by Blake Banner
A DEAD COLD BOX SET: BOOKS 5-8
Copyright © 2018 by Blake Banner
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BOOK 5 – THE SINS OF THE FATHER
BOOK 6 – STRANGE AND SINISTER PATH
BOOK 7 – THE HEART TO KILL
BOOK 8 – UNNATURAL MURDER
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BOOK 5
THE SINS OF THE FATHER
ONE
“This one.”
She had her boots crossed on the corner of the desk, at the end of her mile-long legs, and she was leaning back in a pool of lazy September sunshine. She threw the file she had been reading on the desk in front of me.
I sighed and dropped the one I’d been reading—a disemboweled mob lawyer—into the ‘maybe later’ pile and picked up her folder from the desk. She closed her eyes and made a temple of her finger, as though she were Sherlock Holmes. I was struck, not for the first or last time, by how exquisite her face was. She opened one eye and raised that eyebrow at me. “Are you going to read it?”
I sat back and put my ankles on the desk next to hers.
“Simon Martin, thirty-two, beaten and stabbed during a home invasion on the 5th of September, 1999, Bogart Avenue. That’s not far from here. Victim had just got home from work. He had bruising to the ribs and a jaw break consistent with having been punched and he had been stabbed in the chest with a very large knife. Weapon was not found. Wife, Sylvie, was apparently upstairs at the time of the assault, but suffered shock-induced amnesia, so was unable to give a statement…” I gave Dehan a skeptical glance, but her eyes were still closed. I continued. “There were no signs of forced entry. The back door was unlocked and there were footprints in the garden from common white tennis shoes, size ten or eleven. You awake?”
“I’m listening.”
“You can’t look and listen at the same time? I thought women were supposed to be good at multitasking.”
She opened her eyes and revealed a total lack of humor. “Really, Stone? Sexist stereotyping, now, are we? That is so typical of a man. The more sensory input you can shut down, the more you are able to focus.”
I ignored her and looked back at the file, glancing through the pages. “OK. Yeah, let’s do it.”
“You’re not going to read the rest of the file?”
“Tell me about it as we go.”
As we stepped out into the early afternoon, she said, “You know, Stone, you are not an unattractive man.”
I frowned at her. We crossed the road toward my burgundy 1964 Jaguar Mark II and I thought absently that it was not an unattractive car.
Dehan continued, which was a little unsettling. “You are not unlike the man, Bogart.”
“Knock it awf, shweetheart.”
I unlocked the car and climbed in.
As she got in the passenger seat, she said, “I’m serious. You’re taller, what are you, six-two?”
“Six-one.”
“Perhaps Harrison Ford or Hugh Jackman would be a better comparison.”
I reversed out of the lot and pulled onto Storey Avenue, headed east. I settled back in my seat and scowled. “Dehan,” I said with a degree of severity. “I know what you are doing. The answer is no, I do not want a woman in my life. What is it with you and trying to get me paired up?”
“I don’t know, Stone. You’re a good-looking guy, you’re comparatively young…”
“Thanks.”
“You’re one of the good guys, and believe me, that is rare. It just seems like a waste that you are single. It’s a shame.”
“We have had this conversation before. And besides, I could say the same about you. Only you are not a good-looking guy. You are…” I waved my hand around, realizing the conversation was getting into dangerous waters. “Anyway, the fact is we would probably both make terrible husbands and wives.”
She shrugged. “You would be a terrible wife. I would probably be a pretty good husband.”
“You are a very disturbing woman.”
She sighed. “That is what my shrink keeps telling me.”
I took Rosedale North as far as East Tremont, then turned left on to Bronxdale and right onto Pierce. Bogart was the second on the left. I parked outside the Martins’ house and looked at Dehan. She seemed abstracted. I smiled. “I’m glad it was Bogart Avenue and not Karloff.”
She gave a sad smile and climbed out.
There was a fish sticker in the window that told me that Jesus loved me. Another one told me that even though I did not believe in God, God believed in me. I was pretty sure they were both wrong. Dehan came up beside me and commented, “If they keep putting up enlightening stickers, they are going to block out the light.”
“Droll.”
I rang the bell and knocked on the door. Almost like a weird coincidence, the neighbor’s door opened and a woman with a very large, nosy air about her looked at me like she wanted to accuse me of something, but didn’t know what yet.
“They ain’t in.”
I smiled the smile of an innocent man and said, “Where are they?”
“Church. They are always at church.”
I nodded. “Of course. Can you tell me where the church is?”
She smiled unexpectedly and looked a hundred years younger. “Out back.” She pointed, in case I didn’t know where out back was. “Fowler Avenue. Right at the back, here… You can walk it.”
I thanked her again and we descended the steps we had recently just climbed up. It was a three-hundred-yard stroll through an odd neighborhood that blended leafy trees in the first russet shades of fall, with very homey red brick houses and soulless concrete yards fenced with steel tubing and wire mesh. The overall vibe was a very unhappy one.
The church was small, and judging by the design, early 20th century Methodist. It was a sturdy, red brick building with towering gothic arches and a rotund tower at the very back. It stood in its own grounds, surrounded by towering maple trees and gloomy-looking chestnut trees. There was a cute, red brick rectory on the left. The door, which stood open, was now dull, but once must have been a vibrant red with a set of heavy, black, iron hinges. A flagged path led to a small graveyard on the right, and beyond that there was a large garden. There, some kind of church fête seemed to be in progress. There was bunting strung from the trees and there were stalls selling secondhand clothes, books, vinyl records, record players, and ol
d rusty tools, as well as homemade lemonade, chocolate brownies, cookies, and cakes. There was a big crowd swirling around the church grounds.
We strolled in among the throng of people and headed for the cake stall. A pretty, blonde woman was attending it that must have been in her late thirties, and a pretty girl stood beside her, who had to be her daughter. She was probably in her late teens or early twenties. They both gave us bright smiles that looked as though they belonged in the South, where life is good and morality was uncomplicated.
“Hi there!” It was the woman. She said it like we were old friends, and for a moment I wondered if I knew her. “Welcome! Can we offer you some amazing lemonade?”
Dehan answered before I could draw breath. “You sure can, and we’ll have a couple of those brownies too.”
The daughter poured while the mother shoveled. I took my brownie from her and said, “Maybe you can help us. We are actually looking for somebody.”
“Oh.” She seemed genuinely pleased at the possibility of being able to help. “Well, we know most everyone around here, don’t we, honey?”
Her daughter nodded and also looked equally as eager to help.
Dehan said, “Sylvie Martin?”
They were thrilled and I swear the mother gave a little jump. “Oh, well, that’s me! I am Sylvie Martin!” She took hold of her daughter and added, “And this is Mary, my daughter! How can we help you?”
Dehan’s mouth was full of chocolate brownie, so all she could say was, “Umph…”
I took over, with what is generally termed as ‘an easy smile.’ “We are police officers.” I put down my lemonade, fished out my badge and showed it to her. “I am Detective John Stone and this is my partner, Detective Carmen Dehan.”
A hint of a frown, the smile strained almost imperceptibly by concern as soon as the words ‘police officer’ hit her ears.
“Oh, is there a problem…?”
“No.” I shook my head and bit into the brownie. It was good, and I allowed my face to say so. Speaking with my mouth full, I said, “It is the policy of the 43rd Precinct to review cold cases from time to time, Mrs. Martin, and we are currently conducting a review of…”
I trailed off. She had gone very pale. Her daughter was watching her and had placed her hand on her shoulder. Sylvie said, “I thought that was a permanently closed case.”
Dehan swallowed the last of her brownie and said, “Simon’s murderer is still at large, Sylvie. The case can’t be closed.”
“I would… We would all, really, rather put the whole thing behind us. The Lord dispenses His own justice.”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Martin.” I meant it, she looked genuinely distressed. “But we have to do our job. Is there somewhere we can talk privately?”
She gave a deep sigh and searched the crowd for a moment. Then, she raised a hand and called, “Oh, Paul… Reverend Truelove…!”
I turned and watched a large, leonine man, with silver hair swept back from his head in a perfect swoop, move through the crowd towards us. He looked for a moment like a Spanish galleon parting the seas in some forgotten, surrealist book of the Old Testament. He graced us both with the bounty of his kind smile, lingering a little longer and with more bounty upon the beautiful Dehan than on me. Finally, he turned to Sylvie Martin.
“Sylvie, who are your friends?” Then, turning to us again, he said, “Welcome to St George’s.” He had a voice like a particularly excellent church organ.
I showed him my badge. “Detectives Stone and Dehan, NYPD. Superb brownies and lemonade, by the way. We were wondering if we could borrow Sylvie for five minutes. It is purely a formality. We are reviewing a cold case…”
He frowned. “A cold case? You can’t mean poor Simon, surely?”
Dehan, with her usual directness, asked, “Why not?”
“Well.” He smiled. “That must be sixteen or seventeen years ago.”
“Eighteen, but it is still unsolved.” She grinned. “So we keep working at solving it until we bring him justice.”
“I see.” He frowned as though he did not agree. “Well, that is very commendable. By all means, would you like to use the vestry?” He gestured with his hand, ushering us in that direction. Turning to Sylvie’s daughter, he said, “Mary, you’ll tend the stall for a moment, won’t you?”
She smiled. “Of course, Reverend.”
Sylvie Martin led us down the side of the church, under the shadow of the trees, toward the side door into the nave, and all the way I could feel Reverend Paul Truelove’s eyes burning on my back.
TWO
The inside of the church was dark by contrast with the bright sunshine outside. The gothic arch of the doorway, on the far right, was startling, luminous in red and green. And on the left, there was the tenuous flicker of candles by the altar. Sylvie crossed herself and led us from the transept to another perfectly arched, wooden door that gave on to the vestry at the back of the altar.
We followed her into a comfortable room that had the feel of an old world library or study. There was an oak desk, a two-seater sofa and a couple of black leather chairs. Two tall, frosted windows looked out onto the colorful fête outside. Sylvie sat on the sofa with her knees together, and bent them slightly to one side. Dehan and I took the chairs. I smiled in a way I hoped was reassuring.
“Mrs. Martin…”
“Sylvie, please.”
“Sylvie. We understand that this must be difficult, and the last thing we want to do is stir up any painful memories. But you understand, a serious crime has been committed, and we are obliged to investigate.”
She nodded. “Yes, of course I understand. I will try to help in any way that I can, I mean if I can…”
“What can you tell us about the events of that evening?”
She placed her hands, one on top of the other, on her lap and looked at them sadly, as though they had disappointed her somehow.
“My memory…” she said. “My memory of that evening is practically nonexistent, if I am being honest. I just seemed to black out at the time and it has never come back.”
Dehan said, “Don’t worry. Don’t force yourself. How about the hour or two before?”
She smiled briefly at Dehan and said, “Um… I had fed and changed Mary. She was just one at the time. Ahmed had come over from the church…”
“Ahmed?”
“He was a refugee, a young Arab boy, from Iraq. He was just sixteen and Paul, that’s Reverend Truelove, had offered him some work at the church to give him a hand in making ends meet. Odd jobs, gardening and what not. We all hoped he would find the true faith, but we never pressured him.”
I frowned. “And he had come over to your house?”
“Simon had offered him work, too, in the garden, a few afternoons a week.”
Dehan sat forward. “So you had fed and changed Mary, and then Ahmed had come over and he was working in the garden.”
“Yes…”
“What happened next?”
Her face seemed to go tight. Her fingers closed on the hem of her dress. “I suppose it must have gotten dark. I am not sure. I know Simon came home from work. I remember he was calling to say he was home, but none of the lights were on in the house. I hate to waste electricity, you see, but I remember that the kitchen door out into the garden was open. I remember that without a doubt. I know I was sitting on the bottom of the stairs and the house was completely dark and still. I felt a bit cold. And Simon was lying there, in his coat. His briefcase was next to him and he was staring straight up at the ceiling.”
She frowned, as though she was trying to remember something, and I was surprised to realize she was crying. She held her breath for a moment, and suddenly she was like a woman with a bad cold. I reached over and handed her my handkerchief and Dehan moved and sat next to her, putting her arm around her shoulders.
“Where was Ahmed?”
“Gone. Gone before the dusk.”
“I know it is hard, but please try to remember. Did anybody else call
?”
“I don’t know. The kitchen door was open, into the garden.”
I smiled at her. “Do you come from Texas?”
She gave a small, damp laugh. “Is it that obvious?”
“Y’all still got the twang.”
She laughed and wagged a finger at me. “Y’all ain’t never singular, Detective Stone. Y’all best remember that!” She fiddled with the handkerchief for a moment, then said, “Simon worked at Federal United. They transferred him here. We didn’t really want to leave Austin, we liked it there, but it was a chance for a promotion and more money…” She shrugged. “So we took it. We could have gone to Brooklyn. The bank offered us a place there. But Simon said we could do more good through the church here, where there was more need.”
For a moment, I was reminded of the stickers in her window, but I didn’t mention them. Instead, I asked her, “Who alerted the police?”
She stared at me. It was an odd expression, almost apologetic. “I had the phone in my hand… It must have been me.”
Dehan stroked her back a couple of times. “Did you speak to him?” Sylvie turned to look at her. Dehan went on, “He called to you to let you know he was home. Did you answer? Did you say anything?”
Her bottom lip began to quiver. She made a strange, guttural sound like, “Oh, God…!” and collapsed against her, sobbing. Dehan enfolded her in her arms and looked at me, shaking her head.
I sat for a moment, watching her and thinking. When she had settled a bit, I said, “We won’t trouble you any more today, Sylvie, but we may want to talk to you again as the investigation progresses. I do understand it’s hard, but I would like you to give some thought to Detective Dehan’s questions and see if anything begins to surface in your memory. Can you do that for me?”
She nodded, blinking, and blew her nose. “I’m sorry.”
I stood. “No need to be at all.”
“I suppose I had better get back to my daughter.”
I smiled. “Y’all take care, y’hear?”