Chapter 2 The Horse Trader and his business relations

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Chapter 2  My killer suspect list Auction customers-  thousands of folks here this will take time to go through all of the  auction customers. Auction Sellers - thousands of folks here too.   Other Horse Dealers, Traders, and big Customers who buy stock in volume,  this list is long also. Website viewers, social media contacts, and other related contacts. Retail customers  those who come to buy privately at the farm. Trail riders those who come to ride horses on the hack line. Animal Groups - ASPCA, PETA, and any other groups. Contacts out west- Horse Auctions, Other Sellers/vendors Trailer customers, Gate Customers, ETC. The list of contacts is daunting to say the least.  Probably over 20,000 possible suspects just in the business contacts alone.  I think I may need help with  going through all the suspects.  I may need to enlist my best friend, a computer genius, to see if there can be a easy way to track data and come up with a profile on a the killer.   I think I will call my BFF Casey who I have known for  years,  graduated from MIT and has numerous degrees in criminal justice, forensics, law, political science, computer science, Information technology, finance, and a slew of other degrees, he is super smart, a nerd really,  always on a computer in some way and form.  I need to get  a short list of the most likely people to do this horrible crime.   I call Casey from the Farm and he meets me there with his top of the line laptop.   I greet him with a grin and kiss his cheek and hug him.  He smiles shyly as he returns my hug.  I used to have a crush on him, when I was suddenly into guys in my 20's, he just was not into me or a romantic relationship, we turned into best friends over the years though.  I glance at him out of the corner of my eye and yeah, I would date him, if he asked me to go out on a date lol. He has green eyes that twinkle, dimples when he smiles, a slight crinkle at the corners of his eyes, he is tall and well built with a muscular frame, and he is a sweet heart who would do anything for me if I asked him. He has dark hair and he always looked rakishly handsome, you know like the romance novels describe that make all the women swoon,  I never pushed him to go out so not sure if it is me being shy  or him thinking I may not want to date but that is something I need to not think about since I have a murder to solve.  I sigh as I get back to working on my lists of suspects. I compile all the auction customers into a database with the help of Casey who helps me record the entries from the auction log of buyers and sellers.  I then get the security surveillance tapes from the auction and the past two weeks to see if we can spot any suspicious activities.  It is 8pm and we pack up the box and I head into the station.  I drop off the evidence bag and leave my notes in my desk at work and head home to watch the tapes.   I have a lot of tapes to watch of the farm to go through so i get myself comfortable on my couch and watch hours of tape, it hits tape 4 which ends at 5am in the morning, with nothing gained from  watching the tapes I head to bed.   My mind drifts to Casey as I fall to sleep.  ___________________________________________________________________________________________________ College  Criminal Law Class The Professor is going on about his lecture today in a monotone voice about Classical Criminology- my mind wanders to Casey, sitting next to me in class, he is typing in his laptop notes from todays lecture  with gusto as usual, his hair styled and neat and classically handsome features.  I would rather be outside riding my horse right now than listen to the professor talk about  crimes in a bygone era.  Casey looks up and then turns to me and says  in a low whisper "we still on for my riding lesson?" I sit up "yes meet me at the barn after class" he thumbs up and goes back to his typing in notes, I wonder if he noticed me  staring at him but he seems like he is oblivious  to my watchful gaze.  I think to myself I would like to teach him something...   but he just seems to want  to learn how to ride horses.   Class  finally ends and I walk out the door and head to my car,  Casey still is packing up his electronics so he can triple go over what the professor talked about in class today.  I sigh as I head to the barn,  get my horse and my lesson horse caught from the pasture and Casey pulls in the yard.  He grooms his horse as I groom mine, I taught him grooming in his first lesson and he loves to groom horses.  He was timid about  learning to ride but he is now able to tack up his own horse and mount and walk, trot and canter with  ease after taking lessons from me for weeks over the summer.  I enjoy having the extra income and his company even though he seems to tutor me while we ride if we end up just taking a pleasure trail ride, without me  critiquing his seat in return.   As  far as I knew he didnt have a girl friend, whom he was involved with, so  thought I would see if he wanted to go have a drink with me after we ride.  He says "sure a drink would be great after a long trail ride"  We were out for an hour and his watch alarm goes off- he says "oops can't go for a drink tonight I have to go home soon"   "its ok I have to study for the quiz tomorrow in Sociology " I say as nonchalantly as possible, he says "sorry I  forgot I had an engagement to go to"  I never ask him what it was for. "another time then" I nod and start to head back from our ride not sure if he backed out cause he had a girlfriend or if he just didnt want to go out with me. We untack the horses and groom them, turn them out to their paddock for the night, check water, and throw some flakes of hay over.  I say good night and head home to study I really did have a quiz to study for but would have rather gone for  a drink with him. I get a call from Ava she needs help with the farm website,  so I  head to the office after I say Good night to Casey.  I work on editing the site and adding in the new load of sale horses that are coming in from out west.   "can you come in tomorrow the load of horses will be in at 3am, need to clean them up for pictures and maybe  do a video in a day after they rest" Ava asks me while I am adding the list, "yes I have one class in morning and can be here about  noon" I reply. I wake up from my dream - wow I hadn't thought about college class or the lessons or that missed  night for drinks in over 15 years.  We never really went out for  drinks ever after that.  Well at least not just us alone.  We were always in a group of friends together and that was how we rolled from then out. __________________________________________________________________________________________ The alarm chirps in my ear - I hit snooze bar and go back to sleep.  Alarm chirps again  after  10 minutes, I hit the snooze bar,  go back to sleep, another 10 minutes I hit the snooze bar again, this time my phone rings "Hello"  I croak " Kirsten   its Ava, can you stop by the house I need some help with some stuff"   "I can stop by in about  1 hour or so" "OK, Thank you" Ava hangs up.  I go to brush my teeth and start coffee and get some clothes.  I pack the tapes up so I can review them at the station after I visit Ava. "Ava, I'm here" I call as I see the door open, she calls me to enter "I found something in my bedroom you should see it" I look and see a old newspaper clipping it shows a protest group about the slaughter house that comes to the auctions.  I see a face I cannot fail to recognize, "where was this"  I ask her. "It was sticking out of the dresser when I got the shirt I wanted from the drawer" She points to the top drawer, I see that a false bottom is there now as the drawer is almost empty. I open it more and see more clippings from the paper.  All different dates but all about the slaughter house and one group in particular.  I ask her if she sees anyone in the pictures  she says no, shaking her head side to side,   I check my notebook #2 listing the activist groups and social groups online.  There is a recent post on the group page that mentions that the auction still allows the slaughter house to purchase from the sale.   Could that be a motive to kill Colton?   The face comes back to mind long time ago of the extremist leader of the group that set fire to the barn and killed Ava's old mare.  Some evil people dont realize that an auction gives a horse or any animal a chance to get a new home.  However we dont control who can buy animals here, even if we wish to not do it there are at least some animals that either are dangerous  and some that are too far gone or injured that destroying them is the humane thing to so.  I at least look at the slaughter house as a way for the animal to be used instead of rotting in the ground.  I do cry if we had to load up a trailer for a slaughter company. or I did, but we were no longer seeing them due to regulations on the slaughter houses in general. I do think it more cruel to not give owners a way to sell quickly if they cannot take care of their horses if they cannot feed and care for their stock, more humane to send it to a slaughter house than to cruelly starve an animal.  And these protestors preach, but they do not want to purchase the animal in question either so who are they to judge.  We mainly focus on riding horses now.   I notate to check on the alibi of my least favorite person in the world Tony Flynn.  He stood in the picture his beady eyes starting blankly as if he was possessed by evil.  He had a hawk like nose also  and a pointy chin.  Just gave me the creeps - especially the first time I met him I was 16 at the time.  He was scary back then too with a  sealed record.  He was helping out at the barn at the time.  saying he loves animals so I said dont prejudge by his appearance  but the chill was still there I didnt want to be alone in the barn or office with him.   He would stare at my chest and lick his lips and smirk at me.  I would try to get away from him as fast as I could.  I would always have something in my hands that would help me defend myself so he never really tried anything with me but I was wary around him.   I look at the picture in the clipping, "I will go head to work now and will take this clipping if that is ok" "sure take all of them, they are all bad memories for me" Ava closes her eyes and a tear rolls down her face, "soon Princess and I will be joined together in heaven with Colton"   I leave with the newspaper clippings, lots of them have Tony Flynn in them.  I look closely at the others and see another face in there now why is my professor in one of them? ___________________________________________________________________________________________________ Casey meets me at the Station, I put in the remaining  security tapes and nothing really looks out of the ordinary except for one at the house the night of where the back door camera seems to fog up and the picture is nonexistent.  There is no other camera view to see leading up to that one so no help there.  The tapes are a bust nothing  that  is even circumstantial except the "fogging" up part.   We have lots of interviews with all the  business contacts with customers and dealers and vendors most of the local ones have alibis I have 10 unreachable customers and 5 local vendors with  possible grudge against Colton,  the out of state people will have to be interviewed on their return.  I send out to other police stations the possible list of suspects to them and they all clear  and have alibis. With a shorter suspect list  I feel like I am getting progress made on the case.  
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