Colt Crawford - Chapter 10 (Wednesday)

Colt’s only prior contact with the secretary at The Yachtery had been two days before when he and Krissy first talked to Mathis. She had provided them with a copy of the bill of sale for a boat, thus establishing Mathis’ alibi for the attack on Samantha. She was a woman of about 30 years, slim, somewhat fashionable. Her brown shoulder length hair had evidence of highlights in it.

It took a second, but she a flash of recognition eventually crossed her eyes. “You’re the cop from the other day.”

Neither confirming nor denying his actual occupation, Colt maintained his most serious cop face and began. “We are looking into a brutal attack on an innocent woman and we have reason to believe that one of your clients may be involved.”

The woman looked concerned, so Colt decided to keep going. “I need to see a list of everyone Mr. Mathis has worked with in the last 30 days. People who bought boats, people who looked at boats, people who sold boats or thought about selling a boat. Anyone who walked in the door.” Colt didn’t ask. He wanted it to sound like she had no choice without actually telling her she had no choice. If she gave up the information voluntarily, there wasn’t really an issue.

“Do you have a warrant?” she asked hesitantly.

“I could get one, but that takes time, and while I am waiting, this guy is going to hurt someone else. Someone like you who is on her way home from work and is snatched out of the parking lot, beaten and dumped on the side of the road to die. Do you want to wait until that happens, or do you want to voluntarily give me the records?”

The secretary looked worried. Maybe she felt trapped. It didn’t matter as long as Colt got what he wanted. Seconds passed in silence before she spoke. “I can get you a list of all the files we closed last month plus any current pending files, but it will take a few minutes. Some of them are not even in the computer yet.”

A warm smile swept across Colt’s face. “I can wait.”

Fifteen minutes later, Colt held a sheet of paper in his hand with the names, addresses and phone numbers of all The Yachtery’s clients and perspective clients for the last month. The list wasn’t long. There were a total of twelve names and they were divided into three categories: Completed Sales, For Sale, and Potential Buyers. There were only two names listed under Completed Sales. The For Sale column had another three names. The rest were potential buyers. Colt quickly noticed that Chief Brown’s name was not on the list anywhere, suggesting that perhaps the Chief’s dealings with Mathis were off the books, but he’d have to wait and see what Krissy turned before he jumped to any conclusions.

Colt started back toward the parking lot when he realized that Krissy had taken his car to the police station. Using the endless technology available on his iPhone, Colt quickly made arrangements for a cab to pick him up. Within fifteen minutes he was in Krissy’s office.

“We shouldn’t talk here,” Krissy said in hushed tones, her face revealing nothing, but the mere words suggesting she knew something she didn’t want to know. “Let’s get some dinner.”