Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #2: Books 5-8 (A Dead Cold Box Set), Blake Banner [readnow TXT] 📗

and Matt instead.” He wagged a finger at me, smiling. “She would not always agree with us! Oh no! Often she would disagree! And she would argue with that fire that only a Latina can have!” He went quiet and the joy drained from his face. “It was not long before I realized that I was in love with her. Mary…pah! What was she compared with this passionate, beautiful, intelligent woman? Nothing!”

He sat staring at his cold, sweet coffee. “I could not keep silent. I told her. I had to tell her. I was burning inside!” He looked up at me like I would understand, and nodded several times. “She felt the same way. We had to be together.” He frowned and wagged his finger again. “It could not be straight away. I was in the middle of an important trial which was going to establish my reputation. A divorce right then, and especially a divorce from a Puerto Rican woman, it could have undermined my position and my reputation. But we became lovers. I used to go and see her regularly at lunch time. I helped her with her rent. We made plans.” He shook his head and tears glinted in his eyes. “We were going to be married. She was going to be my wife.”

He was quiet for a long moment. We waited. He took a deep breath and shrugged.

“The trial finished. We won. My reputation was secured. I went to see Rosario. I told her, ‘I am going to arrange the papers, before the weekend I am going to tell Mary it’s over, and when the divorce is final, we will get married.’ She was so happy! We made love…” He shook his head, like he was having trouble counting. “…Two or three times. Then I went back to the office. I prepared the papers, I talked to my friend, Alfredo, asked him to represent me, and when I got home, I found Mary and Susanne crying. Hugging each other. What happened? They were hysterical, but finally they tell me. Rosario has been killed. Murdered.”

We were all silent. After a moment, I asked him, “What happened?”

“I passed out.” He stared straight at me. “Right there, on the spot. I passed out. I lost consciousness.” He snapped his fingers. “Mary knew. If she had any doubts before, right then she knew.” He kept shaking his head. “You know? I made no effort to hide it. I didn’t care if she realized or not. But if she missed it before, right then she knew.” He sighed. “I called Mick. I told him about me and Rosario. He said he knew about it. That was why he had respected her. He liked Latina women. He would have liked to have Rosario, but he knew she was mine. So he respected her. He asked me, did I kill her? I told him of course not. He was a good man. He understood. He said that was enough for him. But they never caught the son of a bitch who did it.”

Dehan stood and walked out of the café. Ed watched her leave. I said, “That good man who was such a great pal of yours?” He turned to look at me. “That corrupt gangster in a uniform, that son of a bitch, raped and murdered her mother and put her father in the hospital, while she watched. She didn’t kill him because he beat her so badly she couldn’t move. That friend and ally of yours was a parasite on the Latino community you claimed to protect and serve.”

He looked away.

I went on, “So what about Susanne?”

He raised an eyebrow at me. It was like contempt was an autonomic response with him. He couldn’t help it. “Nothing about Susanne. I told you, she was nothing to me. Less than that.”

“So what was your problem with Sebastian?”

Before he could answer, Dehan came back. She had obviously breathed and counted to ten. I asked her with a look, and she gave me one back that said she was OK. I asked Ed again, “What was your problem with Sebastian, Ed? Because I am having trouble swallowing the line that says, Sue accuses you of raping her, at about the same time Rosario gets raped and murdered, and then Sue’s son is murdered outside Rosario’s house—and you have nothing to do with it.” I shook my head. “That is hard to swallow.”

He shrugged. “Hard or not, it’s the truth. Sebastian? He was nothing, like his mother. Same kind of weak thinking as his father, but without the intelligence. Education will lead to equality? Look at the profession he chose! Investigating the dead! What use is that? They’re dead, for crying out loud! Do something useful!”

Dehan raised an eyebrow, her voice was acerbic to the point of being almost venomous. “Like providing skin-deep beauty to the rich?”

She looked at me. I sighed. “Ed, don’t go anywhere. Do not leave the city. I am not done with you.”

“I am no longer under arrest?”

I shook my head. “But I will be looking for evidence to corroborate Susanne Mackenzie’s story.”

“You mean you’ll be manufacturing it!”

I stood. “That was your friend and ally Mick’s game, not mine.”

We left him staring at his hands on the table, and made our way out to the parking lot.

Twenty-Two

We were back at Emilio’s pizza joint. Dehan was staring at her pizza like she couldn’t see it. “You know,” she said, “if I were like Mick, I’d put him away. I’d fabricate the damned evidence and put the son of a bitch away. Because he deserves it, because of the way he treats women, because of the way he treats people! The world doesn’t need more bastards like Ed Irizarry. But I can’t do that.”

I nodded. “I know.”

“You know why I can’t do it?”

“Because you’re a good person.”