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

“Where, exactly?”

“Through park at back of house. Is easy, into Pugsley Creek.” He made a face and carried on. “So, everything going nicely. We leave it like this and soon case is closed. But Varufakis want to be clever. You can be too clever. Varufakis too fucking clever. He want to make sure everybody believing he is innocent man. So he call your chief, ‘Hey, I want you put your best men on this case.’ But his best man is good cop, fucking pit-bull, never let go, huh? He can smell something wrong, something wrong. So Varufakis say me, ‘We going to tie up loose ends.’ He write a confession for Am. We take to Am and I put gun to Am’s head.”

“Your friend.”

“I have two friends, Detective: me and money. I put gun to Am’s head: write fucking confession on your phone. He write. I take him to toilet, I fill sink with water and I put in his head until he dead. Then we take to the river and throw in. You going to find fingerprints on arm are from my hand. Now, I going to ask you, what motive I have for killing Am Nielsen? No motive. Now I asking you, what motive Varufakis has? Good fucking motive. Same man who employ me to scare you.

“Last thing I give you. In my apartment, where your police find me, there you find burner telephone, Samsung, on table. This Samsung is one I use for communicate with Varufakis. You going to find on it the calls he is make to me, before I make him use burner. Then you going to find the number of his burner. Maybe you get lucky and find that phone in his house. So, you got the money, you got Am’s prints, you got my prints, you got the telephone and you got my testimony. You got proof.”

“What about the research? What happened to that?”

He stared at me a long time. There was something odd in his eyes. I couldn’t make out if it was humor or insolence; maybe both. He shrugged. “I don’t know what happen to that. Maybe is still at university. Maybe LightYear get it. Maybe Electron.”

The door opened and Dehan came in. I stood. “OK, Peter. We’ll see if this all checks out. If it does, it looks like you’ve got your deal.”

I stepped out and had the uniform take Yeltsin down to his cell while the tapes of the interview were taken to the Inspector and the DA. Then I called Joe again.

“Stone, you again so soon? People will start to talk.”

I forced a laugh. “One last thing, Joe. The prints on Am’s arm. Yeltsin—the guy who shot at us last night—he says those prints will be his. Can you check that?”

“Sure thing, I’ll be in touch.”

“Thanks.”

Dehan put her hand on my shoulder. “Newman has requested his financials. We got him, Stone.”

I nodded. “Yeah. We got him…”

“You OK?” I nodded again. She shrugged. “Agnes is dead. You were sure she was still alive. I’m sorry.”

I smiled. “It was so hard to get a handle on any of their personalities. Hers more than most. Sounds like she was a nice person.”

“Academics. They’re all crazy, right? What you see is definitely not what you get.”

“For sure.”

The inspector put his head out his door. “Stone, Dehan, we got confirmation. They’re sending his records over, but they were able to confirm the withdrawals. We have him. It is a very sad day in many ways, but well done to both of you. A superb piece of work. Well done. I’ll let you know as soon as we get confirmation on the prints and the rest of it. How’s the shoulder, John?”

“Nothing a Bushmills won’t fix, sir. Yeltsin tells me Agnes’ body was dumped in Pugsley Creek, at the back of her house. It has probably been dragged out into the East River by now, but we should conduct a search anyway.”

“Yes, indeed. I’ll see to it.” He nodded, then smiled. “Bushmills, excellent choice! Well, I’ll see you Monday, then!”

“I think we’ll go and give Dr. Meigh the news, sir. I believe La Piccola Liguria in Port Washington does rather good oysters and a sirloin steak in black pepper and brandy sauce that is really something special.”

He looked vaguely surprised. “Oh, well, that is very thoughtful of you, John. Thank you, and you two have a lovely evening.”

“Thank you, sir. We will do our best. After that, we’re going to Goa, for Christmas, I owe it to Dehan as part of a bet.”

He laughed. “Gotta go ta Goa!”

“Never gets old, sir.”

We went down the stairs, collected our coats and stepped out into the icy wind. It was only midday, but the heavy, bellying clouds and the dull, uniform gray light made it feel like early evening.

We made it to the car and climbed in before Dehan said, “OK, what’s going on? What did I miss, get wrong, overlook or fail to take into account?”

I smiled, started the engine and reversed out of the lot. “That is not very nice, Dehan. I take you out for a romantic evening and you impute all kinds of dishonest motives to me.”

“Yadda yadda…”

“Seriously, Dehan. I just want to wrap the case up, inform Dr. Meigh and take you to dinner. It is almost Christmas!”

She raised an eyebrow and we set off toward the Throgs Neck and Long Island.

* * *

Dr. Meigh opened the door and the slight widening of her eyes said she was startled.

“Detectives… We are just having lunch…”

“And we are on our way to lunch, but we thought we’d just drop in to let you know that the case has been closed.”

“Oh, well,