Knife Edge (A Dead Cold Mystery Book 27) Page 14

  I grunted. “But the repercussions for you professionally, and for the clinic you were planning, could have been severe if the nature of your relationship with Dr. Wagner had been revealed.”

  “Yes.” He blew his nose and took a second tissue to wipe his eyes and dry his cheeks. “That’s true, and it did worry me some. But I have always been with the Duke of Wellington on that score, publish and be damned. I have nothing to be ashamed of, and frankly I think it’s time society grew up a little.”

  “Did your wife and Dr. Wagner see it that way?”

  “Emma did, certainly. It is also true that we were both wealthy in our own right. But Margaret had fought her way to eminence from near poverty. She had a lot to lose, particularly as regards the clinic.”

  Dehan said, “If backing for the clinic had failed, or if it had been shunned by the celebrities it was aimed at, it would have hit her hard.”

  “Yes.” He nodded.

  “So you decided to pay Sonia off.”

  He didn’t answer. He stared down at the tabletop. Finally I told him, “We found the photographs.”

  He seemed not to hear, but started talking.

  “After Lea was killed, after Lee was killed, she revealed the full extent of what she had on us. We got together, Emma, Margaret and I, and we discussed it, and we decided that the best thing to do was to make Sonia an offer, but make her understand that as far as Emma and I were concerned, we didn’t give a damn if she published the pictures or not. We were doing it to protect Margaret, but we were only prepared to go so far in order to help her. It seemed to work, because for six years we hardly heard from her.”

  He paused, shaking his head. I said, “But a few weeks ago she tried to hike the price, and you said no.”

  “Yes, how did you know that?”

  “It made sense. That’s why she came to me with such an innocuous picture. It made little sense that Lee would try to blackmail you with a picture like that. But once she gave it that spin, that it was the blackmail that provoked the murder, we had to look into it. Then, when I saw the pictures she had on her laptop, it made me wonder why she had picked the least damning of all the pictures she had, to show me. That only made sense if she was putting a shot across your bows. A warning. Go with the price rise or face the consequences.”

  He drew a shuddering breath. “Yes, that was about the size of it. We were paying her monthly, but when she heard that the clinic was going ahead, she decided she wanted an increase.”

  Dehan gave a small grunt. “So Dr. Wagner, who had the most to lose in all this, took it upon herself to go to Sonia and shoot her dead.”

  “I find that very hard to believe. Margaret is a strong woman, but she is also kind and humane.”

  I scratched my chin, feeling vaguely uncomfortable. “Did you know, Dr. Mitchell, that Dr. Wagner had a gun?”

  “Yes.” He gave a small nod, still staring at the tabletop. “I bought it for her. New York is a dangerous city, and our business, though it may seem absurd, attracts some pretty dangerous customers. I mean that there are a lot of crazy people in this city, and many of them come to us for help. It’s not unusual for a patient to become obsessive about a therapist.”

  Something made me ask, “Dr. Wagner is not from New York?”

  “No, she’s from South Dakota.” He smiled wistfully. “She’s your classic farmgirl. Grew up on a ranch on the plains, not far from the Missouri River.”

  There was a moment’s silence. “So, what gun did you buy her, Dr. Mitchell?”

  He gave a small laugh. “Of course, she grew up with guns and her father had taught her to shoot a pistol by the time she was twelve. She was partial to revolvers, so I bought her a single action Colt, a .45. I don’t know much about guns, but it seemed to me to be a hell of a gun for a woman. However, she insisted that was what she was accustomed to. ‘If you’re going to stop somebody,’ she used to say, ‘you have to stop ’em dead.’” His breath shuddered. “In retrospect, perhaps I should have paid more attention.”

  “So she was a good shot.”

  “Very.” He frowned. “She is a very good shot.”

  “Do you own a gun, Dr. Mitchell?”

  “Yes, why?”

  “What caliber is it?”

  “Nothing like Margaret’s. It’s just a .22 revolver. I doubt I would have any accuracy with anything bigger, and frankly I don’t want to kill anybody. If I have the gun it is just to discourage, or perhaps wound, in extremis.”

  I glanced at Dehan. She was staring fixedly at him. I asked, “When was the last time you saw that weapon, Dr. Mitchell?”

  He went very still. “I don’t know. I keep it locked in a drawer in my consulting room at home. Weeks, perhaps a month. I detest guns.”

  Dehan spoke. “We are going to need to see that pistol. Sonia and your wife were not killed with a .45, Dr Mitchell. They were both killed with a .22.”

  His face flushed. “I did not kill my wife! I love my wife! I have not killed anybody!”

  I nodded. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Dr. Mitchell. Nobody is accusing you of murder. We just need to go and get the gun, and let the lab boys run some ballistics tests on the slugs.”

  He half stood. “Look, let me go with you. I have to see my son. You have had me here for hours. He must be very anxious. Please! Let me go home and see my son. I have not hurt anybody. For God’s sake! I wouldn’t even know how to!”

  I stood. “Take it easy. We’ll all go to your place. We’ll check on Marcus and you can give us the weapon. Just answer me one more question before we go. Where is Dr. Wagner? Where would she go if she was on the run?”

  He stared at me for a long time. “I don’t know. I really don’t know. I have no idea.”

  Seventeen

  We put out a BOLO in South Dakota generally, but we contacted the Blunt PD and the Hughes County Sheriff’s Office asking them to be on the lookout for Dr. Margaret Wagner, probably driving a Mercedes S Class sedan. Her parents had a ranch on Rocky Road, 206B, about twelve miles northwest out of Blunt. The sheriff told us he’d drop by and talk to them, to see if they had any idea where their daughter was, or might be. I didn’t hold out much hope. Something told me a South Dakota rancher wasn’t all that likely to sell his daughter out to a New York cop.

  We got to the Mitchells’ house and Brad Mitchell led us to the room he had at the back of the house where he saw private clients. It was spacious, elegantly furnished in dark wood and leather, and had a consulting area with an old-fashioned couch and an open fireplace. But directly as you came through the door, there was an old oak desk with a big, black leather chair behind it. Dr. Mitchell headed straight for the desk, sat and unlocked the top right drawer. From it he pulled out a steel case and unlocked that. He opened it and sat staring.

  “It’s empty.” He looked up at Dehan. “Why?”

  “When was the last time Dr. Wagner was here?”

  He shook his head, thinking. “Six months? Maybe more. We tended to meet at the university. Sometimes we went to her apartment on the Upper East Side. But she gave that up when she went to White Sands. She has her own apartment in the clinic. The last time she was here must have been six or seven months ago.”

  “Have you seen the pistol since the last time she was here?”

  “Yes, of course. I told you. I clean it regularly. I must have cleaned it three or four weeks ago…”

  I interrupted. “Who else knows you have it?”

  He mouthed at me like a goldfish for a few seconds, then said, “Well, just Emma. Nobody else. Marcus of course, but he…”

  Dehan cut in. “So, assuming Dr. Wagner has the gun, how did she get it? Has the lock been forced?”

  She moved around the desk and hunkered down to inspect it. She looked at me. “Nothing.”

  I leaned on the desk and held his eye. “Did you give her the gun and tell her to go and kill Sonia?”

  He was shaking his head, but I already knew he hadn’t.

  “Good gri
ef, no! Of course not!”

  “We’ve requested your financials, Dr. Mitchell. And we’ll be examining Sonia’s financials too.” I lowered myself into a chair and Dehan stood behind him, leaning against the window frame. “You’ve already admitted that Sonia was demanding more money, so what were you going to do? You told her no, and she threatened to make her photographs public. I figure she was going to send them to the university, maybe even the press, and investors in the clinic. What were you going to do? Try to weather the storm?”

  “We talked about it…”

  Dehan cut in. “Who? Who is ‘we’?”

  “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 think Emma Mitchell killed her own daughter?”

  “No, I think Lea was killed like we said, playing with Lee and Marcus, by accident. I think Emma was the first to arrive on the scene, not Brad, and in a fit of rage she killed Lee.”

  “Just as we thought happened with Brad, but it was Emma. And that’s why she didn’t want Marcus to talk. So who the hell killed Emma…?”

  I shrugged. “She pulled a gun on the wrong cowgirl. They’d known each other for years. Hell, they’d even been lovers. Maybe Emma lost her nerve. Wagner disarmed her, shoved her in the cubicle and shot her without hesitation, the way she’d been taught since she was a kid. Then she ran.”

  We were silent for a moment, looking out at the front yard. “She’s gone home.”

  I nodded. “I think you’re right.”

  She frowned. “So, if you’re right, Marcus is in no danger. What do you want the guard for?”

  “In case I’m wrong. I won’t be sure of anything until we talk to Marcus and Dr. Wagner.”

  She smiled at me, but it was a sad smile. “Road trip.”

  “Yeah, but we need to talk to the chief first.”

  By the time we’d made it back to the stationhouse, it was well past lunch and my stomach was reminding me of the fact. We found the chief in his office eating roast beef on rye with lots of salad. He dabbed his mouth with a linen napkin as we walked in, and gestured to the chairs opposite.

  “Please, sit, excuse me while I eat. Late lunch. I am trying to reduce the amount of red meat in my diet, you know. My wife makes me salad sandwiches, but then I buy roast beef at the corner deli and add it to the sandwich at lunch. A pointless exercise, I know, but…” He shrugged and smiled. “So tell me, progre
ss?”

  “Almost.”

  Dehan leaned forward, elbows on knees, and cut in.

  “It’s a bit of a mess, sir, but we are unraveling it. We now think the Mitchells have been colluding to conceal the fact that Emma Mitchell killed their adoptive son, Leroy.”

  “Good lord!”

  “He and his aunt, Sonia Laplant, had been blackmailing the Mitchells and we suspect Emma Mitchell must have grown to resent the boy. On that Sunday morning when the murder occurred, we think it all started when Lea fell while playing and damaged her throat. By the time Emma reached the shed, the poor kid was already dead. When Emma Mitchell arrived on the scene, and saw Leroy over her dead daughter, she snapped, went into a rage and killed Leroy by stabbing him with the gardening knife. Then, realizing they would have to call the cops, they decided to cut Lea’s throat and make it look like some third party had broken into the backyard and killed the kids. It almost worked. It explains why Emma Mitchell was so opposed to getting therapy for Marcus. If he started talking, she would go down for the murder of Leroy, her adoptive son.”

  “Yes, I see. What about Sonia Laplant and Emma Mitchell?”

  “We believe that recently, when Sonia saw that the Mitchells were opening a clinic in White Plains, pitched at the high end of the addiction market, she decided she was demanding too little in blackmail, and tried to demand more. That’s why she came to Stone with that photograph. It was a shot across the bows for the Mitchells, warning them she had more and more graphic pictures.

  “When we started to investigate, especially when we got access to Marcus, Emma panicked and decided to take things into her own hands. She took her husband’s pistol, a .22 revolver, and shot Sonia. She also decided to take out Dr. Wagner.”

  He frowned. “Why?”

  Dehan hesitated and I answered. “I think it was a combination of things, sir. The Mitchells had an open relationship where each turned a blind eye to the other’s affairs. But Mitchell’s relationship with Wagner had gone on for years, and from what I can gather, it may have been becoming closer. Coupled with Brad’s lack of concern about Marcus talking to us, Emma may have been scared that she was about to be replaced. Mitchell and Wagner were going to get therapy for the boy, the boy was going to talk and she’d go down for Lee’s murder, leaving the way clear for Brad and Margaret to be together.”