Colt Crawford - Chapter 8 (Wednesday)

Steven Mathis tied up the vessel he had been piloting and bid farewell to the clients while still on the dock. It didn’t appear to Colt that a sale was going to happen at that moment, which meant that the broker would walk back up to his office alone. Colt and Krissy waited patiently while Mathis finished his duties with the boat then watched from a distance as he unlocked the door and entered The Yachtery office.

“So what exactly is your plan,” Krissy asked?

“I have found that if you accuse someone of something that is way out there, they will sometimes be so surprised that they reveal a hint about their real crime,” Colt explained.

“You know you need evidence, right?” Krissy questioned, growing a little concerned with Colt’s strategy. “People get mad when the cops come in and accuse them of something and have no evidence.”

“Ahh,” Colt said, “but I’m not a cop.”

“Maybe it would be better if I sat this one out. Plausible deniability is always a good defense.”

“Suit yourself,” Colt replied as he walked off toward the now unlocked door of The Yachtery office.

Inside, the receptionist’s desk was empty, as would be expected on a Sunday afternoon. The sound of the door must have alerted Mathis because he appeared from the back room seconds after Colt wandered in. “I thought I already told you I was busy the night your friend was attacked,” Mathis began abruptly.

“I am actually not here about that,” Colt replied. He hesitated a minute before continuing, his eyes darting around the room, trying to look as uncomfortable as possible. “What I am actually here for is another issue altogether.” Mathis looked at him without saying a word, but his expression indicated that Colt should continue. “I’ve got a client who had a friend down in Mexico. He wants to bring him up here. I hear your boats have been known to help out with that kind of transaction before.”

Mathis wasted no time in shutting down Colt’s imaginative theory. “I don’t know where you heard that from, Mr…”

“Crawford,” Colt reminded him.

“But I can assure you I am not in that business. I will gladly sell you a boat, and what you do with it is your business, but I am 100% legitimate. Now if you will excuse me, I have work to do.”

“You bet,” Colt said. The words almost froze Steven Mathis in his tracks.

“Excuse me? Mathis said.

“Oh, I just said, ‘You bet,’” Colt reiterated.

Mathis stopped to let the flow of the conversation sink in, then added, “Good afternoon, Mr. Crawford.”

Once back outside with Krissy, Colt summarized his second encounter with Steven Mathis. “Something the Chief said gave me an idea,” he said. “Just as I was about to leave, I said, ‘You bet.’ That seemed to give the guy pause. He just stopped and stared at me for a minute.”

“OK, and your point is?” Krissy prodded.

“I think the guy’s a bookie,” Colt explained. “Creighton was in too deep with gambling debt and Mathis hires a guy to send Creighton a message. He feels bad about getting his new girlfriend into all of this and tries to kill himself when he hears what happened.”

“That all makes sense,” Krissy said. “Now all we have to do is a) prove it, b) figure out who actually attacked the girl, and C) connect all that back to Steven Mathis.

“Hey, I did my part. Now you do yours,” Colt said with a slight snicker.

“Meet me back at the station,” Krissy said with a smug grin.