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

then I thought I’d better get the moussaka on, cause it’s going to take at least an hour, and we want to make an early start tomorrow, right? So we don’t want to be eating too late…” She stopped, tying her hair up in a knot behind her neck. “What?”

I realized I was staring and shook my head. “Nothing. You’re right. Here’s your drink.”

She took the glass and smiled. “Nice fire, Sensei.”

She sipped and went into the kitchen, pushing up the sleeves of her sweatshirt. I followed, and while she began getting the things from the fridge, I rested my ass against the sink, took a knife, and opened the envelope Maria had given me at the station.

It was two sheets of paper, printed and stapled together. I flipped to the end of the second page. There was no signature. I started to read. Dehan, holding two eggplants, bumped me with her shoulder and said, “Move, Big Guy.”

I shifted over and she started washing the vegetables. She glanced at me and then at the letter. After that she dried her hands and started cutting them into rounds. “What is it?”

“It’s anonymous. Mainly it’s an itemized list of Hennessy’s victims between the year 2000 and 2008, but it claims she used one particular hit man during that period. Give me a couple of freezer bags, will you?”

She handed me two transparent plastic bags from the cupboard and I slipped the notes into them.

“We’ll send them for prints tomorrow. Listen.” I started to read. “‘The importance of Thorndike’s investigation, and the reason it proceeded so swiftly, was that he made contact with that hit man, I do not know his name, so we will call him K.

“‘K agreed, for reasons which are not clear to me, to tell Thorndike everything in exchange for his own anonymity. He gave times, dates, and locations regarding his meetings with Anthony D’Angelo, acting on behalf of Carol Hennessy, and later meetings with Hennessy herself. He gave details of payments made, both in cash and transfers to a numbered account in Belize, each coinciding with one of the hits.

“‘It was K’s policy to keep photographic, video and audio records of his meetings as insurance against being shopped by his employers. He made electronic copies of  all of these available to Thorndike. What Thorndike had in his article was damning, conclusive proof that Carol Hennessy had ordered the assassination of at least ten people who had threatened one way or another to expose her corrupt deals.

“‘These deals ranged from real estate scams in the 1980s and ’90s and illegal arms deals with oppressive regimes, to illegal deals with states that supported Islamic terrorism in the first decade of the new millennium. Most of the latter deals were conducted through the Hennessy Foundation in the guise of aid to third-world and developing countries.

“‘There were also allegations of mental and emotional instability against Carol Hennessy, ranging from sadomasochistic orgies, hysterical rages against her staff, in which she threatened them with violence, to inappropriate lesbian advances on members of her election campaign team.

“‘The victims listed were all either involved in investigations against her, or were witnesses who had volunteered to testify in those investigations. There follows a list of the ten victims that K confessed to have eliminated, along with the date of the execution, the price he was paid, method of payment, and the reason for the execution.’”

I turned the page. The names were listed by date. I scanned quickly through them without really paying attention.

Harold Little,

Albert Brightman,

Jack O’Connor,

Carl Beeman,

Emmanuel Odembe,

Kathleen Henson,

Danniele Frostrup,

Philip Olsen,

Ralph Denby,

Gustave Boucher,

I looked up at Dehan. She had just dumped a pile of diced lamb into a blue cast iron pot and the smell of herbs, frying onions, and olive oil was strong on the air. She said, “We need to work through those names systematically and check for any discrepancies.” She listed on her fingers. “Are they in fact dead, did they die as and where our informant says, did they have the connection to Hennessy that he or she claims…”

“If they check out, we need to find this informer.” I waved the letter. “And, above all, we need to find K.”

“Question: why hasn’t—sorry, what stopped our informant from giving us K’s name, and how does our informant have this information? The pool of people who could know all this is very small.”

I looked back at the letter. “It says he doesn’t know K’s name.”

“Okay, so we are looking at somebody who is close to Dave, but not so close that he confides everything. That narrows it to two people.”

“Lee and Katie.”

She made a face like brain strain. “But that doesn’t make any sense at all! Why tell us one thing face to face and then send an anonymous letter?”

I nodded. “What would make a person do that? Well… either they have a reason for concealing the fact that they know, because it puts them at risk somehow…”

She shrugged. “That’s possible.”

“Or there is a third person he was close to, who is remaining hidden.”

She puffed out her cheeks and blew noisily. “That’s a lot of hiding people, Stone. Dave, K, and now our anonymous informer.”

I grunted and sipped my drink while she cooked. I watched her put layers of meat, potato, and eggplant into the iron dish and then stand stirring a béchamel sauce. Eventually, she said, “Open the wine, will you? It’ll need to breathe. You want a salad?”

Absently, I said, “Do I look like a wabbit?” and grabbed the bottle.

She shrugged, put the moussaka in the oven, and reached for the salad bowl. “Yeah, a bit you do. We’ll have a salad.”

I moved her aside and took the corkscrew from the drawer and started pulling the cork. “Let me ask you something. If you