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

“We obviously didn’t do a very good job of scaring them into silence then, did we?” He looked over at Brown and added, “We should get the boys over at the CIA to give us Men in Black lessons.” They both laughed. Then Smith turned back to me and pressed the point home. “After all, he went on to publish a book that sold well over a million copies. I think if the Bureau wanted to silence somebody, Detective Stone, we could do it a little more effectively than that. However, despite what popular fiction may have you believe, we do not actually indulge in that kind of activity. We leave that to the boys at Langley.”

They laughed again and Agent Brown said, “No, we can only speculate as to Mr. Kirkpatrick’s motives for claiming that we tried to silence him, but the fact is that we had no reason to do so. It has, nonetheless, given a definite boost to his sales over the years. If you look at his website, the alleged attempts by the Bureau to silence him are quite prominent in his…” He hesitated a moment. “In his sales pitch.”

I nodded. “So are you telling me that the FBI had no interest in the case, and made no attempt to silence the witnesses?”

Smith answered. “That is exactly what we are telling you. Putting it bluntly, Detective, we don’t mind Kirkpatrick cashing in on a little post-X-Files paranoia about the Bureau, but we don’t want the NYPD running away with the idea that we go around threatening their witnesses.”

“OK, well, we appreciate that.”

“But while you’re here, off the record, may we inquire whether you have developed a theory as to who killed Daniel, and how?”

I studied Smith’s face. It was an inscrutable mask and you could tell he had spent years perfecting it. I turned to Brown. His smile had that same impenetrable quality. I turned back to Smith. “Why do you ask?”

He nodded a few times, and just for a second his mask slipped and he looked worried. “In case it’s something the Bureau does needs to have a look at.”

I thought about it for a moment, then shook my head. “No, I don’t think so. If we are leveling with each other, the case is baffling, and we have considered a number of possibilities that are pretty ‘out there’, but for now I don’t think this is anything that need concern the Bureau.”

He nodded. “OK, but if you do come across anything that might, for example, affect national security, please contact me or Agent Brown directly.” He slid a card across the desk to Dehan, and Brown pulled a card from his wallet and handed it to me. “Any time of the night or day,” he said. “Be sure to call us.”

I glanced at Dehan, then nodded at Smith and Brown. “We’ll do that. Thanks for answering our questions.”

We stood, shook hands, and left.

Out on Broadway, we were assaulted by the heat and the avalanche of traffic and people and noise that flows eternally among those canyons of steel. We started walking toward the car and Dehan pulled out her cell and said, “That wasn’t their office and those weren’t their names.”

“I know.”

She went on talking as she dialed with her thumb. “They just wanted to find out if we’d found anything, and fob us off. They must think we’re stupid.”

I nodded.

She put the phone to her ear. “Yeah, get me the number for NBC Personnel…” She glanced at me. “Thirty Rock, Sensei.”

By the time we got there, we had the name of the producer of the show that Jane was working on, and she was happy to grant us ten quick minutes if we could get there right away. I wondered if ten quick minutes passed faster than ten slow minutes, but before I could give it much thought, we had arrived.

We found Elizabeth Anderson in a large, messy room, through a double door that had a plastic plaque on it that read Night of the Stalker. She was at the head of a table with seven writers sitting around it shouting ideas at each other. They went silent and turned to stare at us as we stepped in. We held up our badges. I said, “Elizabeth Anderson?”

She stood and pointed at a door over on one side. “Come into my office.” As we approached, she turned back to the table. “Gerry, run with the mass suicide idea. But is it a priest or priestess? Gimme ten.”

She pushed through the office door and we went in after her. She planted her ass on the edge of her desk and crossed her arms. She didn’t invite us to sit. “I’m on the clock. What can I do for you?”

I gave her my deadest expression, counted slowly to three, and said, “We’re on a homicide investigation. The clock can wait. Jane Harrison works with you?”

“Yeah. She’s in production. Is she in trouble?”

“What is the nature of her work, exactly?”

She sighed. “It’s technical. It’s hard to explain exactly.”

Dehan said, “In general terms that a dumb cop would understand.”

“She works with technicians, mainly IT guys, integrating special effects sequences into the main narrative of the story.”

I frowned. “So she’s in special effects?”

She shook her head. “No, no, it’s not like that anymore. Special effects are almost entirely computer-generated these days. What she does is work with the team that creates the special effects, and she then makes sure those sequences work in the overall context of the story.”

Dehan grunted. “But to do that she would need some kind of understanding of how special effects work.”

“Sure. And she has that. She’s been in the business for twenty years, and she started out in special effects before they became exclusively CGI.”

“And