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

the same genius you bring to the cold cases, and if you can find a link to Mrs. Rojas’ murder and solve that, too, then so much the better. Does that resolve your dilemma?”

Dehan smiled. “Yes, sir. Thank you.”

“Glad I could help! If only all problems were that simple, hey?”

“That would be ripper, sir.”

We stood, I opened the door for Dehan, and we left, all of us smiling at each other.

On the stairs, I asked her, “What was that?”

“What was what?”

“Detective Stone’s hunches are always dinky-di.”

“Enough already with the Australian slang!”

“You want this case, Dehan.”

“So what if I do?”

We had arrived at the door to the detectives’ room. I looked at my watch. “Here’s the plan. We go and talk to Jack O’Brien, then we go and check on Luis, see how he’s doing, and after that we grab some lunch and a grog.”

“Again?”

“I tell you, Sheila, I am as dry as a dingo’s donger!”

She sighed, shook her head and made for her car, muttering, “Dios!”

Seven

We parked a few doors down from his house. Dehan looked at me and I thought she smiled, but it wasn’t clear. She said, “I got this.”

I allowed my eyebrows to visit my hairline in an expression of surprise and said, “OK…”

She loosened her hair, ruffled it up a bit in the mirror, undid her top two buttons, and leered at me. Then she did a fair imitation of Sylvester the cat. “Do I look thexy, Detective Thtone?”

“Irresistible.”

She got out and slouched down the road with her hands in her pockets. When she got to 1719 B she stopped, looked up and down the road a couple of times, and knocked on the door. Then she stood staring down at her feet with her shoulders hunched. After a moment she looked up. I couldn’t see the door, though I guessed it had opened. She spoke, but wouldn’t make eye-contact, looked up the road, at her feet, laughed like a shy girl, then went quiet, listening, staring down at the sidewalk. She nodded a couple of times and now she made eye-contact. Said something and turned to beckon me. I climbed out of the car and headed toward the house.

Next thing, there was a rush of movement. Dehan staggered back. A big guy, maybe six-three, in jeans and a black T-shirt was shoving her. She stumbled against a fire hydrant and fell. Then he was running, sprinting. I shouted, “NYPD! Freeze!” But he was too hot to freeze.

Dehan was scrambling to her feet even before she’d hit the ground. I started to run, but she made off like an Olympic sprinter. Before I’d run four paces, she’d taken eight and she was on his heels. Next thing, she was flying in mid air. She wrapped her arms around his knees, held tight, and he went down like a sack of wet sand.

By the time I got to them, she was sitting astride his back, cuffing his wrists. He was wheezing badly. She stood, grabbed him by the scruff of his neck, and dragged him to his feet.

“Sap! Detective Stone, this man offered to sell me an ounce of marijuana. When I informed him that I was a police officer, he attempted to flee.”

“I saw the whole thing, Detective Dehan.”

He turned to look at us. He was almost bald and had pale blue eyes and a jaw like a slab of concrete. He looked mad, too. “Nah,” he said, and shook his head, “you got it all wrong, incha? I weren’t running. Thought I saw me mate, and went after him!”

I raised an eyebrow. “You’re British.”

“English, mate. It’s different.”

“Right, you can tell us all about it inside. Get going.”

Dehan led him back to the house, a small, gray, clapboard affair with a sharp, gabled roof and a wrought iron gate over the door. She shoved him inside and we followed after him through a hallway and into a small, open-plan living room and kitchen, where I noticed a cellar door. There were two beaten up sofas, a threadbare IKEA chair, and a TV, plus the obligatory pizza boxes and empty cans of beer. I guess you’re not a real guy if you haven’t got the take out pizza boxes and the cans. He turned to face us.

“Am I under arrest?”

I made a face and danced my head around in a ‘maybe you are and maybe you’re not’ kind of way. “That depends on you. Is your name Jack O’Brien?”

“Not much point denying that, is there?”

“Not really, Jack, no.”

“So how is it up to me?”

I pointed at the sofa and said, “Sit down, Jack. Let’s talk.”

His jaw set and his face took on a kind of obstinate, blank look. “If you ain’t arresting me, Detective, I’d like you to remove my handcuffs. Then we can talk.”

I glanced at Dehan, she shrugged and moved toward him. He grinned at her with what looked like genuine appreciation. “Where’d you learn to rugby tackle, then? You done all right.”

She almost smiled and unlocked his cuffs. “At bad-ass school, when I was four.”

He chuckled and sat. I sat on the other sofa and Dehan put her ass on the windowsill, by the door, with her arms crossed. I offered him an expression of wry amusement among guys.

“Here’s the thing, Jack. We’re not from vice.”

He frowned, trying to work out where I was going.

I looked over at where the door to the basement stood in the open plan kitchen. “Obviously, we have probable cause, Jack. So, what do you think I am going to find if I go down into your basement? How many plants am I going to find?” He opened his mouth to speak, but I tapped my nose. “I can smell it.”

He closed his