Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #2: Books 5-8 (A Dead Cold Box Set) by Blake Banner (types of ebook readers txt) 📕

Mel turned her large, wet eyes on me, and her twisted wet mouth. “He couldn’t because he loved her. Please, I’m begging you, stop attacking my family…”

I ignored her and went on. “I’m guessing you’d spent a few nights with Anne-Marie at Mel’s place already. She’d been staying there since she had split up with Isaac. And, even though you were unemployed, and Kath was the one who had to get up for work, you used the excuse that little Sinead would not let you sleep so you could go there and spend the night with your mistress.

“But that night was different. That night you stayed home. What did you do? Pretend you were hoping for a reconciliation? Or were you just on some kind of power trip?” I pointed at the machete. “The fact that you kept that, as a trophy, with her blood on it, that tells me it was probably a power trip. I think you bludgeoned her, raped her while she was half conscious, strangled her, and then took her downstairs to your car. I think you dumped her in the trunk and you drove her all the way to Lefthand Canyon.”

He said, “That’s ridiculous…” but his voice faltered as he said it.

“One of the things that confused me right from the start was, if she was going to Seven Hills, how the hell did she wind up ten miles away, back of beyond in that canyon? We assumed somebody must have picked her up from the bus station and taken her there. But then we found she had never even gone there, never bought a ticket, never caught the train.

“But you, you knew all about Lefthand Canyon, you knew all about its reputation as a place where people dumped bodies, and they could go for years without ever being found.” I paused and shook my head. “And if you hadn’t been so arrogant and lazy, you might have got away with it. But instead of burying her, you were on some kind of power trip, weren’t you? You knew about El Coyote’s reputation and you thought you’d be smart. So when you dumped her, you cut off her head and left her half buried to be found and cast suspicion on Coy. It was a stupid move.”

Mel had collapsed, convulsing and sobbing, repeating over and over that she did not believe it. She refused to believe it. Mo was staring into my face. I held his eye for a long moment. I knew he was ready. I said, “That is what happened, isn’t it, Mo?”

He nodded. “Yes. But I ain’t gonna say another word till I have a lawyer.”

Twenty Four

Mel and Anne-Marie were staring at Mo in horror. They were like odd mirrors of each other, their mouths sagging open, their eyes round and wide, and an odd kind of dumb stupidity about their expressions.

Mel said, “Mo, no…”

And Anne-Marie echoed, “How could you…?”

I looked over at Dehan. She was frowning, like she was wondering if I was going to read him his rights, or if I wanted her to do it. I gave her an imperceptible shake of my head.

“I haven’t arrested you yet, Mo. We’ll get you a lawyer in due course.” I smiled. “No doubt you can get a pretty smart one of your own.” I thought for a moment. “You know, there were a lot of things that gave me a headache about this case. But one of the biggest  was the way some of the things you did were smart, and threw me off—like taking her all the way to Colorado, while you and Anne-Marie provided alibis for each other…”

She looked at me in alarm. “I had nothing to do with this!”

I ignored her and plowed on. “But other things threw me off because they were so stupid I didn’t believe anybody would do them, like raping her, or cutting off her head to implicate Coyote without bothering to find out what his real M.O. was.” I paused, shaking my head and narrowing my eyes at him. “You could be so smart in some things, and so stupid in others. It was almost like you had a split personality. One of you was smart, and the other was just a stupid redneck. Why, for example, did Anne-Marie separate from Isaac and eventually divorce him, but you had to go to the extreme of killing your wife?”

I stared at him a while, then shifted my eyes to Anne-Marie. She’d gone from looking outraged to looking scared again. Then I turned and studied Pat. She still looked terrified, only maybe a little more so. They didn’t like the question.

“As I said, it was like two people. And when I realized that, everything began to slip into place. Talking to you, it was clear to me that there was no hidden, brilliant side to your personality, Mo. Forgive me, but you are just plain stupid. And once I accepted that, it was clear that the smart things you had done were somebody else’s idea.

“So, I didn’t have to look very far, did I, Anne-Marie? Now, my next question was, what makes an attractive, moderately intelligent woman like you marry a man like Mo? Even allowing for the fact that you might find him attractive, that is not enough to marry him, is it? So, what would be enough to make you marry him?”

She swallowed. “I love him…”

I snorted. “You married Isaac for the same reason that Mo married Kathleen, to get out of Seven Hills and start a new life in the city. And, like Mo, once you were here, your partner became a millstone ’round your neck. It was easy enough to walk out on him, but hell, you needed somewhere to go. Well, that wasn’t too hard. You and Mel had become close. So you could go to her, right?”