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

“How is she?”

“She’s very sick, but the doctor said she’ll make a full recovery in a day or two. She hadn’t inhaled enough gas to cause permanent damage. But if I had been a minute longer…” I shook my head. “Hell! If I had shot the lock, neither of us would be here right now.”

He smiled. “How many locks did you blow away today, John?”

“I guess I lost it.”

“You two are a good team. You care about each other.”

I shrugged. “What about Sanchez and his partner? Did they find anything?”

“Davis. Yup. In their bedroom, Sanchez found an envelope containing a silver David’s star on a chain. On the back, it was engraved ‘To Carmen Dehan, from Mom and Daddy, on her first birthday, May 9, 1991.’”

He tossed it on the desk. It was in a plastic evidence bag. I picked it up and looked at it. It was the one I had helped her put on in Oacoma.

“Anything else?”

“The duct tape you sent in? The piece that had her phone stuck to the guy’s van?” I nodded. “It’s the same as the stuff that was used to bind her ankles and wrists, and it has a clear thumbprint on it. Peter’s.”

I stared at him for a bit. “Just one?”

“That’s all they could get at the lab.” He studied my face a moment and decided to ignore my expression. “I’ve arrested him. He’s in the cell downstairs talking to his lawyer. Whenever you want to interrogate him…”

I gave a couple of slow nods. “Yeah, I’ll talk to him now.”

We walked together to the interrogation room. As I was going in, the captain put a hand on my arm.

“I’ll be in the observation room, John. You got your shit together?”

“Yeah.”

“No more threats of violence. No more violence, or we lose the case.”

“I know. I’m okay.”

A couple of uniforms brought Peter in about five minutes later. He was cuffed and he sat opposite me. He looked very pale and very scared. His lawyer came in after him. He didn’t look happy either. He sat next to Peter and said, “My client is going to present a complaint against the city for police brutality. Are you Detective Stone?”

“Yeah.”

“The complaint will cite you specifically, Detective Stone.”

“Fine. We are not here to discuss your civil suits, Mr. Smith. We are here to discuss your attempted murder of Detective Dehan.”

“That is a lie and an outrage! I have never laid a hand on Detective Dehan, or anybody else!”

I held up a hand. “Let’s take it one step at a time, shall we, Mr. Smith? I know you are a methodical man, and you like to do things methodically… isn’t that right, Peter?”

His lawyer put his hand on Peter’s arm. “You don’t need to answer that, Peter. Can we stick to the point, please, Detective Stone? My client has not been arrested for being methodical.”

Like most lawyers, this one was going to be a pain in the ass.

“Have you any reason for not wanting to acknowledge that you are methodical and systematic?”

Before his lawyer could intervene, his vanity got the better of him. “I am a methodical and systematic man. What of it?”

“So you’ll have no trouble telling me where you were yesterday afternoon at a quarter to three.”

“I already told your captain, I was at home, working.”

“Have you got anybody who can verify that?”

“Of course. My wife was with me the whole time.”

“Yeah, see, I was afraid you were going to say that. Because I, personally, wouldn’t believe a word your wife says in your defense, and neither will the jury, because she is so obviously terrified of you.”

“What? That’s ridiculous…”

“Is it? Why do you say that?”

“Why would my wife be terrified of me…?”

“I don’t know, Peter. Why would she be terrified of you?”

His lawyer spoke up. “Detective Stone, you are deliberately confusing my client, presenting his own question to him as though it were an admission.”

“Do you inflict physical violence on your wife, Peter? Or only psychological violence?”

“Don’t answer that.”

He swallowed.

I went on. “I am just trying to establish why she is so scared of you.”

“She isn’t!”

“Okay, so you claim that you were at home at two forty-five.”

“I don’t claim. I was at home.”

“So when you telephoned Detective Dehan, you called her from home?”

“What?”

“Peter, the question is a very clear, simple one. Did you telephone Detective Dehan from home at two forty-five yesterday afternoon?”

He was shaking his head and looking at me as though I was crazy. “I didn’t call her from anywhere. I haven’t telephoned Detective Dehan in my life. I don’t even know her number.”

I frowned at the file I had open in front of me. “But this is your number, isn’t it?”

I slid the print out across the table and pointed to where it showed the last call to Dehan’s cell. He stared at it a moment and then stared at me.

“But that’s my cell number.”

“Yes, Peter, that is your cell number. So when you made that call, at two forty-five, where were you?”

“No.”

“What do you mean, ‘no’?”

“You don’t get it. I did not make that call. I could not have made that call. I haven’t got my cell phone.”

“What do you mean?”

“I lost my phone.”

I laughed. “When was that?”

“A couple of days ago.”

“How convenient.”

“I am telling you! I lost my phone!”

“Well, then, Peter, perhaps you can explain something else to me.”

“Dear God!”

“Have you ever seen this phone before?” I showed him Dehan’s phone in a plastic evidence bag.

“Not that I am aware of, no.”

“How about this duct tape?”

He shrugged. “It’s duct tape.”

“Have you ever seen that piece of duct