What She Saw - 40

CJ Taggart

2 Weeks After

Once Taggart presented the evidence he’d found in the barn to the judge, the wheels turned faster. The state forensic lab was called, and within a couple of hours, they’d dispatched a team to Colton’s house. The team had been on-site when Colton pulled into his driveway.

He parked behind a van and rose out of his car. He was confused by the collection of police vehicles, but he made no effort to flee.

Taggart had arrested hundreds, maybe thousands of people during his career. And he’d seen every kind of reaction. Some panicked and ran. And others, like Colton, acted as if he’d made a huge mistake.

Taggart could already write Colton’s defense team’s argument. They’d insist that their client was innocent. Sure, Colton had been a poor festival manager, but he had no ill intent. He hadn’t hurt anyone. They’d also claim Taggart had planted the trinkets.

“Mr. Colton,” Taggart said.

“What’s going on, Sheriff?” Colton’s grin had faded.

“Rafe Colton, you have the right to remain silent.” He rattled off the Miranda rights as he reached for his cuffs.

“I’m not sure what’s going on here.” Colton looked as if he were waiting for the punch line of a joke. “But someone has made a big mistake.”

“No mistake.” The handcuffs rattled in Taggart’s hand. His body braced as he anticipated resistance. The nicest guys could turn violent when faced with cuffs locking around their wrists. As Paxton approached, his hand on his weapon, Taggart reached for Colton’s wrist. He clinked the first cuff and secured the second behind Colton’s back.

“This is a fucking setup,” Colton shouted.

Taggart tightened the cuffs. “We’ll talk about that at the station.”

“Why can’t we talk about this here?”

Taggart wanted him in the interview room. He wanted to control the situation.

“Does this have to do with those missing women?” Colton demanded. “I’ve been out here searching with the volunteers in the woods. I want them found more than anyone.”

Taggart moved Colton toward his cruiser.

Colton glanced toward the barn. The muscles in his body tightened and he braced his feet. The shock of the moment had worn off, and he was grasping what had happened. “You’ve made a mistake, man.”

“We’ll see,” Taggart said.

“Why do you think it’s me?” The veins in his neck bulged as he strained to look back at Taggart. “I’m not your guy!”

Taggart refused to engage.

“Did you find the girls?” Colton demanded. “Has someone found the bodies?”

Taggart didn’t respond.

“You can’t prove anything without bodies.” Colton’s expression was bright with worry. “You need bodies to prove there’s even been a death.”

Taggart shoved him toward the police car. The fucker was guilty. But Colton was right—without the bodies, proving the case would be difficult. Countless volunteers had been searching for over a week around the Nelson farm. But there’d been no sign of the missing women. Taggart didn’t need bodies to know the women were dead. The mementos proved the connection between the missing women and Colton, but juries liked to have a corpse.

Taggart opened his vehicle’s back door. Colton stiffened. “Do not fuck with me.” Tension radiated through the promoter’s lean, muscular body. “You’re making a mistake, man. I never hurt anyone.”

Taggart shoved him into the back seat and slammed the door. Colton stared out the passenger window at Taggart. Brown eyes had hardened. All traces of humor were gone.

“He doesn’t act like a killer,” Deputy Paxton said.

“Did you expect a confession?” Taggart asked.

“He looked baffled.”

“Did he? Confusion can be read multiple ways. My guess is Colton wasn’t expecting us. He’s doing mental gymnastics. He is wondering about what we found.”

Paxton dropped his voice. “Are you sure about this?”

“I sure as hell am.”

“Do you think he’ll tell us where the bodies are?”

“He has every reason not to.”

The Dawson police station was too small for a legitimate interview room, so Taggart had Colton brought from his cell to the conference room. The department didn’t have a video camera, so he’d visited the local appliance store. When he’d explained why he needed the camera, the store owner had been happy to lend it to him. The Sony Handycam now sat on the credenza. A glowing red light indicated it was recording.

Colton still wore the clothes he’d been wearing that morning. Dark circles ringed under his eyes and the smirk was long gone. “What the hell is going on? You can’t keep me without filing charges.”

“I can hold you for twenty-four hours without charges.” Taggart pulled out a chair and angled it toward Colton. He tossed a file on the table. “But I bet you know the legal system pretty well, don’t you?”

“This is bullshit.”

“You’ve been arrested before.”

Colton sat back. “We both know you know that.”

Taggart opened the file and glanced at Cassidy Rogers’s face. “Tell me about Cassidy.”

“Is she behind all this? That bitch has been gunning for me for a couple of years.”

The veneer slipped for a moment before Colton caught himself and sat back. “What do you want to know? We went out a few times, and, yes, we had sex.”

“You never tried to strangle her?”

He leaned forward. His hands strained against the cuffs. “The sex was always rough between us. She liked it. She asked for it.”

“She filed assault charges against you.”

“It got kinky between us that last time. In the morning, her roommate showed up unannounced. I’m there in my underwear drinking coffee with Cassidy.”

“That so?” He didn’t believe a word.

“Yeah.” Colton looked a little outraged at the challenge. “The roommate saw Cassidy’s bruises and freaked out. Cassidy was ashamed that her roommate got a glimpse of her darker side. They kicked me out. Next thing I know, the cops are arresting me. And those charges were never proven. Cassidy dropped them.”

There had been a lack of evidence. Colton’s lawyer had brought forward several men who testified that Cassidy liked rough sex. It became a case of he said / she said.

Taggart worried this case would follow the same route. He had trinkets, not bodies. And any good lawyer would suggest Taggart had planted them. He pulled Patty’s picture out of his file. “Tell me about her.”

“Patty? I didn’t know her beyond the festival.”

“You met her before, right?”

“I saw her at the diner for a few seconds. I was hanging up posters for the festival.”

“Did you suggest the Depot have a booth there?”

“That was Buddy’s idea. He saw an opportunity to sell a ton of burgers. And he did.”

“Patty did the work at the festival. Buddy showed up at about ten p.m. to restock the booth, but he got stuck working the tent when she vanished.”

“I never saw him.”

“Did you talk to Patty at the festival? Did you chat her up?”

“Sure. She was cute. Fun. Good sense of humor. I backed off when I realized she had a kid. I don’t do chicks with kids. Don’t want the complications.”

“When’s the last time you saw Patty?”

Colton leaned forward. His eyes were strained with the first hints of panic. “I didn’t kill Patty.”

“I didn’t say you did.”

“She’s one of the missing girls, right?”

“When is the last time you saw Patty?”

“I don’t know. At the burger stand. The event was bigger than I’d imagined. I was putting out fires.”

“What kind of fires?”

“Band stuff. Equipment failures. Power surges. A drunk guitarist. It’s standard for an event like that.”

“You’ve done many similar events?”

“Yeah. Across the state. Not as big but similar.”

There’d been chaos at his other events, but no missing girls had been reported.

“I can see how a guy would be attracted to Patty. She’s a looker,” Taggart said. “If I were a younger man, I’d go after someone like her.”

Colton’s voice was gravel. “Like I said, I didn’t have time for her.”

“Because of the band dramas and the festival.”

“Yeah. That kind of event isn’t easy to pull off.”

“And you think you did a good job with the festival?”

“Not my finest work. It got out of hand. I admit that. But I didn’t hurt anyone.”

“I talked to Patty’s mother today.” Sometimes painting a victim as a real person worked in interviews like this. “Patty’s baby won’t stop crying. She wants her mother.”

His face remained stoic. “Man, what do you want from me? I don’t know what happened to Patty. And I sure wanted nothing to do with that kid.”

“Where are they?” Taggart asked. “Where are the girls?”

“You don’t know?” Confusion turned to amusement. “You keep acting like you got all the cards.”

“I have a lot of cards.”

Colton sat back, his grin returning. “But you don’t have the bodies. Which means you don’t have shit.”