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

He was shaking his head. “Mount Macomb is not within the GOAE of the 43rd…”

Dehan cut in and interrupted him with a blatant lie. “Sir, we have worked the last seven days without a break. With your permission, we are taking a couple of days off. This case has got me fascinated by the whole UFO thing, and I need Stone to take me up to Macomb Mountain so I can see where the Danny Brown case started. I hope it will be a quiet couple of days. However, under CPL section 140, we are authorized to act anywhere in the state of New York to prevent a felony, should we be unlucky enough to stumble across one during our time off.”

A flash of irritation contracted his face. “Detective Dehan, this is not a game! I cannot authorize…”

“Sir, people are going to die if we don’t act…”

He sighed and after a moment nodded. “All right. Take a couple of days off. And for God’s sake, if anything happens, call the local sheriff’s department! Keep me posted.”

“Yes sir, thank you.”

I glanced at my watch as we ran down the stairs. It was half past one. We’d get there around five or six. It would still be light.

Dehan was beside me saying, “What’s your plan? Where are we going? We can’t just drive up to Macomb Mountain and hope we find them. It’s a huge area.”

We stepped back into the sunshine and started across the blacktop toward the car. “I know, but we are pretty short of options, as everybody who might know where the cabin is is either dead or there right now; and by the looks of it, they either have their cells switched off or, more likely, there’s no signal up there.” I opened the door and we climbed in. “The way I see it, we have two options.” I fired up the engine as she slammed the door, and took off toward the expressway. “Go on Google Earth, find Macomb Mountain, draw a circle around it with an eight-mile circumference and see what buildings, cabins, holiday resorts—whatever—falls within that area…” I glanced at her. “It won’t be much, it is a very remote area. Or…” I pointed at the glove compartment in front of her. “Get my copy of Heaven’s Fire and check the foreword. I am pretty sure at the end it has the date and place where he wrote it. I am not one hundred percent sure, but I have a feeling I saw something…”

She had the book and was leafing through the first few pages. She stopped, “Foreword, yadda yadda…” She turned the page. “Yadda yadda… Here, Elk Lake, 2001. You’re a smart man, Stone.”

She pulled out the GPS and punched in the coordinates. She spoke as she did it. “We need to stop on the way for toothpaste and toothbrushes, and for lunch. And while we’re at it, you can explain to me why the hell it is so important that Donald Kirkpatrick has a damn cabin near Macomb Mountain.”

I turned off Storey Avenue onto the Bronx River Parkway and started accelerating north. I thought about it for a few minutes, then said, “I’m pretty sure it tells us how Danny was killed.”

She took her shades off so she could stare at me better. “I really don’t see how, Stone.”

“It doesn’t tell us who, but it does tell us how. And, here’s the thing, Dehan, whoever killed him has started to panic. They were scared that Jane would give us information that would lead us to them. So, we need to be asking ourselves, what did Jane know? What could Jane have told us? What did Jane see, hear or witness…?”

“Hold on, hold on, hold on… Stone, what are you talking about? Jane was killed with a samurai sword.”

I glanced at her. The sun made a luminous halo of her hair as the wind whipped it about her head. I said, “So you conclude from this that it must be Paul?”

She made an ‘isn’t that obvious’ face and spread her hands. “Who else?”

“Do you know for a fact that Stuart is not an expert in kendo? Or his formidable wife? Do we know for a fact that the person who has summoned them for this reunion in the mountains is someone known to us? How many of the UFO research group became Paul’s pupils? Do we have any of this information?”

She sighed. “No.”

“Then we must not jump to conclusions, Ritoo Glasshopper. Also, a samurai sword or a similar blade.”

“No, Sensei. Yes, Sensei. So you believe that this as yet unidentified killer has gathered the group so that he can eliminate everyone who has incriminating evidence. Jane refused to go, so he killed her, and now he is going to kill the rest of them all in one long weekend.”

“That seems to me to be the logical conclusion.”

“So it has to be somebody who knows that we were skeptical of the UFO explanation and were interested in Paul and Jane’s relationship.”

“Yes.”

She half-shouted in exasperation. “That’s Paul, Stone!”

I smiled at her and nodded. “You may well be right, Dehan. Either way, I think we are about to find out. Do you think if we just knock on the door they’ll put us up?”

“Are you serious?”

“Yeah, why not?”

“How will you explain that you knew they were having the reunion?”

I beamed at her. “Simple. We tell them Jane told us, and see whose eyes pop out of their sockets.”

She smiled and looked out the window. Then she laughed. “You’re a slippery son of a bitch, Stone. I’d hate to have you as an enemy.”

“Funny, that’s another thing my mother always used to say to me.”

“That she’d hate to have you as