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

I nodded. “Yes, you had two theories you were considering, the terrorist or jealous Agnes. But we realized almost from the start that Mohamed could not be a terrorist, or an industrial spy in the employ of the Saudis. Two things stood out, on the one hand there was the fact that he had deleted the Telegram app, which we agreed he would not have been allowed to do if he was negotiating with Middle Eastern interests. And on the other hand, the nature of the message itself. It was a threat, for sure, but not a threat to kill or torture him. It was a threat by Mohamed to reveal his existence at Robles’ workplace. It was Mohamed’s existence that was the threat. Add that to Robles’ rather odd relationship with Agnes and it’s not a huge leap to a gay lover.”

She sighed. “So obvious…”

I shrugged. “Well, that and my razor-like mind.”

“Yeah, that too. So where the hell does that leave us? I am still no clearer, Stone.”

The roads were almost empty and we made good time. We crossed at the Madison Avenue Bridge and headed north on 3rd Avenue and the Boston Road. I didn’t answer her because I didn’t know how to. I had found a corner and a patch of sky in the puzzle, but it still didn’t make any kind of picture. There were two disparate parts to it: the sex and the science. And there didn’t seem to be any way to make them match up and make sense.

“It leaves us with a man,” I said, and Dehan looked startled because we had been quiet for almost fifteen minutes, “who stirred up intense feelings in people, feelings of love, devotion, anger, hatred and contempt. It leaves us with a man who did all of that through his public persona, while keeping his private self well hidden. His private self was, by all accounts, a brilliant scientist, about whom we know practically nothing. It leaves us wondering which one of the two got him killed.”

ELEVEN

The next morning, at ten to nine, we were in interrogation room three drinking coffee. I was sitting at the table and Dehan was leaning with her back against the wall, her arms folded. We were waiting for Am Nielsen to arrive and Dehan was speaking our thoughts for us.

“We have a serious question we need to decide, Stone, and we need to make up our minds by the time we finish taking Am’s statement. We need to decide whether we tell the chief about Costas and Jose.”

I nodded and looked at my shoes. They had no answers for me. “For that, we need to decide if his affair with Robles is relevant to the case. So far it’s only relevant to his getting us on the case.”

“Is it?”

“Honestly, I don’t know.”

“There is another question, which frankly he dodged last night, about why he was so convinced the case needed to be looked into more deeply. I mean, let’s face it, the fact that he and Robles were lovers makes it more likely, not less, that Agnes killed him. One thing is being dumped for another woman—at least Ali is gorgeous and shared all of Robles’ tastes and prejudices—but to be dumped for a guy? That’s got to hurt. That could tip a neurotic woman over the edge.”

“It’s a good point.”

“And it’s an important question.” She stated it with emphasis, “What made Costas so convinced that Agnes did not kill Dr. Robles?”

I nodded. “It is an important question, the more so because he must have known, when he pressed the chief, that a deeper investigation risked revealing his relationship with Robles.”

She shrugged. “I don’t see any option. We have to tell him.”

“Let’s get Am and Mohamed out of the way, then we’ll talk to the inspector about Costas and where the case seems to be going.” I sighed and held up both hands, like I was holding two oranges. “There’s his personality and his sex life, here, on the left. And then there is his research, here, on the right. On the left you have Mohamed, Ali, Agnes and Costas Varufakis. On the right you have his actual, physical research, the bit that’s missing, Dr. Meigh and Am.” I paused. “Thinking aloud, we originally thought that Mohamed was on the right, but he turned out to be part of his sex life.”

We were quiet for a while, staring at the empty place in space where we both imagined the small clusters of people and facts. Then Dehan said, “Maybe that’s just it, Stone. Maybe they are, in actual fact, separate. Maybe there is no connection between the two. Maybe he had such a damned awful attitude, such a conflictive approach to life, that he generated hostility and problems wherever he went. And that is what gives us the illusion that it is all connected to his death.”

I frowned. “Explain.”

“OK, the world is divided into those who thought Robles was great, and those who thought he was a royal pain in the ass. Now, just imagine, a department of nice, nerdy scientists who all get on together and either have chess evenings smoking pipes, or play Lord of the Rings and Halo games together. They are all happy in Nerd Land. And then, one day, El Grincho comes along, sneering at everything, putting everybody down, playing his power games, insulting everybody and generally being a pain in the butt. Everybody wants him to leave, but, there’s a problem.”

I said, “He’s a very good scientist and he is contributing radical ideas to the research.”

“Exactly. So they have to put up with him. That’s what’s going on in the right-hand bubble. Now, meantime, in the left-hand bubble, we see that his desire to put everybody down and play