Knife Edge (A Dead Cold Mystery Book 27) by Blake Banner (most inspirational books of all time .TXT) 📗

“Eliminate the impossible and whatever is left, however improbable, is the truth.”

“That’s the one. Now, somebody killed those two kids, and if there was no sixth person in the house, there is no escaping the fact that it had to be either Brad Mitchell or Emma Mitchell…”

I stared at her for a long moment, then shrugged and we both spoke at the same time.

“Or both of them.”

Five

In the car, headed north through Manhattan toward the Bronx, Dehan called Dr. Emma Mitchell. She put it on speaker a couple of seconds before the ringing stopped and a slightly impatient voice said, “Yes, this is Dr. Mitchell…”

“Dr. Mitchell, this is Detective Carmen Dehan. You spoke to my partner a while ago…”

“Detective Stone, yes. What is it?”

“As you know we are reviewing the murders of your daughter and your adoptive son…”

Dr. Emma Mitchell clearly didn’t have a lot of time or appreciate those who would deprive her of the little she had. She sighed.

“You’re quite right, Detective Dehan. I do know that. So there isn’t much to be gained from telling me it again. What can I help you with? And please, come to the point. I am very busy, Detective.”

Dehan narrowed her eyes at me. “We would like to see the scene of the crime…”

“Whatever for? We had cops tramping all over the house for days after the murder. They photographed it, measured it, scoured it, trampled it… What in God’s name do you think you are going to get from…”

I’d had about as much as I was willing to take of Dr. Emma Mitchell and cut her dead.

“Dr. Mitchell, this is Detective Stone. I’m going to offer you a deal—”

“…a deal?”

“Yeah, we won’t give you advice on how to teach a sociology class, and you don’t try to tell us how to conduct a murder investigation—or, for that matter, a cold case investigation. It would be very helpful for us to be able to have a look at the house, the garden and the shed. If you are unwilling to give us access, we will take due note of that and seek a court order. However, we would much rather have a positive, cooperative relationship with you.”

There was a long silence. I wondered for a moment if she had walked away from the phone, but her voice came back with a peculiar tone to it.

“All right, Detective Stone. You’ve made your point. When would you like to see the house?”

“As soon as possible. How about today?”

“Today?” She sounded more amused than surprised.

“And I’d like to talk to you while we’re at it, Dr. Mitchell.”

“For sure. Will you want my husband present?”

“That won’t be necessary for now.”

“Say, three o’clock?”

“That will do fine.”

“And, Detective, can you take me off speakerphone, please?”

Dehan raised an eyebrow at me and handed me her cell. I took it off speaker and held it to my ear. “Yes, Dr. Mitchell?”

“Will you be alone, or will your annoying partner be there?”

“We’ll both be there. This is a murder inquiry…”

“Don’t remind me, please. Very well, I’ll be there at three.”

We stopped for a coffee at the Shore Haven Diner on Castle Hill Avenue, and at ten to three, made our way down to Turneur Avenue. The Mitchells’ house was a large, two-storey, double-fronted affair in cream clapboard, with gabled roofs and an art deco stained-glass fanlight over the front door. Seven redbrick steps rose to a small porch with a white, wrought-iron balustrade. There were two lawns at the front, with carefully trimmed orange trees, and a broad concrete path led to a double garage in back. We pulled up outside the white, wrought-iron gate and I saw that there was a cream Range Rover parked by the garage. Dehan raised an eyebrow.

“Who was it said there were no liberals left in New York, because they had all been mugged?”

I smiled. “It’s a popular myth, but there are plenty of liberals left in New York, they’re all just busy mugging other liberals.”

The car doors slammed in the quiet street and we crossed the front yard to climb the steps to the front door. It opened before we reached it and a woman, still youthful in her late forties, leaned on the jamb and smiled at me.

“Detective Stone?”

“Are you Dr. Mitchell?”

“I am.”

She held out a hand, palm down as though she expected me to kiss it. I ignored it and pulled out my badge.

“I am Detective Stone, this is my partner Detective Dehan. May we come inside, Dr. Mitchell?”

She raised a mocking eyebrow. “So formal! By all means, come on in.”

We followed her into what was not so much a room as a broad space that seemed to take up most of the first floor. There was a staircase that climbed up the left wall to the upper floor, and at the rear of the room a set of sliding, plate-glass doors through which I could make out the luminous green of a lawn. In front of it there was a large dining table covered in magazines and newspapers. Bookshelves lined most of the walls and to the right of the front door an eclectic cluster of armchairs and sofas formed a loose semicircle around an open fireplace.

She stopped and turned to face me. She didn’t look at Dehan.

“So, what do you want to see?”

I glanced at Dehan. She said, “Where exactly were you sitting when you and your husband heard the screams?”

Emma Mitchell narrowed her eyes at me and turned on her heel. “We were breakfasting in the kitchen.”

We followed her through a door to the left of the sliding doors, under the stairs, and into a kitchen which, at about half the size of the living room, was still large. A window on the right overlooked a patio beyond which a large expanse of lawn led to a pond and a row of cypress trees. Just beside them, in the far right-hand corner of the garden, there