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

“You mean after our date?”

“Cut it out.” But she was still smiling.

I shrugged. “I guess we call David in and have a chat with him. Ask him how come he’s been lying to his uncle for the last twelve years. I’d also like to talk to his shrink, but that won’t be easy.”

She was quiet for a bit, turning the salt cellar around in circles.

“If he thinks you and he have this special connection, you could play on that. He probably couldn’t resist the temptation to engage in some kind of heroes’ repartee with you.”

I watched her but didn’t say anything. After a moment, she raised her eyes to mine, narrowed them, and sat back.

“Son of a bitch.”

I smiled.

“You don’t think he did it.”

I made a face like brain constipation and said, “I wouldn’t go that far. I’m just not satisfied yet.”

“Come on, Stone. This is just being contrary. What more do you want? He fits the bill in every respect. He was there, for crying out loud.”

“So were one and a half million other people.”

“Come on!”

“Okay, here’s my problem. He was going to brothels. Everything else rings true, but that strikes a false note. This murder, or murders, is all about frustration, about pent-up rage that the killer can’t release. He should be sitting at home watching porn, not spending two hundred dollars a night getting laid in a brothel.”

“Since when are you a psychologist?”

“Fair point, but still, it feels wrong.”

The steaks came and the gleaming waitress instructed us to enjoy them. Dehan cut into hers and put the first slice into her mouth. She gave a gentle sigh and waved her fork at me, raising an eyebrow.

“I am going to tell you what you would tell me. You are making assumptions.” She was right, and I said so. “For starters, you are assuming that he is going to these whorehouses and shagging his brains out every night, but I am going to put two scenarios to you.”

“Okay.”

“Scenario one…” She cut another piece of steak and stuck it in her mouth, talking with her mouth full. “He spends all day living out his fantasy as some legendary, barbarian superhero or supervillain. He builds up in his mind this unrealizable image of himself. And by the evening he is ready to go, not whoring, but wenching. But when he gets to the whorehouse, what happens? He can’t get it up. Because he can’t get it up with real, hot, flesh-and-blood women. He can only get it up with a two-dimensional virtual woman who doesn’t threaten him. And every time that happens, his rage builds a little more, until on the fourth day he can’t take it anymore and he goes out, finds a suitable victim, probably a street whore, and kills her in a manner befitting a wild barbarian but chopping her into pieces.”

I sipped my beer. “That is a very credible scenario.”

“Scenario two.” She leveled her knife at me. “What I just described happened twelve and thirteen years ago. But he’s been seeing his shrink. And the shrink has encouraged him to live out his fantasies and try to make them real, keep it secret from his mom and his uncle so that they will not judge him, and have as many whores as he can manage. And he says to him, ‘Don’t worry about not getting it up, pal, because I will give you some tablets that, when you take them, will give you a hard-on worthy of a titan. And you will be the hero of the night. You will give those wenches the ride of their lives!’ And what happens?” She spread her hands. “You were right. It works. He stops killing.”

I made a face of deep respect. “That is a very compelling argument, Detective Dehan.”

“For twelve years. Until you come along and upset the apple cart.”

We ate in silence for a bit. Finally, I said, “You know what? We dug into Dave, and look what we found. We’ll pull him in, and we’ll interrogate him. But for the sake of completeness, let’s dig into Peter too and see what we find. If it’s one or the other of them, it will become clear.”

She shrugged one shoulder. “I guess.”

She finished her steak and signaled the waitress, who came gleaming back to us with her teeth and her hair. Dehan smiled at her and said, “This is what I am going to do now. I am going to have an espresso coffee and a glass of Irish whiskey, which you are going to serve to me with no ice and in a cognac glass.”

The waitress smiled and blinked a lot and said, “Okay!”

It seemed like a good idea, so I said I would do the same. When she had gone away to fetch the goods, Dehan said, “So how about you, Stone, why don’t you date?”

“Who says I don’t?”

She made a face like a chipmunk and went, “Pffff!”

I shrugged. “I don’t hate people. But I guess I don’t really trust people. Maybe people sense that and they steer clear of me. I don’t know. Either way, people and I—we don’t really jibe.”

The coffees and the whiskeys came, and I smiled. “I guess that makes us like Statler and Waldorf. You are Statler, I’m Waldorf.”

We chinked glasses.

“Here’s to that.”

We set out early, before the dawn, and drove all day, taking it in turns to sleep and drive. It was a tedious journey, mostly just a straight line along the I-90, through rain and drizzle, as far as Wisconsin. At Lake Erie, we stopped at a motel outside Toledo and had four hours sleep, then continued on up. We got to Danbury at midnight, booked in to a motel, and went straight to bed. The next morning, after an early breakfast