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

Paul was on the sofa. Humberto was sitting next to him, holding his arm and rocking gently back and forth, muttering, “Pater meu… pater meu…”

My father.

Sylvie was sitting next to Humberto, and Mary was perched on the arm of the settee beside her, stroking her hair.

Dehan was sitting in the other with a ‘what the hell do we do now’ look on her face. The captain dropped into one of the armchairs and stared at me.

“You want to explain to me, John, what just happened here?”

I nodded and looked at Sylvie for a while, wondering if she would say anything. She didn’t. So I started talking.

“I have to go back to the beginning. Nineteen years ago, Simon and Sylvie Martin had a little girl in Texas. They were devout Methodists. Especially Simon. Isn’t that right, Sylvie?”

She nodded, and there was an edge of irony in her voice. “He sure was devout.”

“Simon worked for a large bank, the Federal United. They offered him a transfer to New York, which I am certain would have afforded him a good apartment, or a house, in just about any pleasant suburb in commuting distance of Manhattan. But Simon felt it was his duty, as a good Christian, to move to a less advantaged neighborhood, so that he and his wife could help the needy through the local church. In one of life’s little ironies, it was that decision that cost him his life.”

Sylvie’s eyes glittered with hard, cold anger.

“That was not the only price we paid. His damned arrogance and pride cost us all our lives, one way or another.”

The captain looked at her and frowned. He looked as though he was going to ask a question, but I ignored him and kept talking.

“Simon did his research and discovered that the Methodist church of St. George’s was in East Brooklyn, and as luck would have it, the house that backed onto that church was for sale. With the help of his bank, he bought the house and took out very generous insurance to cover the mortgage and a good income for life for his wife, should he die for any reason. What he didn’t realize was just what kind of a man the reverend was at St. George’s, or just how sick his own wife had grown of his pompous, Old Testament view of marriage, life, and everything.”

Paul snorted. “Where the human soul is denied its freedom, there shall Hell have its dominion.”

Dehan raised an eyebrow. “Who said that?”

Paul smirked. “I did.”

“I am told, Captain, that Reverend Paul Truelove is, and I quote, irresistible to women. It was not long before he and Sylvie were having an affair.”

I paused to draw breath but Dehan started talking.

“It was that, plus their unwillingness to tell the truth, that made us suspect them in the beginning. It was the oldest story on Earth. Sylvie had been informed in the February of the insurance coverage her husband had taken out in her favor. She knew that he was worth more to her dead than alive. She and the reverend were clearly into each other, and they were both clearly hiding something.” She looked at Sylvie and shook her head. “Your amnesia story was just not credible.”

“And there were other things, small details,” I added. “The fact that you were holding the phone, sitting on the stairs. However you looked at it, that didn’t make sense, the fact that there had been no forced entry. The weapon used was something you, Reverend, might have owned during your time in Brazil. It all pointed to you, Sylvie, having killed your own husband. Or, alternatively, the reverend killing him and you covering for him.

“That view was compounded when we discovered, Reverend, that you had lied about your whereabouts on the night of Simon’s death. You told us you had been at Eastchester Bay, but in fact you had been just across the garden, and had ample opportunity to slip in, kill Simon, and get back to the church. You had motive and opportunity.”

Dehan broke in again. “But somehow it didn’t make a lot of sense. If you had conspired to kill him so that you could both be together, why, after eighteen years, had you not gotten married? Also, we learned from Elizabeth Cavendish that on the night of Simon’s death, you had been with her, which did not suggest the actions of a man who was so in love he was ready to kill. And once you were taken out of the equation, it seemed improbable that Sylvie could have plunged that knife through Simon’s sternum. That would take a strong man. The theory that you and Sylvie had conspired with one another began to look shaky.”

I nodded. “But the more we looked into it, the more it seemed possible that Humberto might have been involved. His colossal strength and his passionate, quasi-religious devotion to Sylvie made him a potentially lethal foe for anyone who might simply seem to be harming her. We saw it in the church, and we saw it here, tonight. We began to wonder how bad things had become between Simon and Sylvie. We discovered that Humberto used to spy on her, or at least keep watch over her. You do not realize this, Sylvie, but just a few days before Simon’s death, you had a burglar in your garden. El Chato, who was on a housebreaking spree in the area, was casing your home.” I turned and nodded at Humberto. “Humberto found him in the garden and chased him off.

“We wondered if El Chato had not in fact got in, Simon had interrupted him, and you had witnessed El Chato murder your husband. On the one hand, it made sense, because Humberto kept talking about