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

up on Ferry Point Park, Sonia had drifted right out to Kane’s Park, Shorehaven. You have a serial killer, Stone. He could be out there killing still.”

“I know. Thanks, Frank. I appreciate it.”

“Good luck.”

He hung up. I put the phone on the bedside table and sat with my elbows on my knees. I felt Dehan’s hand on my back and turned to look. She was sitting up, watching me. “He found them,” I said. “Ferry Point Park and Shorehaven. End of June, a month after they were killed.”

She nodded once and spread her fingers on her lap. “We have to make that son of a bitch talk.”

I sighed. “If he hadn’t contacted us, we wouldn’t even know this killer existed.”

She was quiet for a moment. “You starting to think he’s on the level?”

I slid down and lay back with my head on her lap, staring at the ceiling. “Right now, I have no idea what to think. None of it makes much sense, Carmen.”

“Come on, big guy. We don’t need to be up for another couple of hours. Get back into bed.”

I did as I was told, but despite the promise in her voice she fell asleep on my shoulder within a couple of minutes, and I spent the next two hours staring at the ceiling and thinking. And that was when, slowly, things began to fall into place and make sense. Others made no sense at all.

Or at least, I thought they didn’t.

* * *

We collected Wayne at ten that morning. He was handed into our custody and we led him, manacled at his wrists and ankles, to the Jag. All the way he had a smug, complacent smile on his face. When he was settled in the back he leered at me in the mirror and said, “Nice ride, Detective Stone Cold. Ain’t Detective Dehan goin’ to ride with me, in case I misbehave?” He shifted his eyes to the back of her head. “You wanna be with me if I misbehave, don’t you, Detective Dehan?”

We pulled out of the lot and started the long drive across the dark water of the East River. He was chuckling to himself in the back. “I guess,” he said, “this is like our first date, huh? Our first time goin’ out together. I have this feelin’ that you and me could have a real special kind of relationship, huh, Carmen?”

“You want to get an answer out of me, Wayne, you call me Detective. Now keep your mouth shut. I’m tired of listening to your bullshit.”

His laugh was like a wheeze. “I do like a strong woman, don’t you, Detective Stone? It must be satisfying living with a strong woman like Carmen. Am I right, Detective Stone Cold?”

I studied him in the mirror for a moment. “You been researching me, Wayne?”

“Well, you know what they say, Detective Stone: Know thine enemy.”

“Am, I your enemy, Wayne?”

Again the wheezing laugh. “Oh, you know it, Detective. You are the system and the system is my enemy. Now, Carmen, well, Carmen is a whole different story. Underneath that hard, NYPD career woman exterior, lies the wild, free spirit of a Native American, and a Jew. Baby, you must have a troubled soul, I tell you. I know just what that is like because I have a troubled soul too. And you and me, I just know we could get real close.”

She glanced at me. I couldn’t make out if she looked worried or mad. I said, “Shut up, Wayne.”

“I get a lot of time to read, you know? An’ I like to read. I have a very high IQ. Did you know that? One hundred and forty-five. That makes me officially a genius. You know what I like to read about?” We didn’t answer but he told us anyway. “I like to read about psychology. And do you know where people bond? Do you know where the links are forged that bind people’s souls together?”

We were crossing the Robert F Kennedy Bridge onto Randall Island. Dehan looked at me again. “Do we have to listen to this?”

He laughed again. “I am getting to you sister. Don’t deny it. Let me tell you, those links are forged in the deep darkness of the unconscious mind, where what they call the primal impulses are at work. You see a man like me, and you recognize a natural mate, and there ain’t nothin’ you can do about it. All the civilized conditioning just falls away, man, and you are exposed, naked in the darkness of your instincts.”

I shook my head. “No,” I said. “You don’t have to listen to this, Detective. There is stuff you can be doing at the station. You can follow up on the interview we had last night…”

Wayne threw himself back in the seat and shouted. “Oh come on, man! Jesus! Lighten up will ya! I’m just playin’ around! I’m jokin’, man!”

I snapped, “You see anyone laughing, Wayne?” I waited but he didn’t answer. I went on. “Let me tell you something. I don’t think you can focus on the job in hand when Detective Dehan is around. And I think there is a very particular reason for that. I’m developing a theory. I think you have an unhealthy obsession with Hispanic women. I think you have a tendency to develop unhealthy obsessions about particular Hispanic women. What do you think, Wayne? What would I find if I started to explore into your past? Would I find the cause for that obsession? How about it, Sigmund?”

He didn’t answer. I watched him a moment in the mirror. His expression was sullen. I pressed him. “You’ve gone awful quiet, Wayne. What’s the matter? You don’t want to play around and joke anymore?”

We drove the rest of the way in silence and pulled up at the back of the Golden