Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #2: Books 5-8 (A Dead Cold Box Set) by Blake Banner (best desktop ebook reader .TXT) 📗

“You just missed her. Her date picked her up about ten minutes ago.”

I smiled. “Her date? That was her uncle.”

Maria raised an eyebrow of her own to devastating effect. “That’s her uncle? Well, I would sure love to see her cousin! This dude was no more than thirty-two, and fit! You know what I am sayin’? I ain’t talkin’ about his health! They went off in his Mercedes Benz an’ she didn’t even say goodbye.”

I felt odd. She must have seen it because she adopted a mother hen look. “Well, what do you expect, Stone? Girl with those looks! You don’t do nothin’ about it, you’re gonna lose her!”

“Maria, what are you talking about?”

She pointed at me. “You wannit? You put a ring on it!”

“Keep your office gossip, and your fantasies, to yourself, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Si, si… Ha!”

I went and reported to the captain, then drove home, feeling inexplicably deflated.

Seven

Next morning, Dehan came in late at nine-thirty, with bags under her eyes and a face like sour retribution. I waited till she had sat down before I looked at her.

“How was your date?” I asked mildly, looking back at the papers I was reading.

“It wasn’t a date. I told you. It was my uncle.”

“Mm-hm.” I affected to be engrossed in the information I had printed out from the electoral register. “That would be the drop dead gorgeous thirty-year-old uncle with the Mercedes.”

“What? You’re spying on me now?”

I shrugged, still not looking at her. “To quote a dear friend of mine, ‘we are partners, we should tell each other things.’”

“I never said anything that lame.”

“Words to that effect. So who is the lucky guy?”

“Nobody.”

“Suit yourself. I have been searching since six this morning and I can find no trace of Humberto, either as Truelove or any other name, at the reverend’s address or any other address.”

“Snap.”

I frowned at her. “Snap?”

“That’s what I was doing last night when I was abducted by aliens. You’ve been here since six?”

“I couldn’t sleep.”

“Yeah, you look like shit. You should have called me. I couldn’t sleep either.”

“I thought you might be otherwise engaged.”

She gave me a look that would have curdled distilled water. “I’m alone when I lower my lamp, thanks, Sensei. Not that it’s any of your damn business. Moving on, did you see the email from the insurance company?”

“Not yet,” I said, feeling oddly cheerful all of a sudden. “What do they say?”

“You won’t like it. It looks like your friend Sylvie, the girl next door, ain’t so wholesome and mom’s apple pie after all.”

“Oh?”

She reached in a manila folder, pulled out two sheets of A4, and tossed them across the table at me. “February, 1999. Two emails, addressed to her, advising her of the insurance policies taken out in her favor by her husband.”

I read through them. They were brief, to the point, and very clear.

“That doesn’t look very good, does it?”

“How did you get on with Ahmed?”

I ran through the interview. She thought about it. “Pretty much confirms what she said, only in more detail.”

I nodded. “Pretty much.” I sighed. “You know what? The story…” I narrowed my eyes and shook my head, searching for the right words. “You hear it from Sylvie, you hear it from the reverend, you hear it from Ahmed, and you read it in the report, and it seems to be the same story…” I pointed at her. “Prima facie… but it doesn’t quite jibe with me. The versions are slightly dissonant. The people who remember were not quite there, and the only person who was there, doesn’t remember. And then there are the small ‘mistakes’, half-truths and lies… I want to get Paul and Sylvie in an interrogation room and scare them half to death until they stop playing games and start coming clean.”

Dehan was nodding. “Sure, they’re pissing me off, too.”

I drummed the table top with my fingers for a moment. “Do you know, Dehan, what day of the week was the 5th September, in 1999?”

She looked vaguely surprised. “You want me to check?”

“No. I know. I just wondered if you did.”

“No. I’m not that kind of freak. I’m weird in other ways.”

A flicker of a smile. I flickered back. “It was a Sunday.”

She closed her eyes. “Man.” She said it with a strange mixture of self-reprimand and genuine admiration. “You are good, Sensei. That is…” She opened her eyes and nodded. “What the fuck is a pastor doing dining out on a Sunday evening at seven PM?”

“I am no expert, but as I understand it, he should have been in mass, or whatever Methodists do instead. And when we were talking to Sylvie, she realized that. She was about to say that he went back to deliver the sermon and faltered. Between them, they are concocting lies, and I want to know why.” I sat forward. “Tell you what, Carmen, why don’t you get the phone records for Reverend Truelove for the 5th to the 6th September, 1999, and let’s see exactly when he did call her. Then maybe we get them both in here and have a talk.”

“On it!”

While she did that, I continued searching for any trace of Humberto. There was none. As far as I could tell, he was not officially in the United States. He was not registered at the rectory of St. George’s Church, nor could I find more than a handful of Humbertos in New York. Those I found were not him. Which only left one explanation.

I was half aware of the printer churning out documents, but ignored it and turned over the significance of that explanation in my mind. After a bit, I heard Dehan say, “Well, I’ll be.”

I looked