Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #4: Books 13-16 (A Dead Cold Box Set), Blake Banner [story read aloud .txt] 📗

he was an older man, a friend of the family, and that he’d helped her through a difficult time.”

“Yeah.”

“But then she promised she was going to break it off with him.”

“Yeah.”

“So she went home, telling you she’d be back that evening, but when it started to get late and she didn’t show, you called her. What did she say?”

“Late Sunday morning, she said she was going to go home, collect a few things, call Rod—she said his name was Lenny—tell him she had met somebody and it was over with him. We were going to try living part of the week together and see how that went. She was going to get a job…”

“You were thinking of making a life together?”

“We were going to give it a go. When she wasn’t crazy, she was great. She was smart, you know, actually intelligent. I thought we had a shot at making it work. But then it was getting late and she didn’t show. So I called her. She said she’d spoken to him and broken it off. I asked her why she was late. She said she’d had a bad row with her dad and her brother. They’d called her evil, the Devil had a hold of her and all kinds of crazy stuff like that. She’d been crying in her room and fallen asleep. But she said she was on her way and couldn’t wait to…” He paused and sighed. “She couldn’t wait to get home.”

“It’s a ten minute walk from her house to yours. But she didn’t show.”

“I eventually called again. It was before nine. I was worried. She said she was actually walking, on her way, literally. I could hear that she was outside. She said Lenny kept calling. She also said her brother had called. Something in her voice made me worried. So I went to meet her.”

I nodded. “That makes sense. What you told me before didn’t make sense. Whichever way I tried to see it, you went to meet her. You had to.”

“Yeah, I had to. I grabbed my keys and my coat and walked out. It was a two minute walk to the playground, but when I got to the corner, I saw her, in her Red Riding Hood coat.”

“Where?”

“At the playground.”

“Where exactly?”

He sat back. His eyes became abstracted. “Memory plays tricks, but I’m pretty sure she was opposite the grocery store, in the shadow of the big tree there. She wasn’t alone. There was a man there with her.”

“Can you describe him?”

“Not in much detail. The light was poor. But Celeste was five-five, and this guy was head and shoulders over her, a good seven to ten inches taller than she was.”

Dehan spoke for the first time. “How can you be so precise?”

He took a deep breath and let out a shuddering sigh. “Because he was embracing her. He had his arms around her and they were swaying slightly side to side.”

I raised a hand. “Let’s be clear, Chad. You are saying that he was hugging her, not holding her by the shoulders?”

“No, no way. I was no more than fifty or sixty feet away. You can measure it. There are four big trees along there. I was standing by the second tree and I could see them clearly. He was holding her in his arms. Then he picked her up.”

Dehan sounded incredulous. “He picked her up?”

“Yeah, like a groom carrying a bride over the threshold. He turned around and carried her back to the corner, to a white truck.”

“What did he do next?”

“I don’t know. I turned and went back home, and swore to myself that I would never trust another woman so long as I lived.”

“OK, Chad, I need you to be absolutely certain about your next answer. What kind of truck was it?”

“I can’t tell you the make, but it was a pickup, maybe a Ford or a Toyota.”

“Not an SUV with passenger seats in the back? A Jeep maybe?”

“No. It was a pickup.”

The waitress arrived with our burgers, told us to enjoy our meal and withdrew. I sat back, staring at my food, unseeing. I shook my head and said, “Chad, I don’t know whether to tell you this or not. The man you saw was not Lenny, Rod, Detective Leonard Davis, whatever you want to call him.”

His eyes narrowed. “Who the hell was it, then?”

“I’m not sure, but Detective Davis is about five foot six or seven at the most, and he drives a white Jeep Cherokee.”

“Then I might have saved her?”

“I don’t think so, Chad. I think by the time you saw them, she was already dead. I think what he did after you turned away, was to put her in the back of the truck, under the tarpaulin. I’m sorry.”

He was silent for a long time. None of us ate. Eventually he said, “So she didn’t lie to me…”

It was Dehan who answered. “That has to be some kind of consolation, Chad.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “Consolation?”

“It sucks every way, Chad, but this way it sucks less, and at least you get to keep the memory.”

The anger drained from his face. “It’s cold comfort.” He shook his head. “So are you going to charge Detective Lenny Davis?”

I said: “I don’t know yet, Chad. To me, the case against him is getting weaker. Besides, we have no idea if he’ll make it.” Then I asked, “Chad, why didn’t you tell us all this from the start?”

He looked surprised. “Are you kidding? I didn’t find out for a couple of weeks or more that she had been killed. There was no evidence against anybody, and I was the last person to see her alive, after a quarrel because she had been unfaithful. At the very least,