by Lauren Carr
Archie didn’t return her grin. “Do something about it.”
Catherine laughed. “Like what?”
Archie smiled. “Catherine Davenport Fleming, this is your party. You can changed the playlist to set the theme for whatever you want it to be. How about setting it to the tune of common sense and mutual respect for your fellow countrymen ... or women?”
In silence, Catherine gazed at Archie while trying to determine if she was serious or not. “Do you really think I could do that? I’m only one person.”
“Why not?” Archie said. “It took only one person to get prayer yanked out of our schools. Why can’t one person do something right to turn our country around?”
“You do have a point, Archie Monday.” Seeing some action across the room, Catherine let out a laugh filled with glee. “The show is about to begin.”
“Did you bring your gun?” Ben asked Mac while signaling the bartender for another round of drinks.
“I’m never without my gun.” Mac was still nursing his first drink. He declined Ben’s offer for another. He wanted to be sober when he faced Harry Palazzi.
“I wish you hadn’t.”
“Don’t worry, Ben.” Mac flashed him a grin. “I haven’t shot anyone so far this week.”
They watched the guests swarm toward the entrance. The guest of honor was arriving. Men dressed in black and wearing security earpieces pushed back the guests to make way for the senator.
Worry creased Ben’s brow for the second time that week.
Mac eyed the heavy-set man with a square jaw taking the position of honor among the sea of bodyguards coming toward them. He was next to a tall, reed-thin man. “Of course, the week is still young.”
“Maybe this was a bad idea,” Ben said.
“I’ve come a long way since I first moved to Spencer.”
Ben looked Mac up and down. Gone was the faded navy-blue t-shirt with “POLICE” emblazoned across the back and faded jeans and flip-flops. He was dressed in a tailored blacksuit with a blue shirt and a matching blue tie. “Yeah, Mac, you have come a long way.”
“Good evening to you, Ben!” The senator broke from the crowd and took the prosecutor’s hand in a firm handshake. “Great to see you again. It’s been a while. When was the last time? We knocked back a couple of drinks at that lounge in DC after that reception for—”
“It’s been at least two years,” Ben said.
When the slender man stepped up to take his hand, Mac recognized him as the same lawyer the senator had represent him when he had been interrogated about Dee Blakeley’s rape and subsequent murder. Samuel Brooks had the reputation of representing the slimiest of the scum. It was no surprise to Mac that he had conversations with Khloe shortly before her murder. With their hands in a firm grasp, Samuel Brooks’ eyes locked on Mac’s. It took only seconds for recognition to set in.
“Harry, I want you to meet a friend of mine.” The sound of Ben’s voice coming closer jolted Mac out of his glare with Brooks. “Mac Faraday.”
Mac turned to face the senator, who backed up a full step upon hearing Mac’s name. He froze when he saw the former homicide detective. “Mac—” he stuttered out.
“Faraday.” Mac offered him his hand, which the senator refused to touch.
“Is this some sort of joke, Ben?” the senator accused the county prosecutor. “Of course! You would invite this man to our fundraiser where I am the guest of honor. I’m going to have a word with your father-in-law about you inviting this—this—”
“I think the word you’re looking for is homicide detective,” Mac said.
“Bastard is a better word for it.”
“If you’ve lured the senator here to trap him in some sort of interrogation about some incident in which you have no jurisdiction…” Samuel Brooks was in legal mode.
“What incident would that be?” Mac asked. “Are we talking about Florence Everest, who you raped while you were sheriff, or Dee Blakeley, who you raped after you became senator? Or maybe the murder of your daughter, Khloe Everest? That we do have jurisdiction over.”
“Who let him in here?” The senator turned to the political party’s event coordinator. “I want this man removed from this hotel. Call security!”
The pretty young woman who didn’t look old enough to drink stammered without uttering any intelligible words.
“Don’t just stand there, you morons!” The senator raged to his security personnel. “Call the manager. Call hotel security! They’re supposed to be sure riffraff like these people don’t get in! I’m a senator, for God’s sake. Has anybody checked to make sure this man isn’t armed?”
One of the senator’s bodyguards stepped forward to take Mac by the arm. Another approached from his other side. Mac turned sideways to throw a kick into the gut of the one guard, which made him double over and drop to his knees. Simultaneously, Mac grabbed the hand of bodyguard who dared to grab his arm and twisted it around. Digging his thumb into the pressure point of the guard’s palm, Mac brought him down onto his knees.
While holding the guard down with one hand, Mac drew his gun out from where he had it concealed behind his back and aimed it at Senator Palazzi’s face. “Order them to back off or you’re going to get what you should have gotten twelve years ago!”
With an arrogant grin, Senator Palazzi took on a calmer tone. “Hold on, men! Let’s just wait. Hotel security and the police will be here any minute, and Detective Faraday will be escorted out.” Smoothing his hair, he turned to the cameras of the news stations following the fund-raising event. “I learned long ago, back when I was sheriff, that sadly, sometimes members of our law enforcement go over the edge. It’s brought on by the stress of the job. You have to be understanding and sympathetic to them. I’m sure that, after some in-depth counseling, Detective Faraday will become emotionally well again. Hopefully, even find a job in a less stressful field.”
Squaring his shoulders, the senator added, “Right now, my concern is for the safety of the hotel’s guests. But I am sure the management here at the Spencer Inn will be able to peacefully remove this sick man without incident.”
Ben covered his mouth with his hand to conceal his smirk.
Releasing the guard, who scurried away while massaging his aching arm, Mac laid his gun down on the bar. “While we’re waiting for security to come throw me out, Mr. Brooks, can you tell me about the numerous conversations you had with Khloe Everest on the days leading up to her murder?”
“Have you ever heard of client-lawyer privilege?”
“So she was your client?” Ben asked. “Now she’s a dead client.”
“Did those conversations have anything to do with a recording her mother had left her in which your client, Senator Harry Palazzi, confessed to raping her mother and getting her pregnant?” Mac asked. “I take it you couldn’t reach an agreement for her silence, which is why right after your last conversation, she texted the news to Senator Palazzi’s son, Bevis.”
“Who happens to be planning a bid to run for governor,” Ben interjected.
“Khloe then proceeded to contact various media outlets to break the story and play the tape,” Mac said.
“He’s lying!” Samuel Brooks yelled before telling Mac, “You’re opening yourself up for a defamation of character suit, Mr. Faraday!”
“Do you have that tape now?” the senator asked.
“We do,” Ben said. “We’ve heard it. We also know that you were paying ten thousand dollars a month to Florence Everest for child support and her silence.”
“That was a retainer for her services as a decorator,” the senator said.
“Suppose what you said is true?” Samuel Brooks said for the benefit of the media present. “Mind you, this is just speculation. Suppose Khloe Everest did find the recording and wanted to make a deal for her silence? What makes you think we didn’t come to an agreement?”
“Because she started shopping around to make an announcement,” Mac said.
“Do you know
for a fact that she was going to reveal the recording?” Brooks asked. “Did it ever occur to you that we came to an agreement and it was some other news that she was going to announce?”
“What other type of news?” Mac asked.
Seeing Jeff Ingles, the Spencer Inn’s manager, and Hector Langford, the inn’s chief of security, the senator said in a loud voice, “It’s about time. What type of place is this that you let anybody in?”
“What do you mean?” Jeff asked.
“This man is harassing me!” the senator yelled while pointing a finger at Mac. “He’s spreading vicious lies about me in a campaign to ruin my reputation.”
Many of the guests gasped and stepped back.
“He has been harassing me for years, accusing me of crimes I didn’t commit, which I was never even charged for, and now he has crashed this private event in order to unfairly accuse me in a conspiracy to damage my reputation. I demand that he be thrown out of the Spencer Inn and he be barred from ever coming back.”
Jeff Ingle’s already pale face grew paler.
Hector Langford, a bald-headed Australian, laughed out loud.
“This is not funny!” the senator shouted at the chief of security.
“I suggest you do as the senator says,” Samuel Brooks told them. “He’s worked hard serving the people of this state. All he asks is that he gets the respect he deserves without being accosted by the riffraff. You would think that your inn security would be aware of that.”
“What did you call Mr. Faraday?” Jeff mopped his face with his handkerchief.
“He called me riffraff,” Mac said while leaning against the bar. He signaled to the bartender for a second drink. The poor young man’s eyes looked like they were about to pop out of his head.
Not seeing any movement on the part of hotel security, the senator raged, “Why aren’t you doing what I told you? Are you people deaf, or just dumb?”
“There’s a small problem with trying to throw this man out of the Spencer Inn.” Hector held up his finger and thumb to show a small amount.
“What problem is that?”
“It’s my inn.” Mac grinned at the sight of the senator’s face growing redder than before. “That means they can’t throw my riffraff butt out, but I can certainly throw your lying butt out—even if you are the guest of honor at this event. Sure, your people will be upset about all the money they have paid the inn, but I’ll be happy to cut a check to cover the money they have lost. It will be worth it to me to see you tossed out with the rest of the garbage.”
There was an audible gasp from the guests crowded in the ballroom. At a table in the corner, Catherine Davenport Fleming was enjoying the scene so much that her laughter bounced off the walls.
“H-how?” Samuel Brooks asked.
Jeff explained, “Robin Spencer, the famous novelist who owned the inn, left it to her son, who is Mac Faraday.”
“Mr. Faraday,” Hector asked, “is the senator bothering you? Would you like me to throw him out with the garbage?”
Mac leveled his gaze on the senator. “I may not be a senator, but I certainly have the power to have you tossed out of this inn in front of all these people.”
“Robin Spencer?” Senator Palazzi ran his finger across his plump lips. A wicked grin came to his face. “I should have known the first minute I met you that you were of some relation to that rude stuck-up bitch. Thought she was too good for me—me!”
Samuel Brooks grabbed his client by the shoulders. “Senator! Calm down! Don’t say anything more. Let’s just leave.”
The senator jabbed his thumb into his own chest. “What I wouldn’t have given for an opportunity to give her a taste of what being with a real man was like by giving her a proper attitude adjustment.” He made a gesture of a backhanded slap.
“The senator is naturally upset!” His lawyer tried to block the view of the cameras. “Stop recording—now!”
Mac grabbed the senator by the front of his shirt with both hands. He felt his fingers dig into the senator’s flabby chest. While journalists closed in to get a closer view, Ben and Hector jumped in to pry Mac off him while the senator laughed.
Jeff Ingles fainted.
“I’m going to get you for what you did to Dee and Florence and all the other women you’ve been allowed to abuse at will all of these years,” Mac said in a low voice. “You’re going to pay for it. If it’s the last thing I do, I’m going to make you pay.”
“She wanted it!” the senator laughed while his lawyer pulled him away. “She would have loved it!”
“We need to leave, Senator,” Samuel Brooks said. “Now! Don’t say another word.”
“Get Senator Harry Palazzi out of the inn and off of the resort grounds,” Hector order the lawyer. “Both of you! I recommend that you not come back, if you’re smart.” He went on to tell the organizer for the fundraiser, who looked like she was going to throw up. “This event is now over. Call my office on Monday and we’ll issue you a refund. We will not be hosting anymore events for your senator here at the Spencer Inn.”
The organizer was equally displeased. “We wouldn’t dream of giving the Spencer Inn any of our business.”
Ben held Mac back while they watched the senator laugh while his bodyguards and hotel security escorted him out.
Out in the hallway, Mac saw Lily Carter watching the senator being escorted out. Her eyes were wide. Mac couldn’t tell if it was disbelief at him coming unglued, or at the senator’s outburst. When the young woman’s eyes met Mac’s she broke into a run and disappeared into the crowd.
After giving Mac his second drink, the bartender tended to Jeff Ingles, who was finally coming to. After learning that none of what had happened was a dream, the manager needed to be helped to his feet and back to his office where he had his therapist on speed dial.
After the crowd dispersed, Ben shook Mac by the shoulders. “What’s wrong with you? You were supposed to be in control. You let him get to you.”
“He’s crazy,” Mac muttered. “He’s a sexual predator and homicidal maniac and his people and friends in power let him get away with abusing women. Khloe was twenty-four years old. He’s been doing this for at least twenty-four years, and I’m willing to bet he’s still preying on women. When they stand up to testify against him, he has his people kill them.”
“We’ll stop him, Mac,” Ben said. “Before, you didn’t have the power to stop him. Now you have the power and the people behind you to stop him, and we’ll do it. All of us together. I promise.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
“What happened?” Catherine asked after they had moved into Mac’s private booth in the corner of the Spencer Inn’s lounge.
“Mac lost control.” Ben shook out his napkin with a snap and dropped it into his lap. “You think Senator Palazzi circled the wagons before.” He shot a glare at Mac. “Now they’re really going to be circled, and circled tight.”
“What happened, Mac?” Archie grasped his hand and squeezed his fingers. “You don’t usually lose control like that. I thought you were going to break his neck.”
“I wanted to.” Mac resisted the urge to order a scotch and make it a double. “He brought up Robin. He called her a bitch and said he wanted to give her an attitude adjustment—with the back of his hand. She was my mother.” He shook his head. “It was strange. I had met her only once for one day and never knew until after she had died—but the rage I felt when he talked about her like that—I never expected to feel that way about her.”
“You’ve gotten to know her,” Archie said, “through her journal, through us who did know her, through living at the manor and here at the inn. Even though she’s been gone, she’s become a part of you, and when he talked about her like that, your protective instincts took over.”
“Are you sure he wasn’t jerking your chain?” Catherine asked.
“Of course he was jerking Mac’s chain, and it worked,” Ben said. “I’m sure he met Robin, but knowing her, she would have put him i
n his place real fast if he tried anything with her. She had good instincts, too. She would have sensed him for what he was.”
“You know who would know if Palazzi had tried something with her?” Archie sat up in her seat.
“No one who’s alive,” Mac said. “She would have told Pat O’Callaghan. He’s dead.”
“And if Pat was going to tell anyone, he would have told Bogie, his best friend,” Archie said.
Anxious to find out what Bogie might know about his mother and Senator Harry Palazzi, Mac and Archie abandoned dinner to rush over to the police station. When they got there, they found the deputy chief and David eating their dinner of a takeout pizza while pouring over the forensics reports from Khloe’s murder.
“Hey, have you eaten?” Bogie offered them some of the pizza.
Realizing how hungry she was, Archie dove in while David reminded Bogie, “They just came from the Spencer Inn where Mac was rubbing elbows with Senator Harry Palazzi at a fancy shindig.”
“Actually, the fancy shindig ended up being an all-star wrestling match when Mac tried to kill him.” Archie plopped down at an empty desk with a slice of pizza. In her sequined cocktail dress, she looked overdressed for her dinner.
“You never were suited for high society,” David told him. “What happened?”
“He brought up Robin,” Mac said.
“What about her?” Bogie’s bushy gray eyebrows knitted together.
“He wanted to give her an attitude adjustment with the back of his hand,” Mac said. “He called her a rude bitch.”
“Robin couldn’t stand the air Palazzi breathed,” David said.
“For good reason,” Bogie said.
“Did he attack her, too?” Archie asked.
Bogie nodded his head. “Oh, yeah.” Chuckling, he sat down behind his desk and started working the mouse on his computer. “He was a junior senator then. Robin had met him at a Washington, DC, fundraiser. He offered to give her material for her books by telling her about some of his cases from when he was sheriff.”
In the search engine for images, Bogie typed in the senator’s name. “They were supposed to go to a dinner party, and the senator had asked Robin to come to his apartment in DC. She had picked up bad vibes from him, but thought that he had been a sheriff, which meant he had respect for the law. However, when he came into the living room wearing only his bathrobe, she realized her vibes were right. He put the moves on her and she tried to leave, but he blocked her way to the door.”
