Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #3: Books 9-12 (A Dead Cold Box Set) by Blake Banner (read with me .TXT) 📕

I climbed in the car and slammed the door. She got in the other side and I fired up the engine. She stared at me as I backed out. “Stone! You want to explain?”

“I’ve been explaining!” I snapped. I rammed in first, looked at her and said, “Remember I said something bad was going to happen and I couldn’t stop it? Well this is it!”

TWELVE

The body was in the woods, on the east side of the freeway, where it borders the mouth of the creek. Frank and the crime scene team were already there when we arrived, and the uniforms had cordoned off the area with yellow tape, suspended like bunting from tree to tree. She was Hispanic, about twenty-two, lying on her back in a small clearing, looking up at the sky through the canopy above. Her elbows were bent and her hands were on her chest, bound with a silk handkerchief. She had a short skirt that had been pulled up around her hips, and her legs were splayed. She had no panties. There was bruising around her mouth and neck, and a big, ugly black bruise on her windpipe. Frank was squatting by her side. He glanced at us but didn’t say anything.

I asked, “Is it the same MO?”

“I don’t want to commit myself to anything at this stage, John, but I can tell you it is very similar. You can see for yourself…” He gestured at the handkerchief, at the skirt.

“ID?”

“No purse. We’ll run her prints back at the lab.”

I nodded and looked across the stretch of parkland toward the river. The water was concealed by the trees that bordered the banks. I walked away from the body, out onto the grass and looked north toward where we’d left the car, then south toward the East River and the Whitestone Bridge. Dehan came and joined me, squinting in the sun and tying her hair behind her neck. “What are you thinking?”

I didn’t look at her. I was scanning the area. I said, “Clearly Wayne couldn’t have done it because he was in prison. Alibis don’t come much better than that, right? So I’m wondering how the killer arrived.” I pointed north. He either came down the Hutchinson River Parkway, left his car on the wasteland there and then came down into the woods along the path, on foot…” She nodded. “Or he drove all the way down to the bridge and came in that way.”

She thought about it a moment. “If he came in via the bridge late at night there’s less risk of being seen.”

I watched her face, nodded, then shook my head. “Nope, because that road is cut off with big, steel gates. His only access is on foot.”

She narrowed her eyes. “So…?”

“So he must have driven here, left his car in the parking lot, and brought her to the woods here on foot. That make sense to you?”

She shrugged. “I can’t see how he could do it any other way.”

“Neither can I.”

She looked unhappy and tense. “I feel like you’re making a point and I don’t know what it is. Am I missing something?”

“Not making a point. Just examining the new evidence, Dehan. We are all missing something in this case.” I turned and pointed again, back along the path. “So, what is that? Five hundred yards?”

She looked and nodded. “Yeah, about that.”

I walked back in among the trees. Frank was getting to his feet and they were loading the body onto a gurney. I had a closer look at her. Her face was bloated and distorted, and her cheeks were stained with mascara where she had been weeping. Her lipstick was smeared where her killer had been kissing her, the way Wayne had described it. I looked at her blouse. It was a white halterneck made from some synthetic imitation silk. Where it had been ripped you could make out a bra that probably came from Victoria’s Secret.

Frank pulled off his gloves. “You don’t need to say anything, John. I’ve already had the call. This takes priority over everything.”

I said, “She’s been raped. You’ll find semen inside her, also on her skirt, but you won’t find any prints.”

Dehan approached. “She’s not wearing panties. Maybe he took them as a trophy.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

Frank spread his hands. “At the moment it is all speculation until I get back to the lab. I’ll call you as soon as I know something.”

I shoved my hands in my pockets and started walking back toward the car. Dehan fell into step beside me. “Stone, you know something?”

“Not much.”

“You’re being a pain in the ass.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Talk to me.”

“I’ve been talking to you, Dehan.”

She stopped dead in her tracks and gestured back toward the crime scene with her open hand. “Come on, Stone!”

“‘Come on Stone’ is not a persuasive argument, Dehan. What are you trying to tell me?”

She jabbed several times with her hand. “You yourself have been saying that our killer may have been killing for a long time and may still be killing. This is not a copycat. Nobody knows his MO. You want it to be Wayne, Stone, but it can’t be!”

I smiled.

“What are you smiling at?”

“You. You said you wanted me to talk to you, but actually it was you who wanted to talk to me. You have made your point. The inspector, the DA and the State of New York all agree with you. So let’s go and see who Wayne Harris tells us the killer is.”

“Like I said, you’re being a pain in the ass!”

She marched on ahead and then had to sit on the hood and wait for me to arrive. As I arrived and pulled out my keys she