Читать книгу Colton Baby Rescue - Marie Ferrarella - Страница 13

Chapter 5

As he’d predicted, Carson didn’t get very much sleep that night. His brain was too wired, too consumed with reviewing all the details surrounding his brother’s murder. There was more than a little bit of guilt involved, as well. He hadn’t wanted to go to Bo’s bachelor party to begin with, but he still couldn’t shake the feeling that if he had only got to it a little earlier, he might have been there in time to prevent his brother’s murder from ever happening.

Carson finally wound up dozing off somewhere between two thirty and three in the morning. At least he assumed he’d dozed off because the next thing he knew, he felt hot air on his face. The sensation blended in with a fragment of a dream he was having, something to do with walking through the desert, trying to make his way home with the hot sun beating down on him. Except that he’d lost his way and didn’t know just where home actually was.

Waking up with a start, he found Justice looming right over him. The hot wind turned out to be the dog’s hot breath. Justice’s face was just inches away from his.

Scrambling up into a sitting position, Carson dragged a hand through the unruly thatch of dark hair that was falling into his eyes.

“What is it, boy?” he asked groggily. “Did you solve the crime and couldn’t wait to let me know?” Blinking, he looked at the clock on his nightstand. It was a little past six in the morning. How had that happened? “Or are you hungry, and you’re trying to wake me up to get you breakfast?”

In response, the four-footed black-and-tan active member of the K-9 police department nudged him with his nose.

“I guessed it, huh?” Carson asked, swinging his legs off his rumpled double bed.

Except for the fact that he had pulled off his boots last night, he was still dressed in the same clothes he’d had on yesterday. He really hadn’t thought he was going to be able to fall asleep at all so in his estimation there had been no point in changing out of them and getting ready for bed.

Carson didn’t remember collapsing, facedown, on his bed. He supposed the nonstop pace of the last two days, ever since he’d come across Bo’s body in The Pour House parking lot had finally caught up with him.

He blinked several times to get the sleep out of his eyes and focus as he made his way through the condo into his utilitarian kitchen.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Carson said to the furry shadow behind him. “This whole place could fit into a corner of Serena Colton’s suite.”

Now, why had that even come up in his haze-filled mind, he asked himself.

Just then another piece of his fragmented dream came back to him. He realized that he’d been trying to cross that desert in order to get back home to Serena.

Home to Serena?

Where the hell had that come from?

He hardly knew the woman. What was his subconscious trying to tell him? It wasn’t as if he was in the habit of dreaming about women. When he came right down to it, he hardly ever dreamed at all.

He came to the conclusion that something had to be bothering him about his less than successful interview with Serena last night. At the moment, he just couldn’t put his finger on what.

Forget about it for now, he ordered himself. He had something more immediate demanding his attention—and it weighed a little over eighty pounds.

“Okay, Justice. What’ll it be? Filet mignon? Lobster? Dog food?” Carson asked, holding the pantry doors open and peering inside at the items on the shelves. “Dog food, it is,” he agreed, mentally answering for the dog beside him.

As he took out a large can, Justice came to attention. The canine was watching closely where the can’s contents would wind up.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to poach your breakfast,” Carson told the dog. “I’m not that hungry.”

To be honest, he wasn’t hungry at all. But given his present state, he desperately needed a cup of coffee. His brain felt as if it had been wrapped up in cotton and he needed that jolt that his first cup of coffee in the morning brought in order to launch him into his day.

Emptying the dog food into Justice’s oversize dish, Carson stepped out of the dog’s way as his K-9 partner immediately began to inhale his food. Carson tossed the empty can into the garbage pail in the cabinet beneath his sink and turned his attention to the coffee maker.

He bit off a few choice words. He’d forgotten to program the coffee maker to have coffee waiting for him this morning. Moving over to the refrigerator, he took out the half-empty can of ground coffee and proceeded to make his usual cup of coffee. The end product, thick and rich, was always something that could have easily doubled for the material that was used to repave asphalt. It was just the way he liked it.

Time seemed to move at an incredibly lethargic pace as Carson waited for the coffee to brew and the coffee maker to give off the three high-pitched beeps, signaling that the job was done.

The timer barely finished sounding off before he poured the incredibly thick, sludge-like liquid into his mug. Holding the mug with two hands like a child who had just learned how to drink out of a cup for the first time, Carson quickly consumed the product of his efforts. He drank nonstop until he had managed to drain the mug of its very last drop.

Putting the mug down, Carson sighed as he sat back in his chair. He could almost feel the coffee working its way through his veins, waking up every single blood vessel it passed through with a start.

The fuzziness was definitely gone.

Getting up to his feet, he looked in Justice’s direction. The German shepherd had inhaled every last bit of what he’d put into the dog’s dish. Carson credited the dog with having the same frame of mind that he did. Justice had needed something to jump-start his day.

“Okay, give me five minutes to shower and change so we can hit the road and get started,” he told his furry partner.

As if concurring with what Carson had just said, Justice barked.

Once.

True to his word, Carson was in and out of the shower in less time than it took to think about it. Going to his closet, he found Justice lying on the bedroom floor, waiting for him.

“Don’t start nagging me,” he told the dog. “I’m almost ready.” When the dog barked at him a couple of times in response, Carson said, “Yeah, yeah, I know. I didn’t shave.” As if in acknowledgement, he ran his hand over what was now beyond a dark five-o’clock shadow. It could have doubled as the inside of an abyss at midnight. “I’ll do it tomorrow. There’s nobody I’m trying to impress anyway,” he added, pulling on a pair of jeans, followed by his boots.

He paired the jeans with a black pullover then put on his go-to navy sports jacket. As a detective, he was supposed to make an effort to dress in more subdued, businesslike attire. This was his effort, he thought drolly.

Adjusting his weapon in its holster, he said, “Okay, Justice, let’s roll.”

* * *

He stopped by the precinct first to see if any headway had been made in the investigation into his brother’s murder. Specifically, if there had been any sightings of Demi Colton overnight.

There hadn’t been.

When he walked into the squad room, he found that Finn was in the process of handing out the names of people he wanted interviewed in connection with Bo’s murder. Names from the list he had compiled for the chief, Carson thought.

“Just in time,” Finn said when he saw Carson coming in. “I was beginning to think that maybe you’d decided to take a couple of days off like I suggested.”

The chief knew him better than that, Carson thought. “Not until we catch Demi.”

When he saw the chief shifting, as if he was uncomfortable, it made him wonder what was up.

“Yeah, well, on the outside chance that it turns out Demi didn’t kill Bo, we do need to look into other possibilities. Like whether there might be anyone else out there with a grudge against your brother strong enough to want to kill him.”

The way he saw it, even thought he had compiled the list for Finn, shifting attention away from Demi would be a waste of time and manpower.

“Bo didn’t write anyone else’s name in his own blood,” Carson pointed out in a steely voice. “He wrote Demi’s.”

Finn threw another theory out there. “Maybe there was something else he was trying to tell us other than the name of his killer.”

Carson frowned. Finn was stonewalling. Everyone knew that things between the Colton and Gage families weren’t exactly warm and toasty. There was a feud between the two families that went back a long ways, and it flared up often.

Was that why Finn seemed so intent on running down so-called “other” leads rather than going after a member of his own extended family? Finn was a good police chief, but his behavior seemed very suspicious to Carson.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Finn said in response to the look he saw descending over Carson’s face. “You think I’m trying to protect Demi. I’m not. I’m the police chief of this county. I don’t put family above the law. Hell, you were there. I roused my own family out of bed to conduct a search for Demi.

“But I’m not about to bend over backward and behave like someone’s puppet just to prove to everyone that I won’t let my sense of family get in the way of my doing my job. However, just because half the force is out for blood, doesn’t mean I’m going to put blinders on and pretend there might not be anyone else out there who stood to gain something from your brother’s death.”

“Like what?” Carson wanted to know.

“Well, we won’t know unless we look into it, will we?” Finn answered. “Now, aside from all those girlfriends your brother was always accumulating before he got engaged to Hayley, he was married once before, wasn’t he?”

Carson nodded. “Yeah, to Darby Gage,” he told the chief, adding, “They’ve been divorced for over two years.”

“Which one of them asked for the divorce?” Finn wanted to know.

He didn’t have to try to remember in order to answer. “Darby did.”

Finn was all ears. “Why?”

A half, rather mirthless smile curved Carson’s mouth. Just because he wanted to find Bo’s killer didn’t mean that he had approved of his brother’s fast-and-loose lifestyle.

“Seems that Darby didn’t care for the fact that Bo couldn’t stop seeing other women even though they were married.” He knew how that had to sound to Finn. “I’m not making any excuses for Bo,” Carson told the chief. “He was an alley cat. Always had been. And personally, in the end, I think that Darby was glad to be rid of him.”

“Maybe she decided she wanted to be really rid of him,” Finn countered. “In any case, I want you to go talk to the ex-wife. Find out if she has an alibi for the time your brother was murdered.”

He should have seen that coming. “Okay, will do,” Carson told him. “You heard the man, Justice,” he said to the dog. “Let’s go.”

* * *

Since her divorce from Bo Gage two years ago, Darby Gage had been forced to stitch together a number of part-time jobs just to make ends meet.

Carson found her at the diner where she worked the morning shift as a waitress.

It might have been his imagination, but his ex-sister-in-law seemed to tense up when she saw him coming into the diner.

Putting on a cheerful face, Darby walked up to him with a menu and said, “Take a seat, Detective Gage. We’ve still got a few empty tables to choose from.”

Carson picked a table that was off to one side. Parking Justice there, he sat down.

“What can I get you?” Darby asked.

He could see that the cheerfulness was forced. It probably unnerved her to see him here, he guessed. “Answers,” he told his ex-sister-in-law.

Her blue eyes swept over him. In his estimation, she looked nervous. She gave up all pretense of cheerfulness. “Is this about Bo?”

His eyes never left her face. His gut told him that she didn’t have anything to do with Bo’s murder, but he was here so he might as well do his job.

“Yes.”

Darby sighed as she shook her head. “I don’t know what I can tell you.”

“Let me be the judge of that,” Carson told her.

He’d found that saying something like that took the reins away from the person he was interviewing and put them back into his hands.

Carson kept one eye on Justice, watching for any sort of a telltale reaction on the dog’s part. All the German shepherds on the K-9 force were initially bred and then trained by Bo or one of the trainers employed at Red Ridge K-9 Training Center. That was actually where his brother had met Hayley, who was one of the trainers.

Bo had made his living breeding the dogs for the police department as well as for other clients. Darby had been part of that business until the divorce and even now, one of her part-time jobs was cleaning the kennels at the training center.

In Carson’s experience, German shepherds were exceedingly sensitive when it came to certain character traits and if Darby had somehow been involved in Bo’s murder, maybe the dog would pick up on that.

But Justice’s response to his former trainer’s ex seemed favorable. So much so that when Darby absently stroked the top of the dog’s head, Justice wagged his tail.

Taking that into account, Carson still pushed on. “Where were you around 6:30 p.m. the night Bo was killed?” he asked Darby. Then, realizing the waitress might play dumb about the date, he started to add, “That was on—”

“I know when Bo was killed,” Darby said, cutting him off. “I was just leaving the kennels after cleaning up at the training center.”

Technically, he already knew that because he had got her schedule by calling the places where she worked. But he wanted to hear what she had to say. “Anyone see you?”

“Other than the dogs?” she asked.

He couldn’t tell by Darby’s expression if she was being sarcastic or just weary. Given that Bo had put her through the wringer and was the reason why she had to hold down all these various jobs just to keep a roof over her head, for now he let the remark slide.

“Yes, other than the dogs.”

She thought for a moment. “I think one of the handlers, Jessop, was still there. He might have seen me. To be honest, I didn’t think I’d need an alibi so I didn’t make a point of having someone see me leave.” And then she suddenly remembered. “There’s a time card I punched out. That should be proof enough for you.”

He knew that there were ways to manipulate a time card. But since, in his opinion, Darby wasn’t the type who could even hurt a fly, he nodded and said, “Yes, it should.” Getting up from the table, he dug into his pocket and took out five dollars. He put it down on the table. “Thanks for your time, Darby. I’ll get back to you if I have any other questions.”

Darby picked up the five dollar bill and held it up for him to take back. “You can’t leave a big tip, you didn’t buy anything,” she pointed out.

Carson made no attempt to take the money from her. “I took up your time,” Carson answered.

With that he and Justice left the diner.