Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #1: Books 1-4 (A Dead Cold Box Set), Blake Banner [classic children's novels txt] 📗

prints on the duct tape. She listened carefully and thought about it. “So the woman is his wife.” I didn’t say anything, and she shrugged. “Obedient to the last, huh?”

I nodded. “That she is.”

“Did you get a confession?”

“He swears he is being framed by the cops just so we can clear up an old case. His lawyer knows he’s going down, but he won’t accept it.”

She was pensive for a bit. “It would be good to get a confession.” She shrugged. “We have no idea how many girls he killed. How many moms and dads are there out there, wondering…? It would be good to give them closure.”

Closure.

The word sat there staring at me. “Not closure.”

“Not closure?”

“No. Aperture. I’ll tell you what we need. We need to open the box.”

“What are you talking about, Stone?”

I stood and started collecting up the plates and the cups.

“I keep getting this nagging feeling.” I carried them to the sink, then turned and rested my ass against the side to look at her. “This guy, he may be an asshole and he may have a below-average IQ, but he has a genius for making everything seem like something it’s not. His whole thing seems to be, so long as you don’t know the answer—the truth—everything is possible. It is time to open the box.”

“What box? And how are you going to open it?”

“I need a couple of hours’ research on the computer, and then a little help from my friends.”

We got to the station house at eight and went straight down to the cells. Peter was awake. He had a breakfast tray in front of him, but he hadn’t touched it. He looked drawn and pale. He watched us with sullen eyes as we stepped in.

“What do you want now? To gloat?”

“Detective Dehan has started to remember.”

He laughed a sour, twisted laugh and said, “Oh, I get it, now the evidence against me will be incontrovertible. Not only have you got manufactured fingerprints, now you have the eyewitness account of the victim!”

“Come on, Peter. We’re going to talk to your wife.”

He stared at me, and there was real hatred in his face. “You plan to destroy me completely. Not only the rest of my life in prison, but you are going to tell her my little secret. Can you leave me nothing?”

“Come on.”

He stood. I cuffed him and we led him up the stairs. He looked surprised as we stepped out into the early-morning drizzle.

“Where are you taking me?”

“I told you.”

“You’re not bringing her here?”

“Nope.”

He and Dehan climbed in the back, and we drove through the damp hiss of the traffic, along the Bruckner Expressway to Revere Avenue. I kept my eye on him in the mirror. He looked anxious and fretful. I pulled up in front of his house, and he and Dehan got out. We stood a moment in the spitting rain. I could see Bob and his wife looking out the window at us. Then Pete’s door opened, and his wife stood there, staring, waiting.

I walked over to her and climbed the stairs. “Mrs. Smith. May I have the keys to your garage?”

“To the garage?”

“Yes, Mrs. Smith, to your garage.”

She walked away, into the kitchen, and came back a moment later with two keys on a ring. She handed them to me. “What are you going to do with Peter?”

I didn’t answer. I took the keys, and Peter and Dehan followed me down the side of the house. I unlocked the garage and hauled up the door. I looked back at Dehan. Across the road I could see that Bob and his wife had come out onto the porch.

I walked inside and scoured every surface. Peter said, “What are you looking for?”

His wife joined us, her hands clenched in front of her. She didn’t look at her husband. I studied her face for a couple of seconds. It struck me that she had the same look of sick anxiety that he had. “You know, I keep going over in my mind what happened that night, twelve years ago. If only there had been a witness, somebody like David. Because David has an eidetic memory. What is commonly known as a photographic memory. Then it struck me. When Detective Dehan and I first came here, we had a chat with your neighbor, Mr. Luff, and he told us his wife not only has what he described as an elephantine memory, but she notices things.”

Peter swallowed. “And what do you think she noticed…?”

I smiled. “Oh, I think she noticed who turned up with a couple of arms in a plastic garbage bag. I think she noticed all sorts of interesting things. In fact, as they’re here, why don’t we go over and have a chat with them?”

The wet crunch of our feet made a strange echo in the early-morning street as we crossed the road.

“Good morning, Mr. Luff. Mrs. Luff. I wonder if we could take just a few minutes of your time?”

Bob was staring at Peter with an odd frown on his face. Then he switched to me and said, “Of course! Come in. I’ll get chairs…”

Mrs. Luff ushered us in. She looked satisfied that we had at last accepted her invitation to tea. “Now come in, come in!” She pinched her lips and shook her head. “Peter! Jenny! What a mess! What a situation! Sit, sit, I’ll make tea. Bob, chairs. Come on!”

Dehan and Mrs. Smith sat on the sofa. I sat in an armchair, and Peter sat in the other. Bob came scuttling in with two more chairs while his wife bustled efficiently in the kitchen. Peter’s eyes were shiny, and he kept swallowing. Jennifer was fiddling with the hem of her blue cardigan and looked like she might be