Blast from the Past (A Mac Faraday Mystery)

by Lauren Carr

  “You said they were bickering about him being a wimp.”

  A slow smile formed on the lawyer’s lips. “I remember now… what they got into a fight about…Louie, Cruze’s bodyguard, took their cream.”

  “Cream?” Mac repeated.

  Alan nodded his head. “We ordered coffee all the way around. The woman poured our coffee for us. We had sugar, but no cream on the table. But there was a bowl of those little tubs of cream over at that couple’s table, so Louie went and got it. When the husband didn’t say anything, the wife had a fit.”

  “Then she left.” Now the slow grin came to Mac’s lips. “Cruze and his bodyguard used the cream… and then died.”

  The cream Gordon Crump had left on the table!

  Chapter Twenty

  FBI Agents Sid Delaney and Tony Bennett were waiting at the police station when David O’Callaghan and Mac arrived with Alan Richardson in custody.

  In the early morning hour, most of the officers were assembled to get their assignments from Desk Sergeant Tonya before going on patrol. This was the second shift for most of them since Tommy Cruze and his crew had arrived in town. Gordon Crump’s murder the night before did nothing to slow things down.

  “What is this?” the senior special agent’s tone was overflowing with annoyance.

  “Alan Richardson has confessed to hiring the two assassins at the Dockside Café,” David announced.

  “That’s our case,” Tony Bennett said. “You aren’t even supposed to be investigating it.”

  “I was following up a lead in another murder case when Richardson confessed,” Mac said.

  Agent Delaney regarded Alan Richardson with a mixture of both disbelief that he confessed to anything willingly, and annoyance that it was to the local police chief and not him. “Is that true?”

  “I want a deal,” Richardson said.

  “Be serious,” Delaney said.

  “I am serious,” Richardson said. “I have a ton of information that will close up a lot of your open cases. You’ll get it all. You can even put me in jail. All I want is immunity and protection for my wife, Ariel.”

  Delaney looked from Alan Richardson to his partner to David and Mac, then back to the lawyer. “Where is your wife?”

  “She’s driving back to our place in Philadelphia,” Richardson said. “I called her before we left the hotel. She’ll meet your people in Philadelphia and call me when she is at a safe house and under protection. Once I know you have her and she is safe, then I’ll start talking. I’ll give you everything you need to bust the biggest mobsters on the East Coast.”

  “Put him in the car and we’ll take him back to Washington,” Agent Delaney told Tony Bennett.

  “This should be interesting,” Agent Bennett said before taking the lawyer by the arm and leading him out.

  Special Agent Delaney glared at Mac and David in silence.

  After the door shut, David said, “You don’t have to thank us.”

  “Thank you?”

  “You’re welcome,” Mac replied with sarcasm.

  “We have a serious problem,” the special agent announced while looking from one of them to the other.

  “Well, it just got better,” David said. “I have a feeling Alan Richardson is going to make your career in ways you could only imagine. He’s been representing mob figures for his whole career.”

  “Now all we have left is the poisoning inside the café,” Mac said.

  “Whoever did that put a lot of thought and premeditation into it,” Delaney said. “Our forensics people said every tub in that bowl that had been on Cruze’s table was tampered with. The paper cover over the tub had been peeled off to mix the poison into the cream, and then the tub was resealed. No one would have noticed without looking for it.”

  “Well, at least you finally have Alan Richardson’s confession to hiring those two assassins to take out Cruze,” David said. “We still have Gordon Crump’s murder, as well as Mary Catherine Skeltner.”

  “I also have Ray Bonito’s murder to solve,” Agent Delaney said. “Oh, and identifying the double-crossing inside man who set up the ambush last night.”

  David and Mac exchanged puzzled glances.

  “Ray Bonito?” David asked. “Was he the—”

  “Body in the grave.” Delaney nodded his head. “DNA confirmed it.”

  “Any idea when he was killed?” David asked.

  “We’re still working on trying to pinpoint the last time he was seen alive by anyone,” Delaney said. “What gets my hackles up is that we collected the dead men’s cell phones and found an exchange of communication with who we thought was Bonito, and more than one text saying that our guy was a fed and to eliminate him ASAP. Someone blew his cover, and I want to know who.”

  David gestured to the parking lot outside where Delaney’s partner had taken Alan Richardson. “Could have been—”

  Mac was already shaking his head. “Richardson had no idea that the hit man was an agent.”

  “If it wasn’t Richardson, then that means the rat who burned our guy has to be someone on the inside.” Delaney said. “I’m investigating my men, but I can already tell you that I doubt our rat is among them.” He shook his index finger in David’s face. “You better hope like hell that I do find our rat on our side, because once I’m through looking there, I’m going to start looking in your camp.”

  “My men aren’t dirty!” Lunging, David riled like a papa bear.

  Fearing that the police chief was going to physically attack Delaney, Mac yanked him back by the arm. “We’ll investigate our own camp, thank you very much.”

  “You do that.” Delaney stepped up to tell David to his face.

  The two men’s penetrating glare cast an electrical vibe throughout the room that captured the officers’ attention.

  “Who’s going to investigate you?” Delaney asked in a low tone. “After all, your men weren’t in our van to see my man…you were.”

  Mac pushed in between them to break the glare. “You can investigate O’Callaghan as much as you want. He’s clean. I’d stake my life on it.”

  “Well, my man staked his live on it, and he’s got a bullet in his shoulder and the cover that he’s spent three years setting up is burned. He’s lucky. In that ambush, it could have been a lot worse. No one blows my operation without getting called on it.”

  “Bring it on,” David challenged him.

  “I will.”

  With that parting shot, Delaney, under the glare of the whole Spencer police force, departed.

  “Here I thought he’d be happy that we brought in Alan Richardson,” Mac said in a breathless voice.

  “This is not good,” Tonya said. “Having the feds mad at us is not good at all.”

  “No, it’s not,” David said.

  “Maybe the agent blew his own cover and didn’t realize it,” Tonya said.

  Mac shook his head. “Cruze trusted him enough to ask him to take out Archie. As of yesterday morning, his cover was secure. It was after the murders at the café…” The men received the information that the agent was a cop via text!

  Mac remembered the conversation he had with Archie the night before. “If she’s supposed to be dead, who is she texting? She’s up to something.”

  “I need to go home,” Mac said with a desperate tone. He grabbed his gun from its holster. “Tonya, call the manor, and tell Randi not to leave with Leah. They are to stay until we get there.” He grabbed David by arm. “We need to get out to the house now.”

  “What is it?” David asked.

  “I’ll tell you on the way.”

  Mac was rushing for the door when it flew open so hard and fast that he thought the federal agents had returned. Instead, Ariel Richardson walked in. Her beautiful face was contorted in anger. Her
eyes were red rimmed and wide. The gun she had aimed at Mac’s face appeared equally menacing.

  He backed up from the door.

  “I came for my husband.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The hardest part of being a research assistant or editor—the two things that Archie had made her life since being abruptly torn from her old one— is lack of movement.

  Archie had learned to focus all of her attention on the task that she was given. Whether it was how autopsies were performed at the turn of the nineteenth century, or digging into the background of a murder suspect who appeared completely innocent to everyone else on the planet, she would virtually dive into her computer and the Internet—only to come up for air sometimes as much as ten hours later, exhausted and hungry, and with cramped muscles from lack of movement.

  As the years went by and her muscles had grown older, she found that she had to force herself to break from the concentration and do some walking.

  After hours of digging through various social media sites to unravel the mystery of Russell and Mary Catherine Skeltner, Archie left the study and went in search of a snack upstairs in the kitchen.

  She was startled by a witch’s cackle bursting forth from the home theatre across the hall.

  Archie slowly pushed down on the door handle and stepped inside. Loud music hit her in the ears and face as the crescendo of the thrilling soundtrack from The Wizard of Oz burst forth from the room. Specifically, it was the scene of the flying monkeys filling the sky around the Wicked Witch’s castle.

  “Oh, Gnarly, I’m scared,” a little girl’s voice came from out of the darkness.

  The dark scene from the old movie filled the movie screen in the theatre. Lounging sofas made up four rows of seats for the viewing audience.

  The terrifying music was mixed with a little girl’s squeal. “I’m so glad you’re watching this with me, Gnarly.”

  A dog-like groan responded to her.

  When her eyes adjusted to the dark in the room, Archie discovered Bogie, sacked out on one of the lounges, sound asleep. Sari and Gnarly were sprawled out on the floor in front of the screen. Sari laid on top of Gnarly with her arms wrapped around him. In front of them was a giant bowl tipped over and spilling popcorn across the floor. Both of them were feeding from the bowl and the popcorn on the floor.

  “I know they’re not real, but those monkeys always scare me.” Pointing to the screen, Sari told Gnarly as if he had never seen it before. “But Toto escapes from the castle and goes to get help.”

  Gnarly was more interested in the handful of popcorn she had in her hand. She opened it to let him lick up the pieces from her palm, after which she licked the remnants that his tongue had missed.

  “You’re the best friend I’ve ever had.” She hugged him closer. “I know you’ll never hurt me.” She kissed him on the top of the head. “I love you, Gnarly.”

  Gnarly returned her kiss with a lick on the face and mouth.

  So she does talk! Just not to us. “Sari,” Archie called as she came forward out of the darkness.

  The little girl whirled around and stared up at her.

  “I see you and Gnarly are watching The Wizard of Oz.” Archie knelt down next to her.

  Saying nothing, Sari clung to Gnarly.

  “That was my favorite movie when I was growing up. Do you know who I loved the most in the whole movie?”

  Sari stared at her without saying a word.

  “Toto,” Archie said.

  The two of them eyed each other.

  “I know you can talk, Sari,” Archie said. “It’s okay that you only want to talk to Gnarly. He’s a good listener. But if you ever want to talk to someone who will answer back, you can talk to me. I’m a good listener, too.”

  The message in the little girl’s eyes ordered Archie to leave them alone.

  “Maybe you’d like some ice cream to go with the popcorn?”

  Sari turned to the dog and asked, “Do you want some ice cream, Gnarly?”

  “His favorite flavor is vanilla,” Archie said. “Would you like some hot fudge sauce on yours?”

  Sari nodded her head.

  “Two ice creams coming up.” Watching the little girl return to hugging Gnarly, Archie backed out of the theater.

  The cell phone in her pocket vibrated to signal a text. She took it out of her pocket to see that it was the clone for Leah’s phone. She was sending a text to multiple recipients—all of whom were only named by initials. Scatr & la lo untl I contact u

  Hurrying back into the study, Archie reached into her pocket for her cell phone and dialed the number for Mac’s cell. After three rings, it went to voice mail.

  “Rats!” she stomped her feet.

  Scatter and lay low until I contact you!

  Recalling the text message, Archie’s eyes raised when she heard a scream and a gun shot from the bedroom two floors above.

  “Your husband isn’t here,” David told Ariel Richardson, who had ordered everyone (Tonya, David, Mac, and two officers who had not yet left to go on patrol) to gather together in the center of the reception area. They were all holding their hands up for her to see.

  “You’re lying!” Ariel’s well-cultured tone from the day before now held a hysterical edge to it. “He told me that he was coming here with you.”

  “But when we got here, the feds were waiting,” David explained in an even tone. “The attempted hit is their case. That makes your husband their witness. They’re taking him to Washington right now. They left about a half-hour ago.”

  Mac tore his eyes from the barrel of the gun to look into Ariel’s eyes. He had seen that look before, usually in the faces of women who felt that they had lost it all. They had nothing more to lose. This is not good. This is not good at all.

  “Your husband is making a deal with the feds,” Mac said. “He loves you very much and wants, above everything else, to keep you safe.”

  “Alan won’t last a single day if he so much as speaks to the feds,” Ariel said. “They can’t protect him. No one can protect him. That’s why I’m taking him with me and we’ll run away together—we can go underground and start a new life.”

  “Ariel,” David said while stepping toward her, “we know how dangerous the people your husband worked with are—”

  “You know?” she shrieked. “You don’t know anything. I lived with them. They have connections everywhere—into everything. There is no place that they can’t reach you.”

  While David had Ariel’s attention, Mac, keeping turned to the side, slowly reached down to touch the button on his cell phone. Unable to see the keypad, he could only hope that he tapped the side that would do a redial of the last number he had dialed, and that the phone would be on speaker phone.

  “Do you know how long it took me to find a rat in the US Marshal’s office to get me Kendra Douglas’s location in the Witness Protection Program?”

  “You?” Mac asked. “It was you?”

  “The caller ID on Ginger Altman’s phone was Alan Richardson,” David said. “But since you’re his wife—the phone is in his name.”

  “You set up the hit,” Mac said. “Those two hit men at the café—”

  “I told Alan about it after I had set it up so that he could make sure he found an excuse to leave before they got there,” she said.

  “Then you hired the hit men,” Mac said.

  “They thought they were doing a job for Bonito,” she said. “Texting is great that way. With no voice and a phony ID on the phone—”

  “You can easily hide your identity,” Mac finished. “When I confronted him with the evidence, he took the blame to protect you.”

  “Alan was always such a gentleman.” Tears rolled down Ariel’s cheeks. “He saved my life.”

  “Ginger Altma
n,” Mac said, “the leak at the US Marshal’s office who gave you the whereabouts for Kendra Douglas—It was you, not Alan, who arranged to have her killed when she became a threat. Your husband didn’t seem to know about it when I mentioned it.”

  “She called the office and demanded money to run away,” Ariel said. “I met people like her all the time when I was married to Tommy. Once you start paying them for their silence, they never go away.”

  “Alan is confessing to everything,” Mac said, “everything that you did—to protect you.”

  “That is why I’m going to save him now.” She aimed the gun at Tonya. “You have five minutes to turn over my husband, and then I’m going to start shooting your officers one by one.”

  Years of training had Bogie instantly awake and on his feet the second he heard the gun shot from up above. He almost tripped over Sari and Gnarly while running for the door. Before throwing it open, he turned to Sari, who was clinging to Gnarly. The German shepherd was ready to charge as soon as Bogie opened the door.

  “Gnarly, stay with Sari,” Bogie said. “Whatever happens, make sure she’s safe.”

  Whirling around, Gnarly gently took Sari’s wrist into his mouth and led her to the other side of the room to disappear into the darkness of the theater.

  Cracking open the door, Bogie peered out. He could see Archie at the top of the steps.

  “Randi is bleeding,” he heard Archie say. “You need to let me call a doctor. She needs help.”

  “If you want to help her,” he heard Leah yell, “you’ll go get Sari and give me the keys to your car. If I see any cops following me, then she’s dead! Tell her!”

  Bogie heard a muffled response that sounded pained.

  He tapped the button on his radio. “Tonya,” he said in a loud whisper. “This is Bogie. We’ve got a hostage situation here at Spencer Manor.” He heard no response.

  “Bogie!” Hector Langford’s voice called out into his ear. “Are you able to respond? We heard a shot. Is everything cool inside?”