It's Murder, My Son (A Mac Faraday Mystery)

by Carr, Lauren

  “The same reason someone took my cordless phone. It doesn’t work if you’re out of range.”

  “When did you last see it?”

  “Last night, down at the gazebo. One of my writers had called for a progress report. I suspect she really wanted therapy. She’s quite neurotic. After we hung up, I tossed the phone onto the bench and got into the hot tub.”

  “Did you look there?”

  “That’s where I just came from.” She groaned. “I hope it didn’t fall into the lake.”

  “Either that or the Point’s klepto got it.” Mac returned to his book.

  She stood over him. “What are you going to do about David?”

  “I’m going to find out who really killed Katrina.”

  “I was thinking…” She went on to suggest that they visit the local power brokers on their turf: the Spencer Inn.

  “Why?” Using his index finger for a bookmark, Mac closed the book.

  “You can help David by exercising some of your inherited influence in the political arena here in Spencer.”

  Sucking in his breath, he disagreed. “I’m not cut out for politics. Ask my old bosses if you don’t believe me.”

  Archie sat at the foot of the chaise, which forced him to bend his legs to prevent her from sitting on his feet. “Robin used to tell me when I was struggling to get someone to even read my stuff, that it isn’t what you know, but who you know.” Threatening to press her breasts against his knees, she leaned toward him. “David needs help and you’re the only one with the influence to give it to him.”

  “The root of David’s problem is that he had sex with a woman he wasn’t supposed to be having sex with.”

  “The way I see it, that’s the only ammunition Phillips has in his conspiracy to get rid of him. Phillips has been out to get him ever since he came to Spencer, because David’s twice the investigator, and man, he is.”

  “No matter who you know,” Mac said, “sleeping with a victim or witness is always an issue.”

  “Now that Dorcas’s death has been ruled a murder, what is the first thing Phillips needs to do to railroad David into jail?”

  “Find evidence against him. That is, after his case against David is blown out of the water when they compare his DNA to the DNA that they collected off Gnarly and see that it’s not a match.”

  “Mac,” Archie asked, “who collected that DNA from Gnarly?”

  He sucked in a deep breath while she pointed out that in addition to David being the first officer on the scene after Katrina’s murder, he was also the one who insisted on forensics collecting the blood and tissue samples from Gnarly’s fur for evidence.

  “It’s like one of Robin’s plotlines,” Archie said. “The victim’s killer just so happens to be a cop. He makes sure he’s the first one on the scene and plants someone else’s DNA on her dog to throw suspicion somewhere else.”

  Mac chuckled. “Now you sound like one of those slimy defense attorneys that used to get my collars off by throwing unbelievable scenarios out for the jury to chew on.”

  “Is it really that unbelievable?” she asked. “In your whole career, you never saw or heard of a cop planting evidence in order to frame someone or maybe seal a case against a suspect?”

  The smile dropped from Mac’s face.

  “Phillips is going to do all he can to make a circumstantial case against David. As soon as he can do that, then he’s going to the county prosecutor to get an indictment.” So far, Archie hadn’t said anything that Mac didn’t already know. “We need to get someone bigger than Phillips on our side who can keep David out of jail until you prove he didn’t do this. Now, who is bigger than Chief Roy Phillips?”

  “County Prosecutor Ben Fleming.”

  * * * *

  When Violet’s nurse offered to take the elderly woman to the beauty salon and lunch in McHenry, David grabbed the opportunity for a nap. His mother’s frail health made occasions of being alone in his own home a rare and treasured occurrence.

  The room was dark. Naked, David gazed out across the lake from the bedroom window. The wind roared in his ears. Born and raised on the water, he wasn’t frightened by storms, but this one scared him.

  “Darling, come to bed.” Her voice was pleading.

  David turned from the window.

  Katrina lay beneath the sheet that outlined her naked body. Her black hair glistened in the soft candlelight. Candles covered every surface. “Hold me.” She reached out to him. “I need you to make me feel safe.”

  He took her into his arms. Overcome with desire, she pushed him down onto the bed. The wind roared in his ears while she made love to him.

  Someone was watching them. He could feel their eyes on them.

  “No! Stop!” He shoved her away.

  “I want you.”

  “Stop!” Pushing her away, he sat up.

  In the darkness, David made out the silhouette of the intruder.

  “Oh, no!” She screamed while pointing. “It’s alive!”

  David saw the gun aimed at her.

  With one blast Katrina was dead at his side.

  Too late, David dove for his gun.

  “You’re a dead man, O’Callaghan!”

  The gun went off again.

  With a shriek, David bolted up out of his bed. He gasped out a sigh of relief when he realized the shooting was only in his dream—until he heard it again. He dove from the bed to the floor.

  Searching for the gunshot’s mark, he removed his personal gun, a nine millimeter Berretta, from its case in the closet and loaded it. His heart pounded in his chest while he tried to determine from where the shots were fired: the front of the house, or the back. Conscious of the dozens of windows that afforded a view of the lake, David made his way through the house looking for what the shooter could have hit. The shots sounded so close. He went outside to examine the exterior of the house.

  When he went around to the front, a police cruiser pulled into the driveway. Bogie stepped out of the SUV. “Getting some sun?”

  David had been so distracted by the shooting that he didn’t notice he was still in his boxer shorts. He stepped back around the corner of the house to get out of sight of passersby.

  “Are you checking out a report of gunshots?” he asked.

  The officer shook his silver head. “What gunshots?”

  “They woke me up.” Now fully awake, David remembered that Hazelhurst, a small community on the opposite side of the lake from Spencer, wasn’t in Spencer police’s jurisdiction. The state police answered calls for the rural area too small to warrant its own police force. “It must have been a dream.”

  Bogie checked his watch to see that the time was early afternoon. “I guess if you’re on suspension you should take advantage of the time off to rest up.”

  “I didn’t have a good evening.”

  “So I heard.” Bogie added, “You’re not the only one. Phillips canned me today.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope,” Bogie said. “When I went in this morning, Phillips called me into the office and asked if I had any plans to work tomorrow. I said yeah. He said don’t bother.”

  “He can’t fire you without cause.”

  “As a favor,” Bogie said mockingly, “he said he’d give me early retirement.”

  David swallowed. The elder police officer was like an uncle to him. “I’m so sorry, Bogie. This has to be because of me.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Go fishing with my son and grandkids.” Bogie flashed him a smile before adding, “I didn’t come here looking for sympathy. I came to offer my support. You got screwed. Phillips is afraid of you, and me, as evidenced by how fast he got me out of there after finding out that you were reopening Katrina’s case. If there’s anything I can do to help you or your mother, just give me a call.” He winked. “I may not have my badge anymore, but I do have my gun.”

  “Turner ratted me out about
Katrina, didn’t he?”

  Bogie answered with a single nod of his head.

  “Why? What did he have to gain?” David asked

  “What do you think? A cop on the inside being the killer? All the better twist and turns for his next big book. Turner has been pouring it on and Phillips has been lapping it up. Turner promised to make him technical adviser on the movie after selling the book to Hollywood. Phillips thinks he’s on his way to Tinsel Town to sleep with supermodels.” Bogie clasped his shoulder warmly. “Keep your chin up, Dave.” With another offer to help him or his mother with anything they needed, he climbed back into the patrol car and drove off.

  David continued to scan the trees that surrounded his home for a clue to who had taken shots at his house. They had sounded so real. They couldn’t have been a dream.

  * * * *

  “There’s the man I’m looking for,” Mac announced suddenly during Jeff Ingles’s tour of the grounds at the Spencer Inn.

  Carrying shotguns, Benjamin Fleming and four companions were hiking down a trail leading to the woods. Upon seeing the prosecutor, Mac jogged across the lawn. “Hey, Ben!”

  Generally, the Inn’s guests dressed in upscale fashion. Ben and his friends looked as if they had been costumed for a skeet shooting scene in a movie. In contrast, Mac’s wardrobe had monetarily failed to catch up with his bankroll. The owner of one of the country’s most luxurious resorts had neglected to put socks on his feet which were encased in worn loafers, which were the same age and condition of his jeans and blue t-shirt with “POLICE” emblazoned across the back.

  Seeing Jeff’s sidelong glances at him during the tour, Mac made a mental note to invest in a better wardrobe. Unfortunately, having a budget beyond his wildest dreams did nothing to change Mac’s distaste for shopping.

  Since his inheritance, Mac had invested in one suit from an Italian tailor who his daughter had learned designed the clothes for her favorite movie star. Mac suspected she dragged him to the designer in hopes of casually meeting said actor. Now all he had to do was find an occasion appropriate for wearing the suit, which he hesitated to put on for fear of ruining it after paying thousands of dollars for it.

  At the sound of Mac’s voice, Ben turned from where he was about to descend the path to an area designated for skeet shooting. His friends halted to see who could be so forward as to dare interrupt them. “Mic—”

  “Mac.”

  “Mac,” Ben said, “Forsythe.”

  “Faraday,” Mac corrected him again. “Mac Faraday.”

  “Good to see you.” Ben looked from him to Archie and then to the manager, who was jogging at a more dignified pace behind them. He introduced Mac to the rest of the men in the group. At the mention of his name, each of their expressions changed from perturbed to welcoming, even encouraging, him to join them.

  “I heard about you moving into Spencer Manor.” One of Ben’s friends stepped forward and grasped Mac’s hand in both of his. “I’m Pete Mason, Spencer’s mayor. I loved your mother’s books. Most everyone here in Spencer did. She was the unofficial queen of Spencer.”

  Tanned and athletic looking, Pete Mason resembled a 1940s movie idol. His facial features lacked any flaws. As if to avoid betraying a hint of human frailty, not a strand of his silver hair, mustache, or goatee dared to stray out of place. Even his fingernails were trimmed and polished to perfection.

  Mac held onto the mayor’s hand after their greeting. “Excuse me.” His brain nagged at him. “Have we met?”

  Pete Mason chuckled. “I don’t believe so.” Glances at his friends encouraged them to join in his amusement. While the others in the group did, the prosecuting attorney did not.

  “Listen, Mick—” Mayor Mason slapped Mac on the back.

  “Mac.”

  “Mac, most of us on the town council have a private cocktail party here in the lounge every Friday during the season. Usually I invite my friends for a round of golf beforehand. Since it’s your club—”

  Mac caught Archie’s eye.

  Archie had filled him in about the mayor’s private parties where political deals were made and broken. She had also informed him about the mayor being instrumental in getting Phillips appointed to police chief after Pat O’Callaghan’s death. He boasted that Roy Phillips served as a general in the army, trained at the War College, and worked for several years at the Pentagon.

  After accepting Pete Mason’s invitation, Mac joined the group of men on the range.

  Meanwhile, Archie went to the lounge to dig up what she could on Katrina Holt Singleton, who had belonged to the Inn’s private club during her marriage to Niles Holt. She never renewed her membership after returning to Spencer with her second husband.

  Archie spied a familiar face sipping a glass of wine. She and her red-haired companion wore tennis whites so clean and wrinkle-free that Archie wondered if they were wearing them for sport or show. Their hair and makeup didn’t reveal any signs of the physical exertion that comes from the use of their clothing as it had been intended. Concluding that they were in the lounge for the sport of being seen, Archie stepped over to the women’s table. “Well, hello, Sophia. What a pleasure to see you here.”

  Startled in the process of reapplying her lipstick, Sophia looked up at Archie who smiled down at her and her companion. “Excuse me. Do I know you?”

  “I’m Archie. We met here a few nights ago. I was with Mac Faraday, Robin Spencer’s son.”

  With a bored expression, Sophia snapped her compact shut.

  “Who’s Mac Faraday?” the redhead asked.

  “The illegitimate son of that has-been mystery writer.” Sophia flapped a hand in Archie’s direction. “This is his secretary, Andy.”

  “Archie,” she corrected her. “And Robin Spencer, who had won two Pulitzers during her career, was never a has-been.”

  “Has-been since Travis came along. He’s only just started.”

  Choosing not to fight this battle, Archie moved over to take a seat at the bar where she could see Mac when he came back up the path from skeet shooting. The bartender wasted no time in filling her order for a white wine.

  A cell blasted a rap tone somewhere in the lounge.

  Recognizing the signal as hers, the redhead snatched the phone from a strap on her purse. “I’m having cocktails with Sophia Hainsworth. Why are you bothering me?” After hearing the caller’s answer, she uttered a loud curse. “Well, you tell her that I said…” She spewed an unending string of vulgarities while gathering her belongings. Blowing a kiss in Sophia’s general direction, she rushed out with the cell phone pressed against her ear.

  More interested in repacking her lipstick and compact, Sophia kissed her friend in the air before turning to a table in the corner of the lounge. “Betsy, don’t forget to pick up my dress at the cleaners on your way home. Do be careful with it. The last time it got wrinkled before you put it away.”

  Until she heard Sophia speaking to Betsy, Archie hadn’t noticed Travis’s assistant sitting alone at a small table in a remote corner of the lounge. A plate with bread crusts and a catsup smear indicated that she had eaten lunch. While sucking up the last drops of her milk shake through a straw, she made notes in her writing tablet. Archie wondered if Betsy sat in the corner out of a desire for privacy or because Sophia didn’t want to be seen with someone so beneath her.

  “Betsy,” Sophia snapped when the other woman didn’t respond to her demand.

  “I heard you.”

  With a glare, Sophia concentrated on paying her bill until something else caught her attention.

  Archie followed her eyes.

  Outside on the deck, a waitress was mopping up a spilled drink off the white ensemble of Travis Turner. In spite of her embarrassment over the mishap, the server giggled at the celebrity’s quips while she wiped down his body with a linen napkin.

  Sophia’s eyes darkened before she rushed out onto the deck and grabbed the cloth from the woman’s hand. “What do you think you’re doing?”r />
  While apologizing, the server threw up her hands to protect her face from the napkin which Sophia used to slap her.

  Laughing in a situation that Archie would have found mortifying to have any part in, Travis grabbed his cursing wife into a bear hug.

  Even with the distance between them, Archie could see tears rolling down the server’s cheeks. Manager Jeff Ingles appeared on the scene to aid his employee. Between the two men shielding the server while throwing peace offerings at Sophia, the scene disintegrated. Jeff led his sobbing employee away in one direction, while Travis ushered his wife, still firing verbal abuse over her shoulder at the other woman, in the other.

  “My, my, my,” Betsy said. “Betcha didn’t know supermodels were such high maintenance.”

  “People are like dogs,” Archie said. “The beautiful, poofy ones always need grooming, while the working dogs are happiest when you let them lie.”

  “I never thought of it like that.” Betsy seemed intrigued by her analysis.

  “How’s Travis’s restaurant, Turner’s, doing?” Archie picked up her glass of wine and crossed the lounge. She moved a chair from another table to join Betsy in the corner.

  Turner’s was an upscale restaurant on the opposite side of Deep Creek Lake at the foot of the Wisp, a ski resort. Since its opening soon after Travis’s second bestseller was published, the restaurant had become popular with well-heeled tourists and fans of the writer.

  “Fine.” Betsy slipped her notebook into her stained and torn oversized shoulder bag. “Why?”

  Archie gestured with her head in the direction of the deck where the author had been moments earlier. “Why is Travis hanging out at the Spencer Inn? One would think he would be patronizing his own restaurant.”

  “You’re very perceptive,” Betsy said. “It’s better for Travis’s career if he’s seen with the in-crowd. The A-list don’t hang out at tourist spots, which is what Turner’s has turned into. That’s why he’s been casing the Inn.”

  “Casing?”

  Archie’s mind raced. The Spencer Inn was as much a part of her life as Robin Spencer had been. Mac had confessed that owning such a prestigious place overwhelmed him. If Travis offered to take it off his hands, he might accept. For Archie, it would be like losing Robin all over again.