Little Dead Riding Hood (A Dead Cold Mystery Book 13) by Blake Banner

Author:Blake Banner [Banner, Blake]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-11-18T23:00:00+00:00

ELEVEN

The rain had started again in earnest. Outside the inspector’s window, the world was a gray, misty place, and from the lintel, cold, silver pearls of water gathered and dripped onto the sill bellow. An occasional wind shook them from time to time and dispersed them, dragging the rain back and forth in the background, among the black shades of naked trees.

Dehan sat on the black vinyl, imitation leather sofa beneath that window, and I sat in the chair opposite him at his desk. Deputy Inspector John Newman looked at me unhappily and said: “What, precisely have we got, and what do we know for a fact?”

I looked at Dehan. Her gaze shifted to the ceiling and she began to recite:

“We know, as of ten minutes ago, that Detective Leonard Davis had sexual intercourse with Celeste Reynolds at some time not too long prior to her death.” She looked at the inspector and spread her hands. “The sheets on her bed were not pristine, but they were not dirty, either. We know that he had been conducting a sexual affair with her for about six months prior to her death. We know that he registered a special email address to communicate with her, and that address contained the name ‘rod’.” She closed her eyes a moment. “Rod underscore wheeler at yadda yadda dot com. We know that after exchanging only a few messages, he told her it was too risky and asked her to delete their messages. He told her that he was going to buy a burner, so that they could communicate by Whatsapp. All of that we know as hard fact.”

I gave him a moment to assimilate that and what it meant, then said, “We also know that when Detective Davis took on the investigation of Celeste’s death, he concealed evidence and that he did not employ due diligence in acquiring evidence. He requested six months of phone records from Verizon, her service provider—the six months during which he was having an affair with Celeste, removed them from the case file and held them at home. We know also that though he was contacted by witnesses on the corner of Rosedale Avenue and Gleason, who saw Celeste in an altercation with a man who had arrived in a white truck, he did not include their testimony in the file. We also know that he did not interview Celeste’s boyfriend, nor did he have a team conduct a thorough search of her room, though that would have been a logical step to take. In short, he deliberately allowed the case to go cold.”

The chief had been nodding while I was talking, making an occasional note. Now he said, “What about his relationship with Reynolds?”

Dehan answered. “He tends to play it down. They knew each other as kids, attended the same Catholic church, right opposite Reynolds’ house, but besides that, he says they are just acquaintances. To hear Reynolds tell it, they were a lot closer, and he was often at their house.

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