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

“Up in her room.” He shook his head. “We haven’t had the heart to go in and do anything. I know we should, but my angina and my blood pressure, anytime I think about…” His face crumpled and he started to cry. “I can’t. I can’t just kick her out like that, chuck her out with the trash. I can’t do that…”

“Of course not, nobody would expect you to do that. You should treasure her memory.”

He nodded at her, with his mouth open under wet cheeks. “Thank you.”

“Sean,” she went on, frowning. “Are you saying that Celeste’s room is pretty much as it was that Sunday, when she walked out?”

He blew his nose and wiped his eyes. “Hasn’t been touched.”

“Lenny didn’t go up there?”

“He said he didn’t need to. ‘No need to go upsetting you, old friend,’ that’s what he said.”

I nodded a few times. “Well, Lenny is a good man, but I am afraid we are going to need to go up and have a look around, Mr. Reynolds. We need Celeste’s computer.”

“I understand. Just makes me cry every time I think… Don’t break anything, or throw anything away, will you?”

“We wouldn’t dream of it, Sean. And we won’t take anything without your permission. But we do need her computer.”

“OK…”

We climbed the stairs again and found the door unlocked. I pulled some latex gloves from my pocket and saw that Dehan was doing the same. I pulled them on, pushed open the door and switched on the light. The room was large, and tidier than I had expected. A window at the far end overlooked the street. The drapes were closed and I went over and pulled them open. The bed was made, but under the duvet, the sheets were rumpled and not fresh. The pillows still had indentations, as of a head. There was a desk with very little on it. I looked at Dehan. “Call dispatch, get them to send a forensics team out.”

She frowned as she pulled out her cell. “Forensics? What are you expecting to find?”

“Something. I’m not sure what.”

She made the call while I went through the desk and found nothing there. She had boxes below the desk. An exploration of them revealed stuff from when she was a kid. There was no laptop, no cable, no box a laptop once came in.

Dehan hung up. “They’re on their way.” She moved to a pine bookcase and started going through the books. “Mostly chic-lit,” she said. “Women complain that they are stereotyped, then they read chic-lit and dress up as vaginas.” I laughed. “Seriously, Stone. How many guys read guy-lit and dress up as penises?”

“None many that I know of.”

“Exactly. This looks like a diary.” She took it over and leaned on the windowsill, started leafing through it. “It’s from a few years back. Twenty thirteen, she’s what? Fifteen?”

“Mm-hm.”

I looked around. There were no posters on the walls. The books on the bookcase were, as Dehan had said, mainly chic-lit, but adolescent, as though she had bought it at the time of the diary. There was absolutely nothing in the room to suggest an eighteen year-old Celeste had ever occupied it.

Dehan spoke again, while reading, “This is just page after page of complaint about Samuel, her sister and her dad. She doesn’t talk about any boys she likes, friends at school, bands… nada. Her whole damn life seems to revolve around her frustration with her family.”

She snapped it closed, pulled an evidence bag from her pocket and bagged the diary.

“Stone, how can Lenny believe that he can get away with this? A murder investigation where it is clear that the victim received a call from somebody she probably knew, using a burner, minutes before her death, and he neglects to search her room. What the hell is he playing at? The phone records, the witnesses… He could not possibly believe that he could get away with that.”

“I know.” I went and stood next to her, she looking into the room with her elbows on the windowsill, I looking out at the damp, gray road. “And the weirdest thing of all is that he is too good a cop not to realize it’s just a matter of time.”

Outside, the forensics van pulled up. I sighed as I watched them climb out. “The computer isn’t here, Dehan. But I think I might know where it is.”

We went down and opened the door. Bob was approaching across the sidewalk, dressed in plastic and grinning among his beard. Behind him was his team.

“Hey guys, how’s married life?”

“Hell, but you should know that, Bob. You’ve been happily divorced for years.”

He laughed like Santa and asked, “What’s it about? What are we looking for?”

I hesitated a moment. “We are looking for fingerprints that do not belong to the family. If I’m right, you’re going to find overwhelmingly Celeste’s prints and very few others, maybe Samuel, her brother. But there may be one other, a man, and if you run him through the system, you’ll get a hit. Let me know immediately, Bob. It’s important.

“Also, check the bed for DNA. Again, if I’m right, you’ll find Celeste’s and a man.”

He frowned. “OK.”

“It could be a delicate matter. Go on up, room opposite the bathroom. I’ll tell Mr. Reynolds you’re here.”

I found Dehan sitting on the hood of the Jag with her long legs stuck out in front of her. Dusk was gathering and she watched me approach with frowning eyes. “You think Lenny was having an affair with Celeste?”

I stopped in my tracks and thought about my answer. Finally, I said, “Somebody was. If not Lenny, somebody.”

EIGHT

It was a short drive down Gleason Avenue in the gathering gloom to Chad’s place. He had the drapes closed, but warm light