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

Her eyes narrowed to slits. “And what am I doing while you’re not interrogating Penelope Peach?”

“Look for the body—the bodies.”

“That’s stupid. I should go with you.”

“Will you trust me? I’ll be back in an hour and half, two at the most.”

She turned away. “Of course I trust you. I just think you’re wrong.”

“That’s fine. I’ll see you in a while.”

I took a small detour to St Lawrence Avenue before taking the Bronx River Parkway north to pick up the I-95 as far as the George Washington Bridge, before turning south, down along the Hudson as far as Penelope’s apartment on Riverside Drive, opposite the tennis courts.

All the way, I was running Dehan’s theory through my head. She would drive over first, be waiting for him, then call him, insist he comes down. He would get in the car, they would drive to her apartment. Then, according to Dehan’s theory, she would induce him to get into the bath, no doubt with a bottle of champagne, and that was where it began to unravel.

There was, at every step of this case, something that was missing. The presence of ketamine in his blood confused me too. To be instantly effective, it would have to be applied with a hypodermic, and however hard I tried, I could not visualize the scene where the ketamine was applied that way. It just didn’t ring true with Penelope or what I knew of Jack.

I parked on West 97th, made my way through the dappled shade to her apartment block and showed the guy on the desk my badge.

“Is Ms. Peach at home?”

“Yes, Detective. She hasn’t come down yet today. Shall I announce you?”

I shook my head. “No.”

I rode the elevator to the ninth floor, examining the star-shaped patterns of inlaid wood on the floor, and myself in the mirror, wondering if I was getting my first gray hairs on my temples. The jury was still out when the elevator stopped and the doors slid back.

I stepped out into a red-carpeted passage that ran right to left, with brass lamps bolted to the walls. Two other passages branched off at right angles, one on my right and one on my left. Through them, sunlight made angular patterns on the floors and the walls. The apartment doors were walnut with walnut frames. I found her halfway down on the left and rang the bell.

There was a long silence. I was about to ring again when the door opened and Penelope stood staring up at me.

“John… What are you doing here? Where is Carmen?”

“Are you alone?”

“I…” She frowned. “Yes, I am. Why?”

“Can I come in?”

She paused, then nodded. “Of course.” She stood back.

I stepped in and she closed the door. She smiled without feeling and touched her hair, which was uncombed. She was wearing a white satin robe. She should have looked stunning, but her skin was pale and pasty and I wondered if she was hung over.

“I’m not long up,” she said, as though answering a question I hadn’t asked. “I’m making coffee. You want some?”

“Sure.”

I followed her through a modern, comfortable living room to a bright, spacious kitchen with a breakfast bar. There she had a glass jug that was slowly filling with thin coffee from a filter. She took two cups from a cupboard. Her smile was nervous.

“Is this a social call? Should I go and put make up on?”

“No. I’d prefer to see the real you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means I need you to stop lying.” She filled a cup and handed it to me. I took it but I didn’t drink from it. “My partner is mad at me. She thought we should just come and haul your ass into the station and charge you.”

Her pallor became waxy. “Why?”

“That’s what tends to happen when you lie to the cops, Penelope.”

“What lie…?”

I smiled. “You mean there is more than one?”

“No, I mean…” She shook her head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You know exactly what I’m talking about. And I’ll go further. You have been involved in a pattern of deception since before Jack was killed. Now, my partner thinks that is powerful circumstantial evidence that you killed Jack. I think she may be right, but there are still things I don’t understand. So you need to start persuading me that it wasn’t you who killed him. You can do that by telling the truth.”

“That’s insane.”

“Is it?” I sipped the coffee. It was weak and unsatisfying. “Why did you change your telephone number the day after he was killed?”

She closed her eyes, swore under her breath and ran her fingers through her hair. She walked away from me. I followed her back through the living room and out onto a terrace overlooking the gardens along the river. She had a table out there and a couple of chairs. She put her cup there and sat. I put mine opposite.

“Don’t start dreaming up more lies, Penelope. You’re a bad liar and the more you lie, the more you confirm our suspicions about you. You need to start coming clean and you need to start now.”

“I was in a panic. I had just discovered that Jack was dead. Nobody knew about our affair and I wanted to distance myself from him. I changed my number and my phone company and demanded that my old company destroy my phone records. They said they couldn’t, but I kicked up a fuss and said I’d sue them, but I think they just humored me.” She put her hands over her face and sighed noisily. “I just didn’t want our affair to become public knowledge.”

“Was that all? Penny, if you are putting two and two together, it must have dawned on you by now.”

She