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

“And that would mean…”

“That Leroy saw it, and lied about it.”

Eight

“OK, sensei…,” she sat forward with her hands dangling between her knees, “I’ll grant you I had not seen all that. I grant you also, it is not just the use of knives, there are too many parallels between the two cases for them not to be somehow connected.” She shook her head a few times. “But how?”

I shrugged. “The obvious connection is Leroy, Lee.”

She shook her head. “No.”

“No?”

“No. It’s not enough.” She spread her hands and hunched her shoulders in a gesture that was unmistakably Latin, but also essentially Jewish. “What?” she said. “He was a collateral victim in the first murder, and a direct victim in the second. That does not in any way explain all the parallels. It does not explain how Earl survived long enough to kill his wife, or, if he didn’t, who did kill her.” She ignored my nods and went on. “It doesn’t explain the use of a knife in both cases and it doesn’t explain the…,” she faltered, “the coincidence of ‘nobody else could have done it’!”

“Nicely put.”

“Thanks, I’ve been working on it.”

“There is another parallel which I think is important.”

“Another one?”

“What you called the parallel victim. There is one in each case.”

“No, it’s too bizarre, Stone. There is no way of explaining that unless you start getting into all kinds of esoteric crap, karma, synchronicity… I mean, just what exactly are you driving at, Stone?”

I laughed. “Well, karma and synchronicity might explain a few things, Dehan, but I don’t think we need go that far.”

“What then? Are you saying the same person who killed Cherise killed the kids? We’ve been over that already.”

I didn’t answer. Something was nagging at the back of my mind. I said, “Where did Cherise work?”

“Kmart, on the till and stacking shelves.”

“What about Sonia, where does she work?”

“I’ve no idea. What’s her surname?”

“She’s not married, so it’ll be the same as…” I reached for my copy of the file, but Dehan was already saying, “Laplant, Sonia Laplant.”

She dropped her file and rattled at the keys of her laptop. I read from my own notes: “One hundred, Elder Avenue.”

She typed some more, her eyes scanned the screen. “She works at the Bronx Rehabilitation Clinic, on Underhill Avenue. Why is that significant?”

“I don’t know. It’s a five-minute walk from Kmart. And isn’t Elder Avenue pretty close to the Browns’ house?”

“Uh… Wheeler Avenue, one twenty-six, yeah, just round the corner. Talk to me, Stone. What are you thinking?”

“I don’t know. When I find out you’ll be the first to know.”

“That’s funny, but not helpful. It’s actually not all that funny, either.”

“We need to talk to Sonia again. She’s told us half the story. We need the rest.”

“Shall I call her at the clinic?”

“No, let’s drop in unannounced.”

It was less than a five-minute drive to the Bronx Rehabilitation Clinic, east along the Bruckner Boulevard and then over the White Plains overpass. The clinic was a six-storey, redbrick cube set in its own leafy parking lot, with a blue awning over the door. It was subtle, but something about it said it didn’t cater to Bronx junkies. It catered rather to those residents of the borough who would have lived in Manhattan if they hadn’t been priced out.

We pushed through the glass doors and crossed a parquet floor to a high-gloss mahogany reception desk. There was a middle-aged woman behind it with huge brown eyes and very full, very red lips. She made a question with her face, brushed it with a smile and waited.

Dehan leaned on the desk. “We’d like to see Sonia Laplant.”

She did something in her throat that sounded amused, like “Hnnn…,” and then added, “No can do, sweetheart. She ain’t here. She gone out with Dr. Garrido.”

Dehan showed her her badge and told her who she was. “When will they be back?”

“I have no idea, sugar. She’s Dr. Garrido’s PA, and he takes her most everywhere. Know what I’m sayin’? He’s gone to buy some paintings for his office, and she’s gone to help. Maybe she got a degree in art. I couldn’t tell you.”

“You know what gallery they’ve gone to?”

“Oh, I can tell you that. I got the brochure right here somewhere…” She pulled open a drawer and rifled through the contents. “Some place in Manhattan.” She pulled out a glossy booklet and dropped it on the counter in front of Dehan. Dehan read out the name, “The Searching I Gallery, I spelt with an ‘I,’ not E-Y-E. Broadway and West 85th…” She paused, reading, then, “Opposite the French Roast restaurant.”

I made eye contact with the receptionist and smiled. “Dr. Garrido is an art collector?”

She returned me the kind of smile that says, You can believe that if you like, and said, “Dr. Garrido likes anything beautiful, even if it is a little old.”

Dehan snorted, we thanked her and left.

It was a twenty-five-minute drive via the George Washington Bridge and the Henry Hudson Parkway and then south to Broadway and West 85th. The Searching I Gallery was an ugly, gray, one-storey cube that had been cruelly tacked on to a row of elegant, 19th-century brownstones opposite a French restaurant on the corner of Broadway. We found a place to park and walked, hunched into our shoulders, to the gallery entrance. The shadows were growing long in the copper light as we pushed in.

Near the entrance I saw Sonia standing with two men. One of them was by her side. He was of medium height and build, on the dapper side of elegant in an Italian suit, with expensively cut black hair swept back from his face. She was in a cream white suit, with a string of pearls around her neck.

Facing them both was a tall, willowy man in torn Armani jeans, with thick curly hair and a nose like a beak. He was gesturing extravagantly as he spoke, and wasn’t aware—or didn’t care—that his audience looked bored. Beside