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

the bag back with more care. The base was soft, floppy, that was why it had overbalanced and slid off the desk. But there was something odd about it. I picked it up again by the handles and lowered it gently onto the edge of the desk. It buckled. I raised it and lowered it again, but a bit further along. It didn’t buckle. I took the files out and dropped them on the floor. Then tipped the bag back and forth in a seesaw motion. Dehan was watching me like she thought I had finally lost it and was ready for sectioning.

I said, “Listen…” I tipped the bag again. There was a slithering sound. “There is something in there.”

I put it back on the table, pulled my penknife from my pocket and gently cut away the bottom of the bag. And there it was, a thick, A4 file.

“Holy shit, Stone.”

I threw the bag on the floor. She stood and came to stand beside me. I put the file on the desk and opened it and there were thirteen color photographs. A4 size. The first was a group of twelve kids, they were in a large room that was hard to identify. It had a burgundy carpet and you could make out what looked like a white, wooden windowsill on the far left. The kids were standing in a group. They were all girls of varying ages, the youngest about twelve, and the oldest about fifteen. They all looked Latin American.

I set that photograph aside and looked at the next one. My skin went cold. It was one of the girls from the group. She was nude. She was sitting on a bed, smiling, but the smile, and her eyes, showed fear. Real fear. She was smiling because she had to. I went through the rest, one photograph after another, with a black rage building inside me. Each of the kids in the group was photographed individually in the same way.

“We have to get these copied and sent to the lab for fingerprints.”

“What the fuck does it mean?”

“It means Sean O’Conor was involved in more than protecting squatters’ rights.”

She stared at me. “You think these were Sean’s pictures?”

I shook my head. “I didn’t say that. We don’t know whose they are, but what is certain is that they provide a powerful motive for murder. They provide several powerful motives for murder.”

She walked slowly back to her chair while I copied the pictures and sealed them in a plastic envelope for the forensic lab. She sat.

“This complicates things a lot, Stone.”

I nodded. “Talk me through it.”

She thought for a moment. “One, he found Hagan was not only screwing the squatters, he was running a child prostitution ring.”

I nodded. “Okay.”

She held up a hand. “This makes sense, because if Hagan was preying on the homeless kids, on orphans, on the very kids Father O’Neil and Alicia were trying to help, suddenly he has a reason to kill her. Father O’Neil he can intimidate, but Alicia, encouraged by Sean’s support, defies him. So he kills her along with Sean.”

I nodded again. “It’s a possible scenario. What else?”

She frowned. “What else? You don’t like that?”

I raised an eyebrow at her. “I love it, but what else?”

She sighed. “Okay, she discovers that Father O’Neil, intimidated by Hagan, is running a child pornography ring, she goes to Sean with evidence, they confront him and he goes to Hagan, who has them both killed.”

I shrugged. “What else?”

She spread her hands. “What else…?”

“Neither of your two scenarios explains why Alicia disappeared. You are assuming that the photographs are Sean’s evidence against somebody.” She didn’t like it and her face said so, so I went on. “So what would Alicia do if she discovered that her perfect man was into child pornography?”

She looked at me like she wanted to hit me.

“Kill him and disappear.”

I shook my head. “But I don’t like it. It explains why she disappears, but it doesn’t explain Sean dressed as a tramp in a dumpster.”

“So why…?” She looked exasperated.

“Because, young grasshopper, you discard a hypothesis after you explore it, not before. Just because Sean seems to be a nice guy, it does not mean he has no dark secrets.”

“Yes, Sensei…”

“Come on, let’s get these to the lab.”

Eight

On the way, Dehan phoned the Hagan Construction Company and made an appointment to see Conor Hagan. His secretary said he was out of town, but he would be in his office the following day at noon, if we wanted to come and see him then. Dehan said we did.

By the time we’d left the photographs at the lab, it was lunchtime, so we grabbed a couple of hot dogs and sat on the hood of my car eating them. Dehan was licking ketchup from her fingers with the concentration of a cat. As she did it, she asked, “What now?”

I crammed the tail end of the sausage dog into my maw and said, “I shink I bonch dishtur paja O’Neesh runsh.”

She stopped licking and considered me a moment, while I too licked ketchup from my fingers.

“You want to disturb Father O’Neil’s lunch…”

“Mh-hm!”

I fished my cell out of my pocket and made the call.

“Father O’Neil, it’s Detective Stone here again.”

He didn’t sound elated. “Detective Stone, yes, how may I help you?”

“A couple of unexpected things have come up, Father, and I need to ask you a few more questions.”

“Of course.”

“Shall I send a car for you, or can you get to the precinct yourself?”

There was a stunned silence. Then, “You want me to…”

“That’s the idea.”

“I see, well, yes, of course. I have a lot to do here…”

I gave him my best dead, toneless voice and said, “I can send