Colt Crawford - Chapter 14 (Thursday)

**Since I missed the story on Monday, voting will take place after a special Friday post tomorrow. Hang in there for one more day!
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The police station was the place where Krissy did most of her heavy thinking. She had witnesses, evidence and ideas, but it was at her desk where she turned those things into plausible theories. “What we know is that Mathis takes bets on sporting events and Jailene fronts him the money to keep the business afloat. When one of the clients doesn’t pay, Jailene takes care of it.”

“So we can assume that Jailene was behind the attack on Samantha as a message to Creighton,” Colt added.

“We can also assume that, if Mathis is telling the truth, she is behind the attack on Jasmine,” Krissy said. “Because she was jealous that he was interested in his assistant.”

“If Jailene is such a jealous woman, why did she kill Kevin?” Colt wondered aloud.

“To protect herself,” Krissy said. “Kevin was the key to her operation and he knew more than he told us.”

“Now that he is dead, maybe some of his friends will be more willing to talk.”

“It’s a good place to start.” Krissy picked up her phone and dialed her friend at the university police. After a brief conversation, she had the names of three known acquaintances of Kevin. The officer also gave Krissy the name of Kevin’s sister who was also a student at the university. Between those four leads, someone had to know something about Jailene Arroyo.

“I’ll have Sanchez and Holt talk to the friends. I want to start with the sister,” Krissy said. “You up for going back to school, Sanchez?” she said.

“Sure, just tell me what you need.” Krissy briefed the two detectives on the latest developments in the investigation. Over the past few days it had become clear that this case was much bigger than one detective could handle. To help offset some of the workload, the lieutenant had assigned Sanchez and Holt to help with the investigation. Since Sanchez had been involved on the night of Samantha’s attack, he was familiar with parts of the story, but Holt was completely out of the loop.

As she caught them up to speed, Krissy pointed out the various aspects of the white board that she was using to diagram the investigation. The two detectives seemed to soak up every detail and were on board with naming Jailene as the prime suspect.

Sanchez was young for a detective, but not too young. He was in his late twenties, maybe early thirties and had a rugged look about him. Despite his Hispanic surname, he had been raised near Montgomery, Alabama and his dialect did little to disguise his hometown.

Holt was a local. He knew Santa Barbara inside out having been born and raised on the Central Coast. He was a little older than Sanchez and had a carefully manicured and clean cut image. Together, Holt and Sanchez were a comical team. Sanchez’s southern drawl coupled with Holt’s business-like demeanor often brought frustration to the team and a laugh to those who watched them.