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

“It’ll stick.”

“What if they didn’t do it?”

She was shaking her head. “They did and it will stick. If they didn’t, then we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

I nodded. “OK.”

She watched me a moment. “We onboard? You with me?”

“Yeah, sure. Let’s go for it.”

Half an hour with the files from the Texas, New Mexico and Arizona cases showed us that they were, indeed, in some respects, linked. They were linked in that they showed a pattern of behavior, and in that they suggested strongly that Fernando Martinez was involved in the drugs trade. How deeply he was involved was not clear, but each case involved the consumption of cocaine in a brothel where he later went on to beat up a prostitute. What was perhaps more important, however, was that all the prostitutes fit the same general description as Sue Benedict and Melanie. After forty-five minutes, Dehan closed the Texas file and looked at me.

“I’m ready to go. How do you want to do it? You go get Giorgio and I get Fernando? Or we go get one and then get the other?”

I was thinking about it when the internal phone rang. Dehan picked up the receiver, saying to me, “I say we bring Giorgio in first…” then, into the phone, “Yeah, Dehan…” Her face went rigid. “OK. We’re on our way.” She hung up and stood.

“What is it?”

When she answered, it was almost a growl. “Fernando. The son of a bitch just got himself murdered.”

I swore quietly under my breath and followed her out, pulling on my coat.

The heavy sky had started to snow thick, slow flakes that were beginning to settle and drift. We made our way across the slippery blacktop to the car at a half-run and climbed in. I reversed out carefully and pulled onto Storey Avenue, headed west, with the wipers going, spreading the snow across the windshield in a thick sludge. It was not yet five o’clock, but it was already growing dark and the lights of the slow-moving traffic were a haze through the smeared flakes. I turned onto Soundview and Dehan started to talk.

“It was called in by his downstairs neighbor when he noticed a stain on the ceiling that had started to drip. A patrol car turned up and the uniforms broke into the apartment, found him dead on the living room floor. That’s all we have for now.”

It was less than half a mile’s drive and we got there in a couple of minutes. There were two patrol cars parked outside and the uniforms were putting up tape. I did a U-turn, got some honks from cold, angry drivers and parked behind one of the patrols. Gunter was at the door.

“Sergeant?”

“Hi, Detective. He’s on the top floor. ME and Crime Scene ain’t got here yet but they’re on the way. It’s not nice up there.”

“OK, thanks. Canvas the neighbors, will you? Get statements. Who was watching the house?”

“Detectives Warren and Groves.” He pointed to a burgundy Corolla a couple of cars down. “They’s parked just down there, in the Toyota.”

I followed the direction he was pointing and saw Groves hauling his bulk out of the driver’s seat and Warren’s head bobbing over the roof on the passenger’s side. We crunched through the snow to meet them. Groves was already shaking his bald head and spreading his hands. “I’m sorry, Stone, we was told to watch for him comin’ out, not who was goin in. Either way…” He looked back at Warren, tall in a coat that looked too small for him, stamping his feet and billowing clouds of condensation as flakes of snow settled on his mass of curly hair. He said, “Just to pass the time, we made a list of everybody who went in and out. You gotta do somethin’ on a night like this, right? And we got tired of playing eye-spy.”

Dehan said, “You guys are the best. You got the list?”

Groves’ mouth sagged. “Who are you? And what did you do with Carmen Dehan?” He turned his gape on his partner. “You hear that, Warren? We’re the best! Where’s the list?”

“Yeah, see, then we got to making paper airplanes…”

They both laughed raucously, then Warren handed over a crumpled piece of paper. Dehan took it. Her shoulders were hunched and her cheeks looked very pink. Warren was saying, “You got quite a bit of coming and going, especially in the last hour. Some people I deduced lived in the block. You know? You see them come in, then a minute later a light comes on, or a drape gets closed, you figure, OK, fat guy with the baseball cap lives on the first floor.” He pointed at the list with a gloved finger. “So I made a note, see? Entered 3:15, drapes closed, yadda yadda. Then the babe comes in at 4:03, 4:20 she goes out and comes back at 4:40 with groceries. She lives here. What apartment? I don’t know. So yous can work through the list like that. Can we go home now?”

I nodded. “Nice work. Above and beyond. Thanks.”

They both shook their heads and walked away, talking in stage whispers. “They done something to Stone, and Dehan. It’s gotta be body-snatchers, or clones…”

Dehan followed them with a baleful glare. “See? That’s why I don’t talk to them. Let’s go look at the scene.”

I climbed the stairs with Dehan just behind me and cold, damp air clinging to my ankles. We reached the top landing and found the door ajar, with yellow tape strung across it. I ducked under the tape and nudged the door open. It was, as Sergeant Gunter had said, not nice.

He was on the floor, lying on his back. His hands were clenched into