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

She yanked her phone from her pocket and walked to the window. I stood back by the bedroom door and examined the scene. From where I was I could see into the kitchen. I went in and looked around. I could hear Dehan talking behind me. On the draining rack by the sink I saw a small breakfast bowl, a mug, a cereal spoon and a tea spoon. There was also a knife and a fork and two glasses. I stepped over and had a closer look at the glasses. They still had droplets of water in them. I had a look in the trash and in the recycling bin. There was no bottle. I smiled, took my cell and took several photographs of the scene. Then I took two evidence bags from my pocket and carefully placed one glass in each.

“What are you doing?”

I turned to face Dehan. I could hear feet tramping up the stairs. I pointed at the glasses. “What did they drink?”

I moved out of the kitchen to meet the uniforms coming up the stairs. I showed them my badge. “Crime scene and the ME are on their way. Get some tape up for me, would you? And see who’s upstairs and if they heard anything.”

I knew they’d get squat, but you have to try. One of them went downstairs to get the tape and the other made his way up to the next floor, taking his pad from his pocket. Dehan was in the kitchen doorway. She seemed to be mad, and also a bit upset. She spoke without looking at me. “So there was somebody here and they had a drink.”

“It looks that way.”

“But whoever was here took whatever they were drinking away with them.”

I nodded. “That’s what it looks like.”

“And that is significant, why?”

I shrugged. “Maybe it isn’t.”

She sighed noisily, put on her latex gloves and went into the bedroom. I heard her open the wardrobe and went to watch. There was nothing in there save a few old clothes. She closed it and got on all fours to peer under the bed. Again there was nothing of interest there, only a pair of shoes and a lot of dust. Finally she came to the chest of drawers beside the bed. She went through it methodically, and found what I had guessed she was looking for in the bottom drawer, under a spare set of sheets. It was a shoe box. She took a photograph of it in the drawer, then removed it, set it on the bed and opened it. Then she photographed it again.

The first thing she took out was a pair of torn, pink panties that appeared to be stained. She put them in an evidence bag and set it to one side. I stepped over beside her and looked down. The box contained a small hairbrush with a few dark hairs in it, several silk handkerchiefs and several photographs. One was of Angela, one of Cherry Pie, the others were of similar girls whom I did not recognize. Most of them, but not all, were dressed like Cherry; all were smiling for the camera, and Jimmy was in a couple of them.

I hunkered down beside her as Dehan went through them one by one. They seemed to be in a bar, and Jimmy was raising his glass to the camera, with his left arm around one girl or another. Dehan said, “Are these the ones that got away? Or are they lying in the morgue, waiting for somebody to give them a name?”

She bagged everything, including the box, and left it back in the drawer.

We heard the heavy tramping of feet and after a moment a voice called my name from the next room. I went out and saw Frank and Pete Henson at the door with their assistants. They ducked under the tape and I pointed at Jimmy on the sofa.

“He’s all yours, Frank. Cause of death seems pretty self evident, but I’d be curious to know what his last meal consisted of.”

He paused on his way to the body and frowned at me. “Really?”

I nodded. “Really.”

“I wouldn’t normally do an autopsy on somebody who had shot himself in the head. It’s what we call in the profession a damn waste of time.”

“Will you make an exception in this case, please, Frank?”

He shrugged. “Fine.”

I showed Pete the glasses and asked him to go over the whole kitchen. Then Dehan took him to the bedroom and showed him the box. After that, he and Frank asked us to go away and let them do their jobs.

We walked down the stairs in silence and carried that same silence through the gathering dusk back to the station. There we climbed the stairs in silence and didn’t break it until we knocked on the inspector’s door.

“Come!”

Dehan opened the door and we went in.

“Ah! The dynamic duo!” He gestured with both hands at the two seats opposite him. “Please, sit. What progress?”

I turned to Dehan. “You want to explain, Dehan? I think this is more your success than mine.”

She raised an eyebrow at me and the inspector beamed. “Success? So you have Jimmy Fillmore?”

Dehan took a deep breath. “It looks that way, sir. It also looked as though he decided to spare the city the cost of a trial. Frank will have to confirm it, but it looks as though he shot himself in the head while sitting on the sofa. In his bedroom we found a box full of what appear to be trophies from his kills, though obviously, again, the lab will have to confirm that. It contained panties that probably belonged to Noelia Gomez, his last victim, and to Angela Fernandez. There was also a lady’s hairbrush, containing long,