Candidate for Murder

by Lauren Carr

  “But I’m the one who started all of this. I nominated Gnarly,” David said.

  Bogie’s hand shot up. “We’re all in this together.”

  By midmorning, Dallas had arrived at the waiting room with a bag of chocolate truffles and three mocha lattes.

  Holding out the open bag of truffles to Archie, she said, “My momma used to say that when you feel lower than a gopher hole, sit back, eat a fistful of chocolate, and let God do all of the heavy liftin’.”

  The two women’s eyes met when Archie reached into the bag and took a handful of truffles. A soft smile came to her lips. Mouthing a thank-you, she leaned against David, who was sitting next to her, and sipped her latte. Taking a seat across from them, Dallas took a sip of her latte and then went about carefully unwrapping a truffle.

  “Archie! David!” someone said in the doorway next to the reception area.

  Dallas’ first thought upon seeing the stunning brunette with striking violet eyes and thick, ebony hair that fell in a single wave to her shoulders was that she was Robin Spencer come to life. She was almost a perfect duplicate of the woman in the portrait over the author’s desk. She was dressed in skinny white jeans, flat shoes, and a lilac-colored sleeveless top with a plunging neckline that accentuated her feminine curves.

  Then Dallas saw a man with dark-auburn hair two steps behind her. He was tall with long, lean muscles and a square jaw. His blue eyes sparkled when he smiled and greeted them. The only things brighter than his eyes were his smile and the deep dimples in both cheeks.

  “Jessie!” Archie jumped from the sofa and took the young woman into a tight hug.

  “Mac’s daughter and son-in-law,” David told Dallas in a low tone. “They must’ve driven in from Washington as soon as Archie called them.”

  “I told you that you didn’t need to come,” Archie said to Jessica Faraday while leading her into the waiting room, where David immediately hugged her.

  As soon as Archie had released Jessica to David, she turned to Murphy, who took her into his arms. “I’m so glad you’re home safe and sound, Murphy,” she whispered into his ear. “We all worry about you. When did you get home?”

  “Last night.”

  “We had to come.” Seeking comfort, Jessica wrapped her arms around Murphy’s waist and rested her head on his shoulder. “Dad sounded so bad yesterday. How is he?”

  “He has pneumonia,” David said. “His fever has come down a little. They want to keep him overnight for observation and are setting up a private room for him. If they get a handle on his fever, he can go home tomorrow.”

  “That’s good,” Murphy said. “Then they’re optimistic about him going home.”

  Grasping Dallas by the hand, David led her forward to introduce her. “This is Dallas Walker. I believe you already heard about her from your dad and Archie.”

  “You like chocolate.” Jessica took note of the bag of truffles in Dallas’ hand. “I see we’re going to be good friends.”

  “Well, then don’t be shy, darlin’, help yourself.” Dallas thrust out the open bag for Jessica to grab a handful of candy.

  While Jessica unwrapped one of the chocolate delicacies, David asked, “Did Tristan come with you?”

  “He’s pet sitting,” Murphy said.

  “Tristan’s working on an important presentation to apply for a fellowship to Oxford,” Jessica said. “He’s been completely immersed in the dark web studying cybersecurity…Or is it astrophysics?” She turned to Dallas. “My brother prides himself on being a renaissance man.” She asked Archie, “Can we see Dad?”

  After Archie explained that Mac was only allowed two visitors at a time, Murphy insisted that she and Jessica go to see him and leave him with David and Dallas. After Jessica linked arms with her stepmother, she and Archie trotted down the hallway to Mac’s room.

  “Was your mission successful?” David asked Murphy in a low voice. He noted the longing in Murphy’s expression as he watched his wife depart down the hallway.

  When he turned around to answer David, Murphy saw the news on the television mounted on the wall. The image on the news was that of a house in Brussels that had been blown up two nights before. The closed captioning reported that witnesses had reported hearing gunfire shortly before the explosion. Ten men were dead. The authorities indicated that the house had long been suspected of being a headquarters for a radical Islamic group with ties to terrorists in Syria.

  Dallas followed Murphy’s gaze to the television screen. “They’re all dead,” he said before a grin came to his lips.

  “Murphy?” David said, and then he repeated his question.

  “Yes. It was a successful mission.” Murphy tore his attention away from the television. “I’m sorry. I haven’t gotten much sleep this past week.”

  “Hey, O’Callaghan,” Sheriff Turow said from the doorway. With a jerk of his head, he invited them to the dining hall for a quick lunch. “I haven’t had breakfast, and I’m starving.” He led the way down the corridor. After getting an update on Mac’s condition, they each got sandwiches and chips and then took a table in the corner of the hospital’s dining hall.

  A pescatarian, or a vegetarian who ate fish, Murphy got a bottle of water and a salad with tuna fish sprinkled on it.

  The sheriff was pouring his soft drink into a glass when David asked if they’d found the burglar or the gun used to shoot Erin Devereux at the Braxtons’ estate the night before.

  With a shake of his head, the sheriff took a sip of his drink. “And we haven’t been able to talk to Nancy Braxton yet either. Of course, the media has gotten wind of the shooting.” He shot a glance in Dallas’ direction.

  “I haven’t reported anythin’,” Dallas said. “I’m waitin’ for the whole story before I go public, and I think there’s more to this shootin’ than meets the eye.”

  “Reported?” Murphy looked at Dallas like she was the enemy. “You’re—”

  “An investigative journalist,” she said.

  David waved his hand for the sheriff to continue. “What do you think happened, Turow?”

  “There’s certainly something going on,” the sheriff said. “Nancy Braxton has not made a public statement.”

  In silence, Dallas watched Murphy eat while David spoke.

  “Normally, she’d be all over this. She’d be right in front of those cameras, shrieking about crime and guns and needing more laws and bigger laws and bull like that. But sedated? That is in complete conflict with the position she’s running for and totally out of character.”

  “Maybe she needs time to get her story straight,” Sheriff Turow said. “That’s what I’m thinking.”

  “Maybe it’s a publicity stunt,” Dallas said. “The EMTs who brought Erin Devereux here told me that she made a phone call from the back of the ambulance before they made it to the hospital.”

  “She must not have been that badly hurt if she had enough wits about her to make a phone call from the back of the ambulance,” Sheriff Turow said.

  “She was treated and left before sunrise,” Dallas said. “And guess who drove her? George Ward, the chair of Nancy’s political party.”

  “And he was still there when I went by this morning,” Sheriff Turow said. “He said he was helping Nancy Braxton prepare for the debate tonight.”

  “She’ll be well enough to go to the debate, but she’s not well enough to talk to the police about a shooting at her home,” David said.

  “I’m beginning to agree with your girl Dallas that this is a publicity stunt,” Sheriff Turow said.

  “Well, if it is, I have faith that you’ll do the right thing. After all, this is your party, not mine,” David said.

  “No one calls out my people to investigate violent crimes just for the sake of a headline.” Finished with his lunch, the sheriff sat up tall and gathered his paper plate and wrappers. “Speaking of v
iolent crimes, about that other case we talked about—”

  “Another case?” Murphy asked. “What is Spencer’s crime rate?”

  “Enough comments from the peanut gallery,” David said before urging the sheriff to continue.

  “What other case are you talkin’ about?” Dallas asked David. “Did you invite the sheriff into our investigation of the Sandy Burr murder?”

  “What’s the Sandy Burr case?” Murphy asked.

  “Finish your salad,” David said to Murphy.

  “He’d better not be investigatin’ the Burr case,” Dallas said. “Because that case is mine.”

  “What about the Sandy Burr case?” Sheriff Turow asked them. “When was he killed?”

  “You yourself said that it was up to me to get new evidence in order to open up the case again,” Dallas told David.

  “And I meant it.”

  “Then why did you invite the sheriff to join our rodeo?”

  “Before I join any rodeo, I need to know what bull I’ll be riding,” the sheriff said. “Are you telling me that there’s another murder?”

  “No,” David said before correcting himself. “Yes. But it’s not an official case, because it was closed as a suicide. Dallas is investigating it and trying to dig up enough evidence to prove that it was murder so that we can reopen the case.”

  Sheriff Turow waved his hands for them to stop. “Can we talk about one murder case at a time, please?”

  “I asked Turow to look into an old case involving Bill Clark,” David told Dallas.

  “You mean that the other candidate is also involved in a murder?” Dallas asked louder than they wanted her to, prompting David to shush her.

  “What did you find out about Bill Clark?” David asked.

  “There are a lot of people in and around Deep Creek Lake who believe that the rumor you heard is indeed a fact,” Sheriff Turow said. “And for good reason, as there was no investigation, no autopsy, an instant cremation—”

  “Smells like murder and a cover-up to me,” Murphy said.

  “Me too,” Dallas said.

  “But it isn’t,” the sheriff said.

  “It isn’t?” David was unsuccessful in keeping the disappointment out of his tone.

  “Frankly, the way it looks, I’m surprised that it didn’t come up in Clark’s campaign.” Sheriff Turow let out a deep sigh. “But I had a heart-to-heart talk with the doctor who signed the death certificate, and he really didn’t want to admit what had happened—but when he became aware of where I was going with the case, he admitted that we were right about there being a cover-up. They weren’t covering up what we thought they were covering up, though.”

  “What were they covering up?” David asked.

  “A suicide. Ida Clark had late-stage cancer. She didn’t tell anyone and swore the doctor to silence because she didn’t want pity from her friends. Only Bill and the doctor knew. She was diagnosed the month after her daughter, Lisa, died. She was depressed and told her doctor that she was ready to join her late husband and daughter. He told Bill, who tried to keep an eye on her—his brother, Leroy, was never around. Bill found her dead. She had taken a whole bottle of pain pills. They didn’t want the shame of her committing suicide, so they covered it up to make it look like natural causes.”

  Dallas was suspicious. “Suppose the doctor made that up to cover up—”

  “He broke about a dozen privacy laws by showing me Ida Clark’s medical file, which had notes about the cancer in it,” the sheriff said. “I don’t like Bill Clark either. I believe he’s a pompous ass, and he could be capable of murder, but he didn’t kill his mother.”

  “But he did cheat his brother out of his half of the inheritance,” David said. “How many months did Ida Clark have cancer before she killed herself? I can just see it. Manipulating his mother, Bill Clark convinced her that for her sake, she should put his name on all of her bank accounts—just in case something happened. And all of the while, he was planning to claim that that money was his, not part of her estate, which had to be split with Leroy.”

  “Bill Clark has no moral compass,” Sheriff Turow said. “We already know that. But what he did was not illegal.”

  “Leroy Clark did file a suit against his brother,” David said. “Luckily for Bill, Leroy was killed when he got drunk and drove that truck into the lake.”

  “Knowing what you were going to ask next, O’Callaghan,” the sheriff said, “I looked into that, too. Leroy’s blood-alcohol level was point seventeen. He was drunk. He’d had a string of DUI arrests, and his license was suspended when he had that accident the killed him. Even if he hadn’t died, he would have had an uphill battle to prove that his mother had intended for him to get half of the money in those accounts that had Bill’s name on them.” He shook his head. “Sorry, O’Callaghan, but if you want to nail Clark for the bastard he is, this isn’t the case to do it with.”

  Chapter Ten

  Having grown up in Deep Creek Lake, Bogie was well acquainted with the ways of the local elections. He had been to many debates. Almost always, the same crowd showed up: those who were invested in local legislature and those who maybe weren’t so invested in it as much as they were curious about it. Most everyone else would stay home and find out what had happened the next morning while picking up breakfast at Beagle Bailey’s Bagels.

  This election was different. Over the last dozen years, Bogie had seen a change in Spencer.

  Decades before, the year-round rural population had outnumbered the seasonal residents in the lakeside-resort area.

  Gradually, all of that had changed. More big-city residents with fat bank accounts were moving into Spencer, building bigger homes along the lake and on the mountain, and bringing their big-city ideas, laws, and regulations with them.

  The rural populace didn’t see it happening. One new Spencer resident after another ran for and was elected to a seat on the town council—until they outnumbered the lifetime residents. While some dived into local politics with a sincere desire to help the community, others did so because of a personal quest for power.

  Bill Clark, who had moved to Spencer from Oakland after his mother’s death, was the cream of the crop. Bill had arrogantly bullied the current mayor into submission with every motion that he’d forced through the town council. With each new legislation, Clark would declare that they had taken yet another step toward bringing Spencer into the twenty-first century.

  In silence, the year-round local residents of Spencer stewed with every change made to their town—and to their way of life.

  The clothesline ban was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

  Even so, Bogie had not been expecting the circus-like atmosphere he walked into when he led Gnarly into the Spencer Inn’s lobby. He found it packed with seemingly every resident of Spencer, the mayoral candidates, their supporters, and the media.

  “How does your client feel about immigration?” a cable-news anchor asked Bernie and Hap, who were wearing their best Sunday church suits.

  “Oh, Gnarly is totally understanding about the immigration issues,” Bernie said. “After all, his own parents emigrated from Germany.”

  Trying to duck out of sight of the cameras, Bogie positioned himself in front of Gnarly and turned to go down the hallway leading to one of the banquet rooms where the debate was to take place—only to find himself face to face with Dallas Walker.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” she asked in a teasing tone.

  “The debate.”

  “They had to move it to the grand ballroom downstairs,” Dallas said, pointing to the floor beneath their feet. “Three times more people showed up tonight than the other night.” She knelt down to scratch Gnarly behind the ears. “And they all came to see you, handsome.”

  “They also came to hear his positions on the issues,” Bogie said. “Wish me luck.”


  “Oh, you’ll have them eating out of the palm of Gnarly’s paw,” Dallas said with a wave of her hand. “Hey, Bogie, can you answer a question for me?”

  “Well, that’s what I came here to do tonight. Guess I can warm up by answering yours. Shoot. What do you want to know about? Gnarly’s position on birth control? Immigration? Abortion? He’s pro-life, by the way.”

  “Murphy Thornton.”

  “Mac’s son-in-law?” Bogie shrugged. “I didn’t know you even knew him.”

  “Met him today,” Dallas said. “He and Jessica came out to see Mac. What does Murphy do?”

  Worried that David’s new girlfriend was becoming interested in the handsome younger man who happened to be married to Mac’s daughter, Bogie asked, “Why do you want to know?”

  “Everyone was very excited and relieved to see that he was safe and sound,” Dallas said. “David had told me before that he was in the navy.”

  “Lieutenant stationed at the Pentagon,” Bogie said.

  “As relieved as they all seemed to be,” Dallas said, “I get the impression that he’s not your average pencil pusher stationed behind some desk in DC. Is he special ops? SEAL? Come on. You can tell me.”

  Bogie let out a chuckle. “Dear, dear Dallas. Seriously? Now, if Murphy were with some sort of covert special ops in the navy, do you really think I’d know? Why would they tell me?”

  “Look! It’s Gnarly!” someone nearby said. An audible roar echoed through the lobby. An instant later, Gnarly was mobbed by the crowd. As hard as Bogie tried to hold on to him, he felt the leash slip from his hands, and like a log on a raging river, Gnarly slipped away in the mob of enthusiastic voters flowing down the hallway.

  “I am getting my butt kicked by a dog!” Nancy Braxton said as Dallas made her way down the hallway to the conference room where the mayoral candidate and her campaign team were prepping for the debate. “I knew most of the local yokels in this burg were morons, but a dog for mayor? He can’t even sign a piece of legislation.”