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

an academic to have a conscience. Cops are like everybody else, good and bad, bent and straight, clean and dirty. Most of us are just doing a job, just like you.

“Now it just so happens you have, right here, two cops who are straight and clean, and our priority number one is to catch the bastard who killed your kids. But we can only do that if you work with us. So do yourself a favor, cut the crap and get with the program.”

Dr. Emma Mitchell stared at Dehan for a long moment with wild eyes. Then she jerked her shoulders free from Dehan’s hands, turned and ran back across the lawn to the house. I watched her disappear through the kitchen door and then she was gone. I turned to look at Dehan, who shrugged.

“She didn’t tell us to leave.”

I shrugged back at her and made my way past the shed to the wall of trees that formed the end of the yard. I examined them and walked the length of the row, from left to right, with Dehan beside me. They were dense, closely packed and entwined. Finally Dehan spoke my own thoughts: “It’s impossible. They are impenetrable. The killer did not get into the yard through these trees.”

“I agree.”

“That leaves the walls either side of the yard.” She turned, with her hands on her hips, and squinted at them. “What height would you say they are?”

I had already gauged them from the kitchen window. I said, “Nine feet, maybe a little more. And, see?” I pointed. “They’re topped with broken glass. Not impossible, but difficult, very difficult. You’d need skills.”

“Yeah.” She nodded. “You’re looking at using a ladder, putting some kind of blanket on the wall, and then using another ladder to get down. Unless it was one of the neighbors, I can’t see anyone pulling that off in broad daylight on a Sunday morning without being seen.”

I shook my head. “We’ll talk to them, but you’re right, it’s just not a realistic scenario.”

“Agreed. Which leaves us the front.” She began to walk back toward the house, pointing as she went and talking over her shoulder. “There’s a driveway down the side, that leads to a double garage. From the garage there is a path that leads to the kitchen door and the backyard. It’s the only viable access.”

We reached the kitchen door. I glanced in and saw Emma Mitchell sitting at the kitchen table with a mug in front of her. She was staring into it like a gypsy trying to read her tea leaves.

We moved on and followed a narrow path through a gate in a picket fence, and out onto a concrete driveway. On our right was the double garage. To the left the drive led down to the sidewalk and the road.

“Easy,” I said, “but the killer would have had to pass right in front of the kitchen door and the kitchen window. And—” I frowned and shrugged. “What’s driving him? What’s his motivation? I mean, does he arrive by car or on foot? What makes him stop and come up the drive?” I walked down as far as the sidewalk and looked up and down the road.

Dehan walked down as far as the blacktop, looked both ways and then stood staring at me. She said, “He hasn’t seen the kids. He can’t see them from here. And either he doesn’t know the Mitchells are at home, in which case he’s taking a huge risk on a Sunday morning, or he knows they are home and doesn’t care. He goes in anyway, which makes no sense.”

“Also…”

She interrupted me. “Also, how does he know the kids are in the shed? Like you said, he can’t see them. So what makes him go to the shed? He goes, bold as brass, right past the open kitchen door and windows, and goes straight for the shed. What made him do that? It makes you wonder, were the kids actually the intended target?”

I nodded. “That’s a good question. I have to say, Dehan,” I turned and started walking back up the drive, toward the garage, “I am not crazy about this theory. He comes up here to the gate…”

I stopped at the gate and looked into the backyard. The shed was not visible from where I stood.

“All I can see is the back of the house, the open kitchen and the open windows. But I open the gate, and instead of going to the house, I cross the lawn to the shed, which we know was not open, but just a couple of inches ajar.” I shook my head. “I cannot grasp what motivation he must have had to do that.”

Dehan leaned her forearm on the fence and her head on her forearm. “Unless, as we said before, this was either an accomplice of Lee’s in his blackmail scheme, or someone who had made friends with one or more of the kids and knew where they would be by some kind of prior arrangement.”

I spoke half to myself: “Or the killer was already in the house. And round and round in circles we go…”

“Nah.” I looked at Dehan and smiled. She had her lips pressed together and was shaking her head. “I just don’t buy that. It doesn’t make sense.”

I opened the gate and we went back into the yard and through the kitchen door. Emma Mitchell did not look up. I sat with my back to the sink and Dehan took the seat opposite me. There was a moment of awkward silence. Finally I said:

“Dr. Mitchell, you have to cooperate with us. The law requires it. But I don’t want to approach this that way. If Marcus is ill…” She raised her eyes to meet mine, expressionless but somehow also menacing. I repeated, “If Marcus is ill, then there is absolutely nothing we will do without the authorization of a judge, or a doctor. But at the very least we need to know how he is.