Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #2: Books 5-8 (A Dead Cold Box Set), Blake Banner [readnow TXT] 📗

“Yes, of course. I will.”

“Do you have any idea who your attacker was?”

She shook her head. “I honestly don’t. He was very big, like a giant. He was so heavy, and strong.” She paused, breathing slowly to steady her nerves. “He was black, he had an accent. He wasn’t Bronx. He sounded maybe…” She made a face and shrugged. “Maybe French or Nigerian, something foreign.” She stopped again to think. “Like he didn’t pronounce his ‘rs’. He kept saying, ‘Where is Moses?’, but instead of ‘where’ he said it like, ‘whe-ah’. Does that help?”

I glanced at Dehan. She glanced at me. I said, “Yeah. It helps a lot. Angela, my next question is really important, more than you maybe realize. What were Sebastian and Luis doing at your house that night?”

Her head tilted on one side. She bit her lip. Tears spilled from her eyes and rolled down her cheek. It was an expression of almost intolerable sadness. She shrugged. “They wanted to party. I didn’t want to, but they were happy, joking. They had the next day off. They said they’d been somewhere and they had to leave. That made them laugh. They arrived in a taxi…”

I interrupted her. “What time was this?”

“I guess it was maybe thirty minutes after one. I let them in, and told them I had no drink. I don’t really drink. Neither does Moses. We don’t keep drink in the house. They said to let them borrow the car, they’d go to the all night store. I said no way, but Luis, you know, he always gets his way. He took the keys from the hook in the kitchen. They were laughing and I couldn’t make them be serious…”

She trailed off. Wiped her eyes with her fingers. I said, “What happened next, Angela?”

“I told them to phone their parents, tell them they were with me and they were going to stay the night. Sleep it off. I would not let them drive while they were drunk. Sebastian agreed. While they called, I made coffee and some eggs. They had some and after that, Sebastian said he was OK. He wasn’t as drunk as Luis. They said they just wanted a few beers and then they’d go to bed. In the end, I agreed.”

I thought for a moment. “So at what time did they go out?”

“Maybe two o’clock. Maybe a bit later. They had to go to an ATM to get some money. Then the store…”

“So they were gone, what? Forty-five minutes?”

“I guess about that.”

“Then what happened?”

“I heard the car pull up outside. I went to the window to see if it was them. It was. But there was another car, over on the right. It had its headlamps on. A guy got out. He was big, tall, he was dressed in black, with a ski mask. He walked up, real quick. Then he had the gun in his hand and he just started shooting through the driver’s window. I saw Luis fall out of the passenger side. He staggered a couple of paces, then fell on his knees and tried to crawl up the steps. The guy just walked back to his car and drove away.”

Dehan asked her, “Was it the same car as your attacker used today?”

She shook her head. “I didn’t see what car he used today.”

“Do you think it could have been the same man?”

She thought for a long time before answering. “It’s possible. When he attacked me, I was sleeping. Everything is a kind of blur. The night of the shooting, he was outside… under the streetlamp, and in the headlamps, he looked big. He was tall. He was dressed in dark clothes. That’s all I could make out.”

We were quiet for a while. I was trying to fit all the pieces together in my head. The problem was they didn’t all fit. I thought of the old cliché about a case fitting together like the pieces of a jigsaw. The problem here was that there seemed to be at least three jigsaws.

I sighed. “We’re nearly done, Angela. This is all really helpful. But there is one more thing I need you to clear up for me. The bullet holes in your door. They’re not from the same night, they are earlier. What happened there?”

She turned and gazed out the window. After a moment, she wiped a tear from her cheek. Then she reached for a box of tissues on her bedside table, blew her nose, and wiped her eyes again. She gave a small laugh and apologized. “I’m sorry. It’s just all so much. I feel kind of overwhelmed.”

Dehan smiled. “Take your time. We’ll leave you in peace in a minute. I promise.”

Angela smiled at her, like she didn’t really want her to leave her in peace.

“It was a couple of weeks ago. It was what made Moses decide to move out. We were watching TV. I guess it was about six in the evening. There was a ring at the doorbell and Moses went to open the door. I heard some voices, like Moses was talking to a man. Then all of a sudden there was this shout. It was Moses yelling, ‘You get out of my house!’ really mad, really angry. I heard a crash, like somebody falling down the stairs. The door slammed. And then, like firecrackers going off. Two of them, and I heard Moses curse in the hallway. When I went out to see what was going on, he was holding his leg and he was bleeding badly.”

Dehan spread her hands. It was an eloquent gesture of frustration. “Why didn’t you call the cops?”

Angela held her eye for a long moment. “You know why, Carmen.”

Dehan looked at me and heaved a big sigh. “Mick.”

I nodded. “Angela, I’ve had a police guard put on