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

“I discussed it with Margaret at the clinic, and I discussed it with Emma here, at home. We hadn’t really decided what to do. Emma said she and Sonia had always got on well, so she suggested she might go and talk to her. But I don’t think that ever came to anything.”

Dehan asked, “What about Dr. Wagner? What did she have to say?”

He gave a small shrug and a small shake of the head to go with it. “She said she’d leave it to me.”

She glanced at me and I knew what she was thinking. I sighed and stood. “Dr. Mitchell, I am going to take you in as a material witness. I’m also going to put a twenty-four-hour guard on the house because I am just not clear on what’s happening here. I don’t know if you and Marcus are at risk or not. But what is clear is that the witnesses to Lee and Sonia’s blackmail scam are going down like flies. And that includes Lee and Sonia.”

I called the chief.

“John, nice to hear from you. What can I do for you and Carmen?”

“I need the twenty-four-hour guard on Marcus Mitchell to be extended till we close this case. And I need a car to come and take Dr. Brad Mitchell in as a material witness in Dr. Emma Mitchell and Sonia Laplant’s murders.”

“I see. Anything else?”

I told him there was nothing else and he hung up. Then I called Joe.

“John, how’s it going?”

“Yeah, OK, listen, have you got the ballistics on the Emma Mitchell murder yet?”

“They came through about ten minutes ago.”

“Can you compare them with the slugs recovered from Sonia Laplant? Something tells me it was the same gun.”

“Hold on, John…” I heard him moving around and rattling keys. Mitchell was frowning hard at me. After a minute or so he said, “Yeah, you’re not wrong. It was the same gun.”

“Thanks, Joe.” I hung up, looked at Dehan and then at Mitchell. “The same gun that was used to kill Sonia was used to kill your wife. I’m going to ask you one more time, Dr. Mitchell. Where is Margaret? Where would she go if she was on the run?”

“I don’t know. All I can think is that she might try to go back home, to her parents’ ranch. Other than that…” He shrugged and shook his head in a helpless gesture. “I have no idea.”

I looked at Dehan and sighed. “South Dakota.”

“One thousand, five or six hundred miles. Twenty-four hours, nonstop.”

Outside we heard a patrol car roll up.

“Dr. Mitchell, I’m going to have to ask you for your keys. They’ll be returned to you when you are released.”

He stood and reached in his pocket, handed over the keys and started to sob. His legs failed him and he sank back into his chair, repeating softly, “Oh God, oh God, this can’t be real, oh God…”

The doorbell rang and Dehan went to answer it. Mitchell was staring at me with a slack mouth and a wet face. I drew breath to say something, but realized there was nothing I could say. His whole world had fallen to pieces, and there was not a damned thing anybody could do to fix it.

Sanchez and Olvera came in. Olvera said, “Ogden and Santos are relieving us. We’ll take Dr. Mitchell in.”

I nodded. “OK, Dr. Mitchell is a material witness to murder. He has just lost his wife. Look after him.”

“Sure.”

They helped him to his feet and took him out to the car. I stood at the living room window, where Emma Mitchell had stood that morning watching me, and watched them help Brad Mitchell into the car, then I watched the car take off toward Lacombe Avenue. Dehan stood by my side.

“Stone, have you even the faintest idea of what the hell is going on?”

“Yes.”

“You want to enlighten me? You were as lost as I was an hour ago.”

I didn’t answer at first. My eyes were fixed on the road where the patrol car had been moments before. I spoke absently.

“The person who shot Sonia was a bad shot. She missed her target with practically every shot, even though she was standing at point-blank range. But Emma was shot by somebody experienced in the use of firearms. The gun was held close to the target and every shot found its mark even though the body must have moved and slumped during the shooting. The shots were fired fast, and without hesitation.”

“The way daddy’s little cowgirl might do it?”

“Yeah.”

“So who killed Sonia?”

“Emma.”

“Why?”

“To protect her son and her home.” I turned to look at her. “The three of them were adamant they were not going to pay more, but Sonia, seeing the clinic opening, and Dr. Wagner appointed as director, must have realized they were not giving her anywhere close to what she could be getting from them. She was not about to let up, and when she came to me with this supposedly new evidence, Emma must have panicked. When she saw that we were not going to be put off, we were not going to stop digging, and that her husband was apparently not worried, she decided she had to take things into her own hands and put a stop to it.”

“So she took her husband’s gun and used it to kill Sonia. But what about Wagner?” She frowned and shook her head. “I don’t get it.”

I sighed. “Brad Mitchell was keen to help Marcus recover and start talking again. Emma did not want that to happen. I suspect Emma had begun to see everybody as an enemy and was planning to kill Sonia and Wagner, and frame her husband for it. If she pulled it off, all the witnesses to what happened that day in the shed would be either dead, discredited or silenced, along with her husband’s affair with Wagner. We’ll probably never know, but that’s how I figure it.”

“Holy cow, Stone. Does that mean…” She faltered. “Are you saying you