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

is to bring him down, even if it means letting Coy and Sly walk. I’ll do the same with Sly and Coy…”

She grinned. “Then we swap. Good cop, bad cop.”

“And we don’t let Sheriff Watson within a mile of them. Also, we sell him the same line we are selling them.”

She frowned. “You think he’s bent?”

“No, I think he’s lazy and naïve, which in a cop is almost worse. He’d let those SOBs walk just to avoid the paperwork, and tell himself they’re good folk at heart, boys will be boys.”

“You’re not wrong, Sensei. You want breakfast?”

“No, let’s get this over with.”

James Town was small and cute, nestled among pine trees on a crossroads between three hills on James Canyon Drive. The sheriff’s office, which was attached to the county jail, was between the Town Hall and the Methodist church. It was a wood-paneled, open plan space with a couple of desks and computers in it. He made a real effort to look pleased to see us when we walked in and even offered us coffee, to which I shook my head.

“I’d like to get started right away and close this case, if that’s OK with you. Have you got an interrogation room?”

He smiled and shrugged. “We don’t usually have any call for interrogation rooms, but there are a couple or three vacant offices upstairs above the jail you can use.”

I stared at him a moment. “These are very dangerous men, Sheriff. I have the scars to prove it. I want deputies watching them every minute. But I do not want Greg or Sly or Coy talking to anybody except me and Detective Dehan. If that is not followed to the letter, Sheriff, there will be consequences.”

He looked resentful and drew breath to protest. I cut him short. “Consequences, Sheriff. Now, we are going to designate the offices, interrogations rooms one and two. I want Greg in room one, five minutes later I want Sly in room two. I want deputies on the doors and I’ll have that coffee upstairs. Thank you for cooperating, Sheriff.”

He scowled at me. “You’re welcome, I’m sure. This way.”

He showed us up to the second story of the jailhouse. There was a suite of offices up there and we had the deputies bring Greg up to interrogation room one, where he was cuffed to his chair. I watched Dehan sit opposite him with a look on her face I’d have loved to photograph for posterity. I left them to it.

I put my laptop in a second room and a couple of minutes later, Sly was led to interrogation room two. Like Greg, he was cuffed to his chair, a deputy handed me a cup of coffee, and we were left alone. I sat for a while in silence, sipping, while he tilted his head this way and that. Finally, I said, “Here is how it’s going to play out, Sly. You and Greg and Coy have been separated. The sheriff is cooperating, but I am running this operation. What we have, after last night, is video and audio evidence of the kidnap, torture, and attempted murder of a cop. We have testimony from two police officers of drugs trafficking and the attempted kidnapping and murder of those two same cops. You three have ticked all the boxes that the Colorado District Attorney needs to apply for the death penalty.” I paused to give that time to sink in. “I’d go further, Sly, I’d say it is going to be very hard for the judge not to grant the death penalty.”

He smiled up at a ceiling he could not see. “You tellin’ me this, Detective Stone, because you want to scare me into giving you something.”

“Right first time, Sly. But that doesn’t mean that what I am saying is not true. You know it is true.”

“So quit trying to scare me and tell me what you want.”

“I want Kathleen’s killer.”

“Man, you still on that?”

“And I am going to stay on it until I get what I want. Who killed her, Sly?”

“What makes you think I would even know that?”

I sighed. “What do you think Detective Dehan is doing right now?”

“I don’t need to think. I know. She’s tellin’ Greg exactly the same as you are tellin’ me. And when she is through tellin’ him, she gonna go and tell Coyote. I ain’t stupid.”

I smiled and labored the irony in the words. “The jury is still out on that one, Sly.”

He made a smile that was not amused. “You’re funny.”

“Yeah, deep down funny, where it’s not like funny anymore. Now let’s stop playing games. You’re on the clock, Sly. If you want a deal, you need to get your bid in before Greg or Coy. First come, first served.”

He thought about it. “What kind of deal?”

I heaved another sigh and spread my hands. “Look at it from my point of view, Sly. I know one of you killed her. My question is, which one? And I need to know that simply so that I can offer some closure to her mother and her sister. From my point of view, personally, if you all three go down, I got my man.”

“I get it, Stone, you made your point. Stop tryin’ to sell me on the deal. Just tell me what the deal is.”

“Life, in both senses of the word.”

“Some deal… I want it in writing from the DA.”

“I’ll recommend it to the DA. We’ll see what he says.”

He shook his head and laughed, looking blindly into the air. “Man, you want somethin’ for nothin’!”

“You’re beginning to understand the situation, Sly. You’re fighting for your life. I’m only fighting to give closure to a family. Who do you think has the edge? Now let’s get real. I can go now and phone the DA, tell