Candidate for Murder

by Lauren Carr

  “And on the Internet,” Bernie studied Mac with narrow eyes. “It wouldn’t be on the Internet if it weren’t true.”

  Hap nodded his head in agreement.

  Mac held up his hand in an oath. “I swear on my mother’s grave that Gnarly just needed a couple of days of rest and relaxation. He’ll be back in a few days raring to go to beat Bill Clark’s butt and become Spencer’s mayor.”

  “Are you sure Gnarly’s safe?” Bernie reached over to tap Hap on the arm. “Now that Nancy Braxton is out, that leaves just Gnarly and Bill Clark, and we all know Clark. He’ll do anything to get what he wants.”

  His eyes wide with fear, Hap’s head was bobbing up and down.

  In a harsh whisper, Bernie said, “Everyone knows Clark killed his own mother.”

  Mac looked from one of them to the other. “I assure you that Gnarly is completely safe. He’s got the best protection available.”

  “You mean you hired bodyguards for him?”

  Looking around to make sure that no one was listening, Mac lowered his voice to a whisper. “I didn’t put it in the release because I knew no one would believe it.”

  “What?”

  “The military has reactivated Gnarly. He’s on a secret government mission in Washington.”

  “No,” Bernie said.

  Hap’s mouth hung open. His eyes were so wide that they looked like they were going to pop out of his head.

  “What kind of mission?” Bernie asked.

  “It’s classified,” Mac said. “But I assure you that with the people he’s working with, there’s no way Clark could get anywhere near Gnarly.”

  Bernie and Hap exchanged long glances and periodically looked back at Mac, weighing whether they should believe him.

  “We have nothing to worry about,” Mac said. “As soon as this case is over, Gnarly will be back home safe and sound.”

  “Hey, Mac,” Sheriff Turow said. “You need to hear this. Looks like we’ve got a situation.”

  With a grin, Mac looked from Bernie to Hap and back to Bernie again. “Are we good?”

  After a pause, they both nodded their heads.

  “You’ve been doing a great job on Gnarly’s campaign.” Mac took turns shaking their hands. “We all appreciate it. Really, we do. And as soon as Gnarly is back from his secret mission, he’ll be calling you.”

  Mac was halfway across the squad room when he realized what he had said. Gnarly doesn’t have a phone. How is he going to call them? He shook his head. I’m losing my mind.

  Bernie paused at the door leading out to the parking lot to study Mac while Sheriff Turow and David briefed him about the situation. “You buying that story about Gnarly being away on a secret mission, Hap?”

  Watching Mac, Hap slowly shook his head.

  “Neither am I,” Bernie said.

  With a sense of determination, the two men left the sheriff’s department.

  On the other side of the squad room, Sheriff Turow directed Nathan Braxton to repeat for Mac what he had told them.

  “Well,” Nathan said. “It’s pretty much common knowledge that Nancy and I led separate lives.” He gestured to David. “I told that to the police chief here yesterday. It’s a known secret that I sleep with other women and that I have a longtime mistress, Eleanor.”

  “Eleanor confirmed Braxton’s alibi for the time of the murder,” Sheriff Turow said to David and Mac.

  “But,” Nathan said, “since Nancy was here in Deep Creek Lake campaigning and her election team wanted me available for photo ops, I started having a fling with another woman.”

  “Cassandra Clark,” David said to Mac. “I saw the two of them together.”

  “Bill Clark’s wife?”

  “They’re newlyweds,” David said.

  “I didn’t know she was Bill Clark’s wife until after we hooked up,” Nathan said. “We were in bed…after…And then she started talking about what a twerp Bill Clark was. One thing after another about how great he thought he was, and then when she started talking about how lousy he was in bed, I thought, ‘damn it!’ I had just laid the wife of my wife’s political opponent. I started looking for hidden cameras. I was absolutely certain that it was going to end up on the news the next day and that Nancy would kill me.” Conviction dripped from his voice when he added, “I mean, Nancy literally would have killed me.”

  “But it didn’t make the news,” Mac said.

  “She hated Clark as much as, if not more than, I couldn’t stand Nancy. The fling continued.” Waving his hands, Nathan caught their gazes. “We’re all men here. You know how it is. It was no love affair. We only got together for sex, and she is—” He chuckled.

  Wondering if the fling had turned into a Fatal Attraction type of scenario, Mac asked, “Was it only sex on her end, too?”

  “Yes,” Nathan said. “But then—” He stopped. “The last time we hooked up, Cassie had had a big fight with Clark, and she was mouthing off about how, since I couldn’t stand Nancy, we should help each other out.”

  “In what way?” Mac asked.

  Nathan swallowed. “Well, no one knew about our fling. As far as the public was concerned, we barely knew each other. So she said that if I got rid of Clark for her, or at least arranged to make it happen, she would get rid of Nancy for me. Then we would both be free of them.”

  “Together or—”

  With a frown, Nathan shook his head. “We were only having sex together. Nothing serious.”

  “Serious enough for the two of you to discuss killing each other’s spouses,” Mac said.

  “I didn’t take it seriously,” Nathan said. “As a matter of fact, I forgot all about it—even when Nancy ended up dead—until this morning, when Cassie tracked me down at the athletic club at the Spencer Inn and reminded me of our conversation. She said that since she’d taken care of Nancy, it was time for me to hold up my end of the bargain by getting rid of Clark.”

  Mac gasped. “She actually said that.”

  Nathan nodded his head. “I thought she was joking. But she said she was serious. I don’t know if she actually killed Nancy or had her killed. I was too shocked to ask for details. But Cassie said that if I didn’t do my part, she would contact you and repeat our conversation about my wanting to get rid of Nancy, and she would testify against me in court and say that I had solicited her to kill my wife.”

  “What did you tell her?” Mac asked.

  Nathan shook his head. “Frankly, I was in shock. I can’t believe…This is my fault. If I hadn’t slept with Cassie in the first place, Nancy would still be alive. I know she was a pain in the butt and crazy out of her gourd, but still—”

  Mac grasped his arm. “How did you leave it with Cassie Clark?”

  “I said I’d have to get back in touch with her about it,” Nathan said. “She told me not to take too long.”

  “Good.” Mac nodded at Sheriff Turow and David.

  “What are you going to do?” Nathan asked.

  “What else can we do?” Mac asked with a grin. “Keep Braxton’s end of the bargain and arrange to kill Bill Clark.”

  Chapter Twenty

  “Do you see what I see?” Jessica asked Murphy.

  From his perch in the backseat, Gnarly stood up and placed his head between theirs. Seeing his face on the billboard overlooking the freeway and the hospital parking lot, where they had parked, he barked and wagged his tail.

  Gnarly’s head was four stories tall. His mouth was hanging open, and his tongue was hanging to one side and spilling over the edge of the billboard. The sign read, “He’s Not Snarly! Vote for Gnarly! Mayor of Spencer.”

  “Why are they advertising for votes from Washington-area residents?” Jessica grabbed her cell phone from her purse. “I need to text Dad and tell him.”

  “How much does a billboard cost?” Murphy opened t
he SUV’s driver’s side door. “We’re going to need to leave Gnarly in the car. Even with his service vest, if he walks in smelling like that, security will evacuate him as a biohazard.”

  Mac Faraday had not been exaggerating when he’d claimed that Gnarly was lactose intolerant. The odor from his indigestion had filled up the interior of the SUV so badly during the drive to Walter Reed Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, that they’d been forced to turn off the air conditioning and open the windows and sunroof.

  Sensing that he was the source of Murphy’s and Jessica’s displeasure—or maybe because of the tummy ache caused by the cheese sauce that Tristan had put on his food—Gnarly hung his head, and his ears fell to each side of it.

  In spite of the odor, Jessica felt sorry for the dog. He’d been taken away from his home. She wondered if he understood why he was being shuffled from one home to another and then hauled around the city—though Gnarly never complained about a ride in the car.

  “You go on in to see Tawkeel, and I’ll take Gnarly for a walk around the courtyard.” Finished with her text, she threw open the door. Once Gnarly was on his leash, he proudly trotted in the direction of the courtyard to stake his claim on every plant he could.

  As a man, Murphy felt weird taking a plant or flowers with him when visiting a friend at the hospital. Unfortunately, in his short career, more than one friend had been injured in the line of duty. But because he was married, he was able to use the excuse that Jessica had sent the flowers, and he was simply delivering them.

  Tawkeel Said was Murphy’s teammate in the Phantoms. After seeing the agent’s condition when they had rescued him in Brussels, Murphy felt that he deserved the largest fruit-and-cheese gift basket available in the gift shop. Filled with apples, oranges, gourmet cheeses, nuts, and spreads, the basket in his arms covered the lower half of his face when he carried it up to the fourth floor to Tawkeel’s private room.

  Even though Tawkeel had been on an assignment for the CIA, CO had arranged for him to be in a private room for security reasons until the Phantoms figured out what had happened. The door to the patient’s room was open, and the privacy screen, pulled back so that Tawkeel could see out into the hallway.

  “Hey, Tawkie, are you decent?” Murphy said before entering the room. The greeting served two purposes: it announced who was there and notified Tawkeel that his incoming visitor was a friend rather than a foe.

  Their intense military and special-operations training proved to be a double-edged sword. While it had taught them to always be prepared for anything, in some cases, especially right after a mission during which they had spent long periods of time in a constant state of high alert, it caused them to have hair-trigger nerves.

  Murphy was relieved to find Tawkeel sitting up in bed and reading. As soon as the team had arrived back in the States, Murphy had called Tawkeel’s parish priest, who had immediately visited to check on his parishioner and had even delivered a Bible, which Murphy found his friend reading.

  Still, in spite of the fact that Tawkeel was upright in bed, his appearance made Murphy cringe. His face was black and blue and swollen, and he had cigarette burns up and down his arms. Murphy wondered if the scars would ever go away.

  Reminding himself to be glad that his good friend was alive, Murphy forced an upbeat note into his tone when he set the basket on the table. “From Jessie.”

  “Not you?” Tawkeel marked his place in the Bible with a bookmark and closed it.

  “I’m not a gift-basket type of guy.” After closing the door to give them privacy, Murphy pulled a chair up to one side of the bed. “How are you feeling? You look like hell, but you still look better than you did the last time I saw you.”

  “Then I feel better than I did when you guys rescued me,” Tawkeel said. “I don’t even remember that. My first memory is of being on the plane coming home.” He grinned. “First thing I remember is opening my eyes and seeing your ugly face. After everything I went through, the least I deserved was something prettier to look at—like Jessie.”

  “I’m the only man who’s allowed to see her face right after waking up.” In silence, Murphy reflected on how close his friend had come to being executed—and he would’ve been if they’d arrived only one day, or even a few hours, later—all because someone had blown his cover.

  Tawkeel seemed to have read Murphy’s thoughts. “Who blew my cover?”

  “That’s what I wanted to ask you.”

  “They told me that my handler was tortured to death,” Tawkeel said. “He was a good man. Had a wife and three little kids.”

  “He didn’t out you,” Murphy said. “You were grabbed the day before he was.”

  “I didn’t out him,” Tawkeel said firmly. “But the agency is saying that I did.” His tone was bitter. “They’re going to suspend me, and my career as an agent will be over.”

  “We won’t let that happen,” Murphy said. “I won’t let that happen.” He sat forward with his elbows on his knees. “When they grabbed you after finding out that you were CIA, what did they say? What proof did they have that you were agency?”

  Tawkeel shook his head. “They ambushed me when I came into the house, and they knocked me to the floor—all of them, six guys—and kicked me in the head. I barely remember anything about those first couple of days. They tortured me, asking me for information, but I kept slipping in and out of consciousness.”

  “Can you remember anything that they said that could help us identify who gave you up?”

  “Word came down from their—” Tawkeel’s eyes glazed over. “It didn’t make sense.”

  “What didn’t?” Murphy held his breath.

  “My mission was to work my way up through their chain of command and to get access to a very senior-level head of ISIS,” Tawkeel said. “For a month, this cell in Brussels had been planning and organizing a series of bombings in London.”

  “That’s what all the bombs were for,” Murphy said. “Good thing we took them out.”

  “But the London bombing was supposed to be a rehearsal,” Tawkeel said. “According to the information I uncovered right before they nabbed me, their leader in Syria, who I still hadn’t met even after nine months of being with those animals, is planning a bigger coordinated attack in America.”

  “When?”

  “Right after they hit London,” Tawkeel said. “ISIS has a group leaving for Mexico. They’re going to enter America by crossing the Mexican border, and then they’ll get set up to make a series of coordinated attacks in the United States. The bombing in London was just supposed to be a test. After that bombing, the leaders were going to critique the slaughter and then fine-tune it in order to launch a bigger attack the next time—with more targets and more casualties.”

  “How far up the line did you get?” Murphy asked.

  “All I know is that the one pulling the strings was located in Syria,” Tawkeel said. “And he was the one who sent the word down to my group that I was a spy. The guy had never met me, Murphy. How could I have given myself away to him if we’d never even met?”

  “You couldn’t have,” Murphy said. “So that information had to have come from someplace else. Only other place would be Washington.”

  “Which points back to my handler,” Tawkeel said. “The handler is the middleman between the agent and headquarters.”

  “And we’ve already eliminated your handler,” Murphy said. “That leaves someone at headquarters—Washington.” He let out a sigh of relief. “At least now the members of that cell are gone.”

  “Sorry, mon ami,” Tawkeel shook his head. “That does not mean that the attack has been called off. The head coordinator, the one planning the attack, will simply use a different terror cell from someplace else.”

  “We destroyed all of the bombs,” Murphy said. “They’re going to have to start over with new phony passports, visas—”

  �
��Training,” Tawkeel said. “Point is, all you did was delay the London attack. You didn’t cancel it altogether.”

  “Well,” Murphy said, “whoever outed you and your handler is obviously already in communication with the head honcho of this group. If we can identify the traitor, we’ll have access to him. We’ll nab him and give him a taste of his own medicine and find out what he knows. Any suggestions on where to start looking inside the agency?”

  “Tawkeel…Tawkeel Said? Are you in here?”

  The unexpected opening of the door and the unexpected voice made both men jump. Murphy reached for the nine-millimeter Smith & Wesson semiautomatic that he had tucked into the pocket of his jacket. Tawkeel reached down under his blankets for what Murphy suspected was a weapon that a fellow Phantom had most likely snuck in for him.

  An exceedingly tall, thin man with thin reddish-blond hair entered the room and stepped up to the foot of the bed. “Are you Tawkeel Said?” He looked from the patient to where Murphy was seated next to him.

  Tawkeel glanced at Murphy as if to ask if he knew the man. With a shrug of his shoulders, Murphy shook his head. When the visitor went around to the other side of the bed, Murphy tightened his grip on the gun and watched him closely.

  “We never actually met.” The visitor stuck out his hand to Tawkeel. “I’m Andrew Collins. I’m one of the chiefs of your division at the State Department.” His eyes flickered from Tawkeel’s face to Murphy’s when he said “State Department.”

  Tawkeel immediately picked up on Collins’ covert message, as did Murphy. As an agent who worked undercover with the CIA, Tawkeel could never publicly acknowledge where he worked. Not knowing who Murphy was, Collins had had to provide a cover story.

  “As soon as we got word of your escape from the terrorist cell in Brussels, our director insisted that I come personally to check on you,” Collins said while looking Tawkeel up and down. Once again, he glanced over in Murphy’s direction. On his face was an unspoken request for Murphy to leave so that he could debrief Tawkeel in private.