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

“Santa Maria, Meua Donna.” He got on his knees and edged up the hedge, pulling back the branches and peering through. I joined him and realized I had a perfect view of the back of Sylvie’s house.

I nodded at him. “Santa Maria, tua Donna.” His lady. Then I made a query with my face. “Where is your treasure? Votre tesoro?”

He reached in among the tangle of branches and bramble behind him and, with some difficulty, pulled out a wooden box. He put it on the ground in front of me and opened it. I sat and stared and felt sick. There it was, the big bowie knife, bizarrely sealed in a large, transparent plastic bag, with traces of dry, crusted blood still visible on the blade and on the handle. Next to it, a large, Sabatier kitchen knife. There was also an old photograph of a smiling black woman with a young Humberto on her knee. Carmela, I guessed. There were a couple of stones, a Christmas card, a few other bits and pieces that constituted his treasure. I looked at him.

“Who gave you the knife? Quien ti ha dato el punhal?”

He grinned. “Angelo di la guarda.”

I gave him the thumbs up. “Obrigado.” He nodded and grinned back, not realizing that I was the diavolo incarnato who was about to turn his world upside down and inside out.

By the time we crawled back out, the CSI team had arrived. I said to Paul, “Do you own a bowie knife? Have you ever owned one?”

He frowned. “No, never. Of course not.”

“Take Humberto inside. Keep him there. You and I need to talk.” I looked around for a uniform. “Carter! Accompany Reverend Truelove and Humberto into the rectory. Stay with them till I get there.” I looked Paul in the eye. “Stay there!”

He nodded and the three of them left. Dehan joined me and we trudged through the wet grass that was turning steadily to trampled mud, toward where the CSI team was climbing into their plastic suits at the back of their truck. There were only two of them. I knew the leader.

“Hey, Stone. How’s it hangin’? Dehan.”

“Hi, Phil. The real objects of interest here are the two knives. I’m curious as to why one of them is in a plastic bag, but the other isn’t. If I am right, the bowie knife was used to kill Simon Martin eighteen years ago. And the Sabatier was used to kill Jacob Martin two years ago. As far as I am aware, you have samples of both of their DNA back at the lab.”

“You got it. We’ll run the tests for you. See if there is anything else we can find, too.”

“I appreciate it.”

Dehan followed me then, in silence, wiping rain from her eyes, to the rectory. We found Paul and Humberto in the living room, where Paul was lighting a log fire with a match. He stood as we came in. He didn’t speak, he just heaved a big sigh.

“Paul, I am not going to arrest you or Humberto right now. If the blood on the knives proves to be that of Simon and Jacob, I might.”

Dehan frowned, but didn’t say anything.

“I could take you both into custody as material witnesses. I don’t want to do that because I don’t believe it is in the best interest of Humberto. So I am going to ask you to allow me to leave a police officer here until the DA decides how to proceed, once all the evidence is in. Will you agree to that?”

He nodded. “Yes. I am grateful to you, Detective.”

I went on, “Paul, whatever happens next, whatever the DA decides to do, you need to start doing things right. Humberto is the victim here. He needs you. He needs you to be a father for him. Stop playing fucking Peter Pan. I am going to argue on your behalf for him to stay in your care, because I know you have risked your life for him. But,” I shook my head. “It is time for you to grow up.”

His face flushed. “I suppose I have earned that.”

“And some. This situation cannot continue. Your son deserves more. Claim him, own to him, either through a paternity test or by adoption. If you are afraid for your lives, talk to the Feds. We’ll arrange something. But man up and get this sorted, Paul.”

He nodded. “Yes. Thank you.”

I turned to leave but his voice stopped me. “Detective…”

I stopped.

“What about Sylvie, will you tell her…?”

“When there is something to tell her. We will see what the lab says.”

“Yes. Of course.”

In the car, the wipers set up a dreary squeak as the drizzle turned to steady rain. We moved, stopping and starting, grinding up and down through the gears, through the dense lunch-hour traffic, toward the 43rd. Whatever I had told Paul, there was no doubt in my mind what the lab was going to find, or what the DA was going to decide to do. The boxes would be ticked and the system would kick in and take over. And that worried me, because there were questions that I wanted answered. Questions about things that, whatever way you looked at them, still did not make sense.

Dehan startled me by speaking suddenly.

“You know what the lab is going to find.”

“Yeah. They are the murder weapons. There is no doubt in my mind about that.”

“Then I don’t understand why you haven’t arrested Humberto.”

I felt a sudden rush of irritation, but suppressed it. “There are things that don’t make much sense to me right now.”

“Like what?”

I took a deep breath and tried to organize my thoughts.

“Well, to begin with, what, precisely, would make Sylvie conceal Humberto’s identity as her husband’s killer, even from Paul?”

She raised her eyebrows.