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

“Don’t interrupt. Jack Connors, fifty-two, mega successful founder and CEO of Connors Communication, an advertising company that claims it specializes in ‘persuasion engineering’, apparently a branch of neuro-linguistic programming.”

“Thinking outside the box.”

“Are you done?” I nodded. She went on. “The ME said that his head had been severed with exceptional precision in a single cut. He believed a razor sharp samurai sword might have been used, or something of that sort. Blood residue on the neck tissue suggested that the man had been lying down when he was decapitated. He also detected traces of ketamine in the blood, suggesting he may have been rendered unconscious before being killed.”

“But his eyes were open.”

“Yes. So if he was drugged, he woke up before he was killed. The face was tested for fingerprints but none showed up. The rest of the body was never found, despite an extensive search of parks and rivers. What’s left of him is probably in the East River somewhere.”

“Not habeas corpus, but habeas caput.”

“Caput?”

“Head.”

“You’re on fire today, Stone. Pretty much the only person to benefit from his death was his wife, who inherited a controlling share in the business. Apparently she later sold some of those shares in a private deal to Seth Greenway, the current CEO, and became a sleeping partner. She also inherited a brownstone beside Morningside Park, a weekend house outside New Haven and another apartment in Boston. She used to lecture there in English literature. Financial gain does not seem to be much of a motive in her case, however, as she was already a rich woman in her own right, being the Helena Magnusson.”

“Bestselling novelist of dubious talent. You say ‘pretty much’ the only person to gain from his death. Talk me through that.”

“One day, Stone, you will actually read a case file from cover to cover.”

I arched an eyebrow at her. “The day you do, perhaps.”

She ignored me. We had come to Morningside Avenue. I turned left and after four blocks, I turned left again into West 122nd. I pulled in between a green ash and a hydrant, killed the engine and turned to Dehan. She took a deep breath and said:

“The only other person to benefit from his death was Seth Greenway.”

“The current CEO.”

“But I don’t really buy that, Stone. I mean, how sure could he have been that he would get to take over?” She shrugged. “The big problems in this case, as always in a cold case, were a lack of forensic evidence and witnesses, but the lack of apparent motive was also a major stumbling block. Everyone, friends and workmates, agreed that Helena and Jack were the ideal couple and very much in love with each other, and at work everyone said Jack was a great boss.”

I stuck out my bottom lip and grunted. “It’s a very striking way to kill somebody, isn’t it—severing the head. You can’t get much more final than that.”

She nodded. “It sends a message, as does putting it in a box and sending it to the wife.”

“Almost,” I said, “as though she were the killer’s real target, not the husband.”

“That had struck me. But a target for what, exactly?”

“OK, let’s go and talk to her.”

We climbed out and made our way down the leafy, Victorian street that, in the age of baseball caps, cargo shorts and smartphones, had somehow managed to retain some of its old grandeur and elegance. Hers was the second of a row of understated, three-story brownstones. It had a stone stoop with a magnificent balustrade up to equally magnificent heavy brown doors under a vaguely Egyptian looking portico. I rang the bell and waited while Dehan went up on and down on her toes a few times, chewing her lip and scanning the façade.

“What do you reckon, three million?”

I glanced at the other houses down the street. “Three, three and a half.”

The door opened to reveal a smiling woman in her early twenties. She was wearing what appeared to be a surgeon’s coat and had very blonde hair and very blue eyes. Her voice was fruity and fluty.

“Hello, you are detectives who are calling earlier?”

We showed her our badges and Dehan said, “Detectives Dehan and Stone, we are here for Mrs. Magnusson.”

She did a funny little bob with her knees and said, “Yoh, she is expectink you. Please follow.”

The entrance hall was unexpectedly large. The floor was an intricate mosaic of hexagonal black and white tiles, with a deep, oxblood Persian rug thrown over it any old how. Large walnut doors stood closed on our left. Beyond them a broad, carpeted staircase rose to the second floor. To the right, a passage disappeared toward what I assumed was the kitchen.

We followed the blonde girl in the surgeon’s coat up the stairs and along a landing carpeted in the same oxblood red to a second set of walnut doors at the front of the house. There she knocked and went in.

“Madam, the detectives are here.”

She waited for an answer we did not hear, then bobbed and smiled at us. “Please come in, yoh.”

We went in and she closed the doors behind us. We were in a large drawing room with a magnificent bay window overlooking the street below. The floors were hardwood, strewn with Persian rugs, and the furniture, which was eclectic, seemed not to include anything later than the 1930s. A soft leather sofa sat opposite an iron fireplace, flanked by heavy lamp tables, and on either side of the fire there was a chesterfield armchair. The paintings on the walls looked like minor impressionists, but they were originals.

Helena was standing by the sofa with her hands clasped in front of her. Her eyes were pale blue and a small crease between her brows was the only expression on her face.