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

I don’t think there was an original investigation. There was no shell, no slug, no blood, no witness…” I shrugged. “Unsolved.”

“So you have done well to get this far, but it is hard to see where you go from here.”

Dehan stared at her boots. I could feel her aura crackling, but fortunately, the captain didn’t have that kind of sensitivity. I coughed.

“Well, it seems to have progressed from a simple murder investigation, Captain, because we now seem to have also a child prostitution ring, and twelve missing girls.”

“Yes, I see that. What do you propose to do?”

I stared at him a moment and sucked my teeth. When I spoke, even Dehan looked at me in surprise.

“I want to dig up the churchyard.”

“You want to do what?”

“Where are those girls, sir?”

“But, Stone, you know I am always very supportive of you, but you can’t just go marching in and dig up the grounds of a church!”

I nodded. “I know, sir, but the church was their last known location. It was also the last known location of Alicia Flores.”

“Even so…”

“One skilled person may be able to disappear—vanish from all state and federal databases, if they were determined and put their mind to it. For twelve young girls, some as young as eleven years old, collectively to vanish is almost impossible, unless there was some concerted effort…”

Dehan added, “Or unless they were dead.”

“And, sir, there is the same thinking behind both Sean and the girls.”

He frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Sean was dressed as a tramp on the assumption that people don’t give a damn about down and outs. They were right. If Captain Jennifer Cuevas had not decided to sideline me by giving me these cold cases, nobody would ever have investigated Sean’s death. Nobody would even have known he was dead. And exactly the same is true of those girls. They were chosen because they were people nobody would ever care about. The same mind that killed Sean O’Conor, killed those girls.”

He looked horrified. I felt Dehan frown hard at her boots. He said, “You cannot possibly be certain of that. You have no evidence other than theories and surmise!”

“That’s why I need to dig up the churchyard.”

“What makes you think these twelve girls are buried there?”

“Thirteen. Sean’s fiancée.” I sighed. “Think it through. Thirteen bodies. They are hard to dispose of. You can dump one in the river, maybe two. But thirteen?”

“I’m sorry, Stone. No judge is ever going to sign off on such slim evidence. I can see where you’re coming from, and maybe you are right. But you need something a lot more convincing that just a theory.”

I nodded. “I imagined as much, sir, but I thought I had better appraise you of where we are at in the investigation. Thank you. I’ll keep you posted.”

“Yes, do, please.”

Dehan got to her feet with a rigid face. I opened the door for her and as she went out, the captain said, “Stone?” He looked like his face was trapped in a slow wince.

I said, “Yes, sir?”

“Don’t do anything… you know… crazy.”

I looked surprised. “Of course not, sir!”

On the stairs going down, Dehan said, “So what are we going to do?”

I gave her the same surprised look I had given the captain. “Dig up the churchyard, of course.”

“How are you going to do that?”

“I don’t know yet. But if we are going to get evidence of Sean and Alicia’s murder, and the murder of those girls, we have to find the bodies.”

I stopped at my desk and grabbed my jacket. I stared down at the file on my desk with the photographs in it. I opened it and pulled out the list of names.

Padraig O’Neil

Sadiq Khan

Robert Bellini

She came and stood close by my side. She ran her finger down the names.

“Even if you have a church yard to bury them in, it takes some organizing to make fourteen people disappear from the face of the Earth.”

I nodded. “Mick knew how to make friends in high places.”

“You remember when we investigated the Nelson Hernandez murder, when we found Mick’s body?”

“Mm-hm…”

“I always had the feeling that Pro and the Jersey Mob were being informed of what we were doing.”

I nodded. “I had that feeling, too. And it wasn’t only Jennifer.” I placed my finger next to hers on the last name on the list. She said, “‘H’.”

I looked at her. “Yeah, ‘H’.”

Fourteen

Dehan still had her car at my place. We drove in silence through the gathering dusk as the lights started to come on in the city. Headlamps glowed and shop fronts spilled amber onto the sidewalks, while everything that was not illuminated in some way turned gray and grainy. As we turned off Morris Park Avenue into Haight, she said, “Can I borrow your computer for five minutes?”

“Sure, what for?”

“It’s just a gut feeling. Something nagging at the back of my mind.”

I opened the door and switched on the lights. I pointed to the corner by the bow window where the computer sat on a small desk between the sofa and an armchair.

“Help yourself. You don’t need to sign in.”

She sat at the PC while I threw my jacket on the chair and went into the kitchen. I heard the Windows tune and said, “You want a drink?”

She was quiet for a moment and then spoke as she typed. “What you got?”

“Beer or whiskey.”

She turned to look at me. She was smiling, a little surprised. “What are you going to have?”

“I need a whiskey, it’s Irish. You want one?”

She turned back to the computer with a small laugh. “Yeah. Can’t let you drink alone, right?”

I poured two generous measures, carried one to the computer