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

logical possibility, Doctor, but when we cut him down, his toes could barely reach the mattress. Which means that he was standing on something that the killer rather foolishly removed after killing him.”

Cameron frowned. “Why would they do that?”

Dehan shrugged with one shoulder. “They were in a rush, in a panic. Maybe Bee had just started shouting for everyone to come. Hard to think clearly in a moment like that, especially if you are improvising. Perhaps he was afraid whatever it was would be fingerprinted, and he had no time to wipe off his prints.”

I nodded. “It’s possible. We’re dealing with a very tight timeframe.” I glanced around the room. “He came up the stairs. When everybody had retired to their rooms he went in, dosed Pamela, emptied the pill bottle down the toilet, slipped out and came ’round to Gordon’s room. He knocked…” I trailed off and pointed at a wooden box on top of a tallboy against the wall.

I went and had a closer look. There were slight impressions of dust on the surface, but it was hard to be sure. I shrugged. “It will be interesting to see what forensics gets off this box.”

I turned. Dehan was frowning. “So there’s a second weapon?”

I nodded.

She shook her head. “I don’t like that, Stone. It’s messy. Where from? If he had a weapon, why’d he need to steal the old Smith & Wesson? Where’d he get it from? All that time when everyone was in the drawing room…” She shook her head again. “What? He stepped out of the drawing room and found a pistol somewhere? I don’t like it.”

Cameron was watching us. “Yous keep talking about a man. It could just as easily have been a woman.” He pointed at Gordon. “He has no premortem or perimortem bruising. He was not physically forced to hang hi’self. Either somebody held a gun to his head or he committed suicide. An’ frankly, my money is on that. Frankly, I think you’re both full o’crap. It is plainly obvious what happened.”

Dehan raised an eyebrow at him. “It is? Care to enlighten us?”

He pointed at Gordon. “Nobody stole his gun. He took it down hi’self. This bastard killed his son because he found out that he was shaggin’ my wife, his mistress. After you told everyone you had solved the murder, he believed you, came upstairs, and in a final act of malice and rage he killed his wife and then went and hanged hi’self.”

I sighed. “I just told you he couldn’t reach.”

“How fuckin’ hard would it be tu pull hi’self up, hold on to the frame with one arm an’ slip the noose around his fuckin’ neck, then let go?”

“Pretty hard. Will you do me a favor?”

“What?”

“Have you got surgical gloves?”

“Of course.”

“Do you buy them on the island?”

He squinted at me like he was trying to fathom the depth of my stupidity. What?”

I gave him a moment, trying to hold on to my patience. “I’m not going to repeat the question, Cameron. It was very clear.”

“No! I don’t buy them on the fuckin’ island. What kind of a fuckin’ stupid question is that?”

“Have you got a pair with you?”

“In mah bag. Why?”

I held out my hand. He stared at it a moment, then sighed laboriously, reached in his bag and pulled out a sealed pack with a pair of surgical gloves in it. I tore the wrapper and pulled on the gloves, then I hunkered down, pulled over his bag and started going through it slowly and meticulously. After a moment, I said to Dehan, “You still got those freezer bags?”

“Yeah.”

She stepped over. I heard a rip and she squatted down next to me holding an open bag. I held up a syringe and looked up at Cameron. “You always keep your syringes lying around in your bag out of their packaging?”

He went pale. “Never. I have no idea how that got in there…”

I dropped it into the improvised evidence bag and smiled at Dehan. “There’s your weapon. The needle is down the can on its way to the bottom of the North Atlantic.” I looked back at Cameron. “I’m prepared to bet that if the ME looks hard enough among all the bruising caused by the rope, he’ll find a needle mark on the right side of Gordon’s neck.”

Dehan stood. “That’s why there was no syringe in Pam’s bedroom. He brought it with him, knocked on the door. Threatened Gordon with it, made him climb on the bed, probably on the box, then pushed him off, and replaced the box when Bee started screaming…”

“He flushed the needle, made his way to Pam’s room, and when the Doc arrived, he dropped the syringe back in his bag. If we’re lucky, we may get prints from it.” I stood and looked at Cameron, who was staring at me with his mouth open. “You want to get off my case now, Doctor?”

Dehan said. “Our pool of suspects is very small, and the Doc is right. It could just as easily be a woman.”

I nodded. “Doc, will you leave your bag there and join the others in the spare bedroom, please?”

He was shaking his head. “Och, no, you cannot believe that I did thus…”

“You want to tell me why?”

He fumbled and stammered, “I might have had reason to want the old man dead, but why would I kill young Charles? An’ Pam?”

Dehan shrugged. “To frame somebody else? The whole damn household heard you threaten Gordon. Your exact words were, if I remember rightly, that you would make him pay and you would destroy him. Killing his son and his wife, and then him, and make it look like he did it himself seems to me to be a pretty comprehensive way of destroying him, Doc.” She nodded at his