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

Dehan pulled on her jacket and I climbed into my gabardine. At the door Dehan stopped and looked up at the cold, blue sky. A few clouds were gathering out over the Atlantic. She went up on her toes, bit her lower lip and turned to me.

“Something’s wrong.”

“I know, I just don’t know what it is.”

“It all fits, it all works, but…” Her eyes flitted over my face. “It’s Lea. Lea is wrong. I can’t see why, but it doesn’t work. That part of the story is wrong.”

I sighed. “Yeah, you’re right. Lea is wrong. Let’s hope Marcus can tell us why.”

“Yeah,” she said, “let’s hope so.”

Eighteen

Sonia and Mitchell’s financials came through that evening just before I set about roasting a leg of lamb, and Dehan sat at the table and went through them. I had made two very dry martinis, punched holes in the leg and stuffed them with garlic butter, brushed the leg with olive oil and lemon juice and covered it with fresh rosemary and Maldon salt, when Dehan leaned back and appealed to somebody called Jeez.

“Jeez!” she said, “This is enough to make you miss working with a real pro!”

I arched an eyebrow at her. “I beg your pardon, Carmen?”

“Not you, dummy. Sonia and Mitchell. Hell, Sonia looked smart, and Mitchell is supposed to be part of the intellectual elite of this country! Every month, for as far back as these records go…” She leafed through them. “Twelve months. Every month, on the first of the month, Greg Mitchell makes a payment of one thousand dollars. And every month, on the second of the month, sometimes the third, a thousand bucks shows up in Sonia’s checking account. I mean, come on!”

I smiled and started peeling potatoes. “People don’t realize the skill that goes into being a good criminal.”

“You ain’t kidding, big guy. Now, a month ago, five weeks, the payments stop. Two gets you twenty there is an exchange of emails, or more likely telephone calls, in which Sonia demands more money and he tells her to take a hike.”

“No doubt in my mind. Joe should confirm that for us in the next day or two.”

She got to her feet and stretched, then took her glass and walked to the kitchen door. She opened it and allowed the cold night air to creep in. With one hand on the doorframe, she stood and looked out to the backyard. I knew she was seeing the Mitchells’ backyard, and the shed at the end beside the wall of trees. I put the potatoes on to blanch them, and slipped the lamb into the oven at 400⁰ F. As I closed the oven Dehan spoke absently, like her mind was somewhere else.

“So all that’s left is to find Wagner and make her understand if she talks to the DA and claims self-defense there may not even be a prosecution…,” she turned and looked at me, “and see if we can get Marcus to talk.”

I took my martini over to her and kissed her nose. I do stupid things like that sometimes when nobody can see me.

“That’s about the size of it.”

She was pensive for a while, with one hand on my chest.

“This is going to sound stupid,” she looked up into my face, “but I don’t want it to be either of the Mitchells. I think the Mitchells were nice people, maybe even good people.” She shrugged and smiled. “A bit French for my taste, all that stripped pine and free love, but basically on the side of the angels. You know what I mean by that?”

“Yes.”

“Emma went crazy. Who wouldn’t, when your daughter has had her throat cut, your son has gone catatonic and your husband has spent the last six years falling in love with another woman?”

“Sure.”

She gave her head a small shake. “But I don’t want to believe that she was a bad woman. I don’t want to believe that she was capable of murdering a child, however much of a pain in the ass he was.”

“I know. We’ll know more tomorrow.”

And I kissed her again, but this time it wasn’t on the nose.

* * *

We rose at six the next morning and after a shower and a breakfast of strong black coffee and rye, we headed off at eight AM. It was a long, tedious and uneventful drive along one and a half thousand miles of straight roads and flat horizons. We arrived in Blunt at eight thirty the following morning. There are about three hundred and sixty people in Blunt, there is no deputy sheriff and no police department in Blunt, and, as far as I could make out there was only one restaurant, the Medicine Creek Bar and Grill, at the gas station. So we stopped there for breakfast and to splash some cold water on our faces, before heading on up to the Wagner ranch.

We had phoned ahead to the sheriff of Hughes County, who was located thirty miles away, at Pierre. He told us that visiting the Wagner ranch was high on his “to do” list, but if we wanted to mosey on up ourselves we were welcome to do that. We also called the Pierre Police Department and spoke to Chief Jonathan Davies JR, to inform him that we were making inquiries regarding a murder investigation in the Bronx, New York. He told us they’d received the BOLO and we should go right ahead, and if we needed anything, all we had to do was ask.

In Dehan’s words, “They don’t plan to be obstructive, but they sure as hell don’t plan to help either, if they can avoid it.”

We checked in at the Dakotas Motel, just outside Blunt, dumped our bags and then followed the road for another mile, through endless acres of flat fields under a spotless blue sky till we came to an intersection. There we turned right onto Route 83 and headed north for a couple of miles through the same vast, featureless landscape.