Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #3: Books 9-12 (A Dead Cold Box Set), Blake Banner [reading in the dark TXT] 📗

killed his fourth victim, just about everybody on the taskforce was convinced Johnson was our man, but I didn’t buy it. I don’t know what it was. Maybe it was a cultural thing. They were locked into the idea that they were ‘American murders’. The victims were American, serial killers are pretty rare here but common in the States, the first victim had had a relationship with an American who just reeked of killer…”

“But you didn’t like him for it.”

I shook my head. “No, because I knew he was more than capable of revenge killing, or killing some guy in a brawl in a bar, or shooting some guy in a heist. But he wasn’t going stick around to perform rituals. Johnson is just a primitive, brutish bad man. The guy who killed these girls is a paranoid schizophrenic. Johnson, in his simple, animal way, is perfectly sane.”

“So what happened?”

“There was a lot of frustration. There was no forensic evidence to move the investigation forward. We had no way of tying Johnson to any of the actual crimes. We pulled him in a few times and each time, they either had me present at the interview, or, the last couple of times, they had me interrogate him. By then, he was claiming police harassment and that we were out to frame him.”

I took another pull and leaned back in my seat. “What made it more complicated was that Johnson was obviously involved in something. You could see that a mile away. I figured he was running small arms for radical, far right groups over here. So that made him look guilty.” I spread my hands. “Because he was. He was guilty, but he was guilty of something else.”

“Did you ever prove anything, find out what he was into?”

I stared over at the cold, empty fireplace and after a while gave my head a slow shake. “No. We’d been married just a few weeks. It was about a week after I had interviewed Johnson the last time. I got home to our apartment and…” I had to stop. I steadied my breathing and shrugged, then shook my head. When I spoke, it came out as almost a whisper. “She’d been murdered while I was at work. In our bedroom.”

We were silent for a long time. Dehan didn’t speak, she just watched me. I waited for the images to subside, tried to see them in my mind as old, black and white photographs in an old newspaper; something that had been reported a long time ago, in another life.

I breathed slowly and steadily, and eventually I was able to talk again. “Again, there was no forensic evidence, but somebody had written on the mirror, in her blood, the words, ‘back off’.”

She reached across and took my hand. “Stone, I am so sorry. I don’t know what to say, what I can do…”

I smiled. “There is nothing anybody can do. You did it already. You married me and gave me a new life.” I spread my hands, trying to stay cool and hold it together. “I went back to the States. I took the Burgundy Bruiser with me. After a couple of weeks, I went to pieces. I took three months, saw a therapist, who helped. Then I went back to work, with the determination that I would be the best cop I could be.” I paused and thought a moment. “And I always had this conviction that it’s not enough just to punish somebody. You have to punish them for what they have done, and they have to know that. Otherwise it is not justice, it’s just revenge.”

She made a face and nodded. “I get that.” Then she leaned back and studied me for a moment. “OK, so if you don’t want to do this, we tell Harry and the Inspector we are sorry, but it just ain’t going to happen, and we go home.”

“No. I do. It’s…” I gave a one-sided shrug. “In some weird way, it’s timely. It will be good to tie this up and resolve it.” I gave her a smile, and couldn’t keep from it fifteen years of weariness, of exhaustion from living with that nightmare ever present. “In obedience to the Torah, according to Carmen Dehan.”

She smiled with rare and genuine tenderness in her huge, brown eyes. “Asshole,” she said.

“You know it’s mutual.”

She leaned forward, with her elbows on her knees. “It’s a hell of a coincidence.”

“That the feeling is mutual? Not really. We are both assholes. The whole precinct knows it and agrees.”

“Shut up, Stone. The fact that the girl has been killed, in the same way, and that Johnson is back in the country.”

I screwed up my face and shrugged one shoulder. “It’s only a coincidence if it’s a coincidence, and then…” I nodded. “It would be one hell of a coincidence.”

She gestured at me with an open hand. “This is either a sign that you are, truly, brilliant, or that you have been drinking too much English beer.”

“I mean, if it were a coincidence, it would be one hell of a coincidence. But what if it’s not? Because, you know, it probably isn’t.”

“That is kind of my point, Stone.”

“No, I know, but think about it. Assume, for the sake of the argument, that it is not a coincidence, but also that I am right and Johnson is not our man. Where does that leave us…?”

She thought about it, frowning hard. “A frame up?”

“That’s one possibility. Dehan, did you look at the note that was pinned to her eye?”

She shook her head. “I didn’t know what was going on yet, and I didn’t think I was invited to the party.”

“Get Harry to show you. I want to know what you think. The other thing is, how tall would you say the victim was?”

She thought about it