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

He went to rise but Dehan said, “I know where they live.”

I stood. “Thank you, Father, you have been very helpful. We may need to talk to you again.”

He spread his hands and gestured at the building around him. “I’m not going anywhere.”

He saw us to the door and we stepped out into the gathering dusk.

Five

We drove in silence along Bruckner Boulevard as far as Castle Hill Avenue and then turned left over the bridge and stopped at Jimmy’s. All the way she was trying not to scowl, although all the way she scowled.

The evening crowd wasn’t in yet and we found a quiet table near the corner. As we moved toward it, I called to Jimmy and held up two fingers, like the peace sign. When the beers arrived and Jimmy had left, I said, “You going to tell me what’s going on?”

She did that thing where she gave her head a couple of small shakes and made a ‘no idea what you’re talking about’ face while avoiding eye contact. I persisted.

“Is it something I said or did that has annoyed you?”

This time she looked down at her drink, shook her head and made a ‘no that’s ridiculous’ face.

“Is it something related to the case?”

She closed her eyes and sighed.

“Then you have to tell me, Dehan.”

“So you can take me off the case?”

I drank and wiped the foam from my mouth with the back of my hand. “Only if it impairs your ability to perform your duty.” She drew breath but before she could speak I went on, “And if you don’t tell me what’s going on, I’ll have no choice but to conclude it has impaired your ability, because you will be keeping relevant information from me. Tell me what’s on your mind, and trust me to make the right choice, Carmen.”

She scowled, curled her lip and spoke through gritted teeth. “You’re so feckin’ reasonable!”

“Ah, Jaysus! Isn’t that the truth after all! Now, spill.”

She heaved another sigh, leaned back in her chair and stared me in the eye. “Alicia Flores Delgado was my cousin.”

She watched me while I stared at my beer, then at the wall and then out the window, where the air was turning from dusk to dark. Finally, I asked her, “Did you know that Sean was her fiancée? Before?”

She shook her head. “No, we were very close as kids, but as we got older,” she shrugged, “she got involved in the church… that wasn’t my scene.”

I believed her. “Is there anything else? Anything you’re not telling me?”

She thought about it, then shook her head again. “No.”

I leaned forward and stared hard at her. “I want you to keep me in the loop every inch of the way, you understand me?”

“Yeah, of course.” She nodded.

I shook my head. “No, not ‘of course’. I mean it, as your partner and as your friend. Do you understand me?”

Her face changed. She looked grateful, though she tried to hide it.

“Yeah, I understand you. Thanks.”

I sucked my teeth for a moment, reflecting that this case was becoming complicated. His hair and nails had told me it would from the start, but this I had not anticipated and I was wondering where to start.

“What did you mean, she ‘was’ your cousin?” It was as good a place as any.

She kind of shrugged with one shoulder and shook her head. “You’d have to know Alicia. She was…” She searched for the right words and suddenly expostulated, “She was everything I am not! She was the quintessential good girl. She was sweet, always ready with a smile, good-natured, could never do enough to help…” She paused, holding my eye. She looked real sad. “And she would never—not in a thousand years—she would never just up and go without telling her family where she was going. It just isn’t credible. Her family was everything to her, and if she hasn’t contacted them, it’s because she can’t…”

She left the words hanging, ugly with meaning.

“I can see why Hagan would want Sean O’Conor out of the way. Hell, I can see that it would be an imperative for him to make an example of Sean. But Alicia?” I thought about it and Dehan, nodding, spoke my thoughts. “Alicia would only make sense if Sean was still alive.”

“Exactly. Her only value to Hagan is as leverage with Sean, or as a way of punishing him.”

She sighed. “It doesn’t make a lot of sense. The Irish Mob are about as tough as they get, but they have a reverence for family, and for women. A good Catholic girl like that, active in the church… I don’t see it.”

She was right. “We need to talk to Alicia’s family.”

She shifted her position, leaned back and crossed her long legs at the ankle on the side stretcher of my chair. She nodded absently and said, “So what are we saying, then? Sean O’Conor has a Galahad complex. He gets involved in the charitable work at St. Mary’s, and at the same time gets into this Drop In Center, offering pro bono legal representation. He decides to take a swing at the big guy, Conor Hagan. Conor executes him, for some reason he dresses him as a tramp and throws him in one of his own dumpsters, right by the church. Maybe it was a message to the local population. And then…”

She went into a kind of daze, staring at her boots.

I said, “Maybe she committed suicide?”

She pulled a face. “Where’s the body?”

“Jumped off the Bruckner Expressway into the river?”

“Without being seen?”

A human body is not an easy thing to lose, or to hide, especially when it’s dead. Live humans are a lot easier to conceal and camouflage. Dead ones just keep doing embarrassing, awkward things