Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #4: Books 13-16 (A Dead Cold Box Set) Blake Banner (ereader iphone txt) 📖

you must be Detectives Stone and Dehan. A pleasure to welcome you to our humble home. I was just about to take my morning constitutional, will you walk with me in the gardens?”

We said we would and stepped out of the church, back into the sunlight. We crossed the road and entered onto a large common, fringed by trees and dotted here and there with occasional benches. Once on the grass, he slowed his pace and said, “So, how can we help the NYPD?”

Dehan said, “We are trying to locate Cyril Browne.”

He stopped dead in his tracks and frowned at her. “Why don’t you speak to his sister? She lives right here.”

He gestured at her house. I scratched my chin. “We have. Father, if I could explain... Some years ago, Cyril became the prime suspect in a murder case.”

His eyes went wide and he stared at me as though he thought I was insane. “That is the single most absurd thing I have ever heard in my life. Forgive me.”

I nodded. “I know. It’s a long story. Just trust me that at the time, the evidence was compelling. However, my partner and I have uncovered new evidence that would seem to exonerate Cyril. The point is we do need to talk to him.”

He made a face and pulled his mouth down, shaking his head. “This is all news to me. I am afraid if you think I can tell you where he is, you are barking up the wrong tree. I have had no contact with Cyril for years.”

“No,” I said. “I imagined as much. But Mary told us that about twelve years ago Cyril flew to Europe. She doesn’t know where, or why for that matter, and she says she has not heard from him since.”

“I see.” He was frowning down at his feet as he walked, and sounded as though he really didn’t see at all. “But I am sorry, I am still at a loss as to how you think I can help.”

Dehan was squinting at me as though she agreed with Father Cohen. I plowed on.

“I don’t believe Cyril stayed in Europe. I don’t see how he could have. He had to have come back by now.”

“That seems reasonable.”

“So what I am trying to do is develop some kind of understanding about how Cyril thinks, what makes him tick, so that ultimately I can get some notion of where he is likely to have gone. I’m afraid his sister was not very helpful…”

He nodded that he understood. “Hmmm…”

“But if I can understand what makes Cyril tick, how he thinks, what things are important to him, what motivates him, like I say, maybe I can narrow my search down from the whole world, to places in the U.S.A. where he is most likely to have gone.”

Father Cohen stopped and stared up at the sky, like he was asking his boss what the hell he thought he was playing at, sending this bozo to spoil his constitutional. “Gosh,” he said. “That is a tall order.”

“No,” I said. “It’s not really. I think there is one, defining event in Cyril’s life that shapes and conditions everything he does.”

They both stared at me and Dehan said, “His parents’ death.”

I nodded and asked Father Cohen, “Did you know them back then?”

“I had just left the seminary. I was about twenty-five. I grew up around here. That’s why I requested this posting. The church is only twenty-five years old, and when they started construction, I spoke to the bishop…” He waved a hand at me. “But you don’t want to know about all that. My point is that we, my family, we knew the Brownes. Most everyone knows each other around here. My father had married a Catholic girl from the neighborhood and we all—well, if we weren’t friends, we were acquainted.

“They were good people, very devout. Old school.” He nodded after he said it, as though confirming that old school was a good thing. “I can’t say that I knew them well enough to give you a psychological insight into Cyril, but I do remember the accident. It was tragic.”

“I believe he was in the car.”

He studied my face a moment and looked vaguely queasy. We had reached the center of the common and he stopped. “Yes,” he said, “but I’m afraid there is more to it than that. Shall we sit a moment?”

He gestured at a bench a few paces away by a small copse. We moved to it and sat. He took a deep breath and started to speak.

“Peter was the father. He was a strong man in every sense. Mary takes after him. They were very alike. But above all, his faith was strong. He was somewhat severe in his ways, but he was devoted to God and to his family. He worked hard and provided well for them. His wife was…” He sighed a sigh that was full of regret. “His wife, Marion, was charming, vivacious, happy, but of very poor judgment. And Peter—well, Peter hadn’t the imagination, the wisdom, what you will—he lacked the smarts, if you like, to provide her with the kind of joyful life she needed. We are all different, and where his frugal, Spartan existence was enough to fulfill him, it was not enough for her, and we all watched her wilt. She needed, poor woman, just a little more joy in her life.

“Sadly, tragically, she met a man who was only too willing to provide that joy. She began to see him while Peter was at work and the children were at school. This man, I forget his name, worked on the local paper. He was a man of few morals, and the few he had he tended to neglect. He spent much of his time in bars and worked often from home. So Marion