Read Online Cold Lake by Jeff Carson - Free Book Online Page A

few—”
    “Your dad already did that a long time ago! Why don’t you go read his interview notes or whatever.” He shook his head. “My mom was horrified to hear about this on the news. So was I. Do you know how long last night was for us?”
    Wolf wrung his ball cap in his hands and looked over at Rachette. “Let’s go.”
     
     
    “Sheriff, it’s been twenty five minutes.” Rachette looked at his watch and then shoved his hand back in his jacket pocket and shivered. “Should we maybe, possibly, go review your father’s report? In the warmth of the station?”
    Wolf stared at the front door of the Pollard’s trailer, the drizzle beading and dripping off the front of his ball cap. He ignored Rachette for the fifth time.
    Rachette exhaled and hunkered under his coat collar. “Okay. Okay.”
    The aluminum knob rattled and the door squeaked open. Ken Pollard stood with a resigned look, an unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth. He opened an umbrella and gave it to his mother, who materialized in the doorway next to him with her own cigarette.
    Silently they stepped down to the front lawn.
    “I thought he left us at first.” Ken Pollard flicked open a well-used Zippo lighter and lit his mother’s cigarette and then his own. He snapped it closed and took a deep drag. “Like, ran away. When they couldn’t find his truck, it was like he’d just ditched out on us.” Ken looked into the distance. His lip sneered upward and then he shook his head, returning to the present moment. “At least I was hopin’ that’s what happened. I was hopin’ this whole time he was sittin’ pretty in California somewhere. I was hopin’ that blood on the payphone was a red herring, or whatever you call it.”
    Wendy Pollard exhaled her own drag and chewed her thumbnail in silence.
    The light drizzle swept past them.
    “Can you describe exactly what happened that last night you saw Nick, Mrs. Pollard?” Wolf asked.
    She looked up and nodded with resignation. “It’s just like I told your father, it was Parker Grey, that girl’s father. He did it. The crazy asshole.” She took a drag with a shaking hand.
    “What did Nick say he was going to do that night?” Wolf asked.
    Mrs. Pollard looked at Wolf with a blank stare. “He said he was going up to Cold Lake … he was going to meet Kimber. He’d been talking about Kimber all week, Kimber this, Kimber that. I told him to bring her over, said I wanted to meet her. He said he was going to and to get off his back.” She fought off another wave of emotion with a drag of cigarette. “Then he got all dolled up, put on some cologne, took his truck and left. Never came back.”
    “You said he was going to meet her?” Rachette asked. “So, he was meeting her in town? And then they were going to go up to the lake?”
    She frowned. “No … I don’t know. I don’t remember. I think he was just going up to her place. Her house. To watch the fireworks they have up at the marina every year. He said they had a boat they were going to go on.”
    “What about his friends?” Wolf asked. “Did he say he was going to be with them?”
    Ken grunted. “His friends. Remember those pieces of work? I went and talked to them when they couldn’t find him. They said they weren’t with Nick, and they all heard the same thing from him—that he was going up to Cold Lake to see Kimber Grey.”
    “Who were his friends you talked to?” Wolf asked.
    “Luke Hannigan. Brad Skelty. Called him Skelter back then. Real pieces of shit. Druggies. I checked in on their stories. Made sure they didn’t just sell off my bro’s truck and buy drugs with the money or something.”
    Wolf jotted the names on his notepad. He vaguely remembered the two kids as boys, but knew them well enough now that they were men. They hadn’t cleaned up at all since. Brad Skelty had two DUIs, and when the pot laws of Colorado took effect, Hannigan was one of the first to get a grow license in town, and his sudden,