by Lauren Carr
“I need to talk to you over here.” With his eyes and a toss of his head, the lawyer gestured for Mac to follow him over to the other table. “Please, Mr. Faraday?”
“Now?”
“Now.”
After Archie nodded her consent for him to leave her alone at the table, Mac, puzzled by the sudden intrusion on what clearly had all the earmarks of a private dinner, got up and followed the attorney across the restaurant to where he had been eating dinner with the Inn’s manager.
Ed launched into the reason for the interruption as soon as Mac sat down. “What are you doing?”
“I’m having dinner with Archie. It’s been a tough week.”
“Dinner?” Ed’s silver eyebrows seemed to reach half-way up to his receding hairline. “Hmm? She’s dressed to die for. You’re wearing a suit. You’re drinking champagne. You’ve ordered a special dinner for just the two of you. You’re kissing her fingers and look like you’re about to start on her toes. Is this by any chance a date?”
The guilt Mac had felt evaporated. “Neither of us are married or otherwise engaged.”
“I don’t know if you’re aware of this, Mac, but Robin Spencer was world famous for coming up with imaginative ways of killing people,” Ed said. “By virtue of that, so are you. Your ex-wife and her lover were killed at your resort. The police chief is your half brother. Whether that’s common knowledge or not, it’s not hard to figure out. You don’t know it yet, but you own Spencer, which was named after your ancestors who founded this town. Even though it’s not true, it makes for a real sexy story that you had Christine and her lover killed, and your brother is covering it up to clear the way for you to begin a new relationship with a younger and notably much more beautiful woman.”
“That isn’t what happened,” Mac objected.
“Doesn’t matter,” Jeff said. “It makes for a great story.”
“You know that isn’t what happened and I know that,”
Ed said. “Try explaining that to conspiracy theorists when they see you here at your five-star restaurant with your latest mistress.”
“He’s got a point, Mac,” Jeff said. “It doesn’t look good for you to be flashing Archie around in public so soon after these murders.”
Mac glanced over at Archie, who was gazing back at him. She seemed to sense what they were talking about. “What would my mother have said to this?”
Ed looked over at Jeff. They both chuckled. “She’d tell me to go to hell,” the lawyer finally replied. “But think about Archie, Mac. If the media saw you just now, how long do you think it would take for her to be tagged ‘Mickey Forsythe’s mistress’?”
“You make it sound like I was cheating on my wife,” Mac said. “Archie and I have done nothing wrong. I didn’t even meet her until after my divorce was final.”
Ed said, “I believe you. I’m glad for the both of you. I like Archie. Robin loved her like a daughter. It’s the timing. Take her home with you. Make love to her day and night. Just keep your relationship behind closed doors until after these murders are solved.”
Jeff chimed in, “I’ve seen how the media and public react to these types of things. Do you really want to inflict that on Archie?”
“She’s the last one I want to get hurt.” Mac could see her looking at him with question in her eyes as he made it back to their table. In his mind, he rehearsed how he was going to tell her that the relationship they had been planning to take to the next level would now have to be taken there under wraps.
He made it only halfway across the dining room before he turned back to the table of his lawyer and hotel manager.
“Ed,” Mac began, “you’re without a doubt one of the best attorneys in the world and I pay you a very hefty retainer for your advice. It’s because you know what you’re doing. And Jeff, if it weren’t for you, the Spencer Inn wouldn’t have kept its five-star rating all these years. But, you two have to understand, I have a problem.”
“Mac—” Ed tried to say.
Mac held up his hand. “Ever since I can remember, people have been telling me that I need to learn to do what I’m told. My adoptive parents, teachers, bosses—everyone. When I was a cop, officers I trained would get promoted over me even though my record was way better than theirs. My supervisors would tell me that I would go far if I’d just learn to do what I’m told to do.”
Ed and Jeff exchanged glances.
“What I’m telling you, gentlemen, is that I respect your advice. You mean well and one of the things I pay you for is the benefit of your vast experience in these types of matters. But I wouldn’t do what I was told before I was rich and famous; I’m certainly not going to start now.”
As they watched Mac return to join Archie at his private table, Jeff sighed. “Well, we tried.”
“I’m not surprised,” Ed responded. “Between Robin Spencer and Patrick O’Callaghan, Mac Faraday’s gene pool has been dealt a double whammy of bull-headedness.”
“Problem?” Archie asked while he sat down next to her.
“None.” Aware of the waiter serving their salads, Mac didn’t want to go into the matter any further.
She brushed his cheek with her hand. “You’re getting more like Mickey Forsythe every day. A man with a mind of his own.”
Hector came rushing into the lounge with his mini-laptop under his arm. Seeing that the restaurant only had a few patrons, the security chief felt safe to raise his voice. “Mr. Faraday, I saw on the security monitor that you were here. We got something.” Like a child bursting to tell about what he had found, he sat in the seat next to Mac and opened up his laptop.
Sensing a break in the case, Ed and Jeff rushed over to join them at the table. They all crowded around Hector in his chair to see the unveiling of the killer.
“This is one bright bitch,” Hector said with a note of awe while opening up various screens on his small laptop. “I’m connecting us remotely to my computer in my office to show you what I’ve found.”
Ed asked, “Why don’t we all go over to your office?”
“This will only take a minute,” Hector answered. “Plus, it will be easier with all of you. My office isn’t that big.”
Archie explained, “Remote connection is so much easier than it used to be, especially with mini-laptops and all the other gadgets that are available. Just one click and you’re working on your computer which is someplace else. The speed and ease are virtually the same.”
On the monitor was a paused grayscale image of the corridor, with a shot of the service elevator, the door to the stairwell, and down the hall at the end of the penthouse floor. The shot was too tight to capture the doors going into the suites. Since the cameras covered each end of the corridors and the only access onto and off the floor, none were necessary to cover the suites themselves. The key cards recorded the comings and goings of the suites.
Hector set up the sequence for his audience. “Our problem has been figuring out who our killer was.”
“That’s usually the problem in any murder mystery,” Mac told him.
Archie brushed against him when she moved her seat in closer to see the monitor. With a rebellious glance at Ed and Jeff, Mac slipped his arm around her.
“You’d think it would be easy. Get her picture on the security video, blow it up. See if she has a record, get her name and address and pick her up. But this bitch knows about the cameras. She won’t look up for us to get her.” Hector hit the Play button. In less than a minute, the service elevator door opened. The server, a young man who Mac recognized as a service clerk who worked in the dining room, wheeled the cart off the elevator. A woman in a black house-cleaning smock held the elevator door open while he maneuvered the cart into the hall.
“That’s Nita,” Hector placed his fingertip on the monitor at the woman in the black smock. “At least, that was the name she’d given to the other employees.”
Her bushy hair was tied back at her neck. Black plastic framed glasses covered her face. In her arms, she
carried a pile of white towels and a black bag hung from her shoulder.
As Hector had pointed out, she never looked up or in a direction that the camera could capture a clear image of her face while she made her way down the corridor and out of the shot.
He tapped the monitor with his fingertip while telling them over his shoulder, “Now, it doesn’t end there. You see, we have her getting onto the floor. Mike, the server, he said that she went to the suite across the hall from the murders. She was gone when he came out a few minutes later. The couple across the hall, the ambassador and his guest, said that she was delivering extra towels, which when the police and I talked to them, they realized they hadn’t ordered. Each one thought the other had ordered them. She tried talking to them in Spanish, which neither of them knew. She left. They heard her knocking on the door across the hall after she’d left their suite.”
Mac said, “She was stalling until Mike was gone.”
Hector nodded his head. “Yeah, sure. And then she went into the suite across the hall. Christine had let her in. But, the question remains, how did she get off the floor with security cameras at both ends of the hall? We never see Nita leave.”
Jeff answered, “And you finally figured it out.”
“Yep,” Hector said. “Do we have anyone leave that floor that we don’t see come on?” He grinned wickedly. “And we sure do. It was around quarter ’til midnight.”
He switched the image on the monitor to another screen and sat back in his seat with his thumbs tucked into his belt.
The image was that of the other end of the corridor at the guest elevator. A couple dressed for an evening out came into view. She had on a cocktail dress with high heels, while her companion wore a sports coat and slacks. The man pressed the call button for the elevator. When the door opened they stepped on, and the man pressed the button inside the elevator. As the door started to shut, he grabbed the doors to stop them. A woman with long black hair, dressed in slacks, tunic top, and stylish chain belt, ran onto the car and jumped to the back out of camera view. The doors shut.
Hector paused the video.
“That couple had spent the evening in the suite next door to the murders,” the security chief said. “Three couples had booked the suite for the weekend. This couple had a cottage down on the lake. They came up for a party in the suite and had a temporary pass to get up to the penthouse floor. They said that when they left—well, you see it in the video. As soon as the doors opened, she flew faster than lightning out of your suite and onto the elevator out of shot. The man pressed the button for the lobby, just like he did the call button, so she left no fingerprints. When she got to the lobby she skipped out into oblivion.”
Mac said, “But you did get a glimpse of her.”
“Enough to know that nowhere in any of the videos do we have this woman arriving on that floor.” Hector nodded his head quickly. “Just like we don’t have Nita leaving. They have to be the same perp.”
“That’s more than an hour after the murders,” Mac said. “That gives her plenty of time to clean up the murder scene and change from cleaning woman to hotel guest.” He asked Hector, “Are you able to get a good picture of her leaving the Inn? Maybe in the lobby?”
Hector shook his head. “She knew about the cameras. Notice that her head is down and turned away. Not only that, but she ran too fast for us to get anything. All I can see is that she has long dark hair. I can make a guess about her height.”
Archie said, “She’s wearing a wig. I can tell.”
“Of course it is,” Mac said before ordering Hector, “Get these videos to Spencer police as soon as you can. You did good work.”
* * * *
“Lieutenant Faraday, I didn’t see you there. Good to see you again.”
With a brandy in his hand, Judge Garrison Sutherland got up and trotted across the lobby from where he had been enjoying the fireplace with Natasha Holmstead to intercept Mac and Archie. The judge and lawyer were dressed casually in sweaters and slacks after having spent the evening out.
At his urging, Mac and Archie joined them. Since the judge and Natasha filled the chairs, they had to sit next to each other on the love seat in front of the fireplace. Mac was uncomfortably aware of his lawyer’s glare at him when he came into the lounge to see that Mac had slipped his arm across her shoulders.
After ordering two glasses of wine, Mac asked the judge, “Have you and Natasha extended your vacation?”
Judge Sutherland replied, “We’re still trying to find out what Maguire had with him here at the Inn when he was killed.”
“From what the police chief said, he’d packed light.”
Natasha asked, “Have you seen what he brought with him?”
“No,” Mac lied, “but the police chief did tell me that they found no pocket watch. I also talked to Jessica, my daughter. She’s staying at Christine’s house in Georgetown. You’re more than welcome to contact her to make arrangements to meet her at the house to look through whatever is left of Stephen’s belongings for this watch you’re looking for. I suggest you do it soon because as soon as I’m able to settle the estate, we’re clearing everything out and I’m putting the house on the market.”
Garrison and Natasha exchanged glances. He chose to respond, “We’ll do that right away. Thank you.”
“I would have thought the Maguire family would’ve swooped in to demand answers by now.” Mac asked Natasha, “Are they usually this laid back about murder in the family?”
Her expression betrayed a great deal of puzzlement. “Granted, Stephen and I were married for a very short time, but they never chose to get involved in anything we did.
No invitations to the Hamptons. Not even a Christmas card. Stephen said that everyone was very busy and that’s why we never received any invitations to any of these family events you’d see on the social pages.”
Archie said, “That’s not the way the media pictures them. According to them, the Maguires are close. They always throw big family weddings—”
“We eloped, honey.”
“Maguire funerals are massive.”
Mac said, “David told me that no one has even claimed Maguire’s body.” He cocked his head at Natasha. “You’re his next of kin.”
“Let a Maguire take care of burning him up or dumping him in the ground,” she replied cruelly, while glaring over at him. For the first time, Mac noticed how thick her eyebrows were. “All I want is what belongs to me.”
“Nice young man. O’Callaghan. Spencer’s police chief.” The judge took a sip of his drink. “I was surprised to see he was so young. But then, I guess, considering the legend his father is around these parts, it would be expected that he’d step into his shoes.”
“From what I’ve learned about Patrick O’Callaghan, they were big shoes to fill.” Mac sipped his drink while Judge Sutherland watched him.
“And David fills them very nicely,” Archie said.
“An interesting thing happened when Natasha and I met with him at the police station the other day,” Garrison said to Mac. “Have you ever had one of those moments when you meet someone and they remind you of someone, but you can’t put your finger on who it is they remind you of?”
“Yes, I guess that’s happened to everyone,” Mac replied.
“That happened when I met Chief David O’Callaghan.” Judge Sutherland peered at Mac with his dark eyes. They were intense as he studied him. “The way he talked, his looks, especially around the eyes. I kept staring at him. It bothered me so much, trying to figure out who it was he reminded me of, that I couldn’t even pay attention to most of our conversation.”
Mac felt him studying him.
“It finally hit me when Natasha and I went to see you.” After the server replaced his finished drink with a new one, the judge asked, “Have you ever found out the name of your birth father?”
Unsure whether to lie or not, Mac peered back at him. He felt Archie’s grip on his thigh.
“There are website
s all over the Internet with fans de-voted to Robin Spencer and everything there is to know about her,” the judge said. “Have you ever looked at them?”
Mac said, “Actually, I haven’t.”
The judge said, “Well, purely out of curiosity, I happened to google your mother’s name and do you know how many websites came up?”
“How many?”
“Over three and a half million websites. That’s a lot of information out there about her.”
“Robin Spencer was a very popular author,” Archie said. “Her books are in every language. She has fans all over the world.”
“Everyone loves Robin Spencer.” The judge went on, “Now, these websites aren’t all completely devoted to Robin Spencer and her life, but some are. And a lot of them do go into her life back when she was young and do you know what they said?”
Knowing the judge’s style, Mac sensed where he was leading and he didn’t like it. Neither did Archie based on how tightly she had hold of his thigh.
“According to her biography, back when she was a senior in high school, her parents sent her to a girls’ finishing school up in New England. Knowing now, since her death, about you, everyone knows that in reality they had sent her away to have you.”
Chuckling, Mac replied, “That’s not exactly a secret any-more.”
The judge went on, “But then, on one of those sites, long before it came out about you, there was a woman who posted that she had gone to high school with Robin Spencer. It was one of those posts about how talented and fun and outgoing and curious she was. This woman also remembered that for over a year, Robin went steady with a certain boy who graduated the year ahead of them. This boy went on to the police academy. She even remembered the name of this boy. Do you know what it was?”
Mac and Archie glared at Judge Sutherland.
The judge grinned at Mac. “I think you do.” He pointed at Archie. “And she does, too.”
“What’s your point, your honor?” Mac asked.
“I also think David O’Callaghan knows.” He chuckled. “He’s not stupid. All he had to do was look at you. The family resemblance about slaps you in the face.”
