Side Story #1 - Colt - Page 24

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Colt let the reaper go back to observing Janet. She seemed like their best lead so far.

He watched Brick while he tried to reassess the case overall one more time. He'd learned several new things last night. It was important to constantly refresh his understanding of the situation, lest an important detail might slip through the cracks of the investigation.

The biggest piece of information was probably the fact that those two thugs had been looking for some money that had apparently been stolen from the Muett family.

That changed things significantly. Money was one of the classic motivations for murder, so it was almost assuredly what the killer had been after when they took Rex's life.

...Right?

Well.

Wait a minute here.

Did that actually make sense? Colt recalled the method the killer had used. Judging from the crime scene, the killer had gotten to Rex in his sleep, then moved him to the living room, and finally strung him up to make it look like he'd hanged himself.

Presumably, if the killer had worked for the Muett family, they would've been able to torture the location of the money out of him before stringing him up. So then why did they go after Janet?

Granted, the two who attacked her hadn't exactly been rocket scientists. Perhaps their actions could just be chalked up to blanket stupidity. But at the very least, they should've known that their family had gotten what they wanted out of Rex.

Unless, of course, they hadn't. But that seemed unlikely. If the money was so important, they wouldn't have killed him until they had it in their hands. They would've just taken him captive and stuck him in a hole somewhere. Made him disappear. And if they were concerned about Rex's status as a sheriff, then they wouldn't have risked attacking him in his home in the first place.

Then again, stupidity really was a wild card. He didn't want to overestimate this Muett family. Even if they were organized, they could still be full of idiots like those two from last night. Sure, the M.O. had implied a level of intelligence from the killer, but it could also be a part of human nature to be smart in some ways and dumb in others.

He supposed he shouldn't jump to too many conclusions just yet. That was how innocent people ended up taking the heat for these types of things, after all.

He could still listen to his gut, though, and right now, his gut was telling him that... maybe the Muett family hadn't been the ones to actually kill Rex. It was clear enough, at least, that those two dumbasses from last night had been opportunists who were trying to impress their boss. So it logically followed, then, that the Muett family had not expected Rex's death.

Hmm.

Shit.

Now that he was thinking about it, Colt wondered if he hadn't actually done the Muett family a big favor. Since Janet hadn't called the police as he'd expected her to, the capital cops now had less reason to suspect the Muetts in Rex's death. If Colt hadn't intervened, then that incident would've been huge news and attracted tons of attention to Orden. He was glad to avoid that, too, of course, but it also made things easier for the Muetts to continue operations, didn't it?

Bah.

Fuckin' Janet. What the hell was she thinking? How was she involved in this whole mess, exactly?

Colt eyed Brick another time. He supposed he could take the dog back to her and use him as an excuse to talk to her, maybe try to pump her for some more information, but that was probably a waste of a time, right now. He'd already been through her phone, and Boh was watching her every move.

Plus... to be honest, he didn't really want to give Brick back to her yet. The dog could probably still shed some light on this investigation, Colt thought. Maybe figuring out the exact nature of Brick's injuries would tell him something.

He was no vet, though. He had some basic first aid experience, but he doubted that would be enough. Colt needed an expert's opinion.

And that bastard dog wasn't going to move, was he?

Well... there was one solution that Colt could think of. He could bring the expert to Brick.

Not the most appealing idea, since it meant bringing someone back to his cabin, and he would've preferred if no one in the entire fucking universe ever visited this place, but it might've just been the best option, at the moment.

Would he even be able to find a vet, though? Much less, one who would accompany him back to his creepy little cabin in the woods? They'd probably think he was bringing them back here to murder them or some shit. Not to mention, he had no idea where to even find a vet. Without easy internet access, he couldn't look that information up unless he went to the library.

He shut his eyes and rubbed his forehead.

He was making another trip to the library today, wasn't he?

Fine.

He got himself and the twins ready. He didn't mind leaving Brick here, but he wasn't about to leave the kids alone with him, too.

For good measure, he tried coaxing Brick over to the car, but as expected, it didn't work. The only time the bastard would move was when Colt got too close, at which point, Brick would start growling at him and crawling away.

Maybe if Boh were here to enhance his strength, Colt wouldn't have minded wrestling with Brick and throwing him in the car like a sack of potatoes, but the reaper was doing something more important. Too bad. Fun as that might've been, Colt figured it was probably for the best that he didn't manhandle a wounded animal.

"I'll be back soon," Colt told the dog. "Try not to piss or shit on anything in here while I'm gone."

Brick was just staring at him, as usual.

Colt exited with the kids and locked the cabin door behind him. He got in the car and made his way into town again. The benefit of a small town meant that it only took a few minutes to get to the library.

Old Darla Burns at the reception desk again looked shocked to see him--perhaps even more so than the last time. She gave him another chance to get a library card, but he still refused her.

If these library trips kept being this frequent, though, then perhaps he should consider it.

Before he could make his way over to the computer section, Colt was a bit surprised himself when he noticed that he was not the only visitor that the library had this time. And even more strangely, it was a young person--and one he recognized, no less.

"Susan?" Colt blurted.

Susan Rock looked up at him from the table she was sitting at. The open textbook in front of her, as well as the paper she'd been writing on, gave Colt some idea of what she was up to. "Oh, hey," she said. "You again."

"Me again."

"What brings you here?" she asked.

Hmm, maybe she could help him, actually. "Hey, does Orden have a veterinarian?"

She blinked dully at him. "Uh. I don't know. I'm sure Lagoroc does, though. Why're you asking me?"

Colt set the kids down in the chair across from her, though he didn't sit down himself. "I've got an injured dog at my cabin," he told her. "He doesn't belong to me, though. He just showed up out of the blue, and now I'm trying to figure out what to do with him."

Her head reared back a little. "Oh. Uh. Wow."

"He's pretty huge," said Colt. "And kind of an asshole. Won't let me come near him. So taking him anywhere is out of the question, I think."

She scratched her cheek absently. "You could call animal control," she said.

Colt gave her a look. "He's an asshole, but he's not that much of an asshole."

"What, you think they'll put him down?"

He couldn't exactly explain that he was hoping to get more information out of him regarding a murder investigation. So he shrugged, instead. "I don't know. I'm not worried he'll attack me. Right now, I just want someone to check him out."

Susan returned a shrug of her own. "Well, I'm more of a cat person. So... good luck with that."

"Hmph, yeah, thanks." Before picking the kids back up and walking away, however, he just had to ask her something. "What're you doin' here all by yourself, anyway?"

She held up her textbook so that he could read the title on the front. Modern Sniderian History, it said.

"Looks riveting," he said.

"Oh yeah. I can barely contain my excitement."

Still, Colt found it odd that she was doing her homework here and not at home. The nosier part of him wanted to inquire further, but he held it back. That same part had been winning all too frequently as of late.

He started gathering the kids up.

"Actually..." When that was all Susan said, Colt looked at her again, and she seemed to grow uncertain.

"What?" he asked.

"I, uh... now that I'm thinking about it, I do know of an animal shelter in town."

"Hmm. That might work. I don't really want to leave him with a bunch of strays, though."

"You're planning on taking care of this random dog?"

It was more complicated than that, but he couldn't say so. "Thinkin' about it."

Susan smirked at him a little and said nothing.

That look kind of irritated him. "Where's this shelter?"

"Oh. Uh... by that big old ship. You know the one, right?"

"The Ringhorn."

"Is that what it's called? Yeah, sure, that one."

Doubt crept into Colt's expression, and he eyed her textbook. "Are you actually retaining anything that you read in that thing?"

Susan shrugged again. "What difference does it make?"

He shook his head. "Thanks for the info. I'll give the place a look."

"Oh, and, uh, fair warning: that animal shelter has a bit of a reputation. That's probably the only reason I know about it, actually."

"What kind of reputation?"

"Well, it's run by this one lady. She's kind of a nutjob. Super religious and all that."

Colt hesitated. Now why did that sound familiar?

"I mean, I don't know anything about her personally," Susan added. "I just know people avoid her. So they kind of avoid her weird little shelter, too."

"Was there some kind of incident at this shelter?" asked Colt.

"Uh. I don't think so. Why?"

"So the reason for its bad reputation is just because people don't like the woman who runs it, then?"

"Well, uh... I guess so. I don't know that much about it. Just thought you should be careful. Or whatever."

He wondered just how much she did know about Alice Ridgemont. He remembered from his last conversation with Susan that she'd lost one of her friends in the blaze that Alice was being blamed for by the rest of the town. But given Susan's rather laid-back disposition, perhaps she wasn't aware of that last part.

Either way, he supposed it didn't matter to him.

He thanked her one more time and left the library for the animal shelter. Indeed, just as Susan had said, he found it down the street from the MMS Ringhorn. Pretty handy landmark.

He almost missed the place, though. It was small and tucked between a dentist's office and a shoe store, all attached to one long building. The signage it boasted was on the front door, and the windows were rather murky, looking like they could do with a good washing or three.

And it was fucking closed.

He knocked on the door, but there was no answer. Did Alice really run this place? Somehow, he doubted that it was a different religious nutjob with a bad reputation.

Well, if she wasn't here, then she was probably at the church. He got back in his car and headed over there next.