Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #4: Books 13-16 (A Dead Cold Box Set) by Blake Banner (read aloud books TXT) 📗

at the party, you feel me? I don’t need to go chasin’ after Sue. I can get fucked right here in my own house. I told her to go to hell and that night I stay with…” He gazed up at the ceiling. “Rocio… Karen, Karen was from Sweden, and Ruby. They were nice kids.” He made an expression that might have been regret. “Next day the pigs… sorry, the cops, come around tellin’ me Sue is dead. So that’s what happened that night.”

Dehan thought for a minute. “Any idea where we can find Fernando?”

“Yeah, man. We still hang out. I’ve known that pendejo all my life. He’s got an apartment in that cute house above the liquor store, by the public library, on Soundview.” He held his hands in front of his face as though he was turning dials. “It’s all decorated with zigzag white bricks. I like that house. It’s cool.”

There was a chime then from the front doorbell. Giorgio hesitated a moment, then stood. As he made his way to the door, I looked at Dehan. She shrugged and said, “I think we’re wasting our time. I have no more questions.”

I looked up at the ceiling, at the walls and at the huge fireplace, then at all the paintings. I heard a woman’s voice coming from the door.

“I hope I am not interrupting anything. I just made a huge meat casserole, far too much for me, and I thought you might like some…”

“Oh, Sandy, that is so generous. You have such a warm soul…”

I stood and Dehan stood with me. They were both looking at us, Giorgio with hostile eyes, the woman with curiosity. She was a youthful forty with a pretty face and a slim, shapely figure which you could see because she had unbuttoned her coat. Her clothes were in stark contrast to Giorgio’s: a high-necked blouse with a frill, a string of pearls, a dark skirt, stockings and high-heeled shoes. Her hair was blonde and taken up in a neat bun. She smiled at us.

“I was just saying to Giorgio that I hope I am not interrupting. I tend to cook far too much for myself, and I just know that he doesn’t look after himself! These creative, artistic souls!” She laughed.

I said, “Don’t worry, we were just leaving. Are you a neighbor?”

“Sure. I live just across the road!”

“How long have you lived here, Miss…?”

“Beach, Sandy Beach! Can you believe it?” She laughed again, then held Giorgio’s arm with the hand that wasn’t holding the casserole. “Well, now, let me see. It must be about eight or nine years, or there abouts.”

I nodded and smiled, then turned to Giorgio. “It’s narcissistic, your work. Too self-involved. Try looking outward. Enjoy your casserole.”

We stepped out into the cold and heard the door close behind us. As we went down the steps, shivering with the icy wind, I felt unreasonably angry. As I unlocked the car, Dehan leaned on the roof and squinted at me.

“Before we go see Fernando, I need some lunch. That asshole made me angry and hungry.”

I nodded. “Agreed.”

Three

We picked up a couple of burgers and some fries and sat in the car eating in silence and looking at the freezing world outside. Everybody was either leaning into the wind or hunched away from it. Everybody was padded and had their shoulders up by their ears, and everybody was wearing woolen hats. I said:

“Fernando is just going to tell us the same as Giorgio. Either because it’s true, or because he phoned him as soon as we left and told him we were on our way.”

Dehan looked at me, a little surprised and taking small bites of a fry with her front teeth.

“So…?”

“I don’t want to go and see Fernando. I want to go and see Rafa Montilla, the detective who had the case to begin with.”

“Why?” She shoved the rest of the fry in her mouth with her finger.

“This case isn’t just cold, Dehan. It’s arctic, like this damn weather. What have we got in the way of witnesses? We have two wiseass artists who wouldn’t notice a performing elephant in the room unless it had a photograph of them pasted onto it, and the handyman at the church. Three very limited, very subjective perspectives. We need something broader and more detached to help us choose a line of inquiry.”

She nodded into her greasy paper cone. “OK, makes sense.”

While I finished my burger, she called the precinct, got Rafa’s number and arranged to meet him at the Britches Sports Bar on Miles Avenue, in Throggs Neck. It was a ten minute drive that took almost twenty because I was driving slowly, turning something over and over in my mind. Finally, as we were approaching the bar, I said to Dehan, “You got the list of students there?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Bring it in with you. I want to show it to Rafa. I keep going over this. She was killed by somebody she knew, who wasn’t there.” I pulled up outside the bar, killed the engine and yanked up the handbrake. “That’s wrong, right?”

She smiled and opened the door. “It was Halloween, Sensei!”

Rafa was about ten years older than me. He was sitting at the bar with a beer between his forearms, watching reruns of old games and popping peanuts into his mouth. He had a shiny, bald head with long, scraggly hair that hung from his ears to his shoulder blades. When we stepped in, he turned, smiled, jumped down from his stool and embraced me and slapped my back like we were old buddies. He shook Dehan’s hand and kissed her on the cheek. Then he grabbed his drink and he and Dehan moved to a table. I ordered a couple of beers and joined them.

“So,” Rafa said, grinning, “you two, huh?