Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #4: Books 13-16 (A Dead Cold Box Set) by Blake Banner (best ereader for academics .txt) 📕

She had started shivering. Dehan put her arm around her again and said, “Come on. We’d better get you inside. Is there anyone I can call to come and be with you?”

She shook her head. “That person was Giorgio. Just please bring him back safe and sound.”

I watched them cross the road together, picking their way with care.

The sound of a siren preceded an ambulance, the ME’s car and the crime scene van. I called dispatch and put out a BOLO on a dark blue Dodge Charger driven by two men in expensive suits, and Giorgio Gonzalez, while the fleet of vehicles parked noisily out front. Then people began to spill from their vehicles and doors slammed and echoed in the street, like a firefight.

While the Crime Scene team suited up and the gurneys were wheeled into the house, Frank approached me, hunched into his shoulders and breathing clouds of vapor.

“What is this, some kind of killing spree?”

“Could be. You got any news for me?”

“If you’d give me a chance to work instead of finding bodies all over the place…”

“These two are detectives from the precinct.”

“I heard. Look, John, I did get one of the samples done. Don’t think I’m going to make a habit of this, but I knew it was important…”

I heard a street door slam and looked back over my shoulder. Dehan, with her woolen hat pulled down on her head, was crunching her way back through the snow. As she approached, Frank started talking again. “You’re not going to be happy. I said Fernando was probably kissing a woman when he was killed…”

Dehan said, “He wasn’t? Stone, maybe Giorgio’s alibi was a fake. Sandy would do anything for that guy.” She looked back at Frank. “It was Giorgio, wasn’t it?”

He sighed. “No, listen to me, Carmen. Yes, Fernando was kissing a man. In fact, he was getting a love bite from a man. But the man was …”

He hesitated. I supplied the words. “The man was Cyril Browne.”

He nodded. “Yes. Almost certainly. Whoever raped and killed Sue Benedict, also killed Fernando Martinez.”

Dehan turned and walked away, staring around her like she’d lost her mind and was trying to find it. Then she came back and stared at Frank. “What? Cyril Browne is dead! He jumped into the foundations of the damned 2nd Street Casino Hotel! He was seen doing it!”

Frank shrugged. “Then it’s his identical twin. I don’t know what to tell you, Carmen. The sample was not contaminated. I double checked. I also checked to see if Fernando was gay.”

“What? How?”

“There are ways. You examine the…”

“Yeah, OK, I get it. And?”

“He was either gay or bisexual. He had certainly had anal sex recently.”

“So you are telling me that Cyril Browne raped and murdered Sue Benedict, and then had sex with and killed Fernando Martinez.”

“Or somebody with an identical DNA profile. That is certainly what the forensic evidence indicates. I had better get inside and look at these bodies.”

He walked away and climbed the steps toward the door. Dehan stared me in the face. She was too shocked to be mad. “And you knew.” I nodded. She shook her head, then shrugged, screwing up her eyes. “How?”

“We have a much more immediate problem, Dehan. Where is Giorgio?”

“Two men in dark suits and a Dodge Charger took him.”

“Somebody who was waiting for us to leave.”

“And somebody who is skilled and experienced with a gun…”

“Who is very cold and very ruthless. Who does that suggest to you?”

She puffed out her cheeks and blew a long stream of dense vapor out into the dark. “Well, not Cyril Browne, for a start!” She sighed again and gathered her thoughts. “OK, a Dodge Charger, two men in suits, efficient killers… sure! It could be the Mob. Tony.”

“For what purpose?”

“We don’t know. That’s just the thing, Stone. We don’t know. We don’t know a goddamn thing.”

“Keep it together, Dehan.”

“Is this even the same case? Is Cyril dead? He has a twin now?” She stretched out her arm toward California. “Not in the photos! Not in the articles! Not according to Father Cohen! What is he? A long lost twin come back from the goddamn Amazon? What? Are we in Dynasty land now? In some damn Mexican soap?”

She thrust her hands in her pockets and stood bending her knees and bouncing, staring across the road. After a while, she said, “Sorry.”

“Forget it. I understand.”

Another siren sounded in the freezing night and a patrol car turned in from Patterson Avenue and pulled up. The inspector climbed out and approached, clapping his gloved hands. Before he could speak, I said, “Clay and Santos are both dead. Shot in the head with a 9mm. Dehan will fill you in, sir. I need to make a phone call.”

I took a walk down the road and phoned my friend Bernie at the Bureau.

“Stone. How’s married life? You still owe me those beers. I have the tally right here. It stands at three thousand, five hundred and sixty four.”

“Make it sixty five. I need an urgent favor. I could go through the PD, but you guys are faster because you cheat.”

“That’s true. It’s the only way to get things done.”

I told him what I wanted, he told me he’d call me back in five minutes and hung up. I was on the corner of Taylor and Patterson, looking west, down the dark, snowing tunnel of the street, with the ineffectual light of the streetlamps obscured by the twisted black branches of the plane trees. At the end of the tunnel, there was only more darkness, but I knew it was Soundview Park, and the freezing, inky Bronx river.

I made my way back toward