Dead Cold Mystery Box Set 1

by Blake Banner

  He stared at me, and there was real hatred in his face. “You plan to destroy me completely. Not only the rest of my life in prison, but you are going to tell her my little secret. Can you leave me nothing?”

  “Come on.”

  He stood. I cuffed him and we led him up the stairs. He looked surprised as we stepped out into the early-morning drizzle.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “I told you.”

  “You’re not bringing her here?”

  “Nope.”

  He and Dehan climbed in the back, and we drove through the damp hiss of the traffic, along the Bruckner Expressway to Revere Avenue. I kept my eye on him in the mirror. He looked anxious and fretful. I pulled up in front of his house, and he and Dehan got out. We stood a moment in the spitting rain. I could see Bob and his wife looking out the window at us. Then Pete’s door opened, and his wife stood there, staring, waiting.

  I walked over to her and climbed the stairs. “Mrs. Smith. May I have the keys to your garage?”

  “To the garage?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Smith, to your garage.”

  She walked away, into the kitchen, and came back a moment later with two keys on a ring. She handed them to me. “What are you going to do with Peter?”

  I didn’t answer. I took the keys, and Peter and Dehan followed me down the side of the house. I unlocked the garage and hauled up the door. I looked back at Dehan. Across the road I could see that Bob and his wife had come out onto the porch.

  I walked inside and scoured every surface. Peter said, “What are you looking for?”

  His wife joined us, her hands clenched in front of her. She didn’t look at her husband. I studied her face for a couple of seconds. It struck me that she had the same look of sick anxiety that he had. “You know, I keep going over in my mind what happened that night, twelve years ago. If only there had been a witness, somebody like David. Because David has an eidetic memory. What is commonly known as a photographic memory. Then it struck me. When Detective Dehan and I first came here, we had a chat with your neighbor, Mr. Luff, and he told us his wife not only has what he described as an elephantine memory, but she notices things.”

  Peter swallowed. “And what do you think she noticed…?”

  I smiled. “Oh, I think she noticed who turned up with a couple of arms in a plastic garbage bag. I think she noticed all sorts of interesting things. In fact, as they’re here, why don’t we go over and have a chat with them?”

  The wet crunch of our feet made a strange echo in the early-morning street as we crossed the road.

  “Good morning, Mr. Luff. Mrs. Luff. I wonder if we could take just a few minutes of your time?”

  Bob was staring at Peter with an odd frown on his face. Then he switched to me and said, “Of course! Come in. I’ll get chairs…”

  Mrs. Luff ushered us in. She looked satisfied that we had at last accepted her invitation to tea. “Now come in, come in!” She pinched her lips and shook her head. “Peter! Jenny! What a mess! What a situation! Sit, sit, I’ll make tea. Bob, chairs. Come on!”

  Dehan and Mrs. Smith sat on the sofa. I sat in an armchair, and Peter sat in the other. Bob came scuttling in with two more chairs while his wife bustled efficiently in the kitchen. Peter’s eyes were shiny, and he kept swallowing. Jennifer was fiddling with the hem of her blue cardigan and looked like she might be sick.

  Bob helped his wife bring in the tray, and between them they poured and distributed tea. Peter was looking at us like we had all gone insane. Maybe he was right. The setup had something of the Mad Hatter’s tea party about it.

  Mrs. Luff said, “You took the children to your sister’s, Jenny?”

  Jennifer nodded.

  Mrs. Luff nodded back. “It was the only thing to do. They’ll be okay there. She’ll look after them.”

  Bob cleared his throat. “So, how do you think we can help you, Detective Stone?”

  I sipped my tea. It was perfect. I set the cup down on the table and sighed while I organized my thoughts.

  “It has been a fascinating and challenging case. Definitely not run-of-the-mill. I will admit, and Detective Dehan will back me up on this, I think, that we made a fundamental mistake, right at the start, that set us on the wrong course. It was almost catastrophic, and almost cost Detective Dehan her life.”

  Mrs. Luff tutted. “You were very lucky to have Detective Stone.”

  I raised an eyebrow at her. “The mistake we made was to call in one of the bureau’s profilers and set about seeking a serial killer who fit the classic profile.” I glanced at Peter. His eyes were like two needles with which he was trying to pin me to the chair. “Somebody who was methodical, meticulous, narcissistic, domineering…”

  I glanced at Jennifer. She was staring hard at the hem of her cardigan, and I could see her lower lip curling.

  “But our killer was a very different kind of man. He had what I described to Detective Dehan as a special kind of genius.”

  Bob and Mrs. Luff were both staring, engrossed. This was not how they had expected to spend the morning. I could see Peter’s chest rising and falling. His face was flushed. I went on.

  “His special genius was—is—to make everything seem to be what it is not. I first realized this when he sent us a photograph showing his supposed next victim. But in fact, he had reversed the photograph and the victim was not the woman who was highlighted in the picture, but the one concealed in the foreground.”

  Bob and Mrs. Luff nodded in perfect unison. Peter had turned to stare at Dehan. I went on.

  “And he kept drawing my attention to a clock, advising me that time was passing. So I rushed to Detective Dehan’s side. But again, it was an illusion. The abduction was timed for later, when I had relaxed my guard. All along…” I stood and walked to the window, to look out at Peter’s house. “All along, this killer’s aim has been to cast suspicion on other people—other people, all connected by just one thing. The lockups.”

  I turned and set my ass on the windowsill. I shook my head, as though I still couldn’t work it out.

  “It was when I realized that his genius lay in inverting things to make them look like the opposite of what they were that things started to drop into place. He had never made a mistake. Zak, like most people, believed that paper does not hold a fingerprint. But this guy knew that it did, and every note I received from him was as pure as the driven snow. So I was surprised when he started making careless mistakes.” I glanced at Peter. He and Jennifer were staring hard at each other. “Of course, the bureau profiler had told us that sometimes careful, organized killers will grow overconfident with successive, successful kills and start to make mistakes.”

  Bob leaned forward, frowning. “But?”

  Mrs. Luff looked at him and nodded, like that’s what she was going to ask.

  “But he had already told me that he had been twelve years without killing. It was as though he had defeated the cops back then and had nowhere left to go. But when I turned up, nosing around, it fired him up again.

  “The thing was, he had not killed for twelve years. So how could he become overconfident? He started out meticulous, and then suddenly, for no apparent reason, he became careless. And every act of carelessness pointed—just as the photograph pointed clearly and obviously at the wrong victim—every act of carelessness pointed at the wrong suspect.”

  I paused. There was absolute silence in the room, and five pairs of eyes fixed on me.

  “We were meant to get it wrong with David, and we were meant to realize we had got it wrong with David, so that we could then be sure we had got it right with Peter.”

  Peter screwed up his face like his brain hurt, and Jennifer began to sob. Bob and Mrs. Luff were goggling, with eyes and mouths like six perfect zeroes. Peter exploded, “What the hell are you saying, Stone? It was David after all?”

  I laughed. “Oh, we could have! We could have gone around the mulberry bush again! But the chances of David having a female accomplice wer
e slim, to say the least. No, I realized I needed to back up and look at who was creating this picture. Who was the artist, the painter, or photographer, who did not appear in the picture?”

  “What does that mean?”

  I shrugged. “Well, the first thing, and this actually saved Detective Dehan’s life, was Schrödinger’s cat.”

  Bob looked surprised. “Schrödinger’s cat?”

  “Yes, you actually drew my attention to it on the first day, when we were visiting you. Schrödinger’s cat was a thought experiment, intended to illustrate that the Copenhagen interpretation of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle was wrong. In this thought experiment, a cat is locked in a box with a device that at some unknown point will release a poison. If we follow the Copenhagen interpretation, until the box is opened, the cat is both alive and dead. Once we open it and we know, then the cat is either alive or dead. And you said to me on that day, Bob, that the lockup with the arms in it reminded you of Schrödinger’s cat.” I paused, staring at him. “And it was when I remembered that, that I realized Dehan was in one of the lockups, with a timed device. And of course, I was right.”

  There was total silence in the dull gray of the morning light. Bob suddenly said, “I am so glad I was able to help.”

  “So am I. Because I have to confess, I have been behaving in a rather bizarre manner recently. Peter will attest to that, won’t you, Peter? I have actually been going around smelling people’s shoes. For example, Bob, I notice that you wear rather exquisite, handmade Spanish shoes.”

  Bob and Mrs. Luff both stared down at his feet. He gave a small laugh. “Yes, it was actually Peter who introduced me to them. I have always admired Peter’s unfailing good taste and his relentless determination always to have the best.”

  I smiled. “Even when he doesn’t deserve or appreciate it. He acquires these things, doesn’t he, Bob? And then he doesn’t value them.” Bob looked blank and I held out my hand. “Call me crazy, but I do love the smell of good Spanish leather. There is nothing like it. May I, Bob?”

  “May you what?”

  “Smell your shoes.”

  “You want to smell my shoes?”

  “Please.”

  Everybody was staring like they were following a tennis match. After a moment, he took off his shoes and handed them to me. He looked really uncomfortable. “Really, Detective, I don’t know what you hope to…”

  “Humor me, Bob, it is just a small demonstration.” I briefly sniffed the soles and carried on talking. “You see, when I stopped looking at the pictures that the killer was feeding me, I started looking further afield, and I began to discover interesting things like, for example, the fact that you do not work. You live on a pension paid to you by your ex-employer after an accident at work incapacitated you. You worked, back then, as a master butcher at the Manly’s chain of superstores.”

  “That’s true, but…”

  “It is a comfortable income, but not a handsome one. I discovered that you had originally bid for a house with a lockup. But the bank would not extend you that much credit. You were the odd one out. You had no lockup.

  “And the more I thought of my killer as the person making the picture, the more I kept remembering this window here, staring straight out at Peter’s house. Peter with the attractive wife whom he always left alone, Peter with the well-paid job, Peter with the house which was just a little bit bigger and better than yours. Peter, with the very lockup that you wanted to buy. Peter, whom you have detested and resented since the very day he moved in here, and you fell in love with his wife.”

  “What absolute rubbish!”

  “Really? I think when we start questioning Jennifer, another picture may emerge, about how you have hounded her for the last fifteen years, how every time her husband was away you would be there…”

  Jennifer spoke suddenly, and her voice was twisted with grief, frustration, and relief.

  “Both of them! Him and his damned wife!” She turned to her husband. “I tried to tell you! How many times did I try to warn you? And all you could say was, we must keep the peace with the damned neighbors.” She pointed a trembling hand at Bob and his wife. “They are crazy! But you won’t listen! Because you always know best!”

  I nodded. “Make a note, Peter, listen to your wife. Because having terrorized her into compliance, they repeatedly went to your house when you were out, stole your cell phone, stole your prints, probably using liquid silicon, planted Dehan’s pendant in your drawer, and planted your prints on the duct tape and the pendant.” I paused. “A jury might have bought it. But it was just a little too obvious, having been so careful, to suddenly leave two, perfect thumbprints on such perfect exhibits.”

  I turned to Bob and held up the shoes. “You wanted his lockup, you wanted his house, you wanted his wife… Your obsession extended as far as buying the same shoes online.”

  Bob was laughing. “It is true that I am fond of Jennifer, we both are!” He gestured at his wife, who was smiling comfortably. “And I will not deny that Mrs. L. and I have often sat here and discussed how—forgive me, Peter—how wasteful Peter has been. He has been granted all the opportunities I never had, and frankly, he has thrown them away. And as I said, I—we—have always admired Peter’s good taste. But I am afraid it is a quantum leap from there to inferring that I am a serial killer who gets his amusement from framing my neighbor for murder! Please!” He laughed.

  I nodded. “I agree. And that is why I bought liquid iron.”

  “You did what?”

  “I was expecting another one of your notes. You’d already visited me once, and I thought it was at least even chances that you’d be back. So I spilled Floradix liquid iron all over my porch. It was cold and damp enough that it would not evaporate. I planned to keep doing it all week if I had to, but as it was, at five a.m. you showed up to leave me your note. Liquid iron not only stinks, it shows up with Luminol. Detective Dehan, have you got…?”

  She reached in her pocket and tossed me a small plastic spray bottle. She then got up, closed the drapes, and went to stand by the door. I sprayed the Luminol over a patch of the sole. The room was dark enough to see the bright blue glow as it mixed with the oxidizing agent in the liquid iron residue. I held it up to show her. Then showed it to Bob.

  Mrs. Luff turned to him and took his arm in both of hers. “Oh, Bob!” She gave him a cuddle and a squeeze. “I told you not to take it up again.” He smiled ruefully at her, and she grinned. “But it was fun, though, wasn’t it?”

  He gave her a kiss. “Yes it was, Mrs. L. Worth every minute.” He wheezed a laugh, screwing up his eyes. “Especially when you thumped her with your fist! What a punch! You should be in the ring, Mrs. L!”

  Dehan was calling for backup, and I went to unlock Peter’s cuffs.

  EPILOGUE

  I placed the sizzling leg of spring lamb on the table, removed the lid from the roast potatoes, and poured her a glass of rather fine Rioja. Then I began to carve.

  “Okay, Stone, admit it, this one had you foxed.”

  I nodded. “It did. I knew who it wasn’t right from the start. I knew in my bones it was none of our three suspects, but what threw me was that there didn’t seem to be any other option.

  “Of course, with David and Peter, the red herrings were deliberate. But with Zak, it was just bad synchronicity. He came looking for me, not you, at just the time when Bob snatched you.”

  “So when did you start to think it was Bob?”

  I loaded up my own plate, poured my wine, and sat.

  “It’s hard to say, because while I was beginning to suspect Bob, I was also coming around more to the view that it could, after all, be Peter. I have to admit that Bob was clever. Very damn clever.” I raised my glass. “Here’s lookin’ at you, kid.”

  “Amen to that.”

  We sipped. “I guess when I realized that the photograph was not of Nancy Pierce, but of you, all the pieces started to fall into place and I began to get the feeling that the killer wa
s outside the picture, creating a picture for us to look at. And then I remembered that impression I’d had the first day when we stepped into Bob’s place. And that made me remember Bob talking about Schrödinger’s cat. That pretty much clinched it. But I needed to be sure.”

  “That was clever, the Floradix liquid iron thing. That was smart.”

  “Hey, I’m a smart guy.”

  “Whatever. He confessed to six murders.”

  “And one attempted.” I ate in silence for a moment, then said, “That did surprise me, them working together, like the Wests, and Brady and Hindley. She was the one who gathered the information about Peter, and then about Hank and David. And he put it all together and made the plans. They traveled together to San Diego and L.A., at the same time as Peter and David. Who would suspect a married couple? But they were too good. The investigation died, and the sport lost its appeal.” I shook my head and sipped. “She is pleading not guilty. She says she was just helping her husband, like any good wife should. And in the end, it was she who stopped him killing.”

  “Talk about the fucking cuckoo’s nest.”

  We ate in silence for a bit. Then, I said, “Did I tell you Peter telephoned?” She glanced at me. “He wanted to apologize for having been unsupportive. He wanted to tell me he and his wife are seeing a marriage counselor, after they come back from a six-month cruise. He said this case has taught him a valuable lesson, that he should appreciate the good things he has in life.”

  “Wow.” She sighed and set down her knife and fork. She picked up her glass and said, “Maybe he’s right about that. You don’t know how valuable the good things in your life are until you are about to lose them.”

  We held each other’s eye for just a second. We touched glasses, and I said, “I’ll drink to that.”

  And we did.

  BOOK 3

  GARDEN OF THE DAMNED

  ONE

  For reasons I couldn’t really put my finger on, it was somehow appropriate. Out the window, April was coaxing the first, tender green leaves from bare branches and withered twigs after a dark, cold winter. This seemed like a suitable counterpoint. I tossed the file onto the desk, narrowly missing my feet, and said, “This one looks interesting.”