Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #2: Books 5-8 (A Dead Cold Box Set) Blake Banner (read out loud books txt) 📖

I took them and thanked her.

“Samantha, I have only a few questions for you, but your answers could be extremely important, so I want you to think very carefully and try to be as accurate as you can. You need to be aware that this investigation could go well beyond you and David and your relationship. Do you understand that?”

She looked at me a moment before answering. Then, she nodded and said, “Yes. Of course.”

“First of all, in 2007 you spent Christmas in Sri Lanka. Can you tell me about that? Why Sri Lanka of all places?”

She sighed and made a long suffering face.

“That was Dave all over. He suddenly developed this interest in Buddhism. All he could talk about was Buddhism. Buddhism this and Buddhism that and Buddhism was the answer to everything. And we had to go to Sri Lanka because Sri Lanka was the home of some special type of original Buddhism.”

“Theravada.”

She nodded at me. “Yeah, I think that was it. So as Christmas was coming up I agreed to spend the vacation in Sri Lanka. It was nice, but I missed the snow and the lights.” She smiled and shrugged.

Dehan asked, “Where did this interest in Buddhism come from?”

She shook her head. “I have no idea. He was like that. Ideas would just pop into his head. He’d become obsessed for six months and then forget all about them. Buddhism only lasted about a month or so…” She trailed off. “We got back, he went off to investigate his article, and that was the last I ever saw of him alive.”

Dehan gave her a moment, then pursued her point. “So, your trip was two weeks over the Christmas period. His interest in Buddhism would have started around the beginning of December?”

“I guess so, yeah.” She frowned. “Is his interest in Buddhism important?”

I was wondering the same thing. Dehan shrugged, then smiled. “You never know.”

“Samantha.”

She turned to face me.

“Can you think of anything unusual or in any way peculiar that might have happened during your visit?”

She heaved a big sigh. “I don’t mean to be difficult, Detective Stone, but with Dave, everything was peculiar and unusual. His behavior was never normal.” She ran her fingers through her hair and sighed again. “What stands out most for me is the fact that that trip was supposed to be an opportunity for us to start mending our relationship, to start healing. We had been through a difficult patch and I was getting frankly sick of him. I had hoped, rather naively I guess, that we could turn it around.”

“What happened?”

She shrugged. “Buddhism happened. There was a temple…” She paused, thinking, and gave a small laugh. “They have so many syllables in Pali! Jetavanaramaya? Something like that, in the city of Anuradhapura. He used to go there every day to talk with the monks, read, study. The fact is I hardly saw him during the whole holiday.”

I glanced at Dehan. She was frowning. She asked the question I should have asked, only my brain was wading through sludge.

“Was there any one, particular monk that he befriended?”

Samantha looked a little surprised. “Yes, there was. And if you give me a moment I’ll remember his name. Ananda. Ananda Sri Pannasiha. I remember because I used to tease him that he thought this guy was the panacea to all ills. And he wasn’t. Indirectly he was putting the last nails in the coffin of our marriage.”

“Really? It was that serious?”

She looked sad and nodded down at her hands on the table. “I think so, Detective Dehan. I was aware that he had lost all interest in me. He shared more with Jackson and Bob than he ever did with me. To be honest, when I found out he’d been shacked up with that bimbo…” She looked Dehan square in the face. “I was mad. I was really mad. But I can’t say I was surprised.”

I asked, “Did he stay in touch with this monk, Ananda?”

“I have no idea.”

Dehan bit her lip for a moment. “How about before? When did he first make contact with him?”

Samantha nodded. “Yeah, I think they may have exchanged a couple of emails before the trip. I’m pretty sure they did, because he chose Anuradhapura deliberately.”

I made a note on my pad and as I was writing, I asked her, “What connection, if any, did David have with Arizona?”

“Arizona?”

I looked up. She was staring at me.

She shook her head. “None whatever, as far as I am aware. Why?”

“During January and February, 2008, he made two trips by car to Arizona. I am wondering if you would know what took him there.”

“That was during the time he had gone ‘dark’ as he used to call it. He was investigating his article, so anything he did during that time would have been directly related to his article. If he went to Arizona, then you can be sure that Arizona had something to do with what he was writing about.”

I flopped back in my chair. A sudden, blinding realization had exploded through my numbed brain and I was kicking myself for not having seen it sooner. Dehan was saying, “So, as far as you are aware, Arizona had no special significance for Dave.”

“No, not at all. I had never heard him mention Arizona. As I said, it must have had something to do with his article.”

We talked a little longer, then Dehan walked her out and I returned to my desk and sat thinking about what Samantha had said. I could see it with perfect clarity, but in that moment it made absolutely no sense whatsoever.

A minute later Dehan came back and dropped into her chair.

“I think we have it, Stone. I think we