Old Loves Die Hard (A Mac Faraday Mystery)

by Lauren Carr

  “Turns out Christine wasn’t alone in Spencer,” David said.

  Mac took the cell phone from him and studied the picture. “I knew Christine was incapable of planning to kill Stephen Maguire on her own.” He sat down on the sofa next to Archie, who looked over his shoulder at the image. “I also couldn’t believe that she was able to drive all the way here from Georgetown on her own. The kids told me that she’d stopped driving months ago because she was afraid of getting pulled over drunk.”

  “The problem is a picture of a Bug at a service station doesn’t prove murder.” After taking the case files from the valise, David urged Gnarly over to allow him room to sit next to him on the love seat. “We’re clearly missing something. Show me what it is.”

  “Let’s start back at the beginning.” Mac opened the case files and thumbed through the reports and pages. “Using what we know, let’s recreate the murders.”

  David took a yellow notepad out of his valise along with a pen. “Where do you want to start?” Before Mac could respond, he answered his own question. “On Thursday, we have Christine’s car coming into Spencer. According to Roxanne, she was staying alone at the lake house. We know that wasn’t the case.”

  “But we don’t know for certain which sister it was,” Mac said.

  Archie asked, “How did whoever it was that filled up the Bug pay for their gas?”

  “I have the service station manager checking on that,” David said.

  “Filling up a gas tank on Route 219 in McHenry doesn’t prove murder at the Spencer Inn,” Mac said. “Roxanne and Sabrina alibi each other. Roxanne says she was sick with the flu and Sabrina brought her dinner. We have to put whoever it was that killed Maguire and Christine in that penthouse at the time of the murders. Now, the security camera at the traffic light in McHenry first records Christine’s car coming into town on Thursday, the same day that Stephen Maguire checked into the Spencer Inn. Late that afternoon, employees at the Inn noticed Nita lurking around.”

  “Nita, who knew hardly any English, told no one anything about herself,” David said. “Most people’s natural reaction is to avoid someone who doesn’t know their language because talking to them is so difficult. No one asked and she didn’t tell.”

  Mac recounted, “Then Friday noon, Cameron Jones sees a crazy woman who has the same long black hair as Nita attacking Stephen Maguire with a screwdriver.”

  David recalled, “This crazy woman was telling Maguire that she wanted him to tell the truth.”

  “Which truth?” Archie asked. “The truth about his real family? Truth about everyone he’s screwed over throughout the years? There’re so many truths to choose from.”

  “About four-thirty on Saturday afternoon, Christine shows up here,” Mac said. “I take her to check into the Spencer Inn shortly before five-thirty.”

  David said, “That’s where Christine and Maguire collide. He’s with Cameron Jones.”

  “I did just remember something,” Mac chuckled. “Even if this crazy woman was wearing a wig, Jones most likely saw her face. She showed no recognition when she saw Christine. She even asked who she was.” He shook a finger at David. “That proves she hadn’t seen Christine before.”

  “Not conclusive since the crazy woman was wearing a disguise.” David checked Christine’s cell phone report. “At five-forty, Christine used her cell phone to call Roxanne. They spoke for seventeen minutes. According to Roxanne, Christine told her about you shooting her down and booking her in your private suite.”

  David referred to his notes. “At six-thirty-seven, Christine ordered two filet mignon dinners and a bottle of red wine from room service. We assume the second dinner was in-tended for Stephen Maguire. But he met Bonnie Propst for dinner in the restaurant at seven o’clock, about the same time room service delivered the two filet mignons.”

  “Give me Christine’s autopsy report.” After checking Christine’s stomach contents, Mac asked, “Who ate the second filet mignon? Christine only had what amounted to one in her stomach. It certainly wasn’t Stephen Maguire. He was eating down in the restaurant.”

  David said, “And Christine didn’t start calling him until after eight o’clock. If dinner arrived at seven, why did she wait so long to call him?”

  “She wasn’t calling him for dinner,” Archie said. “Maybe it was Nita, since she came up in the service elevator with the food.”

  “That’s possible,” David said. “Which proves again that Christine wasn’t Nita because, according to the hotel security, the penthouse phone and Christine’s key card never got used. That tells us that she never left the suite. However, Nita is seen arriving with the server when room service brings up her dinner at seven o’clock.”

  “Wait a minute!” Mac called out. “What did you just say?”

  Confused by his reaction, David paused before replying, “I said that the penthouse phone and Christine’s key card were never used from the time she checked in until you found the bodies.”

  “I thought that was what you said.” Mac dug out his ex-wife’s cell phone log. “From the time Christine checked in, she used her cell phone right away to call Roxanne. And then the next time Christine’s cell phone is used is after eight o’clock to call Stephen Maguire. Yet, at six-thirty-seven, she ordered two dinners and a bottle of wine from room service.” He cocked his head from David to Archie. “How did Christine order room service if she didn’t use the phone in the suite or her cell phone?”

  When they had no response, Mac answered, “Christine didn’t order room service. It was whoever ate that second filet. We need to see the cell phone records of our suspects.”

  * * * *

  Big Daddy’s log home rested halfway up the mountain. With cottages on both sides so close that the deck provided little privacy and the lake’s public beach a long hike down the hill and across a busy road, Mac was unimpressed with the type of vacation home that Christine had nagged him about wanting for their family.

  In comparing Big Daddy’s lake house to Spencer Manor, Mac made a mental note to himself about how spoiled he was getting. Twelve short months before, the rustic lake house would have been far beyond his reach.

  Don’t be getting snooty, Mac, he chastised himself.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” David asked him before they got out of his cruiser. It was an older cruiser the department used for times when the regular vehicles were in repair, or totaled like his had been. It didn’t even have a built-in laptop in the console.

  For an instant, Mac considered taking him up on the offer to turn around and go home. Leave the dirty work to the professional. Then, he thought of his children and the questions they would ask. These were questions Mac needed to get answers to first hand.

  “No, I need to do this.” He threw open the door and stepped out into the driveway.

  Sabrina answered the door. Her welcoming grin dropped when she saw David in his chief’s uniform standing behind Mac. It then transformed into annoyed when she saw that David was carrying his valise.

  “You do know that we’re on our way back to the city for Christine’s funeral,” she told David while leading them into the living room where Roxanne was sweeping the floor with a broom. They were closing up the cottage for their return to the city. Their luggage was stacked next to the door. “Are you sure that you can’t have us sign any papers you need later?”

  “No, ma’am,” David said. “This needs to be taken care of now.”

  Sabrina noticed that Mac was dressed in slacks and a sports jacket, well above his usual casual manner. “Christine would be pleased with how nicely you clean up now that she’s dead.”

  Ignoring the backhanded compliment, Mac turned his attention to Roxanne. “My lawyer went through Christine’s financial records, and he found where Stephen Maguire had done exactly as you said. Your mortgage company had made a transfer of one hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars into Christine’s account, which she had in both Maguire’s and her name. Then, fifteen min
utes later, the money was transferred from that account into another account, which only had his name on it.”

  “See,” Sabrina said, “Stephen Maguire was a scumbag.”

  Roxanne asked Mac, “Does this mean you’re going to sign over the lake house?”

  Wordlessly, Mac nodded his head.

  Roxanne surprised him by hugging him. “You always do the right thing, Mac,” she whispered into his ear. She squeezed his hands when she pulled away.

  Sabrina was giddy with justification. “Maguire really did deserve to get killed. Taking advantage of Christine the way he did—a helpless woman.”

  “When you think about it, Christine set herself up to be taken advantage of,” Mac said. “When we got married, she wanted nothing to do with taking care of business. The bank accounts. Paying bills and taxes. Certainly not living within a budget. So we had joint accounts and I did everything. I’d slip contracts under her nose with an X on the spot and she’d sign—no questions asked.”

  Sabrina said, “Christine simply didn’t have a head for business.”

  “And she paid the price,” he said. “Twice.”

  “Twice?”

  “As soon as I was out of her life, she handed everything over to Stephen Maguire, who robbed her blind,” Mac explained. “According to my lawyer, he did it legally because of her stupidity. He got his name on all of her accounts, except her IRA. That made her money his money. He used her money for their free spending and to support their rich lifestyle. Some he outright stole and put in his own accounts, like he did with the lake house transfer. After he’d sucked her dry, he left her.”

  “I had tried more than once to teach Christine how to manage money and protect herself,” Roxanne said, “but she didn’t want any of it.”

  “And then she put you in charge,” Mac said.

  Roxanne replied, “Like I said, I tried to teach her to protect herself.”

  “And when she refused, I imagine, as circumstances would have it, you couldn’t help yourself.”

  Sabrina warned him, “Mac, you’re treading on thin ice here.”

  Stepping in between Mac and Sabrina’s glare, David fished a report from his valise. “When forensics examined Maguire’s cell phone, they found that it contained a chip that would transmit everything—calls, texts, images—everything that happened on that cell phone was sent to a clone, which we found in Christine’s suitcase at the penthouse. When Maguire got or made a call, whoever had possession of that clone was able to listen in.” He showed the picture of the device to Sabrina. “That chip also had GPS capability.”

  “That was how whoever was tracking Maguire knew he was here in Deep Creek Lake,” Mac said.

  David went on, “Maguire’s laptop had a similar type of spyware that allowed someone with a laptop to monitor what he was doing, including check his email and examine what he had on his hard drive or any flash drive he had plugged into it. Someone was keeping very close tabs on him.” He said, “Christine’s financial records showed that these devices, plus a laptop which we assume was used to receive this data, were all purchased on a credit line in her name.”

  “You have to give Christine credit,” Sabrina said. “I never thought she was that imaginative. Did you, Roxanne?”

  “No.” When her voice squeaked, she swallowed.

  “Christine wasn’t that imaginative, nor was she that computer savvy,” Mac said. “But you are, Roxanne.” His eyes bore into hers as he stepped toward her. “Christine wasn’t the only one that Stephen Maguire screwed over. He had been screwing you all summer in your competition for Deputy U.S. Attorney. Only he crossed the line by framing you for bribing a witness. Not only were you in danger of not getting the promotion, but you could be disbarred.”

  “I deserve that promotion,” Roxanne said.

  “Stop it, Mac.” Sabrina reached around him to take her sister’s hand and pull her close. As if to physically shelter her, she wrapped her arms around her. “Stephen Maguire wasn’t half the attorney Roxanne is. The only—and I mean only—reason he was even in the running for deputy was because that ass Hunter thought he could help him to become attorney general. It isn’t fair.”

  “Politics is never fair,” Mac agreed.

  Sabrina turned to David. “Those things that you found in Stephen’s stuff proves nothing. They were all bought on Christine’s accounts and in her name.”

  “But they were delivered to the U.S. Attorney’s Office,” Mac countered. “They were ordered while Maguire was out on sick leave after being poisoned, after he had a restraining order issued against Christine.”

  David said, “She would never have had them sent there because there was no way she could take delivery of them.”

  “Unless she asked Roxanne to pick them up for her,” Sabrina argued.

  “But she still would have needed access to his laptop and cell phone,” David countered. “Roxanne had ordered them and had them delivered to the attorney’s office where she had the means to set up the electronic surveillance on Maguire’s cell phone and his laptop, which, since he wasn’t planning to be poisoned, had been left in his office while he was at the hospital. Christine didn’t have that access, especially with the restraining order.”

  Mac set up the sequence of events. “After Natasha Holmstead had tried unsuccessfully to kill Maguire, you took advantage of him being out of his office to break in to search for ammunition to use against him. As luck would have it, that was when Cameron Jones, posing as his long-lost daughter, called his office. Unaware of his lies about his lineage, she dropped a lovely bombshell when she mentioned that he had met her mother while attending Ohio State University, not the Ivy League Oxford that he had boasted about in his resume. That was when you determined to find out what else you could uncover. If he was to discover your spy devices, you didn’t want them traced back to you, so you purchased them in Christine’s name.”

  David said, “Since Christine already had a record of being unbalanced, they would be chalked up as another incident by a jealous ex-lover.”

  “That was the crux of everything in your frame,” Mac said. “Christine was emotionally unbalanced. She was an alcoholic. She made bad choices in her actions and choosing who to trust. When you set out on this path, you laid the groundwork for Christine’s psychological defense by filing a petition to have her declared emotionally incompetent. When Maguire came out to Deep Creek Lake, then your plan went into action.”

  “What plan?” In an effort to convince him, Sabrina turned to David. “Christine took off out of the blue and came out here on her own. Roxanne was home sick with the flu. Sure, she wasn’t in the office, but she was working at home. I brought her dinner on Saturday night. I’ll testify to that in court.”

  “Roxanne brought Christine out here in her car,” Mac said. “She wasn’t home sick. I assume that she put valium in Christine’s drinks to knock her out so that she could tail Maguire in her Nita disguise.”

  Sabrina said, “Christine was the one popping valium. No one had to slip it to her.”

  “Roxanne knows and regularly uses Spanish in working with defendants and their families in court.” Mac turned back to Roxanne. “While you were here, you set up your alibi by working remotely. While monitoring Maguire’s laptop, you used the laptop that you had purchased in Christine’s name to connect to your laptop at home to make it look like you were working from your house in Washington.”

  David told her, “Our forensics unit examined your lap-top. Of course, we have a warrant. They found where it had been remotely connected to a computer here in Deep Creek Lake during the days that you were supposedly home sick.”

  Sabrina challenged him, “But you don’t have Christine’s laptop.”

  “We’ll find it,” David said with certainty.

  Mac told them, “I believe that on Friday, Roxanne, you believed you’d collected enough evidence against Maguire and went to Sully’s where you knew he was meeting Cameron Jones based on a call that you had intercept
ed from his phone. After you thought she’d left, you confronted him with what you had and tried to force him to come clean with the truth about his real background and framing you for bribery. When he laughed in your face, you became enraged and went after him with a screwdriver, but he disarmed you.” He concluded in a soft tone, “I think that was when you decided to kick it up a notch and kill him.”

  “You have no proof of any of this!” Sabrina charged at Mac. Stepping between them to block her attack, David backed her away.

  “We do,” Mac said.

  David slipped another report from his valise to show the women. “Roxanne’s cell phone records. At six-thirty-seven on Saturday night, the night of the murders, Roxanne called the Spencer Inn. At that same time, room service took an order from a woman identifying herself as Christine for two filet mignon dinners and a bottle of red wine. The cell phone tower that had been used for that call was here in Deep Creek Lake, which means your phone, Roxanne, wasn’t in Washington at the time, but here.”

  Mac explained, “The manager who took that order remembers that the woman was drunk and identified herself as Christine. At that time on Saturday night, they would never notice if the call came from within the Inn or an outside line. If Christine had ordered it, she would have used her cell phone or the phone in the suite. Neither had been used to place that order.”

  David pointed at Roxanne. “You were probably already in the Inn, in your Nita disguise, when you placed that order. You waited at the service elevator to slip up to the penthouse floor since you didn’t have a key card. Then, while the server delivered the food to Christine, you hid out in the room across the hall under the pretense of delivering extra towels. Once he was gone, you knocked on Christine’s door and she let you in.”

  “Then, your plan for murder was in motion,” Mac said. “You ate dinner with Christine. You drugged her and she passed out. Then you put all the dishes in the dishwasher and put on Christine’s clothes because you didn’t want any of Stephen Maguire’s blood and DNA to get onto your clothes. You even kept your Nita wig on in order to protect your hair.”