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

We kept going for another two and a half hours, securing lots of promises to send us over the list of employees for November, 2016, as soon as they possibly could.

At ten minutes before noon, Bob called.

“Hey, John, listen, I finished the tests, and I’m afraid I have some bad news for you.”

“Whatever it was, it wasn’t going to be good news, Bob. Go ahead.”

“Right. Look, the sheets showed positive for semen as well as other fluids. The semen was from just a single donor… It’s Lenny’s DNA, John. He had sex with the girl in her bed, in her house.”

I was quiet for a moment, then I said, “I understand, Bob. Thanks.”

“Frank will contact you later about the other thing. I’ll send over my report with his.”

“Yeah, that’s great. Thanks.”

I hung up. Dehan was watching me. I said, “Let’s go talk to the inspector.”

ELEVEN

The rain had started again in earnest. Outside the inspector’s window, the world was a gray, misty place, and from the lintel, cold, silver pearls of water gathered and dripped onto the sill bellow. An occasional wind shook them from time to time and dispersed them, dragging the rain back and forth in the background, among the black shades of naked trees.

Dehan sat on the black vinyl, imitation leather sofa beneath that window, and I sat in the chair opposite him at his desk. Deputy Inspector John Newman looked at me unhappily and said: “What, precisely have we got, and what do we know for a fact?”

I looked at Dehan. Her gaze shifted to the ceiling and she began to recite:

“We know, as of ten minutes ago, that Detective Leonard Davis had sexual intercourse with Celeste Reynolds at some time not too long prior to her death.” She looked at the inspector and spread her hands. “The sheets on her bed were not pristine, but they were not dirty, either. We know that he had been conducting a sexual affair with her for about six months prior to her death. We know that he registered a special email address to communicate with her, and that address contained the name ‘rod’.” She closed her eyes a moment. “Rod underscore wheeler at yadda yadda dot com. We know that after exchanging only a few messages, he told her it was too risky and asked her to delete their messages. He told her that he was going to buy a burner, so that they could communicate by Whatsapp. All of that we know as hard fact.”

I gave him a moment to assimilate that and what it meant, then said, “We also know that when Detective Davis took on the investigation of Celeste’s death, he concealed evidence and that he did not employ due diligence in acquiring evidence. He requested six months of phone records from Verizon, her service provider—the six months during which he was having an affair with Celeste, removed them from the case file and held them at home. We know also that though he was contacted by witnesses on the corner of Rosedale Avenue and Gleason, who saw Celeste in an altercation with a man who had arrived in a white truck, he did not include their testimony in the file. We also know that he did not interview Celeste’s boyfriend, nor did he have a team conduct a thorough search of her room, though that would have been a logical step to take. In short, he deliberately allowed the case to go cold.”

The chief had been nodding while I was talking, making an occasional note. Now he said, “What about his relationship with Reynolds?”

Dehan answered. “He tends to play it down. They knew each other as kids, attended the same Catholic church, right opposite Reynolds’ house, but besides that, he says they are just acquaintances. To hear Reynolds tell it, they were a lot closer, and he was often at their house. That’s borne out, sir, by the exchange of emails, where she refers to a visit from him.”

He thought for a long time, staring at the floor over by Dehan’s feet. Eventually, he took a deep breath and said, “None of this actually points to him as a murderer. There is strong circumstantial and forensic evidence that he was trying to conceal an affair. There is a strong possibility that that affair provided the motive for murder. But any decent defense attorney is going to have a field day destroying the case as it stands, and quite rightly so. This boy Chad has just as much motive, and from what you’ve told me, he is a young man with a very violent temper. There actually is, in point of fact, a reasonable doubt as to both of their guilt. You need to bring me something that nails either Lenny or Chad to the murder.”

I said, “We may have that later today, sir. When Celeste’s body was taken into the morgue, Frank managed to get a partial thumbprint from her throat. I have asked him to run a comparison with Lenny’s thumbprint. We don’t know at this stage how useful it will be.”

He was thoughtful for a while again, then said, “It may be enough to make him confess. Bring him in. Let him believe the thumbprint is better than it actually is. See if he breaks. Either way, he’s finished as a cop. Go find him. What a disgrace, to himself, his family and the department. If you have to charge him, charge him with concealing evidence and the obstruction of justice for now.”

We went down the stairs. Dehan went into the detectives’ room and I went to the front desk. Maria, the desk sergeant, was there.

“What do you want, handsome? That Carmen not treating you right?”

“Yeah, I need some sweet consolation from you, Maria. Oh, no, wait, it was something else. Yeah, you seen Lenny Davis?”

She frowned.