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

dark hairs, that should give us enough material to identify the owner, and photographs of Noelia, Angela and several other girls. Jimmy is with them in a couple of the pictures.”

The inspector listened carefully throughout and when she had finished he smiled broadly. “Excellent work, then we can consider, pending the lab results, that this case is closed.”

“It would certainly look that way, sir.”

He turned to me. “John, I know you had your doubts but I trust this has satisfied even your relentlessly incisive mind. And I have to say, all credit to you, John, you never let your own, personal feelings interfere with the investigation. You are a true example to us all, and I might say a superb role model for Carmen. Commendable work, both of you. I think you have earned a couple of days off, don’t you?”

I smiled. “Thank you, sir.”

We left and made our way down the stairs again. We collected our things and stepped out into the gathering evening. When we got to the car Dehan stopped and put her hand on my chest. There was a wash of amber light on her face from the street lamp above her.

“OK, John, let’s stop this before it gets out of hand. Tell me what the hell is going on in your mind. Don’t bullshit me and don’t fob me off. What the hell do you know that you are not telling me?”

I raised my eyebrows high. “John?”

“I warn you that I am getting mad. Don’t push me any further. Tell me or I am going to lose it.”

I nodded. “OK, let’s go and grab a meal somewhere and I will tell you what is on my mind. No need to get mad.”

“Emilio’s Pizza and we walk home. And quit bullshitting me!”

“Deal.”

SIXTEEN

We ordered steak and fries and a bottle of wine, and while he cooked them, we drank a couple of beers. We took a while, sipping and looking at each other, to find our way back across the bridges we were building in silence while we drank. Eventually I smiled at her and she smiled back. It was a nice smile, which she followed up with, “You know you are one obstinate son of a bitch, don’t you?”

I nodded. “My mother, God rest her soul, used to tell me the same thing, in those very same words.”

She lifted her thumb, not as a ‘thumbs up’ but as a ‘number one’, and said, “One: how did you know, quote ‘that something bad was going to happen’?” She lifted her index finger. “Two: how did you know there would be fingerprints on Angela’s bag and not on Noelia’s body, and that there would be semen?” She lifted her middle finger. “How did you know, or suspect, that something had happened to Jimmy Fillmore? And why is it significant that somebody took away the bottle after they had had a drink together?”

I pulled off half my beer and wiped my mouth on the back of my hand. “Those ‘why’ questions will get you into trouble, Dehan. They are too vague. They don’t focus your mind.”

“Keep doing that. Keep bullshitting me. I swear you will sleep on the couch.”

“I’m not. And you’ll have to wrestle me for the bed and you know how that always ends up.”

“Quit stalling.”

“I had a hunch something bad was going to happen because, if Wayne wasn’t our killer, then our killer had to be out on the street, and still active. So it stood to reason that he might kill again at any time…”

She cut across me, shaking her head. “But at that time you believed that Wayne was the killer.”

I raised a finger. “It works that way too, if you think about it. And in any case, I believed he might be the killer because I was not happy with some of the details of his story.”

She frowned like she was getting a headache.

“What…?”

I ignored her and went on. “The fingerprints on the purse, Dehan, you really should be able to answer for yourself…”

She groaned softly, then raised a hand and said, “OK, OK, give me a second.” She thought and I waited. Finally she said, “He met her in a social environment, like a bar or something. They had arranged to meet to have a drink or whatever. In that kind of setting he could not be wearing gloves, so there was a good chance he handled her purse when he subdued her, bound her and gagged her. He wouldn’t have had time to put on gloves, but anyway he wouldn’t care because he planned to remove the purse anyway. But with Noelia, by the time he strangled and murdered her, he had already put on his gloves.”

I smiled and made a noncommittal face. “Sounds reasonable.”

“But how could you have known there would be semen?”

I stared at her for a long moment. “You really don’t see it?”

“No!”

“He always dumps them in the river.”

“And the river washes away the traces of semen and DNA.”

I half shrugged. “In the cold weather the bodies sink. By late April or May the water warms up. There are a lot of bacteria in the water and they very quickly corrupt any DNA such as semen that might be in the body.”

“But…”

I raised my eyebrows and began to nod slowly as she narrowed her eyes. Before she could say anything, a reporter on the TV spoke a name that made us turn toward the bar.

“…Wayne Harris was released from prison this afternoon having served only six months of a five year sentence for possession of cocaine. That in itself may not be very remarkable, but what is remarkable is the reason for his release. It seems that he has assisted the police in the capture of a serial killer who