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

“I can tell you about the article and the laptop, but I don’t know who killed David.”

Dehan said, “Bullshit.”

Counsel said, “Jackson, stop talking.”

I leaned forward and looked into his face. “He told you about his investigation. He told you he had met the hit man, Philips, he told you Philips had given him everything and Hennessy was going down…”

Jackson was nodding. “Yes, yes that is all correct. I asked to see the material. Obviously, it was a bombshell. The repercussions were going to be seismic. I told him I needed to review it. He brought it to me, left it with me, and when I read it…” He shook his head and laughed. “It was beyond anything I had imagined.”

“So you went and warned Hennessy…” But even as I uttered the words, sitting there looking into his deceitful, slippery face, the truth dawned on me. He was watching me, reading my expression. I stopped dead. “Son of a bitch! You didn’t go to her at all, did you? The directorships, they weren’t gratitude. You were blackmailing her!”

“But I didn’t kill Dave.”

Counsel sighed. “For God’s sake, Jackson. I can’t help you if you keep talking.”

He ignored him and stared at me. “I’ll talk, but I want a deal. And I did not kill Dave, Detective Stone. You have to understand that.”

Dehan said, “Where are the documents?”

“Have I got a deal?”

I said, “I’ll recommend it to the DA. Do I need a search warrant for your house? The minute I pick up the phone to get a warrant, the offer is off the table.”

“They are in my safe at home in Oyster Bay. I will hand them over to you along with everything I know. But you have to believe me. I did not kill David.”

I shook my head. “You had a multi-million dollar scam. You were going to be rich beyond your wildest dreams, but as long as David was alive and wanting to publish his article, you couldn’t pull it off. He had to die so that you could blackmail Hennessy.”

He was shaking his head. “No, for God’s sake, Detective! I didn’t decide to blackmail Hennessy until I heard he was dead! He was my friend! I couldn’t have looked him in the face and shot him in the head like that! I couldn’t do it to a perfect stranger, much less Dave!”

His attorney spoke up. “Okay, now that’s enough. Do not say another word, Jackson, until we hear from the DA.” He turned to me. “And if you want my client to incriminate Hennessy and D’Angelo, forget about the murder charge. You heard the man, he did not kill his friend. Now, this interview is over.”

We left them to confer and Dehan and I went to our desks. She looked exhausted and I felt wrecked, but my mind was racing. Suddenly, things were beginning to slot into place. I sat in my chair and saw David’s notebooks and diary that Samantha had given me. I picked up the diary and started leafing through it. The question that Ananda had asked Dehan was scrawled across one page. “What is justice?” And below it, “Morality does not exist in nature. It is a human construct.”

Dehan had her eyes closed. I said, “David was going through a moral crisis.”

She opened her eyes and looked at me. “Yeah, you said.”

I nodded. I thought a moment, then sighed. “Well, I guess this is all just about sewn up. Whatever I recommend to the DA, she is not going to offer Lee a deal. Not now that he has confessed to blackmailing Hennessy. His motive for killing David is too strong. The Feds will wrap it up.”

She nodded. “I need to sleep. Are we about done?”

“Just about.”

I picked up my phone and called Frank at the lab.

“Hey, Stone, how’s it hanging?”

“Pendulous. Listen, remember the letter I sent you?”

“Yup.”

“Did you look at it? Was I right?”

“Aren’t you always? Yes. You were right.”

I sighed. “Thanks, Frank.”

I hung up. “Okay, Dehan, my friend, let’s go home. But can we go and see Katie on the way? I’d like to fill her in, give her some closure.”

“Sure. You’re a kind man, Sensei. Let’s do that.”

So Dehan phoned Katie to see where she was and I phoned the District Attorney to give her my recommendations on offering Lee a deal, and as we half-staggered out to the Jag, political pandemonium broke out behind us and the case slipped from our hands and into the hands of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Twenty Six

The brief respite from the rain was over and an armada of low, sagging clouds in various shades of gray, heavy with water, were moving in from the Atlantic. Droplets accumulated on the windshield, and occasionally the wipers stirred into life and pushed them to one side. We were headed for Vincent Avenue in Randallfield, where Katie had a house.

Dehan shook her head and gave a small laugh.

“So it was that simple all along. You know? Sometimes I think that things are never complicated, it’s just that we can’t always see that they are simple, because of the way we are looking at them.”

I gave a couple of nods. “You may well be right, Dehan.”

She thought for a minute longer. “Dave had entrusted the stuff to his childhood friend, who saw the potential to become fabulously rich. He killed Dave and blackmailed Hennessy. We had it there, right in front of our eyes, all along.”

We came off the Cross Bronx Expressway and onto East 177th. As she turned left onto East Tremont, she said, “But you know what’s still eating me, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

She glanced at me. “Is he? Is he Philips?”

I thought about