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

“So you have partials of Celeste’s killer’s thumbs?”

“I have largely unusable partials of Celeste’s killer’s thumbs. They might be suggestive, but they would not be conclusive or probative of guilt.”

Dehan snorted. “It’s a damn sight more than we had last night.”

He shrugged. “I wouldn’t be so sure. Personally, what struck me as most significant was the detective’s refusal to have the test done.”

I nodded. “That could be very significant. Frank, can you run a comparison of the partials you got with Lenny’s prints? See how close they actually are?”

“Of course.” He glared at me. “I have other work which also involves murder, people who are important to other people and killers who might strike again! But I will try and get it done today.”

“You’re the best, Frank.”

“Now, both of you, get out and let me get back to work. The dead are calling to me. I must go to them…”

Outside, the eastern horizon was turning a smoky blue-gray and the air was shifting from night to grainy twilight. The traffic was desultory and had a sleepy quality to it, as though the occasional car, with its hazy headlamps, was driving out of a dream toward the waking hours.

Dehan opened the passenger door, but instead of climbing in, she leaned her forearms on the roof and looked up at the plane trees across the road, where the dawn chorus was starting its noisy chatter.

“What do we do now, Sensei?”

“We go to the station, we pick up some coffee and croissants on the way, we make a list of all the businesses that back onto the river from Starlight Park to where Celeste was found, and we start phoning them, one by one, asking for their lists of employees for November 2016.”

She shifted her eyes from the trees to stare at me.

“Holy…”

“It’s a Chinese puzzle, Dehan. Nothing quite answers everything.”

“That’s why you asked me who my money was on. You were already thinking about that.”

I sighed and leaned my arms on my side of the roof. “The fact is it could just as easily be Lenny or Chad, though Lenny has worked much harder at incriminating himself. But whichever one you pick, you are still faced with the original questions: how the hell did they get her into the river, and why did they dump her upstream?”

She raised her hands and rubbed her face with her palms. “Why… how…would Lenny have access to one of those lots, warehouses or factories?”

“The same question applies to Chad. Which is why we need to work systematically through those premises.” I thumped the top of the car with my index finger. “That question, pretty much the first question we asked, Dehan, is key to this investigation.” I paused, watching a pink and orange haze touch the horizon behind her. “I know Lenny has put himself in the frame, and I’m not saying he didn’t do it, he may well have. But there is more to it than that.”

She made a doubtful face. “An accomplice?”

I shrugged. “Let’s go find out.”

We spent the morning compiling a list of all the companies that had premises on the banks of the Bronx between Starlight Park and the northernmost point of Soundview park on the river. By nine AM, Dehan had drawn a detailed map showing each one of them, its location, trade and telephone number. She got hold of a whiteboard and pinned the map to it, and we started working systematically through them all. It was a mile long stretch on the east side of the river, and almost a mile and a quarter on the west bank, a total of eighty five outfits, from small one-man shows, partnerships and limited companies, to corporations and state owned enterprises, like parks. Many of the addresses on the Bronx River Avenue above Colgate were private homes that backed onto the railway lines before the river, adding two more layers of complication to the puzzle: did he know somebody with a house up there who helped him dispose of the body? And if so, how did they get the body over the tracks and through the fences before dumping it in the river?

At nine, Dehan went down to the deli on the corner to get more croissants and coffee, a practice which never failed to raise hoots of derision from fellow detectives stuffing their faces with the more traditional donuts. While she was gone, I started calling.

It was slow, tedious work that yielded very few results. Mostly you got a vaguely amused voice saying something along the lines of, “A poisonnel rawstah? 2016? Sure, listen, I’ll tell yah what I’m gonna do for yah, pal. Soon as Frank gets in, I’m gonna tell him to prioritize dat for yah and send it right over, FedEx.” And you hung up knowing full damn well that nobody called Frank worked there.

Other times you got a more efficient sounding secretary, but she’d tell you pretty much the same thing: They’d have to dig out the records, scan them and email them over. They’d do that just as soon as they could.

Dehan returned. Mo hitched his pants over his belly and wheezed a laugh in what he thought was a French accent. “Oooh, ear she come, wiz zee qua-sonts and zee ca-fay!”

She put down the coffee and dropped the croissants, squinting at him like she was trying to see him through a dense mist. “What the hell is wrong with you, Mo? You sound like you have my neighbor’s dachshund stuck up your ass. Didn’t your mommy tell you to stop playing that game with small dogs?”

There were general snorts and sniggers around the room. Mo gaped. She ignored them all and sat. “How’s it going?”

“Dreadful would be accurate, if