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

We left him weighing organs and strolled out to where the Jag was sitting in a pool of dappled shade beneath a cluster of trees. There, I sat on the hood and phoned Rikers to make an appointment to see Wayne again. We fixed it for two o’clock that afternoon and took a slow drive down toward Zerega Avenue.

Teddy’s Late Night Bar was on the corner of Zerega and Lafayette. It was a broad, one story building with an open parking lot on the Lafayette side. The door was open but the lights were off in the windows and the sign said closed, so I put the car in the lot and we climbed out and made our way around to the entrance. Dehan poked her head in the door while I had a look at the outside. It didn’t look like a clip joint or a dive. It looked like a respectable establishment.

I heard Dehan shout, “Yo! You the owner?” I didn’t hear the reply, but after a moment she pulled out her badge and said, “NYPD, Detective Dehan,” and disappeared inside. I followed.

It was a big, broad space with giant TV screens on the wall at one end and comfortable chairs and alcoves at the other, with a big, square bar in the middle. Right now it was dark and quiet with just one guy polishing glasses behind the bar. He was young, in his early twenties, tanned and blond. He was either from California or Australia. When he smiled and spoke I knew he was Australian, because he made everything sound like a question.

“Hi, guys. Teddy’s not here right now? We don’t open for another four hours?”

I smiled back. “Detective Stone. How long have you been working here?”

“Oh, just like, six months.”

“Anybody here who was around a couple of years ago?”

He nodded. “Well, Teddy, obviously. And I think Crista? She cooks? You’d really have to ask them.”

Dehan said, “You open at two?”

“Yep.”

“What time do you close?”

He glanced from Dehan to me and back again, opened his mouth and just said, “Ahhh…”

“We’re not vice. We’re not interested in Teddy’s license. We’re homicide detectives.”

“Homicide?”

“What time does he close?”

He shrugged. “Well, it depends on the night? Monday to Wednesday we might close at two, or there abouts. Thursday is generally a bit later? But Friday and Saturday, between you, me and the fencepost, we sometimes don’t close till like four or five. This isn’t going to get me into trouble with Teddy, is it? I really need this job, guys.”

I nodded. “Don’t worry about it. You’re fine.”

We stepped back outside and I stood looking up and down the sidewalk. We were five hundred yards from where Angela had been raped and strangled. I had a man who claimed he could tell me who had done it, but I felt I was going in circles, beating my head against a brick wall with no openings in it, anywhere. I felt a small knot of frustration in my gut. Dehan came up beside me and put her hand on my shoulder. “What now?”

“He’s playing us.”

“Wayne?”

I nodded.

“Like rats in a maze, we go this way and that, but in the end we have to go the way he says.”

“You’re exaggerating.”

“Am I?”

“Yes.” She said it emphatically. “C’mon! We’ve seen him once! He told us nothing. How’s that playing us?”

I nodded again, more, and more slowly. “And now we’re going to see him again, and he’ll tell us something: what he wants to tell us.”

She slapped my shoulder. “Come on, big guy. We’ll go, grab an early lunch and talk to him. Between us we can outsmart this bozo.”

* * *

That bozo entered the interrogation room looking very smug and pleased with himself. He sat and smiled at Dehan while they cuffed him to the table. I showed the guard the coffee I had brought for him and said, “Can you leave his left hand free?”

The guard shrugged. “Your call.”

Wayne leered at Dehan and as the guards stepped out he said, “Couldn’t keep away, huh?”

I pushed a large cappuccino across the table to him. “Start with your bullshit and Detective Dehan waits for me in the car.” I leaned forward, still holding the paper cup. “You feel me, dude?”

He looked at me with dead eyes. I felt in that moment that I was seeing him for the first time. I knew he would kill me without hesitation and enjoy it. He leaned forward. “I feel you, dude.” He picked up the coffee and sipped. He smiled. “Good coffee. A man needs his pleasures, am I right?”

“OK, you got your coffee. The cigar and the fresh air will cost you more than just proving to me that you were there. For a start, how do I know you didn’t kill Angela yourself? I have to tell you that right now you are our prime suspect.”

He looked at Dehan and smiled. “Oh, c’mon, baby. Me? You should know I am a tender and thoughtful lover. I would never hurt a sweet young woman with big, black eyes.”

Dehan got up and went to stand behind me again, leaning on the wall. Wayne sighed, closed his eyes and flopped back in his chair.

I said, “I’m waiting.”

He gestured at Dehan with his hand. “She didn’t need to do that, man.”

“Stay on task, Wayne, we are both getting bored. Just forget Detective Dehan. Who killed Angela?”

“Yeah, man, get right in there. Bam! Who killed the little Angel? Well, you know what? You are not being very nice to me, you feel me, dude? And that affects my neurons. I don’t remember so good when people are not nice to me.”

“What do you want?”

“I want that cute Detective Dehan