Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #1: Books 1-4 (A Dead Cold Box Set), Blake Banner [classic children's novels txt] 📗

Her eyes went wide and she stared at me. Jim seemed to crumble. He sank back in his chair and put one massive hand over his eyes. Kathleen kept saying, “No! Oh, no! God no, please.”

Jim spoke without opening his eyes. “When did this happen? Where has he been all this time? What has he got himself mixed up in…?”

I took a deep breath, but it was Dehan who answered. “It happened twelve years ago, Mr. O’Conor, but we were only able to identify the body this morning.”

Kathleen’s hands dropped into her lap. “What?”

Jim opened his eyes. “Twelve feckin’ years?”

“Why were we not notified? Why was he not…”

“Twelve feckin’ years!” Jim said it again, looking around the room as though he might find an explanation on the walls somewhere.

“I know it is hard to understand.” Even as I said it, it sounded lame. “We were pretty surprised ourselves. But all his papers had been removed, and he had been dressed in the clothes of a vagrant. There was no possible clue to his identity.”

Kathleen’s face twisted and she started to sob. “Oh, God bless him, poor Sean!” Dehan put her arm around her.

Jim shook his head. His voice was a rasp. “Who would do a thing like that to my son?”

“That’s what we mean to find out.”

Dehan said, “We know this is really hard, but if you can help us, if you can answer a few questions for us…”

“We can come back later if…”

But they were both shaking their heads. Kathleen spoke into her handkerchief, twisting her nose. “I knew it. I knew he was dead. I said so, didn’t I, Jim?”

“Ah, sure, we both knew, Kath. It’s just, when you come face to face with it like that…”

“When you have it confirmed. And murdered… sweet mother of God, murdered…” She started sobbing again.

“Shall I make a cup of tea?” It was Dehan, stroking her back.

Kathleen gripped her hand and looked up into her face. “Would you, love?”

Dehan went out to the kitchen. I heard the cupboard doors bang and the tap hiss.

I said, “Did he ever talk much about his work with you?”

“All the feckin’ time!” It was Kathleen, talking into her handkerchief again. She blew her nose. “It’s all he ever feckin’ talked about. His work, and the f… and the church.”

Jim said, “He was very devoted to his work, and to the church, detective.”

“Do you recall what he was working on just before he disappeared?”

Jim nodded. “Oh yes. How could I not? We both do, don’t we, Kath?”

“Some feckin’ squatters. Lazy feckin’ no-good layabouts, want every feckin’ thing handed them on a feckin’ plate…”

She dissolved into tears. Jim watched her a moment, then turned to me. “They had taken over a building on Tiffany Street, in the Bronx. Big, five-story apartment block, so it was. Semi-derelict, no water, no electric, but there must have been some handy lads there ’cause didn’t they get it all working? Illegal, like, but still...”

“And charge it to the feckin’ honest taxpayer!”

“Not at all, Kath! Taxpayers had nothing to do with it.”

“So you say!”

I coughed. “So, what did your son have to do with these squatters?”

“Didn’t the landlord want to sell the site, so they could tear it down and make offices there? See, it was worth a hell of a lot more as offices than as apartments. So, one of the parishioners at St. Mary’s, some down and out, one of them squatters, tells Sean they’re being evicted, and doesn’t he only go and start a case against the company that’s selling the site. He claims agents for the company had taken rent from the residents, and therefore owed them compensation for evicting them.”

“Can you remember the name of the company?”

He gave a dry laugh. “Well, that was another thing. It turns out, according to Sean, the company selling the property and the company buying the property, are both owned by the same parent company, and they both have city officials sitting on the board of directors. It stank to high hell. And he was goin’ after them, goin’ for the jugular, so he was.”

“Can you remember the name?”

“Remember it? I’ll never feckin’ forget it. Hagan Construction. That was the parent company, belonged to Conor Hagan and you being a policeman, you’ll be familiar with the name. Any Irishman who has lived in the Bronx is familiar with that name. Head of the Hagan clan, a big shot in the Irish Mob, a very dangerous man to cross.” His bottom lip curled and he began to sob. “I never wished so bad that I’d had a coward for a son. May God forgive me, wasn’t it his courage and his faith that cost him his life?”

Dehan came in with a tray, four cups, and a pot of tea. She set it down on the coffee table and started to pour. While she did, I sat back and stared out their bow window at the tree across the road.

Dehan handed me a cup and sat down next to Kathleen. I said, “So Sean was taking a case on behalf of the residents of this building on Tiffany Street, against Conor Hagan.”

“Residents?” It was Kathleen. “Squatters and parasites, more like!”

A flash of irritation crossed Jim’s face. “He was a good Christian, Kath. He lived by his faith…”

“And feckin’ died for it!”

Dehan cut in before it escalated. “I believe he was active at a church in the Bronx.”

Jim sipped. “St. Mary’s. He was born in the Bronx, and we moved out here when he was a young lad, to get away from the crime. But we stayed in contact with the priest, a good man so he was, always ready to help, if he could.”

“Father O’Neil. So Sean must have had friends