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

He shook his head. “No, nothing so black and white as that. Jack never came out and said, ‘I am having an affair,’ therefore none of us knew that he was having an affair, and as they were both quite obviously very fond of each other, the collective conclusion was that he was not having an affair. So nobody lied, but nobody told the whole truth, either.”

Dehan said, “So, Penelope? Was that her name?”

“Yep, Penelope Peach.”

Dehan grinned and looked over her shoulder again. “Penelope Peach? Are you kidding?”

“No, that’s her name. It’s a hard name to forget. I heard him dictating her name and address over the phone. He was having something delivered to her. I don’t know what. I can’t remember the address, but it was on the upper west side, not far from his own house.”

I studied him a moment in the rear-view. “You didn’t like him much, did you?”

“Not really. I didn’t dislike him much either. I thought he was a narcissistic egomaniac and it kind of annoyed me that everybody bought into his ‘firm-but-fair’ great guy act.” He gave a small shrug. “He was living proof that his system worked. He was a crass, vulgar oaf, but he told everybody he was an amazing guy, and they all believed him.”

Dehan gave a single nod and pulled down the corners of her mouth. “Is that what persuasion engineering is?”

“It’s a little more complex than that, but in essence, yes. It’s based on the idea that communication is always what the other person understands. If in my language ‘I love you’ means ‘I hate you’, and I say to you, ‘Detective Dehan, I love you,’ what I have communicated is the opposite of what I actually intended to communicate. My intention plays no part in the communication. Communication is what you understand, not what I intend.”

I gave a small grunt. “That’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?”

“On the surface, perhaps. But then consider that each individual has his own language. Ninety-three percent of all communication is non-verbal. We communicate in hugely complex ways: tone, expression, twitches, gestures, body language—all of which flow from our unconscious urges, needs, fears and appetites; and all of that complex bundle is our own, personal language. So a skilled communicator takes the trouble to learn the language of the person he wants to communicate to, and tells them what they want them to hear, see and feel, in their own language. Jack was a passed master at that.”

“But you didn’t buy into it?”

He laughed. “Jack never thought I was important enough to learn my language. Consequently I saw through him and he didn’t even see me.”

“How about Helena?”

We were on the bridge and I saw him look out of the window at the wide expanse of water. “I think it suited them both to present this image of a united couple deeply in love with each other. I think they really were fond, but I also suspect they had stopped being in love a long time ago.”

Dehan had turned and wedged her back against the door so she could see him. “How well did you know her?”

I saw him smile out at the water. Then he turned to face her. “Maybe I could start my own business teaching NLP to the NYPD. Then you might start asking more subtle questions. I didn’t know her very well at all. She would sometimes come into the office, charm everyone, be superbly, elegantly European and then leave. I am not a brilliant observer, there are people at work who are real masters. They call it calibration. They will actually detect changes in your skin texture and breathing pattern while they speak to you. But I’m not that good.”

“I read somewhere that NLP is basically a form of hypnosis.”

“Not basically, that is exactly what it is. And not a form, but many forms. NLP is a range of highly sophisticated techniques for putting people into trance, and manipulating their unconscious while they’re there.”

We were quiet for a while as we drove along the Bruckner Expressway, headed east. As I moved off, onto the Boulevard to take White Plains north, he said, “I did try to talk to Detective Langstrum, during the original investigation, but he didn’t seem very interested. I guess because everybody else was giving him the official version.”

We dropped him outside his house on St Lawrence Avenue and watched him push through the gate, unlock the white door and go inside. When he was gone from view, I pulled out and we made our way back toward Storey Avenue and the station. Neither of us spoke until I had parked the car and killed the engine. Then I looked at Dehan and said, “I am trying to work out what happened just there.”

She nodded. “Me too. Roast beef sandwiches and coffee might help. You go get ’em, big guy, I’ll search for Penelope Peach. Like the man said, there can’t be many of them.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

When I got back from the deli and put the brown paper bag on the desk, Dehan was on the phone, sounding sweet and friendly.

“Oh, she’s not there right now? But you think she’ll be back next Monday? With friends… I bet she has! Well, how about you, honey? You sound like you are just gorgeous! We have a superb range… Well what are you laughin’ at? Nobody ever told you you sound beautiful? Well, I just don’t believe that!” She reached over and took a beef sandwich from the bag, checked it for pickles and gave me the thumbs up. “OK, honey, well, I’ll call back Monday, but you think about what I told you. Bye now!”

She hung up and bit into the sandwich. I said, “I think you derive a perverse