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

“Why the hell…!”

I shook my head and grinned. “Not why, Little Grasshopper, what. What would make him, or his killer, wrap his phone in plastic before either he was thrown, or he jumped, into the river?”

She sighed and rolled her eyes. “Yes! OK! You’re right! It works. The only reason would be to ensure that it was found in working order.”

“And the only purpose for that would be if it contains information the suicide, or the killer, wants us to have.”

“Just when I thought I had it figured.”

I leaned my elbows next to hers and shuddered as the cold crept up my arms. “You never know,” I said. “It might confirm your theory.”

There was a touch of resentment in her face. “My theory? It’s not our theory?”

I took a deep breath and looked down at the hand that was slowly becoming more visible as the water drained out of the channel. “I don’t know, Dehan. I just don’t know. There is still something missing. We need to establish whether he was murdered or committed suicide. If he committed suicide, that will tend to confirm your theory. It also suggests a reason for keeping the phone dry, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, it does… What?”

I laughed. “A millennial suicide note.”

“Wow, and you’re the dinosaur.”

“Don’t knock the dinosaurs, kid. We survived almost two hundred million years. How long have you puny humans been around?”

She observed me with hooded eyes and pointed to the path that ran through the park. “Here comes the puny Medical Examiner, and the puny Crime Scene team is close behind him.”

They worked fast and laid a path of wooden planking out to where the body was half covered in silt and muddy water. The scene itself had little to tell them. What little evidence there may have been had been washed away by the tide. The body was recovered, bagged and brought ashore, then laid on a gurney. As we approached, Frank unzipped the bag to expose the face. It was bloated and a gray-blue color, but it was easily recognizable.

“That’s Am Nielsen.”

Frank looked at me curiously. “Am?” I nodded. He zipped up the bag and said, “Am is now Was. Which proves just how relative time is.”

Dehan asked him, “Can you tell us anything?”

“Not really, Carmen. On the face of it, there don’t appear to be any bullet wounds or stab wounds. Bruising is hard to establish until I have washed him off. He looks as though he has drowned, but until I get him on the table, I can’t say for sure.”

“Has your wife divorced you yet, Frank?”

He arched an eyebrow at her. “All of them. Why?”

“So you have time to work on him tonight, right?”

“What do you see in her, Stone? She has no soul.”

“That’s an advantage in a woman, Frank. The soul of Woman was created below. You should know that. Can you? He was a witness in the Robles case. ADA Costas Varufakis has a personal interest.”

The body was loaded in and the ambulance pulled away. Frank pulled off his gloves. “Varufakis? Seriously? If you were called Varufakis, wouldn’t you change your name? I would.”

He climbed in his car and slammed the door. Then the window slid down and he leaned out. “Drop by this evening on your way home. I might have made a start by then.”

We watched him drive away through the park. When he was gone from view, Dehan said, “I’ve been avoiding making any comment about the ADA’s name since we first took the case.”

I heard a shout behind me and saw Joe approaching from where his guys were working on the pier.

“Stone, I was going to phone you, then the call came in and I thought I’d see you here.”

“What you got, Joe?”

“First of all, the phone. You were right. He had it sealed in a watertight bag in his jacket. Go figure. We’ve kept the bag for printing. Here it is…” He fished it out of the pocket of his white spaceman suit, contained in an evidence bag. “…in another plastic bag. I figured you’d want to look at the contents. If you want the guys at the lab to have a look, send it back to me.”

“I appreciate it.”

“Now, I was going to call you, you asked me to find whose saliva was on the glasses, back at the original crime scene.”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

He gave a small laugh and shook his head. “Odd, but nobody’s was. Not on her glass, and not on his.”

Dehan pointed a woolen finger at me. “Ha! That is not as surprising as you might think!”

Joe laughed. “Really? Why’s that?”

“He was a wine snob. Only Spanish wine from Ribera del Duero or La Rioja was good enough for him. This wine was, let me see if I can remember…” I drew breath and she snapped, “Don’t! It was Bogle Vineyards, 2016, and he probably refused to drink it. Simple.” She thought about it for a second. “And you know what? That small, final act of arrogance might just have been the small straw that finally broke the camel’s back and made her shoot him!”

Joe sighed. “People have been shot for lesser things. Anyway, I’ll get back to my guys, but I don’t think we’ll find anything here.”

“Tire tracks,” I said, “would be useful.”

He gave me the thumbs up and went back toward the pier. Dehan and I started walking back toward the car. I gave Dehan the keys, pulled on my latex gloves and started looking at the phone. I spoke as we walked.

“The password has been disabled. The intention was clearly for the phone to be found and scrutinized.”

“Has it got Telegram?”

I smiled at her. “No, and I