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

the point, if you enabled that person to commit the crime, whether you knew there would be a murder or not, you would be equally as guilty as they are. Do you fully appreciate what is involved in helping somebody to commit, or cover up, a homicide?”

“I think I want you to leave now.”

I shook my head. “No, you don’t. Because if I leave now, you leave with me, in cuffs.”

She went pale. “What is this, some sick, sexual game? Is this how you get your kicks?”

I watched her a moment. “I want you to be fully aware of the risks you are taking on Paul’s behalf. I know he wasn’t here on the night of Simon’s death. I know you were there. I know he phoned Sylvie from the rectory and I know they talked for almost an hour. And I know that you know a damn sight more than you are telling me.” I pointed at her. “But you need to understand that you could wind up doing serious time. And believe me, for a woman like you, a state pen is not a good place to be.”

She was rigid and her hand had started trembling. “You’re threatening me.”

“Threatening? No, warning.” I shrugged. “Semantics. You need to think long and hard about how you answer my next questions. Think,” I said, “about who is going to look after Reggie while you are on the inside for trying to protect Paul.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Who is Humberto?”

She seemed to sag and covered her face with her left hand. “No…”

“I’m serious, Elizabeth. Is he Paul’s son?”

She nodded into her hand. “Of course he is.”

“Why all the cloak and dagger? Why all the secrecy? Paul is an American citizen. Why didn’t he just register him as his son?”

She heaved a sigh and dropped her hand. “Because, in the first place, he was conceived out of wedlock. In the second place, the girl who conceived him was, putting it bluntly, of mixed race and she was a whore. To enlightened people like you and me, that may mean nothing, but to the people who make up Revered Paul Truelove’s congregation, both of those facts carry a lot of weight. If they had found out that he’d been making the beast with two backs with a blackberry tart, they would have dumped him before he could bellow, ‘I’m coming!’”

She reached for a packet of cigarettes and lit one with shaking hands. She inhaled deeply, stood and carried her drink out to the patio, where she stood leaning against the wall, staring at her pool. I followed and stood in the doorway behind her. The turquoise water looked luminous and translucent. The croaking of the frogs was loud.

“Okay, I understand his decision to keep his paternity a secret from his congregation. But, if he went to the trouble of bringing him into the country, why didn’t he register his birth, or adopt him? The kid is a ghost. He has no social security number, no birth certificate…”

She interrupted me, half shouting, “Because he’s wanted for murder in Brazil!”

“What? He hasn’t the mental capacity for murder…”

She turned to glare at me. “Do you think they give a damn about that? He killed the son of the local cacique. It was an accident, but that makes fuck all difference to them! They mean to get hold of him, by fair means or foul, and Paul, for once in his miserable life, is doing the right thing.” She moved to the table and sat. A spasm of irritation contracted her face. “Oh, for God’s sake, get yourself a drink and stop being so damned upright!”

I went to the trolley and poured myself a couple of inches of Irish. She waited for me to sit before she started talking again. Then, to the lapping of the pool and the sawing of the frogs, she told me the story of Humberto and Paul.

Thirteen

“Paul was supposed to be doing missionary work for the church. Of course, he saw that as an opportunity to make large sums of money under the table, by cultivating influential friends and getting involved in various forms of contraband and smuggling. Only God knows what he got up to. Or perhaps He doesn’t. Knowing Him, He is probably turning a blind eye.” She stared a moment at the light, warping liquid silver on the surface of the pool, under a black sky. There was something tragic in her once beautiful face. “That man had truly no conscience and no inhibitions. We were in the Indira Marau region, in Itaituba, on the river Tapajós. It is a tributary of the Amazon, a hell hole miles from anywhere. It was remote. And I do mean, remote.”

“What were you doing there?”

“Reggie worked for a pharmaceutical company. He was engaged in research of the rainforest. We met Paul at a dinner party. He and Reggie hit it off, and I confess I found him fascinating. You would not think so to meet him now, but when he’s not putting on his pompous Man-of-God act, he is a very exciting, totally immoral bastard. Sorry.”

“So what happened?”

She didn’t answer for a moment. She sucked on her cigarette like she was hungry for the smoke. The only sound was the slap of the water and the sawing of the frogs down by the river.

“He had befriended one of the local land barons, Gabriel da Silva. They were involved in some shady deals together, something to do with logging.” She held a hand up to me. “Don’t ask me. I stayed out of that kind of thing. I was not and am not interested. The point is, Paul had rented this big, colonial villa on the lake just outside town. He had invited da Silva, his wife, and son to dinner. The boy was about