the murder. This provokes Neptune's wrath, and Keith is ousted and replaced by the new sheriff Don Lamb (Michael Muhney) in a recall election. Veronica's mother, Lianne Mars (Corinne Bohrer), develops a drinking problem and leaves town. When Veronica's "09er" friends—wealthy students from the fictional 90909 ZIP Code—force her to choose between them and her father, Veronica decides to work part-time in her father's newly opened private investigation agency, Mars Investigations. She helps her father solve cases and conducts her own investigations on behalf of friends and acquaintances at school. Veronica discovers new evidence which suggests that Abel Koontz (Christian Clemenson), the man imprisoned after confessing to Lilly's murder, is innocent. As Veronica delves deeper into the murder case, she also works on other investigations, seeks her mother's whereabouts and deals with the aftermath of being drugged and raped during an "09er" party. Veronica, no longer part of the school's wealthy in-crowd, makes some new friends: Wallace Fennel (Percy Daggs III), Neptune High basketball star; Eli "Weevil" Navarro (Francis Capra), leader of the PCHers, a Latino biker gang named after the Pacific Coast Highway; and Cindy "Mac" Mackenzie (Tina Majorino), Neptune High's resident computer genius. Using her friends' resources, as well as those provided by her father and his contacts, Veronica gains a reputation for sleuthing and finds her skills in increasingly high demand at her school. Things get more complicated when Veronica falls into a relationship with Lilly's ex-boyfriend Logan Echolls (Jason Dohring), who for a time held Veronica partly responsible for Lilly's death and went out of his way to harass her. Season 2 (2005–06) The second season adds three regular cast members: new character Jackie Cook (Tessa Thompson), and first season recurring characters Dick Casablancas (Ryan Hansen) and Cassidy "Beaver" Casablancas (Kyle Gallner). The season begins with the introduction of two new cases: When a school bus full of Neptune High students plunges off a cliff, killing almost everyone on board, Veronica makes it her mission to discover why the bus crashed. Meanwhile, Logan is accused of killing PCH biker gang member Felix Toombs after drunkenly picking a fight with Weevil and the PCHers. Partway through the season, Weevil becomes convinced of Logan's innocence and they team up to find the real killer. Veronica's life returns to much the way it was before Lilly's death: having broken up with Logan during the summer, she reunites with Duncan