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

“Beyond the obvious fact that he was murdered. Third: we don’t know who he was a target for, any more than a herd of gazelles in Africa knows who is shooting at them from the helicopter. However, we are satisfied, based on the evidence we have, which is the same evidence that you have, that Danny was not killed by a human being.” He shrugged his shoulders and shook his head in an oddly helpless gesture. “It simply isn’t possible.” He gazed at me a moment. “And to answer your question, Detective Stone, we don’t know what he had unearthed.”

“But you think he had unearthed something.”

It was May who answered. “Stewart is not convinced, but I am. He would often go off for several days at a time. Sometimes alone, sometimes with members of the group; sometimes it was for a night, sometimes several days at a time. He never told us what he was doing or where he was going. That’s why we didn’t raise the alarm that weekend. I think he discovered something…”

Stuart sighed and attempted a smile. “It will sound absurd to you, Detectives. It seems absurd to anyone who has not done the research. But there are very eminent people, in the White House, in the Pentagon, in academia, all of whom are agreed that there is a conspiracy to conceal the truth about UFOs. And we think it is possible, May is convinced, that Danny had found something. And whatever it was he found got him killed.” Again he shrugged, again he spread his hands in that helpless gesture. “Nobody else had a motive. Nobody else had the means!”

I thought about it for a long moment. I was aware of Dehan watching me. Maybe she wanted to slap me, too. I pointed at the album which lay open on the coffee table. “Have you got contact details for Paul and Jane?”

May shook her head. “No, but Donald will have.” She reached down by the side of the sofa and picked up a brown leather handbag. From it she extracted a small notepad and a pen. She scrawled an address and a phone number and handed it to Dehan. “He’ll be happy to see you.”

Dehan took it and thanked her. “One last question before we go. Can you tell us about his movements that night?”

May shook her head. “No. We last saw him on the Friday. They were all going on some kind of field trip, after which they were going to have a party or something at Donald’s place. We never saw him again.”

We thanked them and stood. They followed us to the door. As Stuart opened it, he held my eye a moment. “The FBI tried to silence us, you know.”

I frowned.

Dehan snapped, “The FBI tried to silence you? How?”

He nodded. “They called on the telephone and they came to see us: two men. They’ll deny it, of course. But they came and advised us, for our own good, to keep quiet. Don’t be surprised if you hear from them. They’ll tell you to drop the investigation and close the case.”

We thanked them again and stepped out into the midday glare.

Three

We didn’t get into the car, instead I walked to the top of Beach Avenue and looked down. Dehan was sitting on the hood of my old, burgundy Jag, watching me. I pointed. “Soundview Park is four or five hundred yards down there. That’s where they found him. What do you say we go and have a look?”

She nodded, stood, and followed me. We walked in silence for a while, enjoying the sunshine and the warmth. After a moment, she slipped her arm through mine and leaned against me as she walked.

“Are you buying this alien…”

“Don’t say BS.”

She glanced at me. “So you are buying it?”

“That is a very open question, Dehan.”

“What do you mean? It’s a yes or no question. Are you buying it? Yes, I am, no, I’m not.”

I raised an eyebrow at her but she looked away, as though she was checking for traffic on an empty road. We crossed Patterson Avenue and continued down Beach toward the park, which was now clearly visible at the end of the road, about a hundred yards away.

“OK,” I said, “what is ‘it’ exactly? What is it, precisely, you are asking me if I am buying? Are you asking me if I believe that alien life exists on other planets, or moons? If so, I don’t believe it, I think it is impossible that it does not exist. Are you asking me if I believe alien life forms are visiting Earth? I just don’t know, but I know there are some very smart people who do. Or are you asking me whether I believe that Danny was murdered by an extraterrestrial?”

“That one.”

“Then the answer is, I don’t know who killed him, yet. Statistically he is more likely to have been killed by a human being, over sex or money. But I am not going to make the evidence fit my theory, I am going to develop my theory…”

“Based on the evidence, yadda yadda. I know. But come on, Stone! He was shot by an alien with a ray gun? Seriously? And while we chase little green men, the killer pisses his pants laughing and gets away with murder.”

We had reached the bend in the road where it becomes O’Brien Avenue. To our right there was an untended wilderness of knee-high grass and flowers interspersed with oaks and linden trees. I stopped and she stopped with me. I gazed at it a moment and said absently, “This is what the world should look like, Dehan.”

She looked at me in surprise and smiled. “Why John, you’re a romantic after all!”

I smiled back and pointed in among the undergrowth. “He was found in there.”

We picked our