Chapter 47 Daisy Ann

As Daisy Ann's plane began its descent into Gunnison, the sun was rising over a sea of wildflowers blanketing the mountains in vibrant shades of orange, yellow, blue, and purple. It was a glorious sight and one that filled her with nostalgia. She and her parents had never missed the annual wildflower festival held in July, and Daisy Ann had collected the official posters of every one of them. She turned from the window to face Mason seated next to her.

"I told myself I'd never come back here. I'm glad you're with me. Thank you for coming," she said.

He put his hand over hers and gently squeezed. "Of course. I wouldn't have let you come alone."

The plane touched down with a bump and eased along the runway to a stop. When she and Mason disembarked, Brian came walking toward them.

"Hi, Daisy Ann, Mason," he said, shaking Mason's hand. "Can I get your bags?"

"No bags. Just a small carry-on. I've got it," Mason said.

They walked to the waiting Jeep, and Daisy Ann looked at her watch. "We're meeting with the sheriff in half an hour, so maybe we should go right into town and grab a coffee there."

"You don't want to go to the house first? Brenda's keeping some homemade cinnamon muffins warm for you," Brian said.

"Maybe later." Already filled with disquiet about what she was about to discover, Daisy Ann couldn't face walking into that house right now. She was of a mind to get right back on the plane to Dallas after their meeting with the sheriff. "Let's just go to the Coffee Company drive-through. We can park in front of the building and drink our coffees in the car till it's time to go in."

When Brian parked in front of the Public Safety Center where the Gunnison County Sheriff's Office was housed, they still had twenty minutes to wait.

"How're things?" Mason asked Brian as they sat in the car.

"Good, good," he said, and proceeded to fill the time with small talk about the goings-on.

Daisy Ann half listened, too distracted to pay much attention to what the two men were saying. She was spending the time looking from her watch to the building and back again.

"It's time," she said, placing the half-full coffee cup in the holder and getting out of the car.

"You don't have to wait, Brian. We'll call you when we're done," Mason said.

"Nah, I'll wait. It's no problem."

Mason nodded at Brian and followed Daisy Ann into the building.

"Mrs. Briscoe?" A thickset man with a balding head came toward them and extended his hand. "I'm Sheriff Campbell."

"Hello." They shook, and she put a hand on Mason's back. "This is my husband, Mason Briscoe."

"Nice to meet you both. Why don't we go into my office." He led them down the hall.

Once they were seated, he began. "First, let me say again how sorry we all were about what happened to your father. Jake Crawford was a fine man, and people here were saddened by such a tragic accident." He stopped and opened a file on his desk. "Some evidence has come into our possession, however, that casts doubt on whether his death was accidental."

Daisy Ann's heart was beating so hard it felt like a hammer was thudding against her chest. "What kind of evidence?" she asked, leaning forward in her chair in an attempt to see what was in the folder.

"A young man has come forward with an SDXC card he found among his late father's belongings. The card is from a game cam that was on your father's property. It was recording on the day of the shooting."

"I don't understand." Daisy Ann knew that all her father's game cameras for tracking animal movement had been collected and searched by investigators at the time. None of the cameras had been turned on to record that day. "Are you saying the investigators missed one of my father's cameras?"

"It wasn't your father's. It was the camera of a poacher, Levi Jones. Either the camera was very well hidden, or Levi removed it before the Bureau of Investigation came and took your father's cameras. I believe he retrieved the camera after he heard about the shooting because he didn't want us to find it. We don't take kindly to poachers or them setting up game cams on other people's property. That's probably why he never turned the card over to us. Anyway, his son came across the card when he was sorting through his father's things. He was curious to see what was on it, and after he viewed the video, he brought it to us."

"What's on it? There must be something on it or you wouldn't be talking to me. I want to see it," she said.

He put his hand up. "It's very disturbing, but—"

Daisy Ann interrupted him. "I want to see it."

"Are you sure?" Mason said to her.

"Yes. Show me."

The sheriff plugged the card reader into his computer and turned it so that all three of them could view the screen, then pressed play.

Daisy Ann sat transfixed, her eyes filling as the video showed her father coming into view. Amber was walking next to him. The two of them stopped and Amber said something to Jake. He nodded and began walking alone. The time stamp at this point was 6:45:03. Amber walked to a clump of sage and stopped, watching Jake as he walked away from her. At 6:46:11 she picked up the muzzle loader and brought it to her shoulder. The gun bucked and a cloud of smoke erupted from the end of the barrel. At 6:46:14 Jake's body dropped to the ground.

Daisy Ann's chest constricted, her body shaking as she watched her father fall. "Stop the tape," she sobbed.

Mason put his arm around her, and she rested her head on his shoulder, weeping.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Briscoe. I know this is extremely difficult to see. I'll tell you the rest."

She raised her head and looked at him, wiping her eyes. "No. I need to see it to the end."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

He started the video again and they watched Amber lower the gun and stand still for a long five minutes, then walk slowly to Jake's body. She looked down at him, then rolled his body over onto its back, continuing to stand next to him. She took a cell phone from her pocket but put it right back, making no attempt to place a call. Then turning, she began to slowly walk away until she was out of the frame, and the video, detecting no movement, ended. At this point the time stamp read 7:01:34.

The sheriff closed his computer. "There is a fifteen-minute interval between the time of the shot and her leaving the scene. The call to the police came in at 7:40 a.m., almost an hour later. She took her sweet old time getting to the house to call for help. If this tape isn't proof enough that she shot him on purpose, the fact that she waited an hour to call it in should convince any jury of her guilt."

"I knew it," Daisy Ann said. "I knew that bitch killed him, and this proves it."

"We've issued a warrant for her arrest. Any jury looking at that video is going to hand back a verdict of first-degree murder."

"She's in Dallas. Staying at Rosewood Mansion." Daisy Ann stood. "Thank you, Sheriff, for seeing that justice will be served."

"You'll let us know if there's anything we can do to help," Mason said, extending his hand.

"I sure will. We've already alerted the FBI since she's no longer in Colorado."

Mason and Daisy Ann walked hand in hand from the building. Before they reached the car she said, "I think I'd like to go straight back to the airport."

"I understand," Mason said.

It was just a five-minute drive and when they got there, Daisy Ann asked Brian to apologize to Brenda for her. "Please tell her I'll call her when I get home." She didn't have the energy right now to divulge all that they'd learned.

An hour later they were in the air on their way back to Dallas. Daisy Ann put her seat back and closed her eyes, replaying the video in her head. Her father must have been so lonely, so longing for someone to love him. She'd assumed that it was enough that he had her and his grandsons, and after all, he was sixty-five and past the romance stage. How foolish she'd been to believe that the desire for someone to love and love you back ended at a certain age. It made her sad to think that her father wanted that so badly that he'd been taken in by a woman like Amber, a woman who'd lied to him and used him. How many lonely people did that happen to, she wondered, good people who just wanted to be loved. There was a special place in hell for the ones, like Amber, who took advantage of them. And Daisy Ann was going to make sure that Amber ended up in that very special place. But right now, her tears were for a good man who didn't deserve to die the way he did.