Colt Crawford - Chapter 4

As he stood up to leave Samantha’s room, Colt glanced though the partially open door and saw a middle aged couple making their way down the long, sterile hallway. “Are those your parents?” Colt asked, nodding toward the them.

Craning her neck to see through the doorway, Samantha replied, “Yeah. I expect they will try to stay all day, but I think they need to get out some. I know I do.”

“Did anyone ever get a hold of your boyfriend?” Colt asked changing the subject.

“They only place I had his number was in my phone and I haven’t really tried very hard to track him down. We haven’t been together that long. I’ll worry about it later.”

Always the detective, Colt told her that he would try to find a phone number using some of the online search tools to which he subscribed. “What’s his last name?”

“Ford,” Samantha replied. “Creighton Ford.”

“And he lives in L.A?”

“Yeah. Eagle rock area,” Samantha said.

As Mr. And Mrs. Woods entered the room, Colt extended his hand and introduced himself. “It’s nice to meet you,” he said.

After enduring their gushing gratitude for several minutes, Colt, finding no way out, finally relented and agreed to let them take him out to lunch that afternoon. “You need some time with Samantha, and I have some work to do, so why don’t I meet you back here around noon?” Colt suggested.

Once he got back out to his car, he silently chastised himself for not bringing his laptop with him on this trip. Of course, he had purposely left it behind so he couldn’t work, but now he wanted it more than anything. That machine was his connection to the world and without it, he was at a severe disadvantage. His iPhone was a handy device, but it couldn’t access the databases or search sites that were available online. Fortunately, there was something useful that the iPhone could do for him at the moment and, within seconds, he was connected to the trusty 411 operator. Unfortunately, there was no listing for a Creighton Ford in L.A. so Colt was forced to resort to Plan B. As a wildly successful detective, he had learned to always have a second option for tracking down every lead because no one was perfectly predictable. With the phone once again pressed against his ear, he dialed a familiar number. Seconds later an equally familiar voice answered.

“Charlie,” Colt said as the new boss of Crawford Investigations joined the conversation.

“I didn’t expect to hear from you so soon,” Charlie Marshall replied as he settled his large frame into what had once been Colt’s inviting leather desk chair in the corner office Colt had once occupied.

“I just can’t leave it all behind that easily,” Colt said. “I need a favor.” After explaining the laptop situation to Charlie, he asked him to find a number for Creighton Ford of Los Angeles. It was a somewhat unusual name, so Colt felt confident that finding the right man wouldn’t take long and he was right.

“I’ve got one in Eagle Rock,” Charlie said after a short wait.

“That’s the one,” Colt replied. Charlie rattled off the number as Colt committed it to memory. Memorizing lists and phone numbers was a trick he had mastered years before by creating mnemonic devices that attached various images to numbers. It was a trick that had bailed Colt out of more than one tricky situation in the past, and he was confident it would help again in the future.

After hanging up with Charlie, Colt dialed Creighton’s number. It was a home number though he was more likely to be at work at 10:30 on a Tuesday morning, but it was worth a shot. He’d leave a message and move on. To Colt’s surprise, Crieghton answered on the third ring. Colt quickly introduced himself and told the boyfriend that Samantha had been beat up and kidnapped.

“Did they catch the guy?” Creighton asked.

The question threw Colt off guard. He had expected something about Samantha’s well-being or where he could visit her, but not this. It seemed strange to Colt that Creighton was more focused on justice than on Samantha’s health. Regardless, he filled him in on a few of the lesser details, but his gut told him to proceed with caution. Before he hung up, Colt had made an appointment to meet Creighton at the hospital later that evening.

His next move was to call a friend at the LAPD and find out if there had been any reported car thefts in the area of Figueroa and Ninth the night before. After the necessary small talk, he finally posed his question and waited for a reply. “I think I did hear about something down there yesterday, but that’s off my beat. Let me ask around,” Lieutenant Teddy Crosby said. “Hey, Glover!” He yelled with the phone pressed against his slightly enlarged stomach in an effort to muffle the sound and simulate an “on-hold” feature that Crosby refused to actually use. “You hear about a car jacking at Fig and Nine yesterday?” Colt could hear voices but with the blue uniform blocking the receiver, words were hard to follow. Besides, the rumbling of Crosby’s stomach juices was enough to paint a very vivid picture in Colt’s mind of what the scene on the other end must have looked like.

A few minutes later, Crosby was back on the line with the phone once again returned to the appropriate part of his body. “There was a car jacking reported, but someone else called in two minutes later and canceled the call. Normally we would follow up anyway, but with it being a holiday, we were swamped with drunks.”

“Any info on the suspects?”

“We didn’t get any. Like I said, the call was cancelled.”

Colt explained the situation he was dealing with regarding Samantha and asked Crosby if he could get some surveillance tapes from the buildings in the area. Given the information Colt had conveyed to Crosby, he was confident that a crime had indeed been committed in the city, so he promised that he would assign a detective to track down any video footage of the area that might exist. “I’ll get you copies of whatever we find,” Crosby assured Colt.

Colt’s next call was to the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s office. He wanted to get in touch with the detective handling this end of the case and offer to help. Mostly he just wanted to find out what they knew so he could do his own investigation, but he figured he would have to have something to offer up in exchange. The L.A. video tapes should give him some leverage.

After navigating the automated answering system for a few minutes, Colt finally got put in touch with someone who could tell him which detective was following up on the Samantha Woods case. Seven and a half minutes after he first dialed the number, a woman’s voice answered. “Malone,” was all she said.

“Detective Malone,” Colt began. “My name is Colt Crawford. I’m the guy who found Samantha Woods on the side of the road last night.”

“Oh yes. I believe Sanchez spoke with you last night,” she responded. “He handed the case to me this morning. I’m taking it from here.”

Since there had obviously been a changing of the guard, Colt spent a few minutes filling her in on his side of the story before telling her his own profession. “Is there any information you could share with me?” Colt asked.

“I haven’t really had much time to work the case yet, but if you can meet me this morning I’d be happy to trade notes. I’ve never been one to turn down free help.”

Colt glanced at his watch. It was 10:45 a.m. He was supposed to meet Samantha’s parents at noon. “I’m at the hospital. Can you meet me at the Starbucks down the street in ten minutes.

“Ill be there,” Detective Malone said. “I’ll be the one in the dark blue undercover cop car,” she joked.

There was something about her laid back demeanor that intrigued Colt. A lot of cops were hot shots who were out to prove something to the world, but Malone seemed different. The only thing she seemed interested in proving was who hurt Samantha Woods. Colt briefly tried to imagine what Detective Malone must look like, but instead, the face that came to mind was that of Samantha, bandages and all. For a man on an open-ended vacation, he was suddenly very busy.

Colt started the car and was just getting ready to pull out of the parking lot when his phone rang. Glancing down at the caller I.D., he picked it up and said, “What’s up, Charlie?”

“Man, you are never going to believe what I just found out,” Charlie Marshall said.

Results -

What did Charlie just find out?
Creighton Ford was one of many aliases for a con man with a rap sheet. - 50%
Creighton Ford had just attempted suicide and was in the hospital. - 50%
Crawford Investigations had investigated Creighton several years earlier. - 0%