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

can see. And if you move off the avenue, into the back streets, you find decaying red brick and rusting iron, boarded-up windows and graffiti, and the haunted eyes of people who don’t even despair, because hopelessness is the only thing they have ever known.

I pulled up on the stark, gray forecourt and we climbed out. The air smelled of exhaust fumes and thrummed with the steady flow of trucks and cars on the avenue and the four freeways that surrounded it. Nobody stopped here. People only passed through, in a hurry.

As we slammed the doors, a man in his late twenties or early thirties stepped out. He was good-looking in a Latin kind of way, with brown eyes, dark curly hair, and a shiny suit that was too baggy and probably too expensive. He smiled with very white teeth and nodded at the Jag.

“Nice wheels. You looking to sell it?”

“Not while I can still drive. I’m looking for Moses Olvera.” I showed him my badge. “That you?”

For a moment, he looked worried. “Sure. Is there a problem?”

“We just wanted to ask you some questions about Kathleen.”

His eyebrows shot up. “Kath? Well…” He looked from me to Dehan and back again. “Kath is dead. She died five years ago…”

Dehan frowned at him. “That’s why we want to ask you about her, Mo.”

He gave a small, nervous laugh. “But that was in Colorado.”

I studied his face a moment, trying to read what was going on behind it. Finally, I said, “Is there somewhere we can talk?”

“Well sure, come on in to the office. Anne-Marie is there…”

“We’d like to talk to her, too.”

He led us out of the glare and the noise into a cool, shaded interior where everything was shiny: the floors, the plate glass windows, the cars—his suit and his teeth fit right in there. We followed him across the showroom and into a small office at the back. Anne-Marie looked up and smiled as we came in. She was an attractive woman with blonde hair and dark blue eyes. She had a natural elegance that was missing in Mo.

“Good afternoon.”

I smiled back and showed her my badge. “You Anne-Marie?” The smile faded and she turned to Mo before answering, like she was checking with him. “Yes. What is this about?”

There was a small table with four chairs around it set to one side, where customers could sit and sign their contracts of sale. Mo gestured us to it and Anne-Marie joined us. As she did so, Dehan spoke.

“The Lee County Sheriff’s Department has asked us to make some inquiries on their behalf regarding Kath’s murder five years ago.”

Mo sat slowly, as though he was somehow deflating. He said, “Oh… I thought we had left that all behind us.”

Anne-Marie reached out and touched his arm. She held his hand and stroked his hair. “How could it be, sugar? They never caught who did it, did they? They ain’t gonna stop till they do.” She turned to smile at Dehan. “Are you?”

I said, “The colder a case gets, the more difficult it becomes to solve it. But we never give up.”

Dehan put her elbows on the table and sucked her teeth. “What we’re really interested in at the moment is Kath’s state of mind when she went to Seven Hills. What made her do that, all on her own, with a newborn baby…?”

“Maybe you’d better answer that, sugar.” Anne-Marie turned to Mo. “You knew better than I did.”

There were some glossy brochures on the table, and now he moved them about a bit, as though he didn’t like the way they fit and he was trying to organize them into a better arrangement. “This’s kind of come out of left field. I’m not sure…”

Dehan had her eyes narrowed at him, like she was trying to peer through a dense fog. “Is that a difficult question, Mo?”

He flushed and looked straight at her. “No! No, I guess not. It’s just unexpected, after all this time.”

I gave him an understanding smile and said, “Sure. The report said she was depressed.”

He nodded. “She was. Postpartum depression. After Sinead was born, she got real low. I didn’t know what to do to help her. We were real close always, ever since her pa died. But then everything seemed to kind of change when Baby came along.” He shrugged and glanced at Anne-Marie, as though seeking support and confirmation. “We hadn’t really planned on having a baby yet. My work wasn’t real secure. In fact, I got fired just after Baby was born. And Kath was worried about having kids if we wasn’t financially secure. She was sound like that.”

Dehan raised an eyebrow. “How did you feel about the baby?”

His face lit up. “Oh, I was over the moon. She was the cutest thing you can imagine. Still is.”

I smiled, liked I shared his pleasure. “Mo, can you think of anything besides the birth of the baby that might have been depressing Kath?”

His smile faded. “Not really. I mean we had our money problems, and that was getting to both of us, but we was solid, and we had the family right by us, didn’t we?” He turned to Anne-Marie and she took his hand.

Dehan studied her a moment. “Did she ever confide in you, Anne-Marie? Did she ever talk to you about what was troubling her?”

Anne-Marie nodded vigorously. “Oh, Lord, yeah. We was real close. We was almost like sisters. She would tell me most everything. Even told me a few secrets about this feller!” They laughed and we smiled patiently. “But when this depression came on her, she just clammed right up. She wouldn’t talk to Mo and she wouldn’t talk to me. In a sense, that was what started me and Mo getting close, cause we used to talk