none.
When he realises this – it doesn’t take too long- , his eyes narrow harshly, and a smirk tugs at his mouth. “The kid got what he deserved. Justice served. Polly’s justice.”
*
“I took him in Greendale,” Hal Cooper tells a courtroom, “July 4th, late afternoon. Quite a surprise to see him strolling down the street when he was supposed to be dead at the bottom of the river.”
“And you saw this as your chance, so to speak, to avenge your daughter?”
“Can’t kill a man who’s already dead,” Hal smiles, then clarifies, “Yes. Told him if he didn’t come with me then I’d spill the truth about his ‘death’ to the whole town. So he did, and I got the gun on him, took him to the cave. He cried a fair amount, ‘specially when I got the ropes out. Shrieked like his bloody sister when I left him there.”
“And how long did you leave him there for?”
“Well, I visited every day, brought food. I’m not a monster. Not like him.”
“What would you do during these visits?”
Hal’s smile droops slightly, his voice gruff as he says, “Polly’s diary. I read him Polly’s diary. Wanted to make him feel what he’d done to her. Boy had no empathy for my girl though. Had to get creative. Then I remembered he had a sister.”
Cheryl sobs from her place in the gallery. Veronica takes her hand.
“And what did you intend to do then?”
“Well, your honour, I told him I’d hurt her real bad unless he took my gun and blew his pretty head wide open.”
Cheryl screeches at this point, ushered out of the room by her mother.
“I was good about it too, your honour. Gave him time to choose, few days. Left that gun just out of his reach so he’d have to do some tricky manoeuvring to get to it, have to really work for it. Funny, I thought. Went back, his brains were everywhere, and he’d gone and written my girl’s name in his blood. Thought I’d finally got through to him that he hurt my baby. Dumped his body in the river, buried my gun-“
It’s here that I should tell you that Jason did not write Polly because he felt bad for her; Jason did not feel much of anything for anyone except- he felt for Cheryl. But he wrote Polly as a clue, for them to get to Hal, to stop him hurting Cheryl. Because Jason loved his sister, more than he loved himself, more than he valued his life.
So who killed Jason Blossom?
Jason did. For Cheryl.