Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #4: Books 13-16 (A Dead Cold Box Set), Blake Banner [story read aloud .txt] 📗

I could, though he wasn’t looking at me and in that gloom he probably wouldn’t have seen me anyway.

“As I said, Samuel, we were only just handed the case and we haven’t had a chance yet to study the file. What happened that night?”

Again it was his father who answered for Samuel. He was smiling and seemed to be talking to Dehan. “She’d never known her mother. She never had a mother figure, to show her the way. She was my good girl though, hey, Samuel? Lovely, sweet natured child, couldn’t do enough to help around the house. Always obedient and polite.”

Samuel was nodding, still rubbing the palm of his hand, like he had a stain there he was trying to remove.

The old man frowned. “But as she got older, the lack of maternal guidance began to tell a little. Samuel and I…” He looked over at me as though I would be better equipped to understand the next bit. “We weren’t best suited, being men, you know? When she became a woman, we didn’t really know… how to guide her and that.”

Samuel finally looked up from his hand at his father. “We did the best we could, Daddy. But…” He looked frankly at Dehan. “No offense, but women can be real hard to understand sometimes. Especially at the time of the month. It’s like two out of every five weeks, some women go crazy.”

Dehan gave a bark of laughter. “You’re not kidding. But don’t let the thought police hear you say that.”

He gave a small frown like he didn’t know what she was talking about. “Anyway, by the time Celeste was sixteen, it seemed she was going to be one of those. She started going out a lot with boys, staying out late, drinking. You know the sort of thing.”

His dad was scowling at the floor. “She wasn’t a whore!” he said suddenly. “She was a good girl. But when she hit her teens, she went a bit wild. Maybe it was her Irish blood. God knows I was no saint at sixteen—nor at twenty-six! It took your blessed mother to make me settle down. Lord! I miss that woman every day of my life! She would have known how to calm Celeste. She would have known how to talk to her, how to make her see sense. God must know in his wisdom why he had to take her from us, but it nearly killed me when he did. And I believe it killed Celeste.”

Dehan frowned. “How’s that, Mr. Reynolds?”

“If she had still been with us, Celeste would not have been so wild, I’m sure of it. She would not have been out that night, and if she had, she would have been with a nicer type of man.”

“So you also believe Chad might have been responsible for her death?”

“If not him, one like him. They’re all the same, boozing, taking drugs, having their damned parties.”

Dehan spoke suddenly, “OK, so, let me see if I’ve got this straight. Sunday, 6th November, she goes out, at night, to walk to Chad’s house, five or ten minutes down the road?”

Samuel nodded.

“OK, so where had she been that weekend?”

“She had spent most of Friday and all of Saturday with him, stayed the night and came back lunch time on Sunday.” He said all this flatly, without looking at us, in a voice made mechanical by shame.

I asked: “How was she when she got in? Was she her normal self? Did she seem preoccupied?”

Neither of them answered.

I said, “Well?”

The old man said, “You have to remember, Detective, that without a mother to intercede, communication wasn’t always easy. Me and Samuel, we can talk to each other, we understand each other, but with Celeste, at that time, she could be sullen.”

Samuel said, “And I was angry with her for staying out, so we had words in the kitchen. Daddy come in to sort it out, and the two of us wound up shouting at Celeste, and her shouting back…”

“Samuel!”

“Well, they have to know, Daddy! That’s how it was. It’s nobody’s fault! But she wound up storming up the stairs to her room, slamming the door and not coming out.”

Dehan said, “Until?”

The old man answered. “I’ll never forget it so long as I live. Eight thirty PM, she come down those stairs, in her torn jeans, big, black boots like a soldier’s boots, her hair—she had lovely, wild red hair—her hair all scrunched under a woolen cap, and a dirty, big, red, woolen jacket with a hood. You know, I often think what a tragedy, such a beautiful girl—and she was lovely looking, wasn’t she, Samuel?—to die looking so bloody awful. I know that sounds like a shallow thing to say, but it’s true all the same.” His gaze wandered again, out the window. “Such a lovely girl, to die looking like a tramp. When she had her home and her family to care for her.”

“So when she came down the stairs, did she say anything?”

Samuel said, “I asked her where she was going, she gave me a mouthful of abuse and said she was going to see Chad. She said at least she felt welcome there.”

“And she left?”

“Maybe more things were said. I went to the kitchen. Daddy was begging her to see sense. She walked out and slammed the door behind her.”

His daddy had started to sob. He had a big, boney hand over his face and he was making ugly, visceral noises.

Samuel said, “He has angina and high blood pressure. This isn’t good for him.”

The old man uncovered his face and reached out to us with his other hand. His face was wet and twisted with grief. “I don’t want you to go! I want to help! I want to hear what you talk about. It’s been two years