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

is clever because it also pretty much guarantees that nobody is going to come into the park. Remember, in 1998 the X-Files is at the peak of its popularity, as is abduction syndrome. So people are scared!”

I made a ‘you have a point’ face and nodded.

She went on, “So then, and this is the really daring bit, he comes in off the river on a hovercraft.”

I smiled. “A what?”

“Like the ones they use in the swamps in Florida. If anybody hears the noise they’ll think it’s the UFO. He positions the body, takes off back into the sound, brings the drone in to land on the craft, and makes off across the river to… what? Powell Cove? Little Neck, King’s Point, wherever!”

“It’s certainly daring.”

“Is it less likely than aliens? Have you got a better theory that doesn’t involve Predator?”

I shook my head. “I have no theories at all at the moment.” I pointed down toward the water. “You have a line of trees between the park and the river. Your hovercraft would have to break through them.”

She nodded. “Yes, but over there, down by Harding Park, you have a little harbor with no trees, and he would have access through there.”

“That’s true.” I thought a little more. She danced around with her fists up, like Cassius Clay or Bruce Lee. “C’mon, Stone. Hit me. Show me whatcha got.”

“How did he lay out the body without leaving any prints in the mud?”

She thought for a moment. “He settled the hovercraft on the mud, and placed his victim without getting down, laying on his belly on the craft, and then left.”

I nodded for a while, visualizing it, then said, “You about ready for lunch?” She nodded vigorously and we turned and started walking back toward Beach Avenue. I said, “It’s very good. In fact, I only see two problems with your ingenious scenario, Dehan.”

“What?”

“The first is, you are assuming he was killed elsewhere, but you still leave unanswered the question, how did he kill him? The second, and more difficult, is, having laid the corpse out and sprinkled the ash in the form of the body, on leaving, the very powerful fan that the hovercraft uses to move about, would have blown that ash all over the park, even wet.”

She stopped dead in her tracks and sighed. “Dammi! I should have seen that.” She started to walk again, “It does tell us one thing, though. Danny was either killed—or the body was placed—after the worst of the rain, because heavy rain would have washed the ash away.”

“Yup. That’s true. Now we just need a hovercraft that doesn’t use a powerful fan.”

She shoved her hands in her pockets and eyed me. “You mean like a flying saucer with a dilithium crystal warp drive.”

“Don’t be downhearted, Dehan. Top of our to-do list, after we’ve talked to everyone, make a list of vehicles that could have covered that distance, discreetly, and deposited the body without leaving tracks.”

“Yeah, makes sense. Also, a list of tools or instruments that could have generated that kind of intense, focused heat over an area of, what, five and a half feet? To cut off his ankles and his head.”

I looked at her, chewing my lip as we walked, turning over what she’d said in my head. I knew for a fact that there was no such instrument or weapon. It just didn’t exist in terrestrial technology. But I didn’t say so.

We came out of the park and made our way up toward my ancient, un-computerized, primitive brute of a car. There was not a shred of software in it. Even the lock was mechanical. As I slipped the key in the door and opened it, I found that oddly comforting.

Before getting in, I leaned on the roof to look at Dehan, and felt the heat through my sleeve. She leaned on the other side and lifted her sunglasses to squint at me. I said, “Hamburger, beer, Donald Kirkpatrick.”

She blinked. “The elegance of your syntax is matched only by the beauty of your words, Sensei.”

“I thought so,” I said, and climbed in behind the old walnut steering wheel.

Four

Just where Soundview Avenue meets White Plains Road, there is a cute bar and grill called Maravillas. It serves Latin American food that is superb, in a setting you just wouldn’t expect. We ate in silence, partly because the food was so good and partly because Dehan didn’t want to discuss the case. When we had drained our beers and paid, we left the car by the restaurant and walked the short distance to Pugsley Avenue.

Pugsley Avenue is a cul-de-sac that abuts Pugsley Creek Park, and Donald Kirkpatrick’s house was the last on the right, before the footpath that leads to the park. It was a big, quirky, white clapboard affair standing apart from the other houses in the street, in its own grounds. It was on two stories, plus an attic and a basement, and had six stone steps leading up to the front door, with wrought iron railings on either side. The garden was untended and the fence and gate, rather than white picket, was steel tubing and wire mesh, like Ochoa’s.

We pushed through, followed the concrete path past a huge cypress tree with a wooden bench under it, and climbed the concrete steps. After I’d rung the bell, the door was eventually opened by a woman I recognized. She was now in her late forties, but she had aged well and was still recognizable as the Asian-looking woman who was standing next to Donald in the photograph we had seen.

“Mrs. Kirkpatrick?” She nodded and I showed her my badge. “I’m Detective John Stone. This is my partner, Detective Dehan. Is your husband in?”

Anxiety momentarily contracted her face, but there was a kind of obstinate strength in her eyes. She