Diagnosis Murder 4 - The Waking Nightmare by Lee Goldberg Read Free Book Online

Jesse was on his fourth cup of coffee, listening as Mark finished telling him what little he'd learned about Rebecca Jordan and what little he knew about Winston Brant's murder. As little as all that was, it still took Mark an hour to tell it. Mark didn't bother telling Jesse about his problems sleeping or the disturbing dreams that kept waking him up.
    During that hour, Jesse left briefly to examine Rebecca's chest x-ray and her 02 levels and reported back to Mark that her chest tube was in proper position and her lung was re-inflated.
    When Mark finished his story, they sat quietly for a moment; then Jesse nodded.
    "I think I've got it," Jesse said.
    "Got what?" Mark asked.
    "I know how Winston Brant was murdered."
    Mark leaned forward. "So tell me."
    "You know those things that hunters use to shoot arrows?"
    "Bows?"
    "No, the cool thing that assassins use," Jesse said. "What do you call 'em? There was a girl holding one in a James Bond poster. You see her standing from behind and James Bond creeping by between her legs."
    "A crossbow."
    "You know the poster?"
    "I know the weapon," Mark said.
    "What if somebody modified a crossbow to shoot a knife?" Jesse mimed holding a crossbow and aiming it up at a target. "Somebody hiding at the drop zone could have shot Winston Brant right out of the sky."
    "You're saying the killer was one of the people on the ground waiting for the skydivers."
    "Using a crossbow that shoots knives," Jesse said. "It's the only explanation."
    "It's one possible explanation," Mark said. "But to be honest, it seems a little far-fetched."
    "What could be more far-fetched than a skydiver getting stabbed in midair?"
    "I can't argue with that," Mark said. "But even if we accept for the moment the possibility that someone could modify a crossbow to shoot a knife, and that he could fire it unseen by the others on the ground, there are still some major flaws in your theory."
    "Like what?" Jesse asked.
    "The killer would be shooting from a great distance at a moving target hundreds of feet up in the air. It's an impossible shot, unless the knife is propelled by some kind of explosive force, the way bullets and missiles are," Mark said. "Even if no one saw it, they would have heard it."
    "That's why I called it a modified crossbow," Jesse said. "Coming up with a way to shoot a knife with enough velocity and keep it quiet would have been part of the modifications."
    "It seems like an awful lot of effort to kill just one man."
    "That's true no matter how the killer did it," Jesse said.
    Mark sighed, suddenly feeling every minute of every hour of sleep that he'd missed. "There has to be a simple explanation."
    "Why does it have to be simple?"
    "Because if it's hard," Mark said, "it's just too hard."
    Jesse looked at him. "All this stuff about Winston Brant is very interesting, Mark, but you still haven't answered the question I asked you an hour ago in the ICU. What were you doing here at four thirty in the morning?"
    "I was checking on Rebecca Jordan," Mark said.
    "I know," Jesse said. "Why were you doing that?"
    "I couldn't sleep."
    "That's what TVs were invented for. Why do you think there are Gunsmoke reruns on three different cable networks every night?" Jesse said. "You're supposed to watch Matt Dillon and Chester and Festus and Doc and Miss Kitty until you're unconscious. You don't get in your car and go to work. So why did you?"
    Mark shook his head and sighed. "I don't know."
    "I think I do," Jesse said.
    "I hope this doesn't involve a modified crossbow," Mark said.
    "What was that problem you wanted my advice on yesterday?"
    "Just something with a patient," Mark said.
    "What something?" Jesse prodded. "What patient?"
    Mark sighed again and told him about Lenore Barber, her two brushes with lung cancer, and her continued smoking.
    "I can't get her to quit," Mark said. "She's going to kill herself."
    "Uh-huh," Jesse said.
    "That's really catching on," Mark said.
    "What is?" Jesse asked.
    "Nothing," Mark said.