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

It was a big area.” She stretched out her hand to indicate it was large. “They had a big lawn with trees at the end, and flower beds and stuff, and they had a garden shed where they kept the gardening tools and flowerpots…” She trailed off.

“What happened?”

“They were having coffee, like I said, and suddenly they heard a lot of screaming. Brad said it sounded hysterical. They recognized the voices of the kids, and they ran to see what was going on. According to Brad, the voices were coming from the gardening shed. They rushed to see what had happened, thinking maybe one of the kids had hurt themselves with one of the tools. But it was much worse than that.”

She placed her fingertips over her mouth, as though she was receiving the shock all over again. She closed her eyes and spoke in a strange monotone, like some kind of android.

“They found Lea and Leroy dead on the floor of the shed. Emma said there was blood everywhere. The floor was thick…” She shook her head without opening her eyes. “Thick, with blood. Lea had had her throat cut, and Leroy had been stabbed in the back, repeatedly, as if in a frenzy.”

“What about…” I checked my notes, “Marcus? Where was Marcus?”

“They found him, poor kid, they found him hiding under a tarp in the shed. He was shivering and the ME said he was in a deep state of shock. He couldn’t speak.”

“But,” my frown deepened, “they must have spoken to him eventually. What did he say had happened?”

She shook her head. “No, the doctor said he needed time to get over the shock, but he gradually slipped into a catatonic depression, which just got worse. He never spoke again, from that morning on, till now, he hasn’t said a word. And as far as I know he hasn’t got out of bed.”

I scribbled some notes and asked, “What was the outcome of the investigation, do you know?”

“It was never solved. There was no DNA other than the kids’, nor any…” She made little flapping motions with her hand. I said, “Forensic evidence?”

She nodded. “Yes, forensic evidence. And the only witness, as far as they could tell, was Marcus. And he wasn’t talking. So the case went cold.”

I leaned back in my chair and tapped my pen on my notepad.

“As far as I can tell, from what you’ve told me, Sonia, there is nothing new here. You’ve described the two murders, very clearly and concisely,” I smiled at her, “and thank you for that, but there is nothing new. Unless we have some fresh evidence, it is hard to see how we can go any further with the investigation.”

She nodded at her hands, clasped on the table, but she didn’t move. I watched her narrowly for a moment, then went on.

“But you didn’t come here after six years just to repeat to me what I could have found in the file. Has something new come up? Is there something that wasn’t mentioned in the original investigation?”

She sighed again. “Not exactly. You see…” She stopped, then started again. “I told you that Leroy started going through a difficult phase, where he was rebelling against Brad and Emma.”

“Sure, it didn’t seem to worry them too much.”

“Well, what they didn’t know was that he wrote me a text message one day, a couple of weeks before…” She faltered again. I said, “Before the crime.”

“Yes, before the crime. In that message he said that he knew Brad was seeing another woman. He’d heard him on the phone, talking quietly, and he said he’d seen messages. So he cut school a couple of times and went to the university, where he said he saw Brad with another woman.” She reached in her purse and pulled out a cell. She opened her photographs and slid the phone across the table to me. “He sent me this picture.”

It showed a tall, slim man in his early forties. He was wearing a tweed jacket and chinos, and had a shock of prematurely white hair swept back from his face. He was smiling, talking to an attractive woman in her early thirties. By their expressions you’d guess they liked each other, but not much more than that. I gave my head a shake and looked at her.

“I’m afraid this proves nothing, Sonia. A university professor must speak to hundreds of people every week.”

“I know, and that’s why I never mentioned it at the time. I put it down to Leroy’s feelings of rebellion and inadequacy about Brad. He said he was going to use the photograph to blackmail Brad. I got real mad and scolded him, and told him he should be ashamed of himself, and to be honest I never thought any more about it until last week.”

“What happened last week?”

“A friend of mine at work pointed it out to me. It was an article in the paper. Brad Mitchell has opened a rehab clinic upstate, beyond White Plains, in the Silver Lake Preserve.” She stopped again, rubbing the fingers of her right hand with her left. I asked, “And…?”

“The psychiatrist in charge of the Mitchell Clinic will be Dr. Margaret Wagner, the woman in that photograph.”

I winced. It was close, but not close enough. “In itself,” I said, “if they are colleagues, there is nothing odd about that. If they have been working together for five or six years, perhaps much longer, you would expect him to name her, a close, trusted colleague, over somebody else.”

She was nodding. “Yeah, I know, and that’s why I didn’t come straight here. But I kept asking myself, what if there was something in what Leroy saw and heard? What if when Leroy saw them together, they were a lot more intimate than what comes across in that picture? What if he went to Brad Mitchell and did try to blackmail him? That was only six years ago; maybe they were already planning their clinic for celebrity drug