Read Online Evil Behind That Door by Barbara Fradkin - Free Book Online

letting Aunt Penny take the heat for this. “I was going to show you yesterday, but then the divers found Pete’s body and…”
    â€œAnd now we may never know,” Swan snapped. She pulled out her cell phone and went out into the hall. I could hear her passing the story on to her boss and telling him what the fire investigators should look for.
    When she came back in, she still looked mad.
    â€œThe fire destroyed pretty much everything, but once the place is cool enough, we’ll search it. What does Barry Mitchell know?”
    â€œHe was five years old. I don’t think he knows much.” I felt nervous. Barry was a loose cannon. God knows what he’d tell her under pressure. “But I had a good look around. I think Pete Mitchell hit his son in a fit of rage because he stole some Valentine’s chocolates. I don’t…” I tried to remember my theory from last night. “I think he was still alive when they locked him down there. But they thought Pete had killed him, so they made up the story about the cancer.”
    Swan’s blue eyes were boring through me. “So he died…down in that hole. Because of some Valentine’s chocolates.”
    I tried to shrug. It hurt every muscle. “That’s what I figure. I saw some Valentine’s chocolates down there. Pete and Connie disappeared on Valentine’s Day, exactly thirty years later. It got me thinking…”
    The blue eyes narrowed even more. “Thinking what?”
    I was on really thin ice here, unless I dragged Barry into it. “That maybe… maybe…”
    â€œMaybe the deaths are connected?” Swan asked. She was frowning and I could see her mind working. “I had a quick chat with the Ident guys this morning, and it looks as if someone tampered with the kill switch. The switch was still on, but there was a wire connected to it under the hood and running along under the bench. Looked as if someone rigged it to short-circuit the kill switch by pulling the wire.”
    I remembered the stuff on Pete’s workbench. The tools, the bits of wire, the greasy work gloves and the snowmobile manual, open to the wiring diagram.
    I was too tired to explain. But Aunt Penny was on the ball.
    â€œSo one yank,” she said, “and the snowmobile would have died. In the middle of the lake.”
    Swan nodded. “If you timed it right. The Wildcat is a very heavy sled. No question, with that keg on the back, it would go down if the ice was thin.”
    â€œThen it had to be someone on the sled,” Aunt Penny said. “Pete’s been going downhill for years, since losing his job and his child. Maybe he couldn’t live with it all anymore and decided to end things for both of them.”
    â€œThat’s what I thought,” Swan said. “Until Rick told me about their little boy. Maybe they both decided they couldn’t live with their consciences any more. And made a Valentine’s Day suicide pact.”
    I could have left it at that. It tied things up neatly. But the Mitchells came off almost as heroes. There were no heroes in this story. So I called up all my strength. “Why would Pete rig up a wire? If he wanted to stop the sled, he’d just hit the kill switch itself. It’s right beside his hand.”
    Swan pursed her lips in thought. Just then her cell phone rang, and she went back in the corner to answer. But Aunt Penny was still on a roll. “Okay, maybe it was Connie who couldn’t live with him anymore, or the memories of what they’d done. This explains why Valentine’s Day was such a big deal to them, and why she’d pick that day.”
    Sure it did, I thought. And the freezing water would make a pretty painless death. A perfect end. As long as you really wanted to die.
    But before I could say anything about the missing jewels, Barry himself filled the doorway. His face was red from the fire and his eyebrows were