Knife Edge (A Dead Cold Mystery Book 27) Blake Banner (10 best books of all time TXT) 📖

I cleared my throat. “Had that started to change recently?”

She winced. “Kind of, but let me get to that, because there are other things you need to understand. When Lee moved in, it was absolutely no surprise to me that almost right away he started to cause problems.”

“What kind of problems?”

“The first month or two he was quiet and sullen. He refused to play with Marcus and Lea, he refused to speak to anyone, and he barely ate. I warned them both that he was going to be a problem, but they insisted he just needed to adapt and find his own place in the family structure.”

Dehan asked, “And did he?”

Wagner gave a humorless laugh. “Oh he did! Boy did he! And then some. He became aggressive and foulmouthed. Poor Marcus was always frail and sensitive. Lee caught on to this very quickly and he started bullying Marcus mercilessly. He would punch him, kick him, swear at him, steal his clothes and toys… He was a monster. And Brad and Emma, who did not believe in punishing, tried to deal with it by having meaningful dialogues and family conferences, where everyone was free to say what they felt.”

She threw back her head and laughed. “Well at first Lee would use those gatherings to swear, insult Brad and Emma, hit Marcus, once he even pissed on the floor. But pretty soon he realized that if he played along and pretended to be ‘growing’ and ‘learning to integrate,’ Brad and Emma would get such an ego rush, and be so pleased with themselves that he would become the blue-eyed boy, so to speak, and any complaints that Marcus and Lea made against him would put them out of favor with Brad and Emma.”

“Shoot, that’s smart.”

“Cunning. Lee was not especially intelligent, but he was about as cunning as they come.” She paused a moment to think. “Well, obviously, that was not a situation that could go on indefinitely. It was not sustainable, and it was Emma who began to give under the strain. He was vile to her. He was always making lewd suggestions, insinuating that she was having affairs at work, that when he was older he would become her lover…it went on and on and in the end she began to crack.

“When he saw that, as far as she was concerned, his days were numbered, that was when he came up with the blackmail scheme.”

“Wait.” I raised my hand. “Hold on a moment. What do you mean exactly by, ‘his days were numbered’ as far as Emma was concerned?”

She put her hand to her mouth. “Oh, God no. I didn’t mean that at all. No, I mean that he had lost her as an ally and she was beginning to think in terms of actually returning the child into foster care. Brad was dead against it, but the strain had started to get to Emma and I know she was very unhappy, and so were the kids.”

“And that was when Lee came up with the blackmail idea.”

She nodded. “Initially it was just a way of ensuring they did not send him away. He had some idea that Brad and I were involved because, though we didn’t advertise it, neither did we hide it. The five of us, me, Emma and Brad, and the kids, were very comfortable with each other, so it was not exactly a secret. Thing was, Lee was such an ignorant little brat that he thought he had detected an affair. So he threatened Brad with revealing that supposed affair to his wife. Brad laughed.”

Dehan nodded. “He told us about that. He called his wife and showed her the photograph.”

“Yeah, that wasn’t a brilliant move, as it turned out. Lee was humiliated and furious. He told his aunt about it, and that sweet, lovely woman turned out to have a pretty deep dark side. She saw the potentials that Lee was too young and too naïve to understand. We had mentioned to her, just chatting, that we had plans to set up a rehabilitation clinic in White Plains. It came up because she worked with Dr. Garrido at the rehabilitation center in the Bronx. It was an innocent comment that had far-reaching consequences. She realized that if our relationship was conducted quietly and discretely there would be no consequences, but that if it was brought to the attention of the university and the press, the consequences could be catastrophic. It would put an end to the clinic, to our careers, to everything.

“So she took it upon herself to spy on us, follow us and photograph us. And then she went to Brad and Emma with her photographs and demanded payment for her silence. Brad, naturally, was all for what he called ‘publish and be damned!’, but Emma and I persuaded him to think of the kids and of his family as a whole. In the end we decided to tell her we were prepared to pay a sum every month, equivalent to a salary, for her silence. She agreed, and for a short while we had relative peace. Even Lee seemed to settle down for a while.

“Then Lea and Lee were killed.”

I raised my hand again. “Dr. Wagner, let me ask you, were you there that day? Were you at the breakfast table?”

“No, I was away in San Francisco, at a seminar, and I can prove it.”

“But they confided in you as to what happened that day?”

“Yes, they telephoned me that evening and told me about it.”

“What was it exactly that they told you?”

“That they had been reading the paper and drinking coffee after breakfast, in the kitchen, they had heard screams and rushed to the shed. There they had found Lea and Lee, dead.”

Dehan cut in. “Did they say which one of them arrived first?”

She paused to think and frowned. “Now that you mention it, no. But I think they said Brad found them.