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

From what I could see, there was a savage wound to her belly, which was where most of the blood seemed to have come from. Then, post mortem, her head had been severed in what looked like a clean cut. There was very little bleeding from that wound. It was impossible to see anything else.

I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned. Dehan was looking at me, she was wearing blue latex gloves, and held out a pair for me. I took them and pulled them on. “We’d better not go in there till the crime scene team have done their stuff.” I pulled the door closed. “The kitchen seems largely undisturbed.”

We climbed the stairs and made our way through the bedrooms and the bathroom. The only notable thing was that her bed seemed not to have been slept in. I leaned on the doorjamb while Dehan crossed the room and looked out the window at the street below. “The TV wasn’t on,” she said. “Unless the killer did the washing up, she didn’t have time to cook between Olga Garrido leaving after coffee and her killer arriving. That’s a pretty small window of opportunity.” She turned to face me. “Are you ever going to tell me what’s on your mind?”

I nodded. “Don’t forget she was phoned in sick this morning.”

“Somebody who didn’t want her absence to raise suspicion.”

“Two gets you twenty it was the same person who invited her to the reunion. My guess is she was killed either late last night or early this morning. We need to know who invited her—and how. Was it by phone or by email, or post? I’m willing to bet this morning she either got a call asking if she was going, or somebody turned up at the door. The lock was not forced. She let them in. There was no sign of a struggle. The killing was swift and unexpected. She was standing in the living room, facing the door. She took whoever it was in there to talk, and was attacked suddenly, out of the blue, with a very sharp blade. The head was severed post mortem, once she was on the floor. It had hardly rolled at all.”

Dehan was nodding as I was talking. “You’re right. Last night there would have been people arriving back from work. In the morning, everybody is either delivering their kids to school or gone to work. If it was me, I’d call to make sure she was at home, if she was, ask her to stay. We need to talk, whatever, any excuse.” Far off, the sound of sirens stained the bright afternoon with blood. She said, “Motive?”

“Silencing a witness.”

She nodded. “Yeah. She sure as hell wasn’t shot with a ray gun.”

I turned and took the stairs three at a time as the patrol cars rolled up. The CSI team, the ME, and the ambulance were close behind them. I hailed the sergeant and she came toward me as I was talking.

“I am especially interested in whether the neighbors saw anybody visiting with the victim this morning or yesterday evening. You’ll probably find it was this morning. Make, model, and license plates of the car: Call my cell the minute you have them. Any of them.”

“You got it, Detective.”

I collared the ME as he was moving toward the door. “Frank, I have to go. I need to know what weapon was used. Best guess, estimate, intuition. I need to know half an hour ago. Call me or Dehan when you have formed an opinion.”

He sighed. “You know I can’t…”

“We’re not going before the grand jury, Frank! I’m not going to hold you to it, but what I do next depends on your educated guess. Just call me or Dehan when you have an opinion, OK?”

He hesitated.

I said, “Goddammit, Frank! Might it have been a samurai sword or similar? Just call me and say, ‘It might,’ or ‘No way!’ Can you manage that?”

He scowled at me. “I can manage that. Where are you going?”

“I’ll tell you when you call me. Where the hell is Dehan?”

I looked around. She waved to me from my car. We climbed in the Jag. I reversed out, almost taking a patrol car with me, and accelerated up Castle Hill.

Sixteen

It took me all of twenty seconds to reach Lacombe Avenue. As we hit the intersection, Dehan said, “Are you going to tell me…?”

I raised a hand. “Don’t talk till we get there.”

She closed her mouth. I turned left onto Lacombe, drove six hundred yards, and turned left again onto White Plains Road. Another seven hundred yards, then left onto Gildersleeve and left again after just three hundred yards into Pugsley Avenue. I pulled up behind a green Chevy Spark outside Kirkpatrick’s house, checked my watch, and looked at Dehan. “That was two and a half minutes. Was that the longest drive of your life?”

“No, Stone, but tonight is going to be the longest night of your life if you don’t tell me what the hell is going on and what you are thinking.”

I nodded. “I know. I know. I am going to tell you. Just bear with me a moment longer. We have to act fast.”

I climbed out of the car and Dehan’s phone rang. She got out the other side. “Yeah, Dehan… Hi, Frank…. That’s what you want me to tell him? It might well be. That’s it? OK. Thanks.” She hung up and squinted at me in the afternoon sun. “Frank. He says to tell you it might well be.”

I sighed. “The weapon that killed and decapitated Jane.”

“A samurai sword.”

“Yeah.”

She shrugged, shook her head, and narrowed her eyes. “So what are we doing here? Why aren’t we going after Paul?”

“The reunion.” Her frown deepened. I