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

field. I pulled into the underground parking lot, found a space and we took the elevator up to the foyer. There was a lot of brown leather and red carpeting, and just past the reception desk on the right, a huge arch led to three broad steps that took you down into the ninth circle of hell, where all the fruit machines are.

Behind the reception desk there were a pretty young woman and a pretty young man, both in blue suits. He had a burgundy tie and she had a burgundy scarf. They both had very white teeth which they displayed like badges of office.

“Good afternoon, my name is Sally. How can I help you today?” She said that.

I said, “We are police officers from New York. The Sheriff’s Department tells me I can find Joseph White here. I believe he is head of security.”

She picked up the internal phone, dialed three digits and smiled at me with her head on one side while it rang.

“Mr. White? There are two detectives from New York here to see you…” She held my eye while she listened and smiled, then said, “OK, thank you,” and hung up. “He’ll be right down if you’d like to sit down, or have a few games in the casino, or have a refreshing cocktail in the Cavendish Cocktail Lounge.”

We strolled over to a couple of brown leather armchairs and sat. I said, “It’s amazing what they can do with artificial intelligence these days.”

“She was definitely artificial, Stone, but intelligence…?”

I snorted a laugh but didn’t have time to answer, because a tall, athletic man in his sixties had entered the foyer from a broad staircase. He had hair graying at the temples, a dark blue, double-breasted blazer with brass buttons, and gray slacks. His black patent shoes were military clean and he had a chest like a sherry cask. He glanced at reception and AI Sally showed him her gleaming teeth and pointed at us. We stood as he approached. Dehan stuck out her hand as he made to reach for mine.

“Mr. White, I am Detective Carmen Dehan of the 43rd Precinct in New York. This is my partner Detective John Stone. I wonder if you could spare us five minutes of your time to talk about Cyril Browne?”

He watched her carefully as she spoke, with a small frown on his brow. When she’d finished, he said, “Cyril who now?”

“Cyril Browne. The man who is part of the foundations of this building.”

His eyebrows went up and his mouth made an ‘O’. He nodded. “Sure, sure. Let’s go up to my office.”

His office was a cubby hole up a short flight of steps. There was no window, but he had a wooden desk, a black imitation leather chair and two chairs for visitors. As he sat, he said, “Can I see some ID?”

We showed him and, as he handed them back, he asked Dehan, “What is it you want to know?”

“Can you tell us exactly what happened that night?”

He leaned back and sighed. “It’s a long time ago, Detective. Ten, twelve years?”

“Twelve years last November. It’s important, or we wouldn’t have come all the way from New York.”

He nodded. “I get that.” His expression became abstracted and he seemed to study the edge of his desk. “It was the craziest suicide you could ever imagine. Still gives me nightmares from time to time.” He looked up and frowned at her. “I just can’t imagine a more horrible way to die.”

I repeated Dehan’s question. “What happened, Joe?”

He glanced at me, then back at his desk. “It was the first week of November, I guess. I don’t recall the exact date…”

“The report says it was the tenth.”

“Yeah, that’s about right. This, what you see here, was just a building site. Early stages. They was just laying down the foundations. There were big heaps of rubble waiting to be taken away, big holes in the ground where they were laying the concrete for the foundations. It was a kind of organized chaos, if you know what I mean.”

I smiled. “Sure.”

“So in all that chaos, as I am sure you can understand, you had not only valuable tools and equipment, you also got the risk of some kid getting in here to drink or take drugs or whatever kids get up to, and getting hurt or injured in the process—or worse. Then the company got to pay out for occupier’s liability, for not making the place safe enough. The world we live in, right? Kid is stupid and gets hurt, the company is liable. Always somebody else’s fault.”

“That’s why they had you there.”

“Every night, there was two of us. We took it in turns to do the rounds, make sure nobody snuck in to take nothing. So that night, must have been ten or ten-thirty. I’m doing my rounds and all of a sudden I start hearing this screaming and shouting. Some kid is going crazy, screaming that life has no meaning no more, that it’s all over, that he just wants to die.

“So I get on my radio and call Sam, and I am running, hell bent for leather toward where I can hear the screaming. It was over…” He twisted around in his chair, pointing awkwardly, “At the north corner, just in from the road a bit. There was a fence up, and there was a big pile of rubble up against the wall, oh, I suppose six or eight feet high, and there was a kid standing on the top of the rubble. He had his jacket in his hand and he was shouting like a mad man.”

Dehan had gone quiet. I asked him, “What did you do?”

“Well, you can imagine that in the dark it wasn’t easy to run, with all that stuff lying around, and them big holes