Page 79 of What She Saw

“What did the second woman look like?”

“She seemed young.”

“How young?” He’d been at this long enough to realize Jim had seen more than he wanted to let on.

“If she said she was eighteen, I’d want to see her ID.”

“Blond, brunette, redhead?”

“Dark hair. Kind of wild and curly.”

“Did the two women appear to know each other?”

“I don’t think they did. I think the younger one offered Blue Guitar Girl a blunt. They went deeper into the woods.”

“Did anyone follow them?”

“I don’t know.”

Jim’s testimony wouldn’t stand up in a court of law. Any good defense attorney would tear him apart. “Because you were inebriated?”

“That’s right.”

“Who did you go to the festival with?”

“I have a buddy. His name is Bill. He was there. He can tell you I didn’t do anything but smoke weed.”

“Bill got a last name?”

“Parsons.” He rattled off Bill’s number.

Taggart scribbled it in a small notebook he always carried.

“Who else did you notice in the woods?”

A sigh leaked through pursed lips. “It was pretty busy.”

“But you had to have noticed a few people.”

“The concert promoter was there.”

“How do you know this person was the festival promoter?”

“He told everyone. He was a real friendly guy. Smoked some weed. I heard him say that this was his party. He was chatting up Blue Guitar Girl.”

“Was his name Rafe Colton?”

“I didn’t catch his last name. Light-brown hair. He looks like that singer, Kurt Cobain, if he wasn’t dead now.”

The description fit Colton. “Did he say why he was in the woods and not near the stage?”

“We all thought he was going to bust us for poaching on the festival. None of us had paid for a ticket. But he didn’t care about us.”

“You snuck in via the fire road, he doesn’t get ticket money, and he doesn’t care?” When Jim hesitated, Taggart shook his head. “I don’t care about a bunch of guys sneaking into a concert. Or smoking weed.”

“He didn’t care. He said he needed a break. The rain was beating us all down. He did a couple of lines of coke.”

“Did Colton follow Blue Guitar Girl?”