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

one lucky dude.” He shook his head, still smiling. “She was way out of my league, man. Way out of my league.”

He looked Dehan in the eye. “But, one day, Detective Dehan, if I ever get out of this shit hole, if I ever make a success of writing, I would aspire to a woman like that.”

She arched an eyebrow at him. “That is very inspiring, Lenny. So, you’ve told me how close you weren’t. Now how about you tell me how close you were.”

“We saw each other twice a week in class, Thursday and Friday. I was a pretty good student, so I didn’t miss many classes. She was fun, she liked me. It was a nice class, we used to have a laugh. We’d all been around a bit, you know what I mean? We’d all lived some. We all had some stories to tell. First time in my life I didn’t feel like I had to be a criminal. It was like…”

For a moment he seemed to be lost for words. I realized that was rare for him and on impulse I said, “Coming home?”

He looked surprised and after a moment nodded. “Yeah, exactly. It was like coming home.” He turned to Dehan. “You don’t know this, but when you have no home, when you don’t belong, you can be driven to do things you would not normally dream of doing.”

Her face kind of stretched tight and she leaned back in her chair. I suppressed a smile and asked him, “Is that how you were driven to decapitate…” I paused, raising an eyebrow. “Do you remember her name?”

“Yeah, I remember her name. Cherry.”

“Mahalia Campbell.”

“We used to call her Cherry. You don’t know. There are people in this world, walkin’ among us, man, who are livin’ in hell. There’s some poet, I can’t remember his name, he said, the mind is its own place.” He turned to Dehan. “You know what that means? He says, it can make a hell of heaven, and a heaven of hell. That’s fuckin’ deep, man. When you belong, then it’s like you’re not in hell anymore. But when you don’t belong, you can end up real fast in hell. And then you don’t know what you can and can’t do.” He was still addressing Dehan. “I’ll tell you somethin’ else. When you don’t belong, you know what the worst thing anybody can do to you is?”

She shrugged. “I know you’re going to tell me.”

“When you don’t belong, the worst thing anybody can do to you is not kill you or cut you nor nothin’ like that. It’s steal from you. You’re lost, you ain’t got no home, nobody wants you and you don’t belong nowhere, and then somebody steals from you. You gonna kill that motherfucker.” He was silent for a moment, looking at his manacled hands. Then suddenly he said, “I’m sorry. I try not to talk like that. Helena taught me that the way we speak makes us who we are.” He looked up at me. “I see a shrink in here, and he told me there is some truth in that.”

“I’m sure there is. So you cut off Mahalia’s head because she stole from you.”

“Yeah. She stole my money…” He shrugged. “Though, in reality, if I could have seen things more clearly, it was her money because she was working for it. You know what I’m saying? But I was her pimp. I was crazy at that time.”

“Did you feel that Helena belonged to you?”

He stared at me, with his eyebrows high on his forehead, then burst out laughing. “You crazy? Helena didn’t belong to nobody! She was her own woman, man! What are you talking about?”

Dehan spoke suddenly. “Do you remember the last class, the one that was cancelled?”

“Yeah, we turned up and there was a sign. Said there had been an accident or some shit. Classes never started up again. But I knew she was OK cause she published a new book that same night. I read it. It was good.”

“You ever meet her husband?”

The laughter faded from his face and he narrowed his eyes at her. “No, man. I never met her husband. What’s this about, man? You ambushing me? Should I have a lawyer here with me?”

I shook my head. “We are not about to charge you with anything, Lenny. We are just trying to find out what happened that day.”

“Well, why don’t you tell me what happened that day?”

“You know that’s not the way it works, Lenny. Can you remember what you did that Thursday?”

“That was five years ago. How the hell would I remember that, man?”

Dehan shrugged. “Maybe it was a notable day. Was it?”

“No. I don’t know. I don’t remember.”

I said, “Does the name Jack Connors mean anything to you?”

He pulled down the corners of his mouth and raised his shoulders. “No. I don’t know. Did I beat him up some time? I beat up on a lot of guys. I used to be a real violent son of a bitch. I never lost a fight. You know that? Couple of guys I beat up almost died.”

“I know. We’ve seen your sheet. Jack Connors was Helena’s wife.”

“Oh. She didn’t take his name?” He smiled. “That’s just like her. Independent woman.” He stopped and frowned. “Wait. You said was. He died and you want to pin it on me cause I was in her class? That’s fucked up, man.”

I shook my head. “We don’t want to pin it on anybody, Lenny. We want to know who did it.”

“Really?” He turned to Dehan. “Really? How many other people from the class you been to talk to?”

I answered. “None. We thought we’d start with you.”

“No kidding. There was other black dudes in the class. Some were blacker than me. Why don’t you