Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #3: Books 9-12 (A Dead Cold Box Set), Blake Banner [reading in the dark TXT] 📗

I just needed to confirm a couple of points before I reeled the killer in. I turned back to Gordon. “Alright, Mr. Gordon. You have a deal. But the minute we get a signal, or the landline is fixed, we contact the cops and they take over.”

I took a moment to look at everyone in the room. After a moment, I said, “Is there anybody here who objects? Is there anyone who does not want me and Detective Dehan to find Charles Gordon’ Jr.’s killer?”

It’s not the kind of question you want to answer in the affirmative. There was no reply at all and after a moment I turned to Sally. “Where is your husband right now, Mrs. Cameron?”

Her cheeks colored and her eyes were bright. I saw her breathing quicken and she fought hard not to glance at Gordon. “I assume he’s at home.”

“You had a fight?”

“Why would you say that?”

I raised my eyebrows and waited.

Dehan stepped up beside me and repeated, “Did you have a fight?”

She shrugged. “It was nothing serious. A disagreement.”

Gordon groaned and lowered himself into his chair again, covering his eyes with his hand. I kept my eyes on Sally. “What about?”

“He didn’t want to come here tonight. I did.”

“And did he?”

“What?”

Dehan said, “Did he come here?”

She hesitated.

Gordon said, “Yes. He did. He was here earlier.”

“You spoke to him?”

He nodded, then amended, “It was more a case of him speaking to me.”

I nodded a few times, chewing my lip. Finally, I said, “I need him brought here, now. Major…”

He stood.

“Will you go with Brown? Bring him here. Do not under any circumstances tell him what has happened. Tell him that Mrs. Gordon is not well, that she needs immediate help. She is distraught and needs sedating. Tell him it is a matter of the utmost importance and it is very urgent that he comes to the castle straight away. Can you do that?”

“Yes, yes, of course!”

“Good, go, quickly.” He hurried away, calling for Brown, and I turned to face the room. “OK, now listen up, let me tell you how this is going to work.”

I stood and walked to the fireplace, where I could see all of them staring back at me.

“We’re going to need to talk to each one of you in turn, to get statements from you. It’s going to be slow and tedious, and laborious, but make no mistake, every single one of you in this room is a suspect. And when your own police arrive here, you’ll be even more of a suspect, because they won’t have had the advantage I have of having spoken to you all already, and got something of your stories.

“So we are going to take each one of you, by turns, into the dining room, get your statement, ask you some questions, and then you’ll be free to do whatever you like, except leave this house.” I smiled. “Not that there are many places you could go, if you did. Any questions?”

There was no reply, only the howl and scream of the wind and the stuttering flash of light outside the window. While I’d been talking to Gordon, the red-haired maid had brought some tea and a blanket, and Pam had come around and was now sitting huddled on the sofa staring at her husband with no particular expression on her face. I glanced at Dehan and she nodded.

I said, “Mrs. Gordon, do you feel up to answering a few questions?”

She nodded without looking at me. “Let’s get it over a done with.”

“I don’t know if you heard, Brown and the major have gone to get Dr. Cameron. When he gets here, I suggest he gives you a sedative and you try to sleep.”

She didn’t react. She spoke almost mechanically. “My son is dead. No amount of sedatives can change that. Let’s just find that bastard who did it.”

She threw off the blanket, got unsteadily to her feet, and we followed her into the dining room.

THIRTEEN

She sat at the foot of the long table and Dehan and I sat on either side of her. I studied her a moment. She was staring at the tabletop. I was aware that for her in that moment everything seemed unreal, because reality was too painful to face.

I said, “Mrs. Gordon, I think you were still unconscious when I explained this to your husband. It’s something very important that you need to understand.” She raised her eyes and frowned at me, like she couldn’t get how anything but her son’s death would ever be important again. I held her eye and said, “Your son’s murder was an almost exact reenactment of his grandfather’s murder.”

Her frown deepened as she struggled to understand what it meant. “But, that can’t be…”

Dehan leaned forward. “What is it,” she asked, “that makes it impossible?”

Pam looked at her quickly, her eyes flicking over her face, like she was trying to fathom why she was asking the question. “Because the old man committed suicide.”

I shook my head. “You must realize by now, Pam, that he did not, that he was murdered.”

And Dehan added quietly, “And for forty years nobody has been able to work out how. So that means one thing…”

Pam stared at her in horror.

I supplied the words that Dehan had left out. “Whoever killed Old Man Gordon may also have killed your son. So I am going to ask you straight out, Mrs. Gordon. Do you know who killed the old man?”

Her eyes shifted to my face, then drifted to stare at nothing but the nightmare images inside her own head. After a moment she said quietly, “No…” but it didn’t sound like an answer to my question.

“What does that mean, Mrs. Gordon?”

“I never believed…” She looked at Dehan,