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

“How old was he when this happened?”

He puffed up his cheeks and blew out, looking up at the ceiling. “I see him one day, he should be at school, but he is at the mall. I say to him, ‘Hey, Jacob. Why you are no at school?’ Ah! He say, ‘School is stupid. I don’t need school. I don’t need God! I don’t need nothin’!’ I say, ‘Woh!’” He held up his hands, laughing. “You don’ need nothing? I ask him this. I say, ‘You need food, you need drink, you need air to breathe,’” He gestured at his mouth and his nose, in case we didn’t know what breathing was. “‘You need light to see. Who you think give you these things? Huh?’” He laughed, creasing up his face like he had asked a really funny question. “‘God! Eh? God give you these things. So, you sure you don’t need God?’”

“How old would he have been when this happened, Ahmed?”

“So, maybe twelve. Young man.”

“And after that he used to come to you regularly?”

“Yeah, couple times a week. We go to the mosque, talk to Mullah Al-Abas. Is very lucky for him I am meet him that day in the mall, huh?”

“Did his mother know that he had converted to Islam?”

Again he shook his head, spreading his hands. “I don’t know, Detective Stone. I offer the boy the path of God, but what happen in his home, I don’t know.”

“Did you ever return to the Martins’ home after Simon’s death?”

“No, never. Is not right for me to go to that woman’s home. She is not a good woman. She is a whore.”

“A whore? Why do you say that?”

He shrugged and made a face of disgust. “She is no marry again. She is probably fucking Paul. Maybe other men…”

“You have any evidence of other men in her life?”

He shrugged. “Nah… People talk.”

“You know she has suffered from amnesia for all these years?”

“I hear something.”

“What do you think she would remember if her memory came back?”

He frowned. “I don’t know… How I can know?”

“Because I’m thinking of bringing in a hypnotist to regress her, and then we will have a full account of what happened that night. And perhaps what happened to Jacob, too.”

He shrugged again. “I don’t know.”

I knew it was only a matter of time before Dehan opened her mouth, and now she did.

“Ahmed, let me ask you something. What is the penalty if a young man leaves the Islamic religion? What would be the penalty if Jacob decided to convert back to Christianity?”

He didn’t answer her. He did a strange thing. He gave me a smile like he was asking me to be reasonable, with his head on one side, spreading his hands. “In Sharia, he must be executed. Mohamed has said that nothing, nothing, is so hateful in the eye of God, as an infidel. So if a man turns away from Islam, the only penalty is death. But Detective Stone, please, have some respect for my home.” He gestured at Dehan without looking at her. “Don’t bring filthy, Jewish whore into my house, to ask me questions. Please leave now. Get out my house.”

I smiled at him. “Thanks, Ahmed. That’s what I suspected.” I stood. “But you know, she’s not the only Jew in your house.” He got to his feet and said something in Arabic that sounded obscene. I raised an eyebrow at him. “Yeah, I’m Jewish, too. So you’d better watch your tongue, pal.”

He made a guttural sound that was maybe going to be a word, but I cut him short. “What? You going to spit at me?” I laughed. “You ain’t got the balls.”

The result was predictable and covered most of my face. I assured him he had not seen the last of me and he screamed that he was going to report me to my superiors. Dehan and I withdrew to the car. There, I pulled an evidence bag from my pocket and, using the blade from my Swiss army knife, carefully removed the saliva from my face and put it in the bag, while Dehan watched me with narrowed eyes.

“What the hell was that all about, Stone?”

“Probably nothing. I am just covering my bases. What I need now is somewhere I can wash my face.”

I started the engine and headed up toward Rhineland Avenue.

“Since when are you Jewish?”

“I decided to convert last night when you told me about your uncle Ben, so we can marry and have fifteen kids.”

She laughed noisily for a while. “You’d have to give up bacon.”

“Huh. That was a short-lived conversion.”

“Asshole.”

I stayed on Rhineland, headed east. After a while, she said, “I don’t see how this changes anything much. I’m kind of struggling to see why you did it.”

“Jacob’s new friends were not Sureños. Remember Mary said they were from a non-Christian faith.”

“Oh.” She thought about it a bit, then scowled at me. “Shit!”

I turned into Seminole Avenue and pulled up in the parking lot of the Jacobi Hospital. We rode the elevator and found Frank in his lab. He looked surprised to see us. I pulled the plastic evidence bag and the envelope from my pocket and showed them to him.

“Frank, what do I need to do to get you to do this today? Name it. Whatever it is, I’ll do it.”

He frowned. “Why is it so important?”

“Because it involves the murder of a child, and there could be other lives at stake.”

“Jacob Martin?”

I nodded.

He sighed. “Every case I have is a priority, John. You know that. Every one of them involves somebody’s life, somebody’s loved one.”

“I know. And you know I wouldn’t ask you if it wasn’t really important. It’s a clean sample. I know you can do this in