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

Dehan raised an eyebrow. “A rat.”

He looked at her and smiled. “Yes, Detective Dehan, but try not to beat him up or terrorize him. We need his cooperation.”

She smiled back. “Who, me?”

He chuckled without much humor. “All right, Detectives, go and see what you can find out.”

Back downstairs, Dehan found the file in the box. She dropped into her chair and started reading, while I stood in front of the fan.

“Stephen Springfellow, white male, thirty-two, found shot through the heart in his apartment on East 155th Street on June 14, 2015.” She pulled a happy face and glanced at me. “Recent. Makes a change. He was tied to a chair and had been badly beaten. He had his wallet in his back pocket with a hundred bucks in it, plus his credit card, ID, and driver’s license. Nothing appeared to be missing from his apartment. The lock had not been forced. The neighbors heard nothing, except that the one who called it in heard two gunshots close together and reported seeing a couple of members of the Sureños gang nearby. However, she then refused to make an official statement, and in any case, it was not enough to make an arrest.”

She pulled out some photographs of the crime scene and spread them on the desk. They showed a small, seedy apartment with an unmade bed, a table with three chairs around it, and a small, open-plan kitchen. Near the table, Stephen Springfellow was sprawled over the fourth chair. His ankles were tied to the chair legs, and his hands were tied behind the backrest. His face was badly bruised and swollen, and the front of his shirt was drenched and clotted with blood that was beginning to dry. You could see the dark circle of the entry wound to the right—his left—of his sternum.

I sat, pulled one of the pictures over to me, and started to examine it. Dehan was leafing through the file.

“He had previous. He was a small-time crook. Burglary, petty theft, brawls, but nothing major. Spent a couple of years in San Francisco, came back east 2014.”

“Maybe he was trying for the next level, wanted to play with the big boys.” I said it absently because something in the picture had caught my eye.

Dehan grunted. “Maybe. He obviously got the wrong people pissed. One slug was recovered. It was a .38.”

“What does it say about the blood on the floor?”

She looked at the photograph and frowned. “Huh!” She read for a bit, then said, “Blood on the floor, about two feet in front of the victim, possibly consistent with a second victim, though no other victim was found at the apartment or in the vicinity. So they looked.”

I stared at her. “Possibly consistent with another victim? That’s what it says?”

“Yup.” She tossed the file across to me and started examining the photographs.

I read again. “Nobody heard anything, except the neighbor who called it in. Saw some Sureños… then heard two shots close together…” I looked up at her. “Two shots.”

She sat back. “Okay. So he decides he wants to move into the big leagues. He partners up with some tough guy, does a job that steps on the Sureños’ toes. They get pissed, pay him a visit, and ice him…”

“Ice him? You been reading Mickey Spillane?”

“Of course. Questions: Who is this tough guy? Why did they leave Stephen but take away the second victim? Where is the second victim now?”

I leaned back. “Speculation: did the second victim come up with the information that they were trying to beat out of Stephen?”

“So Stephen was no longer of any use. They iced him and took away victim two.”

I nodded. “It’s possible.”

I picked up the phone and dialed. It rang twice and a voice on the other end said, “Baxter, private investigator. How may I help you?”

“Mr. Baxter, this is Detective Stone of the NYPD. You wanted to have sight of one of our files.”

“Ah, Detective Stone, yes indeed. Good of you to call back. The Stephen Springfellow case.”

“We would like to talk to you about that. Are you available this afternoon?”

There was a smile in his voice. “I rather imagined you would, Detective. Yes, come right on over. Six-eighty Melrose Avenue, over the African hair-braiding salon.”

“We’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

Two

Outside, a harsh glare was added to the relentless, humid heat. The streets were practically empty, and the plane trees across the road looked depressed. My Jag, a burgundy 1964 Mark II, was like an oven. The steering wheel was almost too hot to hold. I smiled—at least we had working air-conditioning.

As we accelerated down the Bruckner Expressway, luxuriating in the cold air from the dash, I said, “The other question, Dehan, is what is the connection between Baxter’s client and the victim or victims?”

“Yeah, I was making a mental list.” She held up her thumb. “Client is seeking revenge. Could be a husband, wife, son, daughter, sister, brother. So we should have a look at Stephen’s close relationships.”

She held up her index finger. I glanced at it and was struck by the fact that it was long and slender, like a pianist’s finger. “Or it could be another kind of revenge…”

“Professional, as of a gang, a mob… something of that sort.”

“Yeah, or three—” She held up thumb, index, and middle finger. “—Baxter’s client is looking for whatever Stephen’s killers were looking for. Whether that is information or an actual, physical object, we don’t know. And of course, all of this applies to Stephen’s co-victim. It’s possible Baxter’s client has no interest whatsoever in Stephen.”

“Mm-hm.” I nodded. “The fact that the second victim was removed from the apartment suggests that he, or she, was of interest to the killers.