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

through the following day. They recovered a total of fourteen bodies, more than I had expected. Frank had the remains taken to his lab where he and his team carefully, painstakingly, started to reassemble the bones into skeletons. After that, the slow, detailed process of analysis would begin, to establish the age and sex of each one, and if possible, the cause of death. It could take weeks.

All he was able to tell me, after they had started assembling the skeletons, was that it was very unlikely that there were any boys, and that only one of the skulls appeared to be over fifteen years of age.

Alicia.

Dehan went to see her aunt, to give her the news and to ask for Alicia’s dental records. She asked me not to accompany her, so I spent the time tracking down Sadiq Khan, then called Bishop Bellini’s office. Sadiq Khan was out of the office and Bishop Bellini was out of the country.

Joe, the CSI team leader who had processed the scene of Father O’Neil’s murder, called to tell me what I already knew. It had been a very professional job. There was not a trace of the killer. His spinal cord had been severed at the base, where it met the brain, with a single thrust of a small, sharp blade, probably an ice pick.

Dehan came back about four in the afternoon and dropped into her chair.

“I sent Frank the details so he can contact her insurance company. He said he’d give her priority, as a favor. We should know soon.”

I nodded. After a bit, I said, “We seem to have hit a dead end. We uncovered all this from a haircut and a manicure, but I can’t see a way of linking what happened to the people who did it.”

She leaned back in her chair and rolled her head. I heard her vertebrae crunch.

“Mick is dead, Father O’Neil is dead, that leaves, who? Sadiq Khan…”

“Out of the office.”

“The bishop…”

“Out of the country.”

“‘H’…”

“Untouchable until we have more evidence.”

“And Conor Hagan.”

I sighed. “Conor Hagan…” I reached in the file and pulled out the two emails and the list and placed them on the desk. “He isn’t on the list.”

“God dammit, Stone!” I looked at her. “There is no evidence! How can you investigate a case where there is no evidence? It’s twelve years ago!” She mimicked, “‘Where were you on the night of the fifteenth of January, twelve years ago?’”

“Hmmm… You’d need somebody with a superb memory.” I picked up my phone and called Hagan Construction.

“Hagan Construction, how may I…”

“This is Detective Stone of the NYPD. I need to talk to Conor Hagan on a very urgent matter, now.”

“Thank you caller, please hold the line while I try to connect you.”

I put the phone on speaker, picked up a pencil and methodically broke it into matchwood. Then a voice like talking concrete emerged from my cell.

“This is Conor. What do you want, Stone.”

“I need to talk to you. This is important for both of us.”

“I’m at the Shamrock.”

“Will you still be there when I get there?”

“Yes.”

He hung up. I picked up the folder of photographs.

He was at the same table when we arrived. He was still studying papers and he still had a Guinness, but this time, instead of a beef sandwich he had a whiskey chaser. As we approached, he looked up and nodded at the bartender. We sat.

“I’m guessing you know that Father O’Neil was murdered the night before last?”

He nodded.

“Do you know who did it?”

“I don’t murder priests.”

“That’s not what I asked you. I asked you if you knew who did do it.”

“I’ve no idea.”

“We have reason to believe—good reason to believe—that his murder is connected to Sean O’Conor’s murder.”

“What’s that got to do with me?”

“I’m coming to that, Conor. My partner thinks I am crazy, maybe I am, but my gut tells me that whatever you might be, and whatever you might do, you didn’t do this.”

“Am I supposed to be fucking grateful?”

I nodded. “Yeah. Because Sean’s murder turned out to be about a hell of a lot more than squatters.”

His eyes narrowed. “Like what?”

The bartender came over with two pints of Guinness and set them in front of us. “It’s on the house,” he said, and returned to the bar.

I raised my glass to Conor and said, “Slánta.” He nodded and turned to Dehan. She had the good sense to do the same.

She sipped and said, “You were putting money into his relief program, and to provide shelter for the people you were evicting from the building on Tiffany Street, and education for the children. There were a few other people who were putting money into that program, too. But the program, and the kids, were being exploited and used for something else.”

His eyes went hard, his face slowly flushed red, and his breathing grew heavier. This was anger, not fear.

“What are you telling me?”

I showed him the list of names. “This is a list that Sean made. These people are all people involved with the program, but your name is missing.”

He pulled the list over and studied it. “Who are these two?”

He pointed to the two decayed names.

I raised my eyebrows. “Who do you think they are?”

“This one is that cunt Mick Harragan. This one I have no idea.”

“You know the others?”

“That’s the bishop, and Sadiq I’ve met, but I didn’t know he was involved in the program. What fucking interest could he have in helping Catholic kids and educating them in the Catholic faith?”

“None,” I said, and pulled out the first photograph, where the kids were all standing together, fully clothed. I slid it across to him. “Do you know who these