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

on his behalf. That was when he told us it was not to get into the university, but onto the research program, remember? We asked if he had a good relationship with Robles…”

She pointed at me. “He said it was very good and confirmed they had plans for the Robles-Americano...”

“…And that was when I told him that there was research missing from what Meigh had shown us. That was when he started to get anxious, when I asked him to confirm, in a statement, that Robles’ research was radical and revolutionary.”

She nodded. “That, and when you asked him where Robles went on Saturday nights.”

I shook my head. “I can’t see it, Dehan. I can’t see anything there that would spook him enough to make him run.”

She nodded. “I can.”

“Tell me.”

“If Agnes has got Dr. Meigh and Am Nielsen to help her—Dr Meigh to hide her and Am to provide her with a weapon—it is possible, even probable, that Meigh doesn’t know anything about Am or how he got her the gun, but it is almost certain that Am knew that Meigh was hiding her.”

“Possible.”

“So when he hears that Meigh has started messing with the research, and we know about it, he figures we are going to start investigating her and it’s now only a matter of time before we find that she is hiding Agnes. You still with me? He’s a chess player, remember? He’s thinking several moves ahead. He knows that in a few moves we will have Agnes, she will confess and tell us where she got the gun from. So he bolts.”

I stared at her. “So Am gives Agnes the gun, Meigh doesn’t know that. When Robles dies, she hides his crucial research so she can present it as her own, we get wise to that and he fears our investigation into Meigh will show he was an accomplice in Robles’ murder…”

Before she could answer, her phone rang. She pulled it from her pocket and put it on speaker. “Yeah, Dehan.”

“Detective, we have just picked up a very weak signal from Mr. Nielsen’s phone.”

“Where?”

“I think he must be on a barge, Detective, because the signal keeps fading and coming back, like it’s being shielded by lead or something. He’s on the river.”

“Which river?”

“North stretch of the Harlem, where it branches off the Hudson? Right by the Columbia University athletic complex. I’m sending you the coordinates to your phone. There’s a jetty there in the park, and he seems to be moored there.”

Her phone pinged and she said, “OK, got it.”

Outside, I could hear the crime scene team arriving. I sighed and reached for my phone. “We’d better call for back up. I think we could have trouble.”

TWELVE

By the time we got to West 218th, the signal from Am’s GPS had grown a little stronger. Access to the Inwood Hill Park, where the pier was located, was cut off by two bollards and six artistically placed rocks. We stopped there and two patrol cars pulled in behind us. Dehan climbed out and pointed up the road, shouting to the nearest car.

“Campbell, you and O’Connor take the other corner! GPS says he’s still on the boat, cover the paths in case he tries to run!” The car took off up the road. “Mendez! Wagner, with me!”

With that, Dehan and I took off at a run through the park, with Mendez and Wagner close behind. It was three hundred yards and the air was cold and rasped in my throat and lungs.

The pier was located in a small bay that cut into a spit of land that protruded into the northernmost stretch of the Harlem river. At low tide, the bay was simply a stretch of mud some two hundred yards across, with a small wooden pier, half concealed by trees, poking out from the parkland near the baseball pitch. When we got there and rounded the tree cover, Dehan stopped dead, and Mendez and Wagner stopped behind her. We were all panting big billows of frosted air. There was no water in the bay, only mud. And there was no boat, no barge sitting on the sludge, waiting for the high tide.

Dehan shook her head. “There’s nothing there.”

I nodded. “There is, we just can’t see it yet.”

She frowned at me and I walked across the scrubby grass and onto the pier. Dehan, Mendez and Wagner followed close behind. I reached the end and looked down. It wasn’t visible at first. Dehan stared uncomprehending at the expanse of gray mire and shallow streams of water that trickled through it.

I turned to Wagner and said, “Call it in, Linda. We need a meat wagon, the ME, and a Crime Scene team. Tell them where the body is, they’ll need planks or something to get out there. And tell them they’re on the clock. The tide will be coming in again.” She was frowning at me. I pointed to a narrow, shallow stream near the foot of the pier, which was draining slowly out into the river. “He’s there, in the water. Call it in.”

She called dispatch. Dehan was leaning on the rail, squinting at the stream. “I wouldn’t have seen him if you hadn’t pointed him out. I would have assumed he’d dumped his phone.” She looked up at me. “You knew what to look for. You were expecting it.”

“I knew there were no barges up here. What your tech said made no sense. The Harlem is a tidal strait. The fact that the signal was emerging slowly suggested the phone had been submerged, and the tide was going out. Water will block the signal unless it is very shallow.”

“Elementary…”

“But there’s one thing that isn’t so elementary. Even the most water resistant of phones won’t last much more than half an hour underwater. If his is still working,