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

“I don’t see why.”

Her face flushed and her open hand shot out, gesturing toward the stairs. “He was our last chance, Stone! He could have given us the whole ring! He could have told us the whole story!” I gave her a moment. She blurted, “You shouldn’t have opened up to Hagan like that! I’m sorry! I have never criticized you before, Stone, but that was a mistake and it may have lost us the case!”

I nodded. “I can see how you’d think that.”

Far off, the wail of a siren stained the air with tragedy. It was incongruous against the green lawn and the spring blue of the sky.

Minutes later, they crammed in to the driveway, with their lights flashing, and began to disgorge men and women in uniform who went, with mechanical precision, about the task of processing a scene where four lives had been destroyed. The yellow tape went up, the ME arrived with her black bag, the CSI team climbed into their plastic suits and tramped, like something out of a sci-fi B movie, around the wreckage of Mrs. Khan’s home. And meanwhile, Mrs. Khan and her two little girls sobbed and struggled to assimilate the impossible.

I showed Lisa, the ME, up to the room. It was bad enough to make her stop in the doorway and wince. Dehan came in after her. She shook her head and turned to stare at me, like it was my fault.

Lisa said, “I can tell you straight away the cause of death was exsanguinations. Anything else will have to wait till I get back to the lab.”

I met Greg, the CSI team leader, on the stairs on his way up. We stopped and his team filed past us, headed for the two bedrooms.

“I’m guessing there was more than one of them, Greg. Nobody seems to have put up a fight, and they were able to bind him, the wife and the kids without resistance before separating them into two rooms. We didn’t find any sign of forced entry, so I’m guessing maybe they waited till the family was leaving for school and work. The doors are open, they’re all out in the drive, and they came up, blocked the exit, and forced them back in to the house, maybe at gunpoint. Mrs. Khan will confirm that later, right now she is in no state.”

He listened carefully, then gave a nod. “Okay, see what we can find.”

He went on up after his team. I knew they wouldn’t find anything.

When we got back down, Mrs. Khan had settled a little and was drinking her tea. Dehan went and sat next to her.

“Can you tell me what happened, Mrs. Khan? I know it’s hard, but the sooner you can tell us, the sooner we can catch whoever did this.”

It was as I had thought.

“We were going to school.” She gestured at her daughters. “I always drive them. Is not far. Sadiq…” Her eyes flooded and her face flushed. Her breath shook. Dehan took her hand. “… He said he had an important appointment at midday. We were all standing together, in the drive, and then a big SUV came into the drive. It blocked our way, there was no way out. And two men got out. They were very big. They wore black sweatshirts, black jeans, all black, and black balaclavas over their faces. They were holding guns. They forced us inside. Upstairs.”

“Did they say anything?”

“Nothing, not a word. One of them bound us and locked us in the bedroom. Then he went next door…” Her face collapsed and she started to sob. “We heard horrible noises, Sadiq screaming…”

We called her doctor and had him come out to sedate her. Then we called her sister to come and take care of her. After that, we stepped out to the Jag and I negotiated my way past the patrol cars and the meat wagon onto the road. I headed east toward the Deegan Expressway.

We drove in silence, but it wasn’t the silence I was used to. It was an uncomfortable silence. Eventually, I asked her, “Have you lost confidence in me, Dehan?”

She looked away from me, out the side window.

“I don’t know.” She turned to face me for a second, and then looked away again. “I don’t understand. I get why you left Father O’Neil to sweat. It made sense to me, and there was no way we could have known he was going to run to Father Sullivan.”

“But…?”

“But I don’t get…” Now she shifted in her seat to face me, gesturing back at the house with her hand. “You knew that Conor Hagan would react like this! I didn’t! It didn’t cross my mind. But you! Shit, Stone! You are the sensei! You knew! And now I am asking myself, why the hell did we go there and have that conversation with Hagan? Why the hell did you show him those photographs?”

I glanced at her to see if she had finished. She was waiting.

“I had to be sure.”

“Sure of what?”

“That he wasn’t part of it.”

She made little shakes with her head in a ‘what the hell are you talking about?’ gesture.

I sighed. “It could be one of two ways, Dehan. Either Hagan was a part of it or he wasn’t. If he was, we had a very different kind of set up on our hands. You saw him, you spoke to him, and this guy is a damn good administrator. He is efficient and he rules with an iron fist. He has never been arrested. He has never been the subject of an investigation, even though every cop in New York knows he is the head of the Hagan Clan.”

She was frowning. That was a good sign. It meant she