Experiment in Terror (Koehler Brothers Book 1) Read Free

with me, and I’ll head on over to the meeting place where the homeless men are after you give me directions on how to get there.”
    They left, and Carl soon pointed to the bike path running along the side of the city building.
    “Turn to your left on the path. It’ll take you through a tunnel under Broadway Avenue, through a small park, and through another narrow tunnel under Arapaho Street. When you come up out of the second tunnel, you’ll see a stone bench and a water fountain off to the left. That’s the homeless men’s meeting place when they come down from the shelter in the morning. But they won’t be there until shortly after eight.”
    Matt nodded his understanding “I’ll be in touch,” he told him, grabbing his sleeping bag off the passenger seat.
    “Good luck,” the chief said. .
    Matt moved slowly down the path, looking for a place to stow his sleeping bag. He didn’t want to carry it around with him all day, but he didn’t want it found by some city maintenance personnel and tossed into the trash. His cousin had given him a beat-up watch to wear in place of his Rolex. He glanced at it now, curious as to when he could expect the group of homeless men to show up.
    The chief had told him the men had to be out of the shelter by eight so he figured he had more than an hour to wait. He’d use the time to become familiar with the bike path. He inhaled the crisp September air. After sticking his sleeping bag behind the stone bench, he headed back the way he had come. The library was a long building built over Boulder Creek. When he saw the front doors on the north end of the library, the paved trail veered off to the left and ran alongside the creek.
    Yellow tape stretched across the path and down the bank to the water. He didn’t cross it, but studied the area from outside the tape. He decided to walk around the library and examine the path from the other side.
    He strolled over to Canyon Street and up to the intersection where he turned left and then back to the path. He went as far down the path beside the library as he could before he ran into another strip of yellow tape.
    Matt could see why a killer might choose this area. The side of the path opposite the creek was bordered by a mass of heavy bushes along one wall of the library. All three bodies had been found between the path and the creek. Not in the bushes. If he had raped and killed them in the bushes, why would he have drug their bodies into the open where they would be easily spotted?
    Had the killer attacked them in this area as they went to the library from some rental house on the hill, or had he brought the bodies here afterward? That didn’t seem logical. A dead body would be too heavy to carry. But why hadn’t anyone heard them screaming? Did the killer somehow cover their mouths so no one would hear them? Or were they unconscious?
    There were so many unanswered questions. He stood there for a few more minutes in an attempt to get his mind into the head of the killer. When he glanced at his watch a while later, he was surprised at how much time had elapsed. After the library opened, he needed to use the pay phone inside and call the police chief.
    Heller must not realize the area where the last body had been found was still cordoned off. If the killer was going to attack his next victim in the same area, the yellow tape needed to be removed. Wait. Instead of permitting another university student to be attacked, why couldn’t they use a police decoy?
    Another reason to call the chief. If they didn’t have a woman available here in Boulder, he knew of one in Denver who would be happy to work with him on this case. Satisfied with that plan, he headed for the stone bench where he hoped to meet up with the group of homeless men.

Chapter 2
    Amanda Barton glanced at her watch. If she was going to bike to her store, Creations For You, on the Pearl Street Mall in downtown Boulder, she had better get in gear.
    She loved the Mall with its