Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #1: Books 1-4 (A Dead Cold Box Set), Blake Banner [classic children's novels txt] 📗

She looked embarrassed. “So what happened that night?” I asked.

She gave a small shrug. “Somebody reported a shooting on Longwood Avenue, near the railway tracks, about one or two in the morning. It was a young guy, early twenties.”

“Who identified him?”

She frowned a moment. “He had his ID on him. Later his mother identified him.”

“How was he killed?”

“Shot in the head. It was an execution. Why?”

“This kid was a student from Brooklyn, why would they execute him?”

She spread her hands. “He’d been at José’s tavern, up the road, boasting he was going to kill Nelson. He wanted to know where Nelson was. Some guy in the bar said he would take him. He must have led him down the road and shot him.”

I knew the answer, but I asked anyway. “Did you catch the guy who did it?”

“No. You know what it’s like. They clam up. Nobody saw anything, nobody heard anything.”

“Who was your witness?”

She shrugged. “A young Latino kid. But as soon as we started asking questions, he said he didn’t know anything and left.”

I sighed. “You didn’t hold him and check him for GSR?”

“No.”

“The only witness you had to a homicide and you let him walk away.”

“Get off my back, Stone!”

I could feel myself getting mad. “I don’t know if you are engaged in a big, fucking cover-up, Jennifer, or if you are simply criminally incompetent.”

“How dare you!”

“I dare. And don’t push me, because the only person in this room looking at early retirement is you, Captain.” I sank back in my chair and thought while she stared at me, teetering between rage and fear. After a moment, I asked her, “Did you go back to Mick’s house with him that night?”

“No. He didn’t want me to. He said he was going to be gone for a bit, and to tell people he’d gone to Miami for his health.”

“And you dutifully covered for him.”

She nodded. “For ten years.”

I watched her a moment, then asked, “How much did you know?”

She pulled a face. “I knew he was bent. I didn’t know how bent. I didn’t want to know.”

“Did you know he was in with the Mob?”

She wouldn’t meet my eye. “No. I didn’t know any details at all.”

I stood. “I’m going down to Shamrock for a couple of days. I want you to call the Wheeler sheriff’s department as a courtesy. Tell them we’re coming and ask them to cooperate with us. When I get back, you and me are going to talk. I want you out of this job. Ideally, I want you out of the NYPD. But there is no way in hell that you are staying on as captain. Either you go, or I’ll kick your ass from here to Belize.”

She didn’t answer. I left.

I checked a few things I needed to confirm and headed home at about five. I was thinking of a big steak and a bottle of beer and then an early night. I was pretty beat and still had a lingering hangover, and we had a twenty-four-hour drive ahead of us. I was wondering what time Dehan would show up as I pulled into my road, and saw her sitting on the hood of her car, waiting for me. I parked behind her and climbed out. It was good to see her.

“Do you own a frying pan?” she asked.

“I’m not sure.”

“I brought some Argentinean beef.”

I walked up the steps toward my door. “And you plan to cook it? Isn’t that a crime?” I opened the door and stood back to let her in. She slid off the hood of her car and climbed the stairs at a little run. “We can do better. We can scorch it over a barbeque.”

“You’re a good man, John Stone. You’re a good man.”

Seventeen

We didn’t talk much during the drive because while I was driving she was sleeping, and while she was driving I was sleeping, but as we moved steadily south and west, along the I-70 and then from St Louis, the I-44, slowly, everything began to fit into place. I tried it from every angle, but I couldn’t find a flaw. I needed evidence—I needed proof. There were things I needed to see with my own eyes. But it was as clear to me in my mind, as though I had been there and seen it happen. I played it over, again and again as we drove through the day and then through the night; and as we passed Oklahoma the vast, flat horizon began to pale behind us, in the east.

At Weatherford, in Custer County, I pulled into a service station and woke Dehan. It was seven in the morning, and the sky was lighting up, though the sun hadn’t yet risen. We ordered eggs and bacon and pancakes, and sat eating and drinking coffee in sleepy silence till ten to eight. Then I called the sheriff to tell him we were a couple of hours from Shamrock.

He had the slow drawl you’d expect from a Texan, and he told me he’d be mighty obliged if I’d go to Wheeler, which was where he was based, and he’d be happy to answer any questions we had. I told him that would be fine, and a couple of hours later, at nine a.m., we rolled into his town. It was already getting hot.

It was a town that didn’t really have streets. It was more like there were houses and barns and buildings, and areas of grass and woodland, scattered sparsely in a grid pattern over an area of countryside. The sheriff’s office was a big old redbrick building, vaguely reminiscent of the Wild West, more or less at the center of the grid. It stood alone, twenty yards from