Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #2: Books 5-8 (A Dead Cold Box Set), Blake Banner [readnow TXT] 📗

Main Street, it made me smile. I thought it would be a good place to be a kid in. I imagined how it must have seemed to the young Kathleen and Pat, accustomed to the crowds and restrictions of the Bronx, to experience this wild freedom. What it must have been like when they first came to visit Greg at the ranch.

We followed the sheriff’s directions and soon came out the other side of town. The road forked and there was a rough sign that told us this was Pine Ranch. We turned in and followed the drive to a large, two story, log-built house with a raised porch. I pulled up there, climbed out and leaned on the roof of the car, looking at the land around. There was a lot of it, and I could see cattle, llamas, and lots of wood. Whatever Greg was, he wasn’t poor.

The door opened as Dehan got out and a man stepped onto the porch. He looked lean and tough. He was tall, about thirty-two, good-looking and dressed in boots and a cowboy hat. He looked the part. He eyed us both without warmth and said, “Help you?”

“Are you Greg Carson?”

“Who’s asking?”

“This is Detective Dehan and I am Detective Stone. We are collaborating with the Lee County Sheriff’s Department…”

“You here about Kathleen?”

“Yes.”

“You can put your badge away. I don’t need to see it. Tom Watson said you’d be coming. There ain’t a lot I can tell you.” He came down the steps. “What do you want to know?”

Dehan said, “Did she tell you she was coming to Seven Hills?”

“Nope.”

“She wasn’t in touch with you in the weeks before her death?”

“Nope.”

I smiled and came around the car to stand in front of him. “Mr. Carson, I should tell you that we have requested Kathleen’s phone records, emails and social media records for June and July of that year. If you were in touch with her, we will see the correspondence.”

He gave me a long, level, hard look. “I just got through telling you we didn’t have any contact. Do I have to repeat it?”

“When was the last time you did have contact with her?”

He took a deep breath and looked out at the horizon. “Must have been, 2010, 2009? There abouts. After her an’ Mo got hitched I didn’t really see much of them.”

Dehan raised an eyebrow. “Why was that?”

He shrugged and grinned. “I guess I always liked Kath myself. After her pa died, that little weasel Mo was in there like greased lightning. They used to come up regular in the summer, and each summer I hoped maybe she’d’ve got over him. But she didn’t. She still liked him. After a couple of years, I just gave up.” He gave her a humorless once-over and added, “I don’t like wasting time.”

I asked, “Were you aware that she and Mo were having difficulties in their marriage?”

“How would I know that?”

“Can you answer the question, please, Mr. Carson?”

“Nope.” He let the ambiguity of his answer stand.

“Did you know she was coming to visit?”

“I already told you I didn’t.”

I nodded. “Here’s my problem, Mr. Carson. We know for a fact that Kathleen left New York and came to Seven Hills. We know for a fact that she was coming here to see somebody. We are almost certain that that somebody picked her up from the train station in Boulder…”

He shook his head. “No, they didn’t.”

“They didn’t? How do you know that?”

“The train don’t go to Boulder. You want to come to Boulder from New York by train, you’re gonna get the train to Denver, and then a bus from Denver to Downtown Boulder Station, on 14th Street.”

There was amusement in his face. I let him finish and smiled. “Thank you. So we know almost for a certainty that somebody picked her up from Downtown Boulder Bus Station. And that was probably the last person to see her alive. Now, there are only three people that she would have told that she was coming. Her in-laws, and you. And we know it wasn’t her in-laws.”

He looked down at the ground and nodded a few times. Finally he said, “You’re right.”

“You did pick her up from the bus station?”

“Nope. You’re right that you got a problem.”

Dehan sighed. “Can you think of anybody else that she might have been in touch with, that she might have been coming to see?”

He took off his hat and scratched his head with the same hand. He seemed to think about it. “Pat was a bit wild. She made friends with the off-grid crowd. Some of them farm cannabis and hang out with Hell’s Angels. They meet at the Shack.”

“The Shack?”

“It’s a bar down on Lefthand Canyon, ’bout three or four mile east of here, before the bend. They have themselves some pretty wild parties down there. I won’t say I never been. I went once or twice with Pat. But that ain’t my scene.”

I scratched my head in an unconscious echo of his own gesture. “So would Kathleen have had friends in that crowd?”

“I can’t see it m’self, but I don’t know. And to be honest, you’re wasting my time. I got work to do and I told you everything I know.”

I nodded. “I understand. Thanks for talking to us, Mr. Carson.” I moved toward the car, then stopped and turned back. “You didn’t like Kathleen, did you?”

He lifted his chin and gave me a hard stare. “I didn’t say that. I told you I was sweet on her at one time.”

“You didn’t say it, but you didn’t have to. It’s clear you don’t give a damn that she’s dead. The five of you used to hang out when you were kids and in your teens, you say you were