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

“Of course. The thing is, he was only aware of half of his problems, which is ironic, considering how things turned out. You see…” He leaned forward, glancing at us in turn with only his eyes. “She wasn’t only seeing Charles Sr. She was also seeing Charles Jr. on the side.”

“When you say seeing…”

“Oh, I mean that they were having a… you know… carnal affair, not to put too fine a point on it. Bit of the old one two, if you follow.”

Dehan raised an eyebrow. “And you are sure of this?”

“Oh, absolutely. No shadow of a doubt.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Well, he told me.”

Dehan looked skeptical. “Kiss and tell? That doesn’t sound like Jr.”

“No! Quite so. You are absolutely right, but you see, I was a bit of a confidant for the poor boy. Bee and I have sort of been around all his life, and he could never really confide in his father, or poor Pam for that matter, so Bee and I sort of stepped into the breach, if you follow. The poor boy wasn’t bragging about a conquest, far from it, he was worried sick about what would happen if his father found out.”

I said, “Let me see if I have this straight, Major. You are telling us that Sally Cameron was not only having an affair with Charles Gordon Sr., but also with his son, at the same time.”

“Devil of a thing, hey? Well I didn’t know what to tell the poor chap. I mean, I am a man of the world in that I have traveled just about everywhere on the globe, but tended to keep my nose clean where women were concerned, if you follow.”

My mind reeled for a moment at the choice of metaphor, but I tried to ignore it and thought about this new angle. The major kept talking.

“Of course, he didn’t go looking for it. He never did. But from what he told me, she sought him out.”

Dehan was observing him through arrowed eyes. “How?”

The major suppressed a schoolboy laugh. “Went to his room while the old man was snoring! Spirited girl, but a bit naughty.”

“So he came to you to discuss this because he was worried.”

“Yes. Well, he would be, wouldn’t he?”

“What was it, exactly, that he was worried about?” Before he could answer, she preempted him. “I mean, Major, I can see that there are several aspects to that situation that would be worrying, but what I am asking you is, precisely, what was the thing that was worrying him the most?”

He stared at her for a moment, like he was replaying her question in his head. Then he blinked and said, “Well, what his father would do if he found out. I mean, Charles Sr. is, um…”

He hesitated, so I said, “A cruel, vindictive man?”

He held my eye for a long moment, then said, “Yes. Yes, precisely that. A cruel, vindictive man.”

SIXTEEN

Dehan pushed the door closed after the major. We were alone in the silent dining room. She stood facing the closed door a moment and then turned and started pacing slowly around the room in her red scarlet dress and bare feet, with her fingers laced behind her neck.

“The more information we get,” she said, “The further we are from an answer. We need some kind of fixed point: something we can say, ‘This is a cert!’ So I am going to say for now that Pam did not kill her son. With this crowd of crazies you can’t be sure, Stone…” She stopped walking and turned to face me, with her fingers still laced behind her head. She seemed to be very far away, at the other end of the long table. “But for now I am going to take that as a fixed point. OK?”

I nodded. “OK.”

She turned and carried on walking. “So, who had motive? Bee seems to have no apparent motive, and on the face of it, neither does the major. Agreed?”

“Agreed.”

She reached the end of the room and started pacing back. “Armstrong has reason to hate Gordon Sr., but other than hating the whole Gordon family, seems to have no special grudge against Jr.” She stopped, eyed me a moment. “Dr. Cameron, on the other hand, has a very powerful motive.”

“He has?”

She started walking again. “Sure. Relations between Sally and the Doc are strained to breaking point. She is ready to give him his marching orders. They are bad enough that they are having rows in public, and where before she was just having an affair on the side, now she is seriously thinking of giving Ian the boot. They row and out of sheer spite she tells him, not only is she screwing the old man, she’s getting her leg over with Junior too.”

“I am horrified at your language, Dehan. I should never have brought you to this primal place.”

“More than that, how about this? Her plan is not to force a divorce between Gordon Sr. and Pam, it is to marry Gordon Jr. and become part of the family.”

I shook my head. “Mmmnyahh…”

“Mnyah why?”

“If she is hitting the hay with Dad, she cannot possibly expect to be welcomed into the family with open arms by him if she then declares she intends to marry his son.”

She extended her left arm and pointed her finger at me like a gun. “Wrong, Stone, if she intended to continue sleeping with Dad after the marriage. That level of humiliation would have been right up Gordon Sr.’s street. But either way, if she was planning to marry Junior and told Cameron about it, that gives him a motive, which he did not have before.”

“Granted.”

“And we know he was in the area at the time, and he has no alibi.”

“Also granted.”

She stopped