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

halfway to her mouth. Now she put it down without drinking and said, “OK, so I am going to ask the stupid question. Why didn’t you ask him?”

“He vanished.”

Dehan made a face like three ‘O’s.

Rafa looked at me and said, “It’s in the report.”

“We only picked up the case this morning, Rafa. We’ll read and digest tonight. Meantime, help me out. What do you mean, he vanished?”

“We went to his house, he wasn’t there. We contacted his landlord, he’d given two months’ notice end of August, and had left November 1st.”

“The day after the party. That is one hell of a coincidence.”

“Tell me about it. Naturally, Giorgio and Fernando were no longer suspects. Aside from the fact that their DNA didn’t match, this guy’s behavior obviously made him the prime suspect.”

Dehan was nodding. “Did you manage to trace him at all?”

“Kind’a. We discovered he had a sister in California. I’m not being funny, but the address is in the file. Elk Grove, if I remember right, in Sacramento. We called her and she said she hadn’t heard from Cyril in years. She said she’d let us know if he turned up. We put out a BOLO.” He shrugged and pulled a face. “But it was like he’d vanished off the face of the Earth. We even got a court order to try and recover genetic material from the house, but he’d got professional cleaners in and there was not a trace of him anywhere.”

For a moment, he looked embarrassed. “There wasn’t a lot more we could do. We canvassed his workmates—he was a librarian—to see if there was anybody who might be hiding him, but the universal consensus was that he was a bit weird, a loner, had no friends, and kept to himself. He’d handed in his notice two months earlier there too, at the same time he handed in his notice to his landlord. Didn’t say where he was going, something vague about going abroad.”

I called for another round of beers and scratched my head. “So, two months earlier, he decides to kill Sue on Halloween. I get the feeling he is a meticulous planner. He hands in his notice at work and with his landlord, comes along to the Halloween party, and when she leaves, he follows…” I paused and shook my head. “I have a couple of problems with this scenario. First, if he is such a meticulous planner, why does he pick a method of killing her that he cannot be a hundred percent sure will work? He can’t guarantee she will be alone that night. She might have spent the night with Giorgio or Fernando. Also, even if she was alone, how can he be sure that she will let him in?”

Rafa shrugged. “I’d love to have asked him.” Then he suddenly made a face like mental constipation.

Dehan was watching him and nodding like she was reading his constipated mind. She said, “I don’t think he’s the guy.”

Rafa nodded at her.

I said, “What makes you say that?”

The barman came over with a tray of beer and set them in front of us on the table. When he went away, Dehan said, “OK, this is going to sound crazy, but hear me out. Everything and anything Cyril does is going to look weird and creepy, because the one thing this guy does not want is for anybody ever to notice him. Right?”

Rafa was nodding, staring at his beer. “That’s exactly what I think.”

I said, “OK.”

“So, the only reason it looks weird that he gave notice at work and to his landlord is because he didn’t tell anybody about it. Anybody else would have told his workmates, his family, friends… But Cyril is a loner and he doesn’t tell anybody. He just goes. So it looks like he’s on the run. But aside from the coincidence of dates, there is nothing that points to him as her rapist or her killer.”

“Disappearing after a murder is fairly strong circumstantial evidence.”

“But did he do a runner?” She raised her eyebrows. “He gave two months’ notice. That’s not much of a runner. Plus, as you yourself said, the rape has the feel of being opportunistic, not planned. This guy seems to be a planner, not an opportunist.”

I grunted. “There is also the small fact of the DNA. He is the only person at the part whose DNA was not tested.” I took a long pull and looked at them both. “If not him, who?”

Rafa nodded. “I have to say, Stone, I always thought it was Giorgio. It’s wrong to say ‘I thought’. There is very little evidence pointing to him, but I had a gut feeling.”

“How do you account for the DNA?”

“I can’t, but you know like I do, that’s not impossible to rig.”

I snorted. “Not impossible, but damned difficult.”

Dehan gave me a long, skeptical look. “There were apparently three hookers at the party…”

I smiled. “So when everybody is good and drunk, Giorgio telephones his three hookers…”

Dehan took over. “Meanwhile, Fernando has left with Sue. He makes sure she gets home and returns to the party, where Cyril has been taken into a room upstairs with the hookers. It’s all done in the spirit of good fun. The girls are sweet to him and make him wear a condom. Once they have the semen, either Fernando or Giorgio, or both, return, rape and kill her and plant the evidence.”

Rafa leaned back, pointing at her. “I like that theory better than Cyril. It’s convoluted because it has to be, but it makes more sense to me as a cop than this little guy planning an opportunistic murder two months ahead. You said yourself, Stone, it makes no sense to plan everything ahead and leave the actual kill to chance.”

Dehan’s face was almost apologetic. “I have to say I agree.