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

“The last few times I spoke to Sean, he was very worried. He was beginning to talk a bit crazy. He said he had committed a sin with a woman who was not Alicia, to try to gather information about the Vincenzo family. He was very worried because he needed absolution, and he could not go to Father O’Neil, obviously. He was also scared because he thought Father O’Neil was beginning to suspect him and Alicia. He did not know how long they had, and he said they needed to act fast but he feared for his life and Alicia’s, so he gave me a big file and told me to keep it safe, not tell him where, and if anything happened to him, to give it to the authorities. After that, he disappeared.”

Dehan raised an eyebrow at him and I thought she was about to hit him.

“But you never handed the information to the authorities?”

He looked at her face for a few moments. “I am not a hero. I was quite frankly scared. There was no doubt in my mind that he and Alicia had been bumped off. I knew I could not go to the local PD, because of Michael Harragan, and I did not know how many associates he had, and to make matters worse, I knew also that one of the members of the cabal was a Special Agent with the FBI. I know enough, because of my specialized line of work in the law, to know how the tendrils of power spread. I honestly did not know whom to go to, to expose this thing. And so, a week became a month, became a year, became a decade, until David tracked me down and phoned me, and told me about you.”

I didn’t admire him, but I understood him. Not everybody can be a Sean O’Conor, a fearless Celtic warrior.

“Who is this FBI agent?”

“I can’t remember his name. Sean rarely mentioned him and he never went to the church. He was a contact of Harragan’s.”

Dehan glanced at me. I said to Arnav, “Where is this file now?”

“In New York, in a bank vault. The key is held by an attorney, somewhere in the United States, and if I don’t contact that attorney once every six months, a copy of the file goes to the DA, and another copy to the New York Times.”

I smiled. “You covered your bases.”

“Oh yes, and there are other measures that I am not even going to tell you about.”

“So, now we need to get the file to the DA without anything happening to you. How do we go about that?”

He closed his eyes and heaved a huge sigh. “I will come to New York. We will go together to the bank and we will collect the file. You can examine it there and then we will go together to the DA and hand it over, and I will make a deposition.”

I thought about Bishop Bellini and his rendezvous with Dehan and I the next day at Ferry Point Park. “When?”

“The sooner the better. Tomorrow?”

I looked at Dehan. She was watching me. With Arnav’s evidence, maybe I wouldn’t need Bellini to incriminate himself. But I didn’t know how good the evidence was, or how probative. It sounded good, but until I saw it for myself, I couldn’t rely on it. I still needed Bellini red-handed. And I still needed his prints.

“Tomorrow afternoon.”

He nodded. “Fine. I’ll aim to be there around three. I’ll go to your precinct.”

I tipped my cup this way and that. It was empty and cold. “You know O’Neil is dead?”

“No, I didn’t know that.”

“He was executed, so was Sadiq Khan.”

“Good. That man was a monster.” He hesitated. “What happened to the girls?”

“They were all killed, along with Alicia, and buried in a mass grave in the churchyard.”

“Oh, my God…”

“From what I can gather, it all happened on the same night. Your handing in this file would not have saved their lives.”

“It is kind of you to say so, Detective, but I should have acted. When good men do nothing, evil prospers…”

I shrugged.

“Does anybody else know anything about this?”

He shook his head. “You, Detective Dehan and me.”

“Good, let’s see if we can stop the body count rising any higher.” But even as I said it, I knew it was a forlorn hope.

He left and we stayed, sitting in the Pavilion. It was an odd place, a latticework of green metal designed to look like a giant arbor of interlocking branches over a glade. The walls were glass; to keep you indoors while making you imagine you were outdoors. We ordered a couple of club sandwiches and a couple of beers.

While we waited, Dehan stretched back in her chair and looked at me. “So we now have one very angry Conor Hagan, who has a big beef against the Vincenzo family, and we have one bishop who is in bed with the Vincenzo family, and helped to steal one hundred grand from Hagan. I’d say Bellini has short odds on making it to the weekend.”

I nodded. “We also have all the ingredients for a gang war. Conor Hagan is not a man who will back down easily, and the Vincenzos can’t allow their friends to be murdered willy-nilly, it’s bad for their reputation.”

“But if we take him into protective custody, we blow the sting.”

The sandwiches and the beer arrived and we ate in silence. When I’d finished, I drained my beer and sat looking at my empty plate. Eventually, I shook my head. “I am not his babysitter.” I looked her in the eye. “He has the whole of the Jersey Mafia for his bodyguard. He knew what he was doing when he stole from the Irish Mob. I’m not going to blow