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

and I heard the front door open and close. Big feet tramped past. We sat in silence and listened to a fridge open and close three times, cupboard doors bang, then big feet tramped back and the door to the room opened.

Samuel occupied the whole doorway. The hall behind him was as dark and gloomy as the room in front of him. He narrowed his eyes to observe Dehan, and then me, where I sat at the foot of the old man’s bed. He had an angry face, like it had been cast that way, and he’d look mad whatever mood he was in. His narrowed eyes now made him look angrier. His voice was surprisingly quiet.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” he said. “I had to get some things.”

I stood and showed him my badge. “Mr. Reynolds, I am Detective John Stone. “This is Detective Carmen Dehan.” She stood also and showed him her badge. “We run the cold cases unit at the 43rd. We got a message that you have some new evidence relating to a cold case.”

He didn’t look at our badges. He listened to me, and when I had finished, he went over to his father. “How are you doing, Daddy?” he said. “Will I make you your cocoa?”

My voice was a little louder than I had intended. I sighed and said, “Mr. Reynolds, we are very busy and we can’t afford to spend the afternoon sitting around waiting for you. If you have something to tell us, then we would appreciate you doing it now.”

He stood erect and scowled at me. “He always has his cocoa at this time.”

I pulled a card from my wallet and handed it to him. “When you’re ready, call me and come down to the station house.”

The old man was flapping his hands. “Sit down, sit down. Samuel, you can’t keep the police waiting on you, I’ll have my cocoa later. Sit down.”

Samuel hesitated a moment, then pulled over a straight-backed chair and sat by the window with the cold, silver light on his face. We sat too and Dehan pulled a notebook from her pocket.

I said, “Samuel, we got your message and came straight over. We haven’t looked at the file yet. So if you could fill us in a little, that would help.”

He didn’t answer straight away. When he did, he said, “I asked for Lenny. Lenny had the case.”

“Lenny Davis?”

He nodded.

“Detective Davis doesn’t work cold cases. Like I said, we run the cold cases unit. This case is two years old now.”

Dehan was making notes. “Don’t worry, we’ll be sure and talk to him to get us up to speed.”

His back was very straight and he had his big hands on his knees. His trousers were a rusty corduroy. His sweater was a darker rust color, like his tightly curled hair. He wet his lips with his tongue. “I went to see Chad.”

Dehan sighed. “Who’s Chad?”

“Chad Norris was Celeste’s boyfriend, kind of. She was seeing him, used to stay over with him. I always thought he was the one who killed her. I didn’t like her seeing him. That’s where she was going the night she was killed. To see him.”

“Celeste,” I said, “was your younger sister. She was eighteen at the time, and you didn’t approve of her boyfriend, Chad.”

He gave a single nod.

“What was it about him, Samuel, that you didn’t like?”

“He was one of those, you know, like he thought he was superior. His dad’s got lots of money, and he has his own house his dad bought for him, and he’s studying law, going to be a big shot lawyer, you know. Like he was too good for us.”

Dehan scratched her head and leaned back in her chair, crossing one long leg over the other. “If he was going out with your sister, how could he think he was too good for you?”

There was a resentful glaze to his eyes now, and a slight curl of the lip. “Well, she was getting ideas herself. Maybe she thought she was too good for us, too.”

“Samuel!” Sean, the old man, had gotten up on one elbow. The aged weakness had evaporated from his face. In its place, there was a scowl that instantly cowed his son. “Family! That’s your sister!”

I studied the old man’s face as he sank back into the pillows, and the appearance of sickness seeped back into the folds and creases. I glanced at Samuel. He was rubbing his palm with his thumb. “So what made you think Chad killed your sister?”

He shrugged. “She was going to his house that night. Probably going to stay the night. She did often enough.”

I waited, but there was nothing more. “Forgive me for insisting, Samuel, but going to visit somebody isn’t normally a motive for murder. There has to be something more.”

“Well, it’s him. He’s a violent sort, aggressive. He used to attack her…”

Dehan looked up from her pad. “Physically?”

“No… well… She said he used to push her if he got mad. He had a temper. He’d pinch her sometimes, too. But mostly it was verbal. He used to humiliate her, shout at her. She told me about it and it made her cry. It made me mad. I told her I’d go talk to him, but she said not to. Like she didn’t want him to meet us. Like she was ashamed of us.”

“So you never met him?”

“Never till now.”

“He lives near here?”

It was his father who answered. “Croes Avenue, not more than five or ten minutes walk down Gleason,” and he told us the number.

I said: “So, what happened that night?”

Samuel said to his hand, “I would have thought you’d know that. Lenny would have known. That’s why I thought they’d send him.”

I smiled as amiably as