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

She seemed to examine my face, then nodded once. “OK.”

We went down and I stood for a moment in the kitchen door, watching him. Dehan was behind me. I said, “Hello, Ed.” He looked at me but didn’t say anything. “Is it loaded?”

He took a swig. “There’s beer in the fridge. You going to join me?”

“Maybe in a minute. You didn’t answer my question.”

“Of course it’s loaded. What’s the use of an unloaded gun?”

“What I’m wondering right now is, what is the use of a loaded gun?”

He shrugged. “I haven’t decided yet.”

“You planning to shoot me, or my partner?”

He chuckled. “That’s all I need, to be convicted as a cop-killer. That would be the ultimate triumph of the establishment, wouldn’t it? ‘We always knew he was a damn criminal! Just goes to show, when the chips are down you can only trust a white man!’”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t need to. You set me up, you framed me, you got me.”

I stepped down from the door onto the patio flags. Another two steps took me to the edge of the lawn. I could feel Dehan behind me, leaning on the doorjamb.

“The weapon isn’t going to help, Ed. It doesn’t look good, you sitting there with it in your lap.”

He sighed and looked down at the beer bottle in his hand. “I’m sorry, Detective Stone, but that’s where it’s going to stay. I am licensed to carry it, and frankly, right now I feel threatened.”

I looked around for somewhere to sit. There was a low wall that framed the lawn along the patio and the right border, and held assorted flower pots. I sat there, on the right where I could see Ed’s face. I watched him a moment as he watched me back with dark, hating eyes.

“You’ve won enough trials over the years, Ed, to know that the system is not as corrupt as it used to be. Your big, mock Rococo house in Morris Park is evidence of that, your Audi 8 is evidence of that.”

He snorted. “Where would I be living, what would I be driving, Detective Stone, if I had been a white Anglo-Saxon protestant?”

“I’m not going to play that game with you, Ed. I am not a threat, neither is my partner. If you are not guilty, you will not go down for this. Just put the gun away, and let’s talk.”

He puffed out his cheeks and blew. “The gun stays. By all means, let’s talk, but your time is limited. I am done. I’m through.” He looked at me and I was in no doubt that he was serious. “There is just one way I leave this house, and that’s in a body bag.”

Twenty-four

The ringing of the doorbell made him frown and look toward the kitchen. Dehan raised an eyebrow at me. I said, “It’s Susanne Mackenzie. Would you mind showing her through, Dehan?”

She frowned. “You knew she was coming?”

I nodded. She sighed, turned, and disappeared into the house. Ed was scrutinizing me like he’d decided I wasn’t human, but he wasn’t sure what kind of species I was. Finally, he said, “Susanne?”

I nodded again.

He said, “Why?”

I shrugged with my eyebrows and my shoulders. A moment later, there was a presence at the kitchen door. Sue was there with Dehan behind her. She stared at Ed, who scowled back. Then she turned and stared at me. She looked distressed.

“Detective?”

“Hi, Susanne. Thanks for coming. Eduardo is in a pretty bad way. I was hoping that you could help him.”

She looked startled. “Me? How?”

I pointed at the .38 in his lap. “He is planning to shoot himself.”

Her face went white. “Ed…?”

He looked angrily at me. “What is this, Stone? What are you playing at?”

I thought for a moment. “Well, it seems to me that that was a pretty important time in all your lives. You all had something really important, something you all lost afterwards.”

Sue was watching me fixedly. “What? What thing?”

“Hope. For some of you, it was hope for the community you cared so much about. For others, it was hope for your family, your young children… Or hope for that newfound love, a love we so rarely find in life. A love capable of making us dream,” I smiled, gave a small laugh, and glanced at Dehan. She was leaning on the doorjamb again, frowning at me like I’d gone crazy. I looked back at Ed. “A love capable of making us believe in magic. Back then, fifteen years ago, just before you moved, Ed, each one of the five of you had some kind of hope in your hearts.”

He growled, “What in hell are you talking about, Stone?”

I turned to Sue. “It was hard for you, Susanne, because you had lost your husband recently. I believe you loved him very much, didn’t you?”

She nodded. “Yes, I did. He was a wonderful man.”

“I’ve been trying to imagine what that must have been like.”

She smiled at me. There was tragedy and gratitude in her face.

“I imagine, to begin with, Rosario must have been a source of support. She was kind, loving, and most important of all, she had been there. She knew how you felt.”

She moved to the wall where it bordered the patio, and sat. She gazed for a while at the grass, dappled with the shadows of the leaves in the tall trees. “She was good. She was very kind, very humane.”

Ed growled, “She was one in a million. One in seven billion.”

She glanced at him. I said, “It’s probably the worst thing in the world, to lose somebody you love.” The same grateful smile again. “It leaves an emptiness that we think we will never be able to fill