Colt Crawford - Chapter 5 (Monday)

-- Last week the voting was way down. OK, so my wife and 7 year old son were the only ones who even voted. I am taking that to mean that you all might prefer a little different format, so I am here to help. This week I am going to post Monday through Thursday with shorter segments. There will be one vote at the end of the week from Thursday night through Saturday morning. This way you can read it all at once at the end of the week or follow in small bites throughout the week. Of course, you can still leave comments any time.

Let me know in the comments below what you think of this new idea. Enjoy! --

Chapter 5

Colt sat in the car and listened as Charlie relayed him the news. After Colt’s last call regarding Creighton Ford, Charlie had taken it upon himself to find out what he could about the guy. Using a combination of phone calls and database searches, Charlie had found out that Creighton was currently employed as the service manager at a Ford dealer in the valley. “He usually arrives well before 7:00 in the morning, but this morning he didn’t show,” Charlie said from the comfort of his own office as he sipped a latte and put his feet up on the desk. “They tried calling him, but no one answered the phone, so one of his guys decides to head over to his place to see what’s going on.”

“And…,” Colt prodded. “Get to the point. I haven’t had any coffee yet.”

“When this dude shows up, he finds Creighton on the floor unconscious and there’s a bottle of sleeping pills and Tylenol P.M. on the floor next to him.

“So he tried to kill himself with over the counter drugs?” Colt asked somewhat rhetorically.

“Glad to see this little crisis of yours hasn’t killed off your intuition,” Charlie retorted.

“Was he successful?”

“The guy from work called 911 and they got him to the hospital. They say he’s gonna be fine, but he’s gonna need some therapy.”

Colt sat silently in his car for several minutes trying to digest what had just happened. First Samantha gets kidnapped in an attempted car jacking gone bad. Then she gets dumped out of a moving car in the middle of the night 200 miles from where she had started. Then her boyfriend tries to kill himself the next morning. Was the guy heartbroken that she hadn’t called the night before or was he feeling guilty for something? Or did his despair have nothing at all to do with Samantha?

Whatever was going on, Colt was determines to figure it out. He glanced down at his watch and realized that he had to get going to meet Detective Malone. Besides, he was ready for a little mid-morning pick-me-up.He threw the car into reverse and cautiously, yet quickly, made his way out of the parking lot and down the crowded streets toward the Starbucks.

As promised, a dark blue unmarked Crown Victoria was sitting in the parking lot when Colt pulled in. He could see a woman in the driver's seat open the door and step out. He parked the Beemer two spots down from Malone’s car and popped out, anxious to find out what she did and didn’t know.

“Detective Malone,” Colt said as he approached the slender woman with a rugged, yet attractive build that didn’t go unnoticed by the P.I.

“You must be Crawford,” she replied. “Thanks for meeting me.”

“No. Thank you,” Colt said confidently although he felt sheepish on the inside.

“Please call me Krissy,” she said as the two sat down with a couple of stong black coffees and began discussing the case. As he had suspected, Krissy Malone had not progressed very far on her end of things. She had reviewed the notes from Detective Sanchez and placed one very unproductive call to the LAPD.

“It looks like our D.A. is going to want to keep this case here in Santa Barbara,” she said. “L.A. jumped at the chance to move a case out of their jurisdiction.”

“That would be par for the course down there,” Colt commented. “They’re always swamped.” Colt paused, then continued, changing the subject slightly. “Most cops wouldn’t give a P.I. the time of day, let alone meet for coffee. What’s your angle?”