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

“Did you find any trace of him here in the States?”

He shook his head. “When I saw this, we started searching in earnest, going back ten years. He sold his house, gassed up his car, and after that his credit card and his name vanished from the face of the Earth.”

Dehan said, “He’d been preparing at least a year in advance. I’d lay money you won’t find him in Mexico. He’ll have put the money, which is going to be a couple of million or more, into a numbered account, and he will have a second identity. O’Hannafin will vanish, just like Harragan did.”

Bernie nodded. “We’re going to look, because it’s always worth looking. But I would have to agree. Harragan prepared this, and he prepared it well. Chances are, he’s in Brazil, banking in Belize.” He smiled. “It’s what I would do.”

We talked a bit more, without making much progress, and Dehan and I eventually stood to leave. But as we were going, the phone rang. He answered it and gestured we should wait. He talked for a bit, made some notes, and asked for the details to be emailed via his secure server. Then he hung up.

“That was Mexico…” He paused and shook his head. “Hold on to your hats. The account has been inactive for ten years. A couple of deposits were made after the house was sold, total of a million bucks. It’s been sitting there earning interest. It was never transferred, and it has not been accessed since 2007.”

Dehan said, “What the hell does that mean?”

“It means Mick Harragan is probably dead,” I said.

She narrowed her eyes at me like her brain hurt. “Who…?”

I nodded. “The same person who drank tequila with him that night.”

As we stepped out onto Broadway, she suddenly turned on me and placed her fingertips on my chest. She stared hard into my face and said, “I am going to have an intense moment.”

“Really? What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. I need to go out and get drunk! This case is like a fucking maze that keeps going back in on itself!”

I cocked my head and said in a doubtful tone, “Hmm…”

“Hmmm…?”

I nodded. “Mhm, hmmm…”

She glared at me. “Hmmm…? Seriously?”

“I think we making progress for the first time.”

“Explain that to me.”

We started walking toward the car.

“We know that Mick had planned to move to Mexico, and there is a good chance he planned to take Maria with him. We can surmise that he got the Triad and the Mob to pay him to eliminate Nelson, and that he paid Carlitos to do it for him at a fraction of the price, while he set himself up with the best possible alibi. He was with another detective at a different crime scene.

“Now, one of two things happen. Carlitos, as part of the deal, is supposed to bring Maria, and the money, to Mick’s house. However, Carlitos brings Maria but says he is keeping the money. There is a disagreement, and Carlitos kills Mick and Maria, puts them in the trunk of his own car, and dumps them in the Hudson.”

She nodded a lot. “Yeah.”

“Or, Carlitos delivers Maria and leaves. But then Jennifer turns up. She and Mick have been making the beast with two backs. Mick has seduced her. Why? Because A, Mick likes Latina girls, and B, because he knows he’s been going too long and pretty soon somebody is going to finger him. The up-and-coming detective, the rising star tipped to be the next commander, is Detective Jennifer Cuevas. So he wants to keep her sweet and onside. Trouble is, she’s fallen for him big-time. She can smell that he is two-timing her. Maybe she watches him, maybe she follows him—who knows? But that night, she turns up while Maria is there, and she kills them both.”

“Also very feasible. In both scenarios Maria is dead.”

We had arrived and I leaned on the roof of the Jag, frowning at her. “Yeah, at the moment it’s looking like Maria’s fate is tied to Mick’s. But there are two things that trouble me about both these scenarios—all the goddamn scenarios. If Carlitos is the hit man, why does he leave several hundred grand worth of drugs at Nelson’s apartment?”

“You took the words out of my mouth. And?”

“If Maria hates Mick so much, why does she go along so placidly?”

She shrugged. “That one is less complicated. She’s protecting her family.”

“If that’s true, she must be dead. Because it looks like both Mick and Nelson are dead, so who is she protecting them from?”

I unlocked the car and climbed in. She got in the other side and slammed the door.

“Don’t you mean, from whom is she protecting them?”

“Yes, that is precisely what I mean. But nobody likes a smartass, Dehan.”

“Hey, just showin’ I’m leanin’, Sensei. You teachin’, me learnin’.”

I sighed and started the engine. “So you want to get drunk, huh?”

“Yup.”

“Okay.”

Thirteen

But we didn’t go and get drunk, not then, anyhow. As we were cruising up Center Street toward Fourth Avenue, a thought came to me, and I could have kicked myself for not having had it sooner. I said, “Okay, this is a long shot, but hear me out. Here’s Mick, a big, brawling, lawless Irishman. A law unto himself. Loves a fight, takes no shit from nobody.”

“Long live the stereotype.”

“Say what you like, that was Mick.”

“Okay.”

“So in the early hours of November 13, assuming he hasn’t been killed by Carlitos or Jennifer, he has four million bucks in the bank, a stash of cash in his trunk, a beautiful young girl on his arm, and he feels like the king of the world.”

She frowned. “Interesting.”

“He’s changed his identity, nobody can