Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #4: Books 13-16 (A Dead Cold Box Set) by Blake Banner (best ereader for academics .txt) 📕

two crosses had been cut. To the side of the building there was a large lawn, and at the back I could see a long, low, clapboard building which I guessed was the hall.

The church door stood slightly ajar, like God knew we were coming but didn’t want anybody else disturbing his Monday morning with a pot of coffee and the New York Times. We clambered out of the car and, as I locked it, Dehan jumped up and down for a bit, billowed vapor from her mouth like a small, woolen dragon, and stamped up the steps to the door. I followed.

Inside, it was dark. Only the golden altar at the far end, beyond the transept, was illuminated. There, candles wavered and reflected off the crucifix and the gilt on the walls, and the frames of the paintings.

We proceeded down the central aisle. I coughed and it ricocheted around the rafters on the ceiling, knocking against the echoes of our footsteps. Out of the shadows beyond the transept, a small man with big eyebrows appeared, as though he’d been dislodged by my cough. He was little more than five feet tall, with a bald, shiny head, brown corduroy trousers and a sage green cardigan. He was holding a cloth and a can of furniture wax. The smell was both strong and oddly reassuring.

He looked at us uncertainly, in turn, one after the other, suggesting he was uncertain about both of us. Dehan said, “Are you the guy who takes care of things around here?”

His shoulders rose slowly and his head tilted to one side, like he was shrugging in tai chi. Then he spread his hands: shrugging tiger, uncertain dragon.

“I am not the padre. I am only the handyman.” His accent was more Spanish than Hispanic.

I showed him my badge. “I’m Detective Stone, this is Detective Dehan. We’re with the NYPD. What’s your name?”

“I am Juan de la Torre.”

“How long have you worked here, Juan?”

“Twenty, almost twenty-five years. I am naturalize now. I come from Spain…” He said ‘Espaing’, but I knew what he meant.

“Do you remember a group of artists who used to rent the church hall, about twelve years ago?”

He nodded. “They still rentin’ it. Mr. Giorgio Gonzalez, he is teachin’ his classes there, couple of nights por week.”

Dehan asked him, “Do you remember the group back then, one Halloween…?”

He was nodding before she had finished. “And the nice woman, Sue, she was kill. I remember. It make me very sad.” He pointed back past the transept. “You wanna come in my room? I make some coffee an’ you can ask me. Is very cold here in the nave.”

We followed him past the altar into the shadows. He pushed open an arched wooden door and led us into a small, neat room with a bed, a small cooker, a table and four chairs. There was also a single armchair in front of an iron wood burner, and beside it a small bookcase with a couple of dozen books. None of them was the Bible. He saw Dehan reading the spines and sighed.

“I am a communist and an atheist. I told Padre Romero, but he say he don’t care. He is a communist and an atheist also. Sometimes he invite me to eat in his house. He is a good man. From Puerto Rico. Please, sit. You like some coffee?”

We sat at the old wooden table and he poured us black coffee. He put a carton of milk on the table and a dish of sugar. We all sipped and he said, “I remember this group. Giorgio Gonzalez is the teacher, back then also. He is Mexican. All the women like him because he has the strong personality, lots of temperament.” He gave a small laugh. “I think maybe it is a bit of theater, you know? But he is not a bad artist.” He leaned toward Dehan and narrowed his eyes. “Perhaps he is a little bit prisoner of his own culture. You understand what I am saying. He paints like a Mexican in New York. Picasso, Monet, Van Gogh, Goya, they are painting like human beings in the world. Their art is for the everybody. But Giorgio is painting like a Mexican, so he is painting for himself. Is just my opinion.”

I smiled. “That is a very good observation. So you said you remember Sue?”

“Yes, of course. She was a nice girl.” His face lit up. “Always laughing. Always with a big smile on her face. I like her, and she is always happy to talk. Many people are thinking, ‘Oh, Juan is the cleaner. It is no good people see me talking with him.’ But no Sue. Sue was off the people. Nice girl.”

Dehan asked him, “Can you remember anything that happened around that time that was unusual, that struck you as strange in the behavior of the group?”

He made a face, pulled his mouth down at the corners, and shook his head. “No, the detective ask me the same thing. Nothing…” He shrugged again. “Nothing, everything normal, they come in for their lessons, they always laughin’, he is teachin’ them, makin’ a bit of theatre, ‘hey, look at me, I am an artist’… I remember she was kill on Tuesday. On Monday they have a class and it is a nude girl. Giorgio was jokin’ with Sue if she want to be the model. But she say no, and they get a model to come and pose. Pretty girl, nice figure, but she was complainin’ about the cold. Giorgio was laughin’ at her, flirtin’, comin’ on to her. In the end, I have to go get some more heaters for her because she said otherwise she was leavin’.” He looked down at his coffee with a sad face, like coffee just wasn’t coffee anymore. “Pretty girl,” he said. “Giorgio no respect her.”

“Nothing