Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #2: Books 5-8 (A Dead Cold Box Set) Blake Banner (read out loud books txt) 📖

the gutters was loud and sounded cold and wet. Dehan raised an eyebrow at me and offered me her hat. “You want? It would suit you. You’d look like Indiana Jones.”

“My brain cavity is larger than yours.”

She snorted as I stepped out and ran for my car. She followed me at an easy walk. As she climbed into the car and slammed the door, she eyed me. “You sure about that, Sensei?”

I stared at her for a long moment. She stared back. Finally, I said, “I think she has enough rage and anger in her to drive her to kill, if the right provocation were there…”

“She finds out about Katie somehow, finds out where he’s shacked up, goes to confront him…”

“It’s feasible. But if she killed him out of rage, why was she so cool about it? Why the single shot? Why didn’t she empty the magazine into him? Why did she remove the laptop and the papers?”

I watched her eyes move over my face as she pursed her lips. She gave a little shrug with one shoulder. “In some people, rage expresses itself as something cold and clinical. As to the laptop and the papers, like we said before, that might be something completely unrelated.”

I grunted. “What d’you want to do now?”

“You know what? I’d like to see the apartment where he was killed. You think if we ask nicely, the new tenants would let us have a look around?”

I fired up the engine and winked at her. “I had a feeling you’d say that. I called the landlord last night. He’s between lets. I said we’d be there just after ten.”

She raised a laconic eyebrow. “Geez, Boss! You da best! You treat me good!”

“Don’t you forget it, Little Grasshopper!”

Two

By the time we got back to the Bronx, the drizzle had turned to the occasional, freezing drop, carried on an icy wind that even made the bare branches of the trees shiver. Dave’s block was a five-story red brick with an orange fire escape. The main entrance was a small courtyard that had been barricaded with a large, wrought iron gate covered in steel mesh and topped off with sharp iron spikes.

The landlord, Sammy Gupta, buzzed us in and we rode the elevator to the fifth floor. I had brought with me a folder with the crime scene photos in it. The door to the apartment was open and I peered in. It gave directly onto the living room. The floor was covered in a rough, gray carpet. On the right there was a window, and in front of the window there was a small dining table with two chairs. Against the wall there was a sideboard and directly in front of us there was a sofa that might have looked new when the Beatles still had pudding-basin hairdos. In front of it there was a wooden coffee table with very thin legs and a glass top, and a lower level where you could put magazines. Opposite the sofa, against the wall on the left, there was a dresser, and most of that was taken up with a TV.

Beside the dresser, there was an open door that gave onto a bedroom. From in there emerged noises of movement. I knocked on the door and shouted, “Mr. Gupta? NYPD. May we come in?”

His voice preceded him, “Oh, yes!”

He was short and thin, in pleated pants, a white shirt and a tank top. He smiled a lot, kept his arms permanently bent at the elbow and his head cocked slightly at a constant, ‘ah well’ sort of angle.

“Yes, please, come in, how do you do? Hello.”

We showed him our badges. “I’m Detective Stone, this is Detective Dehan. We are reviewing the David Thorndike case…”

“Yes, yes, goodness yes, poor David. I remember it well. Very tragic. Please, tell me how I can help you.”

Dehan answered him. “We’d just like to have a look around. Has the layout changed much since…?”

As she asked it, I opened the folder and took out the pictures, but Sammy was already answering her.

“Well, it was ten years ago, and I like to keep things up to date, you know? But, no, it hasn’t really changed much. Not at all. As you can see from the photos.” He grinned.

Dehan took the top photo. It was the same coffee table and the same sofa, in the same position. She pointed to the carpet, between the table and the door, about ten or twelve feet away. “The body was there, lying on its back. The head just missed the table...” She stepped over and turned to face me.

Sammy was nodding. “Yes, that is correct. I opened the door, came in, and there he was, just where you are standing. He looked very surprised.”

Dehan ignored him and carried on. “Which means he was standing about six or seven feet from his killer. The shot was pretty much point blank if the killer had his arm outstretched…”

She took a couple steps toward me and I stretched out my hand as though I were going to shoot her. It would have been impossible to miss. She kept talking.

“So the killer was standing more or less where you are standing now, by the door. He has the door open or he has it closed, we don’t know. He’s either just come in or he’s on his way out. Again, we don’t know. But that’s where he’s standing, by the door.”

Sammy was nodding a lot. “Yes, undoubtedly that is correct. He had to be by the door to effect that shot. No doubt.”

I looked at him and asked, “Did you collect the rent in cash?”

“Always. I would come in the first week of the month, and he was never late. Always on time, no problem. That is why I was worried when