Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #1: Books 1-4 (A Dead Cold Box Set), Blake Banner [classic children's novels txt] 📗

Dave, seem to fit, in general terms, a possible profile. But I would need to know a lot more about the crime, which of course is not possible, and you need to find out more about their backgrounds, their childhood relationships…”

Dehan sighed. “That makes a lot of sense.”

I asked, “Can we come back to you as we learn more?”

“Of course, anytime.” She smiled and handed me her card. “I’d be glad to hear from you.”

Dehan blinked a lot and smiled. “What about me?”

Special Agent Fenninger smiled at her and rose to leave.

The door opened and a sergeant leaned in. “Detective Stone, you have a call on line one.”

Fenninger smiled at Dehan. “It’s okay, I’ll see myself out.”

“Thanks again!” I called to her neat, petite retreating form and picked up the phone. “Stone.”

“Detective Stone, this is Detective Marco. I’m with the 62nd Precinct, Rockway Beach?” He said it like he was asking me.

I said, “Yeah.”

“We are looking at a homicide that you may be interested in. We’ve got the crime scene guys in right now, but you might want to come down and have a look.”

“Hank Junkers…”

“Uh-huh…”

Ten

The gray drizzle had turned to heavy rain, with huge, broken clouds dragging in off the Atlantic like ripped sails from some cosmic Trafalgar. What traffic there was crawled through the cascades of rain with their lights splattered and distorted on the roads. It was half past one, but it looked more like early evening. I turned in to Hank’s parking lot. It was cordoned off by yellow-and-black tape that was bouncing and dancing in the deluge. There was a meat wagon and a couple of cop cars, all with their red-and-blue lights, looking urgent and alarmed after the event. The third car was Charles Hanlan’s, the ME.

We got out holding up our badges, ducked under the tape, and ran inside. The first thing I saw was Hank. He was lying more or less sideways onto the door. His arms were splayed, like he’d fallen after a hefty blow to his head or his back. His legs were also splayed, as though he’d been standing akimbo. Stuck in his back, about where his heart was, was a dagger. It had been stabbed through a large piece of paper. Charles was squatting next to him, examining the back of his neck. He glanced up and muttered something as I stepped in.

The CSI guys looked as though they were finishing up. Standing with his arms crossed in a long beige raincoat was the man I assumed was Detective Marco. He stepped toward me.

“You Stone?”

I showed him my badge and indicated Dehan. “Detective Dehan, my partner. What happened?”

“Kid from the neighborhood came to have his bicycle tire pumped up. Found him sprawled out like that. Ran, told his mom, and she called us.”

“What made you call me?”

“Two things.”

He reached in his pocket and pulled out an evidence bag. Inside the bag there was a cell phone. When he touched the screen, it lit up. It was open on the address book at my number.

“He was about to call me when he was killed.”

“The phone had skidded over there, under that bike.” He pointed at a bronze Harley 1200, two or three yards away from Hank’s head. “The other thing is this.” He stepped toward the body, and I followed him. “I noted your name, Stone. Take a look.”

Dehan came up beside me, and we both looked down. There wasn’t much blood on it, so it was easy to read. It said “STONE COLD.”

I glanced at Charles. He was watching me. He had a way of looking at people that you learn in Harvard. “He was stabbed postmortem.”

He nodded. “There is practically no bleeding. I’ll be able to tell for sure when I get him back to the lab, but I am pretty certain what killed him was this blow to the back of the head. The bruising is extensive, and it feels as though it broke the vertebra.”

Dehan asked the rookie question. “How long has he been dead?”

Charles patronized her with his best Harvard smile. “That’s impossible to tell. Probably, probably, within the last seventy-two hours because there is no immediate sign of decomposition.”

“The blow—” I pointed at his neck. “—was delivered from the side.” Charles raised an eyebrow at me. I continued, positioning myself behind where Hank had been standing. “If I hit him from here, the blow is going to be on the right side of his neck. It will stun him, but it probably won’t kill him. But his bruise is straight across the back of his neck, which means that, if the killer was right-handed, he was standing there…” I moved to stand on Hank’s left, round about where his feet were. “And I would strike like this, from the shoulder.”

Charles was watching me and nodding. “Yes.”

Marco scratched his chin. “What’s your interest in this case, Stone?”

I was staring at the Harley. I said, absently, “It’s probably related to an ongoing investigation. Does that strike you as strange?”

I pointed at the bike, and Dehan went and squatted down next to it. There was a neat, conical pile of sand directly in front of Hank’s head. It made a perfect right angle with the center of the open door. I turned and looked behind me. There was a cement column, and at its base there was a heavy champagne bottle. The label had been soaked off, and it was full of water.

I pointed at it. “Two gets you twenty that’s the murder weapon and…” I narrowed my eyes and stared at the ground about two yards behind Hank. “I am figuring, Detective Marco, that if you look just about there—” I pointed. “—you are going to find traces of red wax.”

He stared at me like I