The Inspector Walter Darriteau Murder Mysteries - Books 1-4 by David Carter (microsoft ebook reader TXT) 📗

‘We know that Speight, Williams and Iain Donaldson have all been in Bel’s house, and in Bel’s bedroom, so any DNA we find there can immediately be explained away. What bugs me is that all these guys, even the unidentified drug dealer, vaguely look alike, six foot or above, slim and fit, (how annoying!) dark hair and eyes, and smart, I’ve never known anything quite like it.’

‘What about the missing fifth lover? Any progress there?’

‘Not yet, ma’am. It could of course be that drug dealer. We are into Bel’s tech now, Karen’s going through her laptop as we speak.’

‘That’s good. That’s where the answers usually lie.’

Walter nodded and sniffed and wished he hadn’t, and said, ‘I hope so. We need a break.’

‘So the prime suspect is?’

Walter gave her a quizzical look and his forehead creased.

‘At this moment it’s simply throw a bunch of balls in the air.’

‘Wish I hadn’t asked. Go and see this Andrea woman. Find out if she ever met Bel. You might get lucky there.’

‘Pencilled in for the morning.’

Mrs West nodded and said, ‘Good. I am getting a bit of flak on this case.’

‘Oh?’

‘You know how it is, Walter, if the case isn’t solved within three days flak begins to fall, and the longer it goes, the heavier the flak.’

Walter bobbed his head and said, ‘And the trail can go cold.’

‘Too true. Are you confident the killer is one of the nine.’

‘As confident as I can be.’

‘You know the drill, Mr D, keep asking them questions, until one of them trips themselves up. We all know they will, sooner or later.’

‘That’s the plan.’

‘Was Eleanor Wright murdered?’

‘I think so ma’am. Just can’t prove it, yet.’

‘If she was, I’d bet my new caravan on there being one killer here and not two.’

‘I’m with you on that, ma’am.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Not right now, and thanks.’

‘No problem, Walter, you know my door is always open.’

KAREN NOW KNEW THAT David Baker was Belinda Cooper’s fifth lover, and she also knew that it put her in a very difficult situation. If she revealed that fact to Walter and the team, she would immediately be removed totally from the enquiry for being personally involved, and that was the last thing she wanted. She also knew that he was taking her out to dinner that very night to some swanky place.

She hated not being totally straight with Walter about anything, but surely it was better to have her there at the centre of things, pushing the inquiry forward, rather than have her totally excluded, especially as she was as close to David Baker as anyone currently alive, to the best of her knowledge.

There was another small matter too. If it came out later that she deliberately kept information to herself she could be for the high jump, and that spelt big danger, yet sooner or later that info would come to the fore, nothing was more certain, so the best thing she could do, for now at least, was delay it for a day or two, and see what David had to say for himself.

And there was yet another thing.

To her knowledge, David Baker didn’t have an alibi for Belinda Cooper’s TOD. Could he possibly be Belinda’s killer, and maybe Ellie’s killer too? She couldn’t yet prove he wasn’t, and that was a thought to make her think long and hard about being alone with the guy, but right there, that was the thing she wanted most, to be alone with him, in order to find out.

She was reading more of his old lovey-dovey emails to Bel, and that was a strange thing too. Seeing the evidence before her eyes of how her potential partner-to-be had wooed and won a slightly older woman, a pretty lady with a succession of tall and dark lovers, just like David. It was unsettling, to say the least.

The one thing that Karen took comfort from was that Bel and David had stopped going out together a while before she had met him online. That was something. Maybe Karen got him on the rebound, she imagined, and that was another thing that was odd. They just seemed to stop, the emails between the pair of them, and their meetings, just came to an abrupt end, with no hint of a fall out or the strife to come, like an airliner suddenly blown out of the sky, no time even for a mayday call, no time for anything, just total silence, a complete break, and not even a black box to look for to garner any clues.

She’d have to ask him about that, but of course she couldn’t outright. She’d have to be clever and canny, more clever and cannier than she had ever been before, and that was going to be challenging and tricky. Her train of thought was interrupted by Walter’s voice booming across the room.  She hadn’t even noticed he’d come back.

‘Well that’s a bloody thing, isn’t it!’

‘What?’ said Karen, turning to look at him.

‘This!’ he said, waving Karen’s printout, and the red-circled words. ‘I could strangle you! I could strangle you! If that’s not a threat to murder someone, I don’t know what is.’

Karen brought him back to earth.

‘People always say things like that, Guv, as you well know. I could kill you. All the time, and she wasn’t strangled either. She had her neck broken.’

‘Yes, they might say that in the heat of the moment, but they don’t write it down in bloody black and white, not like he has.’

Maybe Walter had a point there.

Darren and Hector came in, grinning and playing about, as they so often did.

‘Well?’ said Walter. ‘How did you get on?’

‘The drug dealer’s name is Marty,’ said Gibbons.

‘Is that all you’ve got? Marty what?’

‘No one seems to know any more.’

‘He must have used a surname to someone sometime, maybe used a credit card to pay for a meal, or something.’

‘That’s one thing drug dealers never do,’ said Gibbons. ‘It’s cash only with that crew, always cash.’

He had a point there, and Walter