Dead Cold Mystery Box Set 4

by Blake Banner

  “OK, I’ll get a team over there.”

  “And Joe, I also need you to look for traces of saliva on the glasses. I want to know who drank from them.”

  “You got it.”

  I hung up and Dehan said, “We don’t know who drank from those glasses?”

  “Not for a fact, no. In fact, the outstanding feature about this case is Agnes Shine’s absence. Gutierrez assumed she was there because Jose Robles was at her house. Now Frank has added a series of fingerprints to the equation, which we assume were made by her. But we don’t know for a fact that she made them, do we? And I keep coming back to the same thing: we cannot find even a remote trace of a motive. There is no indication that Agnes and Jose were anything but friends and colleagues.”

  She screwed up her brow and made a ‘hmmm’ noise. “I don’t know, Stone. This may be what in Spanish they call looking for five legs on the cat. The cat got four legs, not five.”

  “Yeah, I know, Occam’s Razor. But frankly, I’m having trouble finding even three legs on this cat. At risk of taxing the metaphor, this cat walks like a duck and quacks like a goose. I keep playing this movie in my head. He’s sitting there, in front of the fire, sipping his single malt, reading about batteries, and what happens? The phone rings or somebody knocks at the door.”

  “It might have been a prior arrangement.”

  “It might have been. In any case, he leaves his magazine open and he takes his glass to the kitchen.” I turned to her. “Did you notice the kitchen? It was spotless. There weren’t even dirty plates in the dishwasher. But he leaves the glass by the sink and he walks the two hundred yards to Agnes’ house…”

  Dehan started talking, staring ahead through the windshield.

  “She lets him in, they sit in this very formal way, with the whole sofa between them, sipping a glass of wine each. Then she gets up, goes to the bedroom, takes this gun from somewhere and shoots him, eight rounds, in a kind of frenzy.”

  “Yeah, the kind of frenzy where the first shot scores a bull’s eye.”

  She sighed. “You’re right. The rage does seem to come out of left field for no particular reason.”

  “If I was that mad at someone that I was going to shoot them, I’d confront them on their doorstep. Or if I’d brought them to my house, I wouldn’t fix them up with a drink first. The whole set up looks so formal.”

  She shrugged as she turned onto Boston Road. “Like you said, Stone. They’re academics. Maybe they’re just weird.”

  “Maybe. Let’s see what Dr. Meigh says.”

  THREE

  “They were both a bit weird, to be perfectly honest, detectives.”

  Dr. Patricia Meigh was surprisingly small, though her presence was surprisingly large. She sat in her black leather chair, behind her oak desk, like a much bigger woman, and turned her black Parker fountain pen over in her fingers. I frowned.

  “Were?”

  “Forgive me.” She didn’t smile. “He was. She, no doubt, continues to be, wherever she is.”

  Dehan asked, “Weird in what way, exactly?”

  She studied her pen a moment, pursing her lips. “You know the big difference between scientists and doctors, or engineers?”

  “I have often wondered,” I lied.

  “For doctors and engineers, it’s all about fixing a problem—a real problem. The engineer wants to get it built, get it made, put together. The doctor wants to cure her patient, make people well. But for scientists, it’s all about proving the hypothesis. They exist in the abstract. They dream up a theory, work out how they can turn the theory into an hypothesis, and they are happy, satisfied, when they can prove the hypothesis is correct. That was Jose and that was Agnes. They both existed—and she presumably continues to exist—in theoretical hypothetical worlds.” She hesitated a moment. “Agnes wasn’t strictly a scientist, of course, but a mathematician. Her work was entirely theoretical, in any case.”

  Dehan gave a small grunt and squinted at Meigh. “That’s pretty vague, Dr. Meigh. Can you be more precise?”

  “Yes, I can be very precise. They were both completely inept socially. At any kind of social gathering, she would go and stand in a corner and stare, completely unnoticed, while he would butt into other people’s conversation and talk incessantly about himself. The man’s ego, and his vanity, knew no limits, whereas she is a zero personality. She is a void, an empty space. Quite brilliant, truly, but absolutely no ego.” She added, with a touch of bitterness, “They were made for each other.”

  Dehan looked up from a prolonged study of her thumbs. “So they were involved with each other?”

  “Oh, good heavens, yes! Involved with each other and, more precisely, involved in each other. They went everywhere together, did everything together, forever united in this kind of ghastly, joyless bond. The Jose Robles admiration society, membership of two: him and his slave.” A trace of a smile flitted across her face. “I am exaggerating, but not very much.”

  “Did he talk much about Spain?”

  Dehan glanced at me like she thought the question was weird, but Dr. Meigh rolled her eyes and said, “Incessantly! Nothing was as good as it was in Spain, especially the food. He was forever moaning about American food, as though all we ever ate was hamburgers. Spanish food was the best in the world. Everything Spanish was the best!”

  “Yes, I noticed they both had a lot of Rioja and Ribera del Duero.”

  “No doubt, whatever that is. Forgive my being blunt, but he was a supreme pain in the ass. And a male chauvinist to go with it: what he used to call the ‘Macho Iberico’. The Iberian macho, a strutting, pompous little…” She paused and breathed in noisily through her nose. “I guess I shouldn’t really talk about him like that to the cops, huh?”

  She smiled and I returned it. “Actually, it is very helpful. We were having some difficulty getting a handle on who they were, and their relationship with each other.”

  “They were very close,” she said. “I have no idea what she saw in him. I am very fond of Agnes. I have known her for a long time and mentored her as an academic. She is a highly intelligent woman, but she has a very weak ego, and he neutralized her completely. I am not a psychologist, but I could see that there was some kind of codependent relationship developing there. It was a shame.” She narrowed her eyes and made a kind of claw with her right hand. “He seemed to be consuming her. He even rented a house in the same street so he could be close to her and they could come to work together and go home together. I suspect he wanted to control her.”

  Dehan sat back in her chair. “Were you and she close? Did she ever talk to you about him, them…”

  She made a dubious face. “She was as close to me as she was to anybody, except Jose, but she never discussed their relationship with me. Whatever they had going on, they were never demonstrative in public. They never hugged or kissed or anything like that.” She sat forward suddenly and pointed at her own chest. “I’d hug her sometimes, because I felt so goddamn sorry for her! She was hungry for love and affection, you could tell that. But with him it was always me, me, me and I’m the greatest and Spain is the best damn country in the world. Got on my nerves, I don’t mind telling you.”

  I scratched my cheek and sucked my teeth. “Was he good? As a scientist?”

  “Very good. More than very good. He was brilliant. He was on his way to big things.”

  “You were his boss?”

  She smiled like I’d said something quaint. “Doesn’t really work like that. He was conducting research under my supervision, in my department.”

  “What was the research?”

  “I can only tell you in very broad terms, Detective. Obviously it is highly confidential, but in essence, he was conducting research into lithium ion batteries.”

  “Next big thing?”

  She gave her head a little jerk to the side and raised her eyebrows. “It could lead to a transformation as huge as the Industrial Revolution, or bigger. But I really can’t discuss it.”


  I nodded. “Sure, I understand. And whatever research he conducted would be the property of the university.”

  “Those are the standard terms of the contract.” She frowned. “But, I don’t see what that can have to do with Agnes killing Jose. They weren’t even in the same department. Her work was related to socio-economic dynamics and the impact of international finance on cultural development.”

  Dehan spoke suddenly, glancing at me like she agreed with Dr. Meigh and wanted to get the conversation back on track. “You said you were about as close to Agnes as anyone. Have you any idea where she might have gone?”

  She shook her head. “I’m sorry, Detective Dehan, none whatsoever. We simply weren’t that close. I was a friend to her in that I was supportive, but she really never confided in me in any way.” She gave a small laugh. “If she has any sense, she’s in the Bahamas!”

  Dehan grunted and muttered, “Or Goa,” then asked, “Was there anyone, besides Jose, that she was close to?”

  “No. I don’t honestly think she confided in anyone. Jose, maybe, if he were able to listen.”

  “How about family?”

  She smiled. “You’re out of luck. She was an only child. Father died when she was a young child, drank himself to death. Mother was an art teacher, if I recall. A rather indolent, negligent woman. She died a few years back. Agnes inherited the house from her. I am not aware of any other family.”

  Dehan grunted, then sighed. “How about rivals, doctor? The way you’ve described them, they don’t sound like very attractive people, but is it possible that Jose had started seeing somebody else?”

  She gave a derisive little snort. “It’s possible, I suppose. Frankly, I find it hard to believe any woman would go for a man like that, but I am constantly amazed at the specimens some women are attracted to. He may well have been seeing someone else. I am just not aware of it. But please don’t get me wrong about Agnes. She is a very sweet person once you get to know her.”

  I made to stand. “Who has his class now, Doctor?”

  “Donald, Donald Hays.” She glanced at her watch. “He should be finishing his lecture now, two floors down, in the Goodenough Theatre.”

  I glanced at Dehan. She shrugged and shook her head. I stood.

  “Dr. Meigh, thank you for your time. You have been very helpful.” She stood, we shook hands and I opened the door. As Dehan stepped out, I turned to Meigh and asked her, “By the way, which one are you? A doctor or a scientist?”

  She looked surprised. “Me? Neither! I’m an academic. All I want is the corner office with the best view, the best parking lot and a towering reputation.”

  “Oh.” I laughed. “Is that what an academic is? I had often wondered.”

  I closed the door and we made our way down two floors in the elevator. After a moment, Dehan frowned at me. “The Goodenough Theatre?”

  “John Goodenough. He invented the lithium ion battery.”

  “Why do you know that?”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Why don’t you?”

  We found Donald Hays leaving the Goodenough lecture theatre. He was a lean man in his early forties with a big black briefcase, a big, domed head and balding hair that grew long over his collar. His students streamed about him like a river that has broken its banks, and he was pushing through them like a man trying to escape a flood. He was easy to identify.

  “Mr. Hays?” I showed him my badge as the students milled around us. “NYPD. This is Detective Dehan, I am Detective Stone.”

  He seemed to sag. “Is it about Jose?”

  “Yes. Have you somewhere we can go?”

  “I have half an hour for lunch. Can we talk in the cafeteria? It’s downstairs.”

  He led us down to the cafeteria at a brisk pace that was hard to keep up with, his head down and his legs moving fast, as though he hoped not to be noticed. As we pushed through the glass doors into the spacious, soulless, self-service canteen, he pointed across the room at a table by the glass wall overlooking Washington Square Village and said, “That’s my table. Grab my table. I’ll get the coffee. You want coffee?”

  We crossed the room, which was hung with a few listless baubles and bits of tinsel, grabbed his table and sat, watching him load his tray. Dehan dumped her woolen hat on the table and ran her fingers through her hair. “All academics are like this,” she pronounced, like she was passing judgment. “They’re all crazy. My cousin is a lecturer in the classics. He’s the same. Neurotic. Everything is an issue. They’re all out of their minds.”

  “Your cousin is a lecturer in the classics?”

  “You never met my family.”

  “You won’t let me.”

  “I’m afraid you’ll judge me.”

  “That’s crazy.”

  “You see? You’re doing it already.”

  Hays approached with his tray, put it down on the table and handed out the coffees. As he set about peeling the plastic off his chicken sandwich, he said, “They’re fifty cents each.”

  I gave him a dollar. “How well did you know Jose Robles, Mr. Hays?”

  “It’s Dr. Hays, and I imagine they have told you already, we were quite close.” He bit into his sandwich. Picked up his cup, put it down again and spoke with his mouth full. “But not close enough to kill him, for God’s sake.”

  He made a face that might have been a smile, tried to sip his coffee, winced and took another bite from his sandwich.

  “Did you socialize?”

  He swallowed so he could answer. “Well, I mean, how else would be you close to somebody? Short of moving in together.” He gave a small laugh. “And we weren’t that close. So we used to go out sometimes. Have a drink and sometimes a meal. And we would talk. That is how you become close, I think.”

  Dehan leaned her elbows on the table. “Were you close with both of them, or just Jose?”

  “I knew Agnes long before Jose came on the scene. We sometimes had lunch together. Like me, she preferred the student cafeteria. At least here people don’t stab you in the back…” He made a stabbing gesture with his hand, to illustrate. “While you’re quietly having your chicken sandwich, as it is today. But it was only when Jose, he liked to be called Pepe, funny story, I’ll tell you later, came along, that we started actually going out. He was very gregarious. He missed the Spanish night life.”

  She smiled and narrowed her eyes. “Was that just the three of you, or did more people tag along?”

  “Mainly it was just us. But sometimes he would go with other people. He was pretty popular. Everybody liked him. He was noisy. People like noisy, I think.”

  “Noisy?”

  He took two bites of his sandwich and nodded. “Mm-hm.” He swallowed, reached for his coffee again, but didn’t pick it up. “Talked loud. Never stopped.”

  I scratched my forehead. “Dr. Hays, I need you to think very carefully about this. Is it possible that Jose was seeing another woman, besides Agnes?”

  “Why do I have to think carefully about that? It’s not a complicated question, Detective. By seeing, I assume you mean having sexual intercourse.”

  “Yes, that’s what I mean. Was he?”

  He gave a half-smile. “Obviously, I have never been inside his bedroom, which would be a place forbidden to me. But deducing from the signals that people send each other, which they think are secret but are plainly obvious to anyone bothering to watch, I would say that Dr. Robles was involved in a sexual relationship with Ali.”

  Dehan’s eyebrows shot up. “Ali?”

  Hays swallowed the last of his sandwich with a smirk, picked up his coffee and sipped. “Forgive my attempt at humor. It is always funny how people assume that Ali is an Arabic man, when she is in fact a Spanish woman. Alicia, abbreviated to Ali. She lectures in Spanish. He used to joke with us that he indulged in intellectual slumming by hanging out with her, because she was only a linguist, not a scientist. But Agnes didn’t think it was funny.”

  Dehan nodded. “Was she jealous?”

  “She
was too intelligent to be jealous, but she didn’t like it.”

  “She discussed it with you?”

  “We both agreed, we didn’t know why he wasted his time with her. She had nothing to say—well, she has lots to say, but none of it was of any interest to anybody with any intelligence. But they used to talk together. It was more like shouting. They would both shout at the same time, very loudly, and laugh. I think it reminded them of being at home.”

  “No doubt. Did either Agnes or Jose ever talk to you about guns? Were you aware that either of them owned a gun?”

  He gave a smile that was slightly incredulous. “Why would they own a gun? If they were both anti-gun and anti-violence, against the second amendment, why would they own a gun?”

  I smiled blandly at him. “Could you answer the question please, Dr. Hays?”

  “No, neither of them ever talked about guns! I have to go. Can I go?”

  “Of course, thank you for your help, Doctor.”

  He didn’t say anything. He just stood, picked up his black bag and walked out of the cafeteria on his fast, anxious legs. Dehan sighed as she watched him go.

  “Well, that helped to clarify absolutely nothing.”

  I nodded. “I wouldn’t say absolutely nothing. We have a rough idea of who we are dealing with. They are both very clever, very complicated people, one with a deeply repressed ego, and the other with a hugely inflated one. And we have people with very contradictory opinions of Jose. Dr. Meigh seems not to have liked him at all, and yet, according to Hays, he seems to have been popular.”

  She scrunched up her hat into a ball and watched it bounce open again. “Possibly he was popular because of the American intellectual’s infatuation with all things European.”

  “Ouch.” After a moment, I added, “Ali is European, and she seems to have been infatuated with him. Or at least, they sought solace in each other. The allure of the familiar in an alien land.”

  “How poetic.”

  “Come on, Dehan. Let’s go and do some intellectual slumming, and have a chat with this mere linguist.”