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

Until he got behind the bedroom door. Then the whole story changed. He’d get on his knees and beg like a dog if I told him to.”

“I don’t need the details.”

“Your loss.”

“No doubt. Who else was in his crowd of friends?”

“Oh, you want me to be a snitch?” He looked at Dehan. She smiled at him. He looked back at me. “What is this, Trump’s little private army? Out to exterminate the deviants? Start with the college professors and purify the race?”

I shook my head and showed him my badge. “I’m Detective Stone. This is my partner, Detective Dehan. We have no interest in your sex life, Mohamed, but I’m afraid I have to tell you that Dr. Jose Robles was murdered last week, and we are trying to find his killer.”

His jaw sagged in a tragic echo of his expression when he first spoke to me. Arrogance was now replaced by shock, and that slowly began to give way to uncomprehending grief. His lower lip curled, his eyes became puffy and wet. His voice became a twisted whine.

“Why…?” He looked from Dehan to me again, wanting an answer, suddenly like a child denied its most treasured toy. “No… Why…? Not Jose…!”

He sat with his hands limp on his lap and his head thrown up to the glass dome, making a strange guttural noise designed to persuade a disinterested, uninterested, heartless god not to steal away his dreams. I sighed and glanced at Dehan. Her expression was hard to read. I said to Mohamed:

“Come on, we’ll take you to the station and give you some coffee. I need you to make a statement.”

He shook his head. “No. I want to be here, with my people. My friends. I’m not going anywhere. If you want to ask me questions, you’ll have to ask them here.”

“All right, who was in Dr. Robles’ crowd of friends, who used to come here?”

He ran the back of his hand across his eyes. “He used to come a lot with Ali. She was wild. I loved her. We used to joke that we were the Taliban. Ali and Mohamed. The terrorists. That was her joke mainly. She was like his beard. Then, more recently, just before we…” The tears spilled from his eyes and he shook his head at me, his eyes narrowed with resentment, his voice barely audible. “We could have been good, we could have been happy…”

I said, “A short guy, trim, in his forties, balding black hair, Mediterranean look?”

He nodded. “He was flaunting him at me. He was so cruel sometimes!”

“This guy have a name?”

“Most people don’t use names here.”

“But you knew Dr. Robles’ name. You knew everything about him.”

He shrugged. His face, his voice, were helpless, bewildered. “We were a couple. We were going to get an apartment. We were solid. I told him everything, and he shared everything with me. Then one day, it was just after we’d had a beautiful weekend together, he turned up with this… My god! He looked like a lawyer!”

“Think before you answer, Mohamed. Was this guy gay?”

“Well, if he wasn’t, he was sure putting on a good show! They were dancing and kissing like they meant it.”

I pulled out my cell, found a picture of the Assistant DA Costas Varufakis and expanded it so there was no information visible. I showed it to Mohamed. “This the guy?”

He nodded. “Yeah, that’s him. Who is he?”

I put the phone away. “What’s your name?”

“Am I under arrest?”

“No, but you might be a witness to a murder. What’s your name?”

“Daniel Brand.”

“I need your phone number and your address, and I need you at the 43rd Precinct tomorrow no later than ten to make a statement. You understand that? You don’t show, there will be a BOLO out for you.”

Anger suddenly constricted his face. “Hey! Pal! I ain’t a criminal! You don’t need to threaten me. I’ll do my civic duty, OK?”

I nodded. “OK.” I went to stand, then stopped. “Just a couple more questions. Did he ever come here with another woman?”

He shook his head. “The only woman he came with was Ali.”

“Did he ever show any interest in buying a gun?”

I might have asked if he ate babies for breakfast. The look of horror transfigured his face. “Are you crazy? Jose was just totally, totally anti guns! He even hated bullfighting! And believe me, he was so Spanish! But he detested all forms of violence… unless they were consensual.”

I looked at Dehan. She raised her eyebrows and shook her head. I said, “OK, let’s go.”

We stood and made our way back to the bar. As we went through the door, Mohamed’s friends pushed past us and ran out to him. Heimdall didn’t see us leave.

Dehan didn’t speak in the elevator or in the lobby. She waited till we were out in the street and I was unlocking the car. Then she leaned on the roof, with the icy wind whipping her hair across her face, and said, “How? How did you know? How could you possibly have known?”

I opened the door and climbed in the car. She got in the other side and slammed the door after her. For a moment we were cocooned in a comfortable silence. I started the engine and pulled away.

“The simple answer is that I didn’t.”

“No, uh-uh.” She shook her head and wagged her finger in the negative. “No. No, sir. You knew, and I’ll tell you something else, you came here for the express purpose of meeting Mohamed, because you knew that he would be here. Deny it.”

I smiled. “I deny it. I had a hunch, but it wasn’t that hard to see, Dehan. You would have seen it too if you had stopped talking yourself in circles.”

“Talking myself in circles…”

She