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

one! It’s clear. You said from the start there had to be a connection between the Rosario case and Sebastian’s case. Here it is: his transferred rage from her mother, for rejecting him, to her daughter. Hell, Stone, if he is crazy enough, and I believe he is, he may even have been raging against the two boys for even being at that house with Angela while she was alone, at that time of the morning. Remember she made them phone? His big beef was that Sebastian was leading his own son astray.”

She suddenly pulled her cell from her pocket and dialed a number. After a moment, she snapped, “Yeah, This is Detective Carmen Dehan… Yeah, hi, listen, I need you to run a check for me on the Handgun Owner’s Database…. OK, Eduardo Irizarry, of Herring Avenue in Morris Park, the Bronx… Sure I’ll hold.”

She paced up and down for a minute, watching her feet and kicking tiny stones. After three or four minutes she stopped dead, listening. “He does?” She nodded. “Thank you.”

She turned to me. “You have to give me this one, Sensei. He is a member of the Pistol Club. He owns a Colt Desert Eagle .45, and a Smith and Wesson Bodyguard. That’s a .38. They were at the hospital. It’s obvious. He followed them home and shot them.”

I looked at her for a long while, then spread my hands. “OK, Dehan, I give you this one. Let’s go and pull him in. See if we can make him confess.”

“You don’t believe it, do you?”

I shook my head. “I didn’t say that. I just think the motive is shaky, and there are a couple of minor details that remain unanswered. But you know what? I felt like this was your case from the start. I think it’s appropriate that you should close it.”

She raised a devastating eyebrow at me and we climbed in the Jag.

Twenty-Three

Mary Irizarry opened the door to us and her mobile, expressive face went through pleasant surprise, confusion, and worry all in a matter of one and a half seconds. Then she said simply, “Detectives…” like she’d opened a box and that’s what she’d found there. I let Dehan do the talking.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Irizarry. Is your husband at home?”

“Well, no! He had to go and attend to some things.”

“Do you know where he went?”

Unconsciously, her fingers touched her lower lip. “No… He doesn’t usually… Can I give him a message?”

I said, “Mrs. Irizarry, may we come in for a moment? We need to ask you a couple of questions.” She hesitated. I smiled and added, “We are very close to catching the person who shot your son, but we need a little help.”

“Of course, please come in.”

She led us through the ghastly aberration that should have been her home and, once more, into the kitchen. As she walked ahead of us, she spoke. “I hope I can help you, I don’t really know anything. He should be back soon. Can I get you some tea or coffee…?”

It was all delivered as an unthinking stream, like a woman anxiously seeking the best way to serve. We sat once again around the table where we had so recently delivered to her the news of her son’s shooting. I studied Dehan’s face and knew that she had had the same thought, because now she hesitated before speaking.

“How long ago did your husband go out, Mrs. Irizarry?”

Mary gave a small laugh. “Oh, he didn’t exactly go out. He left while we were at the hospital.”

“Perhaps you had better tell us exactly what happened, and what he said.”

Mary drew a deep breath and held it a moment while she thought, gazing at the large, silver fridge. “Well, Angela and Sue arrived, with… um… Angela’s friend…”

“Moses.”

She nodded. “Moses. And you took Ed away to talk about business. And I suppose half an hour later or thereabouts, he came back. He stayed for about ten minutes, then he gave Luis a kiss and said he had to go and attend to some business, and he left.”

Dehan thought for a moment. “He didn’t say anything about where he was going?”

“No.” She smiled. “Ed never really discusses his business with us.”

Dehan leaned forward, placing her elbows on the table, and looked hard at Mary. “Please think very carefully before answering this, Mrs. Irizarry. It could be very important. What was being discussed in the room immediately before he left?”

Mary’s face went completely blank. “Oh, well… um…”

Dehan sighed. “Did either Angela or Moses mention where they were living?”

She frowned. “Yes! Now that you mention it. Luis was worried about Angela, about her being safe. Well, we all were, you can imagine! And Moses said that she was staying with him in his uncle’s apartment.”

“Did he say where that was exactly?”

She blinked down at the floor for a bit. “Yes… um… It began with a ‘P’, in Edgewater Park…”

I said, “Prentiss Avenue.”

Her face lit up. “There you are! You knew all along!”

I smiled at her. “So we did.”

Dehan bit her lip and took another deep breath. “Mrs… Mary, your husband owns a couple of guns.”

Mary frowned and nodded. “Yes, he does.”

“Does he keep them at the house?”

“In his den, locked in a drawer. He has a license. They are legal, and I know he registered them under the SAFE Act!”

“I’m sure he did. Do you mind if we have a look at them? It is very important.”

She looked uncertain. “Well, I suppose so. I hope he won’t be angry.”

Dehan leaned forward. “Mary, it could be a matter of life or death.”

She stood and we followed her down a passage that was carpeted wall to wall in thick, red Wilton, and through a heavy wooden door into a mock