Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #4: Books 13-16 (A Dead Cold Box Set), Blake Banner [story read aloud .txt] 📗

night and we discussed whether to telephone to the police, and we decided not to. The reason being…” Now he opened his eyes and spread his hands. “There had been no crime committed. How many couples, late at night in the Bronx, have rows on street corners at the weekend? Hundreds! Goodness knows the police in the Bronx have their hands full enough with all the violent crime that goes on. Our calling out a patrol car because of a lovers’ tiff could cost somebody else their life. And that was the basis for our decision that night.” He sighed deeply and Richard looked down at the floor. “As it emerged later, our perfectly logical decision turned out to be perfectly wrong.”

Dehan was frowning. “So, when did you report it?”

Jack’s expression became curious. “Well, surely it’s in your report. We read in the paper that a girl had been found down river at Soundview Park, wearing a big, red woolen jacket. We decided to call the precinct, but we saw a couple of uniformed officers and a detective talking to one of the neighbors across the way. She was pointing at the playground and the tree and we just knew what they were talking about. So when they had finished, we called over the detective and told him what we’d seen.”

I grunted. “Can you remember his name?”

Jack sighed, shook his head. Richard got up and went to a dresser against the far wall. He opened a drawer and pulled out a fistful of business cards. “People give us these things, we keep them as though some day we might use them, but we never do. Still, this time… Aha!” He held it out toward us to see. “Detective Leonard Davis, 43rd Precinct.”

I nodded. “Hang on to that, would you?” I sighed. “So you told Detective Davis everything that you have told us.”

“And more,” said Jack. “Partly because it was fresh in our memories, but also because we described the truck, which we have not done for you.”

“I was coming to that. Can you describe the truck?”

He smiled. “Not in much detail, I’m afraid. You may have observed that Gleason has considerably better lighting than Rosedale, and what little there is down Rosedale at that point is obscured by the trees. What we were able to see was a white or cream four by four. I can’t honestly be sure if it was a pickup or an SUV. Can you, Richard?”

Richard was putting the business cards away, sliding the drawer closed. He shook his head. “No. I remember, as you say, Jack, it was cream or white, might have been dirty, parked in the shadow of the trees. I want to say it had a closed back, like an SUV, but I might be making that up. It could well have been a pickup, like a Ford pickup.”

“Anything else? Did you see the driver return or drive away?”

“No, nothing after that. I think we watched a movie and that was it.”

I stood and Dehan stood with me. I said, “You have been very helpful indeed. You happen to know if any of your neighbors saw anything?”

Jack stood, shaking his head. “We talked to them, but nobody else saw anything, except that girl across the way.”

They waved to us from the door as we went down the stairs, and Jack hurried away to save his sauce. Out in the drizzle again, I stared over at the corner.

“That right there, in that depressing light from the street lamps, in November in the rain. That was where she spent the last few minutes of her life.”

“Assuming she was killed there and not at the river.” She looked up at me, squinting. “How did you know?”

I shook my head and gave a bland smile. “I didn’t. It was possible, so I explored and got lucky.”

She thumped my shoulder. “Good call. Now buy me some lunch and explain to me why it was possible.”

SIX

We took a short drive to the Hugh J Grant Circle. I parked on Metropolitan Avenue and we pushed through the door into the dark, warm interior of the Step In. It wasn’t long open, so it was quiet, with just a couple of guys sitting at the bar. I grabbed a table while Dehan went and ordered two beers and two burgers. She came to the table a couple of minutes later with the beers, put one in front of me and sat.

She said: “A guy with a white or cream truck who works at one of the sites on the river between Starlight Park and Soundview. It doesn’t exactly pinpoint our guy, but it’s not the worst pool of suspects we ever had.”

I made a noise of agreement and took a pull on my beer.

She pointed a finger at me. “But here’s what’s really on my mind: one, why the hell did Lenny not include these witnesses in his report? And two, what made you suspect that Lenny had come across a witness he didn’t want to report?”

I looked around the dark bar at the high-gloss brass and dark wood, trying to organize my thoughts. I said, truthfully, “I didn’t suspect it. I thought it was a possibility.”

“Why?”

I sighed and spread my hands.

She rolled her eyes. “OK, Sensei! What was it that made you think it was a possibility?”

“Several things. First, when we spoke to Remedios, she told us the guy appeared on foot. Now, as we saw later when we went to look at where she was washed up, it was a very difficult task to take the body to a place where he could dump it in the river. So one of two things happened: A, he abducted her and took her to the river, where he killed her; or B, he killed her on the spot and took