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

He nodded. “OK.”

Dehan had been listening carefully, with a small frown. Now she said, “Before we wrap this up, I need to know if Helena was with you the whole time that Thursday morning, from the time Jack went to work until she left for her class in the Bronx?”

He thought about the answer for a long time, gazing out at the sea. I began to think he wasn’t going to answer, but as I drew breath to prompt him, he suddenly sighed and said, “She was with me the whole time, yes.”

“Why did you lie about going out to lunch with your European friends?”

He shrugged. “Because of this, what’s happening now. It was her idea. I told her she should just tell the truth. Lying always leads to complications. But she said that if the cops did forensic tests on the bed and on us, and proved that we had had sexual intercourse, we would automatically become their prime suspects. Obviously Helena stood to inherit a huge amount of money from Jack, and as lovers we had a powerful motive…” He shrugged again. “So she said we needed to deflect their suspicion by concocting this story where there were other witnesses that we would try to track down. In the meantime, the investigation would follow its own course and they would forget about us. It was like one of her lurid novels. As it turned out, she was only half right. But she was very afraid of what would happen if the cops realized that we were lovers.”

Dehan gave her head a small sideways twitch. “I got to tell you, it’s not a good look, Alornerk.”

He turned to gaze at her. “We were alone, but we were together, the whole morning up until she went to class.”

I sighed and made to stand, but paused. “There are two things you can do to really mess this up, Alornerk: go on the run, and call Helena to tell her what’s happened. You understand me?”

“Yeah, I understand.”

“So we’ll see you tomorrow afternoon.”

“Yeah, I’ll be there early, about two or three.”

I climbed to my feet and jumped down from the wall. Dehan swung her right leg over so she was straddling the wall, looking at him. She stopped there and said, “Whose idea was it that you should go to the book launch?”

“Hers.”

“And hers that you should stay in the same house?”

“Yes.”

“Did that strike you as odd?”

“No. She had gone back to him hoping that he would receive her with open arms. But she had forgotten what an asshole he was. He treated her like a worthless piece of shit, the same way he always had, and that depressed her. So I guess she had a whole mix of feelings and urges: to punish him in his own house, perhaps to make him jealous, to assuage her own feelings of inadequacy, to restore her self-esteem, all sorts of motivations for that decision to invite me there. None of them, I later realized, had anything at all to do with me, with making me happy, with making me feel good. It was all to protect and reinforce her bruised little ego.”

“Yeah, I get that. Is there anything else you want to tell us before we go?”

“I didn’t kill him, Detective Dehan, and neither did she.”

“OK, Alornerk, we’ll see you tomorrow.”

We left him sitting there, on the sea wall, looking out at the breezy ocean as the sun began to slide down the dome of the sky toward the western horizon.

We crossed the road and made our way back to the car. On the way Dehan tossed me the keys.

“Three and a half hours. Your turn.”

We climbed in and I reversed out of the driveway onto Quincy Shore Drive and headed north in search of the I-90. As we crossed over the Neponset, she suddenly raised both hands and dropped them into her lap.

“We need some forensic evidence, Stone. We are just going round and round in circles. I…” She bit back the words, then sighed again and expostulated, “I don’t honestly see how we can close this one, Stone! I mean, everyone might have done it but nobody certainly did it…”

I made a skeptical face and said, “Not everyone might have done it.”

She didn’t hear me and went on. “I mean, our most likely person, like you said, is Lenny. Because, you know, he kills people, he cut off a woman’s head, and he loved her and had no alibi!”

“I didn’t actually say that…”

“But both Penelope and Shaw had motive and opportunity, and Alornerk and Helena lied about their alibi! Hell, Stone! We are no closer now than when we first picked up the case!”

“Possibly a slight exaggeration…”

“Do you believe Alornerk? Do you think he and Helena were in it together to get rid of Jack? She used Alornerk and then dumped him?”

“That’s a novel theory.”

“I mean, what the hell do you think, Stone?”

“I think you are right, we need some forensic evidence. I also think, as I did earlier today, that our very narrow window is crucial to what happened. Make a movie, Dehan.”

“What?”

“Make a movie in your head.”

“A movie?”

“It starts with Jack picking up the phone and arranging to meet Penelope. Maybe she calls him or maybe he calls her, we need to find out if the records were ever requested and if not, whether they are still available.”

“But wait a minute…”

“I know, Dehan, she said she didn’t talk to him that day. But if she didn’t, as I said before, who the hell was he going to see that lunchtime? So either he gets the call or he calls her, and he sets off to meet her. Either that or there is another person involved