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

up a bottle of, I don’t know, Corison Kronos, from the table next to me and smash you over the head with it.”

“Okay…”

“Three years and six months later, just any random period of time, I go on a date with a guy. I’m getting into him but, during the course of the evening, I discover that he is married. I am so mad that we start having a row. He gets up to leave and I see a bottle of wine on the next table. The time you did the same thing to me flashes into my mind and suddenly it seems fitting I should deal with this guy in the same way I dealt with you. So I reach for the bottle on the next table, but it’s a Dalla Valle this time. Nevertheless, I hit him with it.”

“So basically, you are responding spontaneously, but in a commemorative way, to a similar situation.”

“Yeah.”

“Using whatever comes to hand in your immediate environment.”

“Mm-hm…”

“But there were no kitchen knives missing from the Martins’ kitchen.” I sat forward. “Unless…”

“Unless…?”

My desk phone buzzed. “Mary Martin is here to see you, detective.”

“Okay. Thanks, Sergeant.”

I stood. “Let’s talk more about this later—” I hesitated.

She stood and sighed, and looked embarrassed.

I muttered, “Or tomorrow, or whatever.”

We led Mary upstairs to interview room number three and sat her at the table. She looked nervous and kept smiling from one of us to the other. I gave her my best reassuring smile and she asked, “Will this take long? I have to help my mom with the chores.”

“It shouldn’t take long at all, Mary. We just need to ask you a few questions, so we can get a clearer picture of the situation.”

“I don’t know what I can tell you. I was only one at the time.”

“Actually, it is Jacob we are interested in at the moment.”

At the mention of his name she went very pale.

I watched her a moment, then added, “We think the two cases may be connected.”

“Jake?”

Dehan smiled at her. “I know it’s hard, Mary, but we really are trying to help you and your mom.”

“How are they…? How can they be…?”

“We don’t know.” I shrugged. “It’s what we need to find out. So how you can be really helpful to us, is by telling us, in as much detail as possible, exactly what happened that day.”

She put her hands in her lap and stared hard at the table top. She was nineteen, and probably bright, but there was a fearfulness about her that suggested the emotional age of a young child.

“Gosh, it’s kind of hard to remember.”

Dehan spoke softly, “They were holding a fête, or a garden party, over at the church…”

“Yes. I remember I wasn’t well. I went to bed with a chill and woke up in the morning feeling awful.” She looked suddenly startled. “I mean, not so bad I couldn’t go to help. I had to go and help out. We always do.”

“Sure.”

“So…” She stared down at her hands. “I guess we had breakfast, and started taking the things over.”

“Things?”

“The cakes, the cookies. Mom always bakes the cakes and the cookies for the fêtes.”

Dehan smiled again “And the brownies. Those are darned good brownies.”

Mary laughed. “Well, this time she forgot the brownies. That’s why…”

She went very white.

I prompted her, “That’s why…?”

“That’s why I had to come back for them.”

“What is it about forgetting the brownies that scares you, Mary?”

“Nothing. I’m just trying to remember everything accurately.”

I nodded. “Okay, we can come back to that. What happened next?”

A bead of sweat had broken out on her forehead. Her voice was unsteady. “We took all the things over to the church and started setting up the stall. And then people started arriving.”

I frowned. “At what point did you realize the brownies were missing?”

She laughed. It was an impatient laugh with an edge to it. “Why are you so curious about the brownies? They are just cookies!”

“When did you realize?”

She shrugged. “I guess it must have been about eleven or half eleven.”

“Where was Jacob all this while?”

“He was at home.”

“So your mom called and asked him to bring them over.” It was Dehan.

“No, she came and got them herself.”

I scratched my chin. “She came and got them? I thought you went and got them, Mary.”

“God!” There was an edge of hysteria to her voice now. “These brownies! They are not important!”

I frowned and smiled at the same time to show her I thought they were. “So who went to get the cookies, Mary? You or your mom?”

She took a deep breath. “Mom. Mom went to get the cookies. And then…”

I held up a hand. “Just before we go any further. Did Jacob ever get involved in church activities?”

She was rigid. I could see the tendons standing out on her neck and her brow was now beaded with perspiration.

“No.”

“How come? I understood that as a family you were all…”

“Not him.”

I waited. She didn’t say anything.

Dehan asked, “Since when, Mary? What made him turn away from the Lord?”

I glanced at her. It was an odd turn of phrase for Dehan, but it worked.

“When he was eleven or twelve, he started...” She seemed to be not so much searching for the right word, as trying not to use it. Finally, she spat out, “…deviating!”

Dehan looked startled. “Deviating? In what way?”

She closed her eyes. “Do I have to talk about this?”

“Yes, Mary.” I frowned at her. “It could be very important.”

“He started hanging out with…” Again she hesitated. “He started hanging out with non-church people at school.”

“What exactly are non-church people?”

She stared hard at the wall. “People from other faiths.”

I leaned