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

He studied the picture and after a while, he nodded. “I’m not fucking Mother Theresa, Stone. You know who I am and what I am, and I’ll be damned if I pretend to be anything else. I didn’t go and fawn over the kids and pretend to be a fucking saint so they could praise me and thank me. I’m a bad man and I’ll probably go to hell. So be it. But I didn’t want them sleeping on the streets, going into prostitution, getting hooked on drugs. They were only kids. I don’t deal in fucking child prostitution or drugs, and I don’t hurt children. Okay?” He sighed and looked back at the picture. “Sure, I remember these kids, most of them. They were on Father O’Neil’s program.”

I slid the folder across. He opened it. He raised his eyes to glare at me and for a moment I thought he was going to attack me, but he looked back at the picture, then methodically worked his way through all twelve of them. I could see his hands were shaking and his chest was rising and falling hard. Dehan decided to add some fuel to the fire.

“Their remains were dug up from Father O’Neil’s churchyard yesterday and the night before. Among them were the remains of my cousin, Alicia, who was their teacher.”

“Alicia was your cousin?”

Dehan nodded. “And Sean’s fiancée.”

“What do you want from me?”

I shook my head. “Anything, Conor, anything that will link these bastards with those bones.”

His face flushed crimson. “I had no fucking idea that they were doing this. Father O’Neil knew that if I’d had the slightest idea I would have broken every fucking bone in his body, and his pals. Personally! Priest or no fucking priest.”

“I believe you, but your anger doesn’t help me. I need you to think, remember, was there anything, anything at all at that time, that might connect the bishop or Sadiq Khan with these bodies?”

“I already told you. I was not involved personally.”

Dehan said, “If we can’t prove a connection, Father O’Neil will take the rap and these two, or three, will walk.”

He looked at her through hooded eyes. “I know. If I think of anything, I’ll give you a bell.”

I took a long pull on my Guinness and stood. I gave him a nod. “Thanks for the drink. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

Dehan stood. Hagan watched me a moment. “I don’t know what you wouldn’t do.”

I held his eye a moment. “Not a lot.”

We stepped out into the late afternoon sunshine and started walking towards the Jag. Dehan was frowning at her boots as she walked.

“I am not sure what you just did in there, Stone.”

I held up a finger and pulled out my cell. I dialed Khan’s number. It rang twice and his secretary answered.

“This is Detective Stone of the NYPD. I have a very urgent message for Mr. Sadiq Khan.”

“Yes?”

“Tell him that Father O’Neil is dead. He has been murdered and that Detective Stone needs to talk to him first thing tomorrow morning. Have you got that?”

“Yes, Detective, I will tell him as soon as he comes in.”

“Call him and give him the message.”

“Yes, Detective.”

Dehan was frowning at me. I smiled and dialed the bishop’s number. His secretary answered.

“Bishop Robert Bellini’s office.”

“This is Detective John Stone of the NYPD. I have an extremely urgent message for the bishop.”

“The bishop is out of the country at the moment. He will not be back for a couple of days.”

“I know. I need you to get a message of the utmost urgency to him. Tell him Father O’Neil is dead, murdered, and that Detective Stone needs to talk to him as soon as it is physically possible. His life may be in danger, you understand?”

“Yes, Detective, I will communicate your message to him immediately.”

Dehan was frowning at me. “What are you doing?”

“If Mohamed can’t get to the mountain, then the mountain will have to come to Mohamed.”

“That’s the wrong way around.”

“Everything in this goddamn case is the wrong way around.”

NINETEEN

Dehan finally made it home that night. We were both exhausted and needed a few hours thinking about something that wasn’t Sean O’Conor, his fiancée Alicia, and the kids who had died in the church of St. Mary’s.

I was thinking of a sirloin steak, French fries, and a glass of wine, watching some mindless crap on the TV. I pushed open my front door and switched on the lights, and my cell rang. I knew who it was. I had been praying he wouldn’t call till the morning, but it had been a forlorn hope.

His voice was refined, in a slippery kind of way, with a slight accent.

“Detective Stone?”

“I am guessing you are Sadiq Khan.”

“Yes, indeed. I understand you have been desperately trying to reach me.” He sounded amused.

“I’m not sure that desperate is quite accurate, Mr. Khan, I am just doing my job, and I have no personal interest in either your safety or your survival. If you haven’t either, then we can end this conversation right here and now.”

There was a long pause, long enough that I was about to hang up.

“What is this about, Detective? My secretary mentioned a Catholic priest…”

I sighed. “Mr. Khan, why don’t you can the bullshit and we get down to business? I am tired and, frankly, bored. You are telling me you don’t know who Father O’Neil is, so how do you know he was a Catholic priest? If you think I am stupid, Mr. Khan, think again and please stop wasting my time. You put money into his program to rescue children who were being evicted from Conor Hagan’s Tiffany Street property. Why does a Muslim businessman invest in a project to teach