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

gave a small laugh. “And we weren’t that close. So we used to go out sometimes. Have a drink and sometimes a meal. And we would talk. That is how you become close, I think.”

Dehan leaned her elbows on the table. “Were you close with both of them, or just Jose?”

“I knew Agnes long before Jose came on the scene. We sometimes had lunch together. Like me, she preferred the student cafeteria. At least here people don’t stab you in the back…” He made a stabbing gesture with his hand, to illustrate. “While you’re quietly having your chicken sandwich, as it is today. But it was only when Jose, he liked to be called Pepe, funny story, I’ll tell you later, came along, that we started actually going out. He was very gregarious. He missed the Spanish night life.”

She smiled and narrowed her eyes. “Was that just the three of you, or did more people tag along?”

“Mainly it was just us. But sometimes he would go with other people. He was pretty popular. Everybody liked him. He was noisy. People like noisy, I think.”

“Noisy?”

He took two bites of his sandwich and nodded. “Mm-hm.” He swallowed, reached for his coffee again, but didn’t pick it up. “Talked loud. Never stopped.”

I scratched my forehead. “Dr. Hays, I need you to think very carefully about this. Is it possible that Jose was seeing another woman, besides Agnes?”

“Why do I have to think carefully about that? It’s not a complicated question, Detective. By seeing, I assume you mean having sexual intercourse.”

“Yes, that’s what I mean. Was he?”

He gave a half-smile. “Obviously, I have never been inside his bedroom, which would be a place forbidden to me. But deducing from the signals that people send each other, which they think are secret but are plainly obvious to anyone bothering to watch, I would say that Dr. Robles was involved in a sexual relationship with Ali.”

Dehan’s eyebrows shot up. “Ali?”

Hays swallowed the last of his sandwich with a smirk, picked up his coffee and sipped. “Forgive my attempt at humor. It is always funny how people assume that Ali is an Arabic man, when she is in fact a Spanish woman. Alicia, abbreviated to Ali. She lectures in Spanish. He used to joke with us that he indulged in intellectual slumming by hanging out with her, because she was only a linguist, not a scientist. But Agnes didn’t think it was funny.”

Dehan nodded. “Was she jealous?”

“She was too intelligent to be jealous, but she didn’t like it.”

“She discussed it with you?”

“We both agreed, we didn’t know why he wasted his time with her. She had nothing to say—well, she has lots to say, but none of it was of any interest to anybody with any intelligence. But they used to talk together. It was more like shouting. They would both shout at the same time, very loudly, and laugh. I think it reminded them of being at home.”

“No doubt. Did either Agnes or Jose ever talk to you about guns? Were you aware that either of them owned a gun?”

He gave a smile that was slightly incredulous. “Why would they own a gun? If they were both anti-gun and anti-violence, against the second amendment, why would they own a gun?”

I smiled blandly at him. “Could you answer the question please, Dr. Hays?”

“No, neither of them ever talked about guns! I have to go. Can I go?”

“Of course, thank you for your help, Doctor.”

He didn’t say anything. He just stood, picked up his black bag and walked out of the cafeteria on his fast, anxious legs. Dehan sighed as she watched him go.

“Well, that helped to clarify absolutely nothing.”

I nodded. “I wouldn’t say absolutely nothing. We have a rough idea of who we are dealing with. They are both very clever, very complicated people, one with a deeply repressed ego, and the other with a hugely inflated one. And we have people with very contradictory opinions of Jose. Dr. Meigh seems not to have liked him at all, and yet, according to Hays, he seems to have been popular.”

She scrunched up her hat into a ball and watched it bounce open again. “Possibly he was popular because of the American intellectual’s infatuation with all things European.”

“Ouch.” After a moment, I added, “Ali is European, and she seems to have been infatuated with him. Or at least, they sought solace in each other. The allure of the familiar in an alien land.”

“How poetic.”

“Come on, Dehan. Let’s go and do some intellectual slumming, and have a chat with this mere linguist.”

FOUR

The college admin office, which sported a small, plastic Christmas tree on its counter, told us that Dr. Alicia Cobos was not in that day, so we got her telephone number and left. On the way to the car, Dehan pulled her woolen hat down over her ears, and then pulled her cell from her pocket. As we climbed into the car, she was dialing.

“Dr. Cobos? Hello, good afternoon. This is Detective Carmen Dehan of the NYPD…”

I started the engine and pulled into the traffic. Dehan smiled, but without much feeling. “Yes, yes, it is a Spanish name… Alicia, oh, like your mother. That’s nice. Dr. Cobos, we were hoping to talk to you about your colleague, Dr. Jose Robles. Is there any chance you could come in and see us?”

She did a lot of nodding, leaned against the door, licked her lips and raised an eyebrow at me. All the while, I could hear a voice in the background that belonged to somebody who apparently didn’t need to breathe.

“That would be great. Thank you. Two P.M. would be great. 43rd Precinct, Storey Avenue and Fteley. Thank you. See you then.” She hung up. “Man, she can talk! The problem is the ratio