Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #3: Books 9-12 (A Dead Cold Box Set), Blake Banner [reading in the dark TXT] 📗

“Bumph, oy, eehang?” She frowned. I swallowed and drained half my glass of wine. “But why, Dehan? Why would the federal government want to assassinate Danny Brown? It’s nuts. Leave aside for the moment the effort and expense of such an elaborate hit. Why would they want to kill him, of all people? A twenty year old geek! They have a hundred terrorists, Islamic and domestic, they could go after. Why Danny Brown, who is not a threat to anybody?”

She pointed at me with her fork. “But what if he was?”

I spread my hands. “How?”

She wagged the fork and narrowed her eyes. “We have been focusing on the relationship between Jane, Danny, and Paul, thinking of a sexual motive for his murder. But what else happened that night, Stone?”

I sighed, ate, and thought. “The trance…”

She shook her head. “That is still in the sexual motivation. It triggered Jane’s jealousy and Paul’s. Before that. What were they talking about? What were they excited about? Why were they still up when everybody else had gone to bed?”

“The lights they had seen, and the signals Don said were not naturally occurring.”

“Stone, what if the equipment Don had developed allowed them to stumble on a classified military research program. It is not so farfetched. There was a lot of high-tech R and D going on at that time. They did see something that night, and they did hear something, and…”

“We don’t know that. We only know they believe they did.”

“But that very weekend Danny dies in very bizarre circumstances. Circumstances that so far neither of us has been able to explain. Circumstances that require resources!”

We ate in silence for a while. We drained our glasses and I refilled them. Then she said, “You have to ask yourself, Stone. I mean, just put the idea of aliens out of your mind for a moment. Let’s have a reality check. If you eliminate the alien hypothesis, you have to ask yourself, why would his killer make it look like he was killed by aliens? And also, who had the resources to do that at such short notice?”

I nodded. “Those are probably the most important questions we could ask right now.”

She spread her hands. “It is the ultimate red herring. As long as you are looking for aliens, you are not looking for a person. It’s like what you said to the Colonel. They are trying to prove the existence of a species, instead of looking for the individual responsible for the murder.”

I nodded, a lot. “Dehan, I think you have put your finger on it. That is precisely it, isn’t it. The ultimate red herring.”

She leaned across the table. “So who has the resources? The CIA, the Pentagon, Military Intelligence. They detect that somebody is tracking one of their experimental vehicles. There were a number in development in the ‘90s. They detect their position, track them and… zap!”

I grunted and tackled my steak again.

“If you’re right, Dehan, and there is no doubt you might be, we have as much chance of getting our man as Donald Trump has of winning Mr. Congeniality 2018. Let’s stay focused and take baby steps. You nailed the question: what would make the killer want to make it look as though an alien killed him? That’s a question for us, and tomorrow we have Paul coming in, and our question for him is, why didn’t he tell us that he and Jane had a row over Danny, and split up the night before Danny died? So far, Carmen, that is still the most compelling motive we have. We have motive and we have opportunity, which we did not have yesterday, all we are lacking is means.”

She sighed. “Yeah, you’re right, motive and opportunity. But man, means…” She shook her head. “It’s easily said.”

We finished our meal and while I washed up, she made coffee and poured a couple of generous measures of Bushmills. We took them out to the back yard and sat on the swing seat with a small table in front of us. She curled up and nestled next to me, under my arm.

“I’m an alien, Stone.”

“Are you? I have wondered at times. It’s that green tint of your skin.”

“I’m serious. I don’t mean I’m from another planet, I mean I don’t belong.”

“I know what you mean.”

“You’re the same, but you’re better at pretending than I am.” She sipped her whiskey and stared into her glass for a bit. “I use you.”

I didn’t know how to answer, so I waited.

“I use you to communicate with them. If you’re not there, I end up being rude or blunt. That’s why people say I have an attitude.” She looked up at my face and smiled. “If somebody is being stupid I’ll say, ‘You’re being stupid,’ but if you’re there you’ll say, ‘Have you thought about it this way? Or that way?’” She stopped and gazed at the dim glimmer of the stars. “I guess what I am trying to say is, you help me to be in this world.”

“I’m glad,” I said. “It wouldn’t be much of a world without you.”

She nestled the top of her head into my chin. Her hair smelled of apples. Somewhere, out in the wilds of the Bronx, an owl in a tree hooted, a single star winked, and the vast, infinite sky stretched and yawned. Then, I swear, it gave a self-satisfied smile.

* * *

Paul looked nervous. More than nervous, he looked unhappy. I smiled at him regretfully. It was a smile that was designed, subtly, to make him feel more nervous and unhappy than he did already.

I said, “We spoke to Jane Harrison.”

He gave a single, upward nod.

I went on, “She told us what happened on the Friday and the Saturday.”

He stared down at his huge fists on the table and