by Lauren Carr
He was aware of Gnarly trailing behind him. At the end of the driveway, the German shepherd jumped up onto the stone wall and laid down—his brown eyes focused on the neighboring house.
When Fletcher paused to take in a deep breath, the cold air tickled the back of his throat to make him cough. Remembering the throat lozenge that he still clutched in his hand, he unwrapped the lozenge and tossed it into his mouth on his way to the Kleinfeld door.
“Just be casual, get fingerprints, and bring them back.” He fingered Archie’s cell phone in his pocket. “Just be casual, get fingerprints, and have fun.” He pressed the button for the doorbell.
The house seemed to grow silent. Even the lake seemed quieter while he waited for the woman who Archie, Mac Faraday’s wife, previously Robin Spencer’s research assistant, suspected of killing her husband.
Don’t forget to ask if she’d killed her husband and be casual about it.
Abruptly, the door flew open and Fletcher came face to face with the suspected murderer. Her face was twisted from a lifetime of contempt and splattered in tan paint. The sight caused Fletcher to utter a gasp. Like a vacuum cleaner, his lungs sucked the lozenge down his windpipe.
His eyes grew wide.
“Well?” Impatient, Constance regarded him while a herd of cats spilled out the door.
Fletcher tried to suck in a breath, but the cough drop refused to let air past. He tried to cough, but no sound came out. His ears roaring, he pointed to his open mouth and bent over.
Gnarly’s barks sounded like they were coming from the end of a wind tunnel.
Constance whacked him between the shoulder blades with her open palm.
Weak, Fletcher dropped to his knees. He felt her arms around his middle and her fist thrust up under his ribs, pushing and pumping to send sharp breaths up to force the cough drop out of his mouth. The lozenge bounced and rolled off the porch.
Cool fresh air filled Fletcher’s lungs.
“Are you okay?” she asked as his head cleared.
Slowly, the officer climbed to his feet while nodding his head. “Thank you.” His voice was hoarser than it had been before. At least, he could breathe again. Regaining his composure, he turned around to leave.
“What did you want?” she shouted from the doorway after he had reached the bottom step. While she directed the question at Fletcher, she had her attention focused on Gnarly, who was bouncing and barking at the end of the driveway.
Considering that Constance had saved his life, Fletcher felt ashamed to ask her if she had killed her husband. Still, if she had …
“We got a report of suspicious activity at one of the houses across the inlet,” Fletcher said, “and wanted to know if you or your husband have seen anything?”
“We haven’t seen nothing,” she said.
“Is your husband home?”
She folded her arms across her chest. “Why do you want to know?”
Fletcher swung his shoulders to appear casual as Archie had directed. “Maybe he saw something and just didn’t mention it to you.”
“He didn’t see nothing.”
Be casual. With a crooked grin, he swung his hips. “Can I ask him?”
“He’s not here. He flew out this morning to go golfing in Scotland.”
Archie and Tonya were waiting with the front door open when Fletcher, his legs still wobbly, returned.
It wasn’t until they had helped him onto the sofa and Archie hurried in from the kitchen with a cup of hot tea with lemon and honey for his sore throat that he remembered the task of getting Constance’s fingerprints on the cell phone. “I told you I wasn’t a detective.” He tossed the phone to Tonya.
Gnarly jumped onto his loveseat across from him.
“But you did find out the bull about her husband being on his way to Scotland to play golf,” Tonya said. “That will be easy enough to check with the state department to see if his passport has been used.”
“Something is very odd about those two.” Archie jerked her chin in the direction of the house next door. “Harlan Beckett had told Mac that he hadn’t seen his nephew in years. He didn’t know where he was. But then, as soon as he died, those two were moving in before his body was even cold.”
“Beckett’s lawyer found Edward’s address in his address book,” Tonya said.
“Then why did Harlan tell Mac that he didn’t know where his nephew was?” Archie asked.
“Maybe he found out after telling Mac he didn’t know,” Fletcher said.
“Gnarly doesn’t like them” Archie said while Fletcher answered a call on his radio. “That tells me there’s something seriously wrong with them. I guess we’ll have to go back to the drawing board to figure out how to get her prints.”
“And find out where she hid the body,” Tonya said.
“Sorry I couldn’t have been more help, Sarge.” Finished with his call, Fletcher set the mug aside and removed the miniature camera, which he handed to Archie. “There’s an active shooter at Spencer Inn and Bogie’s been shot.” He stepped to the door.
“Bogie’s been shot!” Tonya jumped out of her seat. “I’m coming with you.”
“Me, too!” Archie said.
“No,” Tonya ordered. “You stay here and keep your eyes on our suspect to make sure she doesn’t get away.”
At the door, upon seeing Fletcher’s back, Archie tapped Tonya on the shoulder.
“Oh, Fletcher,” Archie said, “before you go, I need your jacket.”
Mac tried to keep his eyes on the road that twisted and turned around the lake while stealing quick glances at David who appeared to be on the verge of blowing up in the passenger seat. He felt for the guy. In less than two hours, David discovered that he was the father of a teenager and his godfather was on his way to the ER for emergency surgery for a gunshot wound.
Instead of being by Bogie’s side, they were chasing the suspected killer making his getaway in a Mercedes.
Mac was about to offer a simple suggestion, “Remain calm,” when he turned a sharp bend known by the local law enforcement as “Dead Man’s Curve” to find several vehicles lined up along the road. Many tourists used the wide flat area off the road for an unofficial parking lot. The area provided easy access to mountain trails and paths along the lakeshore.
On the opposite side of the road, a shiny silver convertible Porsche sportscar was stuck in a ditch. Donning a blue jacket over his black and white uniform, Officer Fletcher was talking to Gabriel, who held a first aid compress to his forehead.
A Spencer police cruiser, it’s lights flashing, was parked along the roadside. In the passenger seat, Tonya was reporting the situation to emergency dispatch.
“It looks like Gabriel’s okay,” Mac started to say only to find himself talking to thin air. David was out of the SUV.
Upon seeing the police chief charging at him, Gabriel stood up and braced for what turned into a bear hug. Fletcher dropped back and turned to Tonya, who was equally shocked by David’s abrupt display of affection.
At the same time, another SUV arriving from the other direction pulled over. Hope and Storm disembarked. Hope raced to join in the group hug.
“Uh, Chief,” Fletcher stammered, “does this mean you don’t want me to write him up for driving without a license?”
“Not this time,” David said. “I’m just glad he’s okay.”
“Oh, do you know him?”
“No, the chief hugs every accident victim,” Tonya said. “That’s why he’s so popular.”
“Well, I’m not exactly okay.” Gabriel showed David the cold compress. “I swallowed my cough drop.”
“I hate when that happens,” Fletcher said.
“Based on the description Gabriel gave us, our shooting suspect ran him off the road,” Tonya said. “The car was a Mercedes and the windows were all shot out.”
&n
bsp; “Shooting suspect?” Gabriel asked.
“Some guy shot up the hotel,” Hope said. “What the hell were you thinking going out driving? You know there’s a killer on the loose.”
“And you don’t have a driver’s license,” Fletcher said, “even if you do have one hot ride.”
“I was thinking I’d take a spin around the lake and gather my thoughts,” Gabriel said. “Then suddenly this Mercedes came flying around the corner like a bat out of hell and ran me off the road. I saw that his windshield was all shot out. I had no idea he was a criminal. I thought he was a good guy running away from a bad dude.”
Storm ran back from the hiking path to bark at the humans.
“Gabriel, the guy had a gun. You’re lucky you weren’t killed,” David said. “We told you this morning that you can’t drive without a license. Just because you’re my son doesn’t mean you can go breaking the law and that I’ll fix it.”
Tonya’s mouth dropped open. “Your son?”
Fletcher dropped his pen.
Storm’s barks grew louder.
“You don’t have to fix anything, Pops,” Gabriel said. “This accident was because of some bad guy running away from the law. He was the one driving on the wrong side of the road.”
“Don’t call me Pops.”
“Then what do you want me to call you?”
“I don’t know. Definitely not Pops.”
Tonya stepped forward to insert herself between the two men. “To interrupt what promises to be a stimulating conversation—” She pointed to where Storm was bouncing up and down at the dirt path. “—I believe the Belgian wants to show us something.”
Upon grabbing the humans’ attention, Storm spun around and galloped down the path that cut through the thick woods. Leading the way, she periodically checked over her shoulder to make sure they were behind her.
Tonya check in with the dispatcher on her portable radio while trotting after the dog.
“Is that my jacket?” Mac asked Fletcher as he fell in line next to him.
Fletcher smoothed the front of it. “Archie insisted and, with all due respect, sir, it’s hard to say no to her.”
“David, we do need to talk about this,” Hope said while rushing to keep up with him.
“Hope, this kid is driving around with a phony driver’s license that his grandmother gave him. What’s with that? What kind of grandmother gives her grandson a fake ID?”
“My mother.” She glanced over her shoulder to see if Gabriel was within hearing distance. “I’m out of the country about six months out of the year. Since my divorce, my mother has been raising him and—”
David stopped to look at her.
Her eyes locked on his. “You know my mother.”
“Completely. I only met her once, and once was enough.”
Gabriel caught up with them. Aware of their gaze, he scoffed. “What?”
“I was raised that rules and laws are made for a reason,” David said.
“You mean like the one about drill instructors sleeping with their students?” Gabriel asked with a slim grin.
His eyes blazing, David lunged forward to find Hope blocking his path. “Stand down.”
“Found it!” Tonya sang out from up ahead. “Storm found the shooter’s car.”
Gabriel smirked at David.
In the back of his mind, he recalled such a moment he had shared with his own father, years earlier, when he was young and cocky. “Son, you have no idea who you’re messing with.”
“This is it all right,” Mac was saying when David joined them at a sharp turn on the hiking trail where the path had become too narrow for the car to continue.
The turn-off was deep enough into the woods so that the car was not visible from the main road.
The Mercedes’ windshield, side, and rear windows had been shot out. Broken glass covered the seats inside. Tonya immediately radioed in the license plate number to locate the owner’s identity.
“There’s blood on the driver’s seat.” Mac pressed the trunk release button. “That means he’s injured.”
“We’ll check with the hospitals,” David said, “but I doubt if it’ll do any good. This guy knows what he’s doing. He’s not going to go to any doctor.”
They went around to the rear of the car. The trunk was filled with heavy duty garbage bags.
“You’ll never believe who this car is registered to,” Tonya said with a hand on her hip.
“Who?” David asked while untying the opening to the top bag.
“Edward Kleinfeld.”
David ripped open the bag to reveal the bloody severed head of Mac Faraday’s neighbor.
Gabriel didn’t have much to say after seeing the severed head. He was more than happy to ride with his mother and Storm back to David’s home—far away from the dismembered body.
“I told you Constance killed off her husband,” Tonya told Mac while they strung up crime scene tape to mark off the hiking trail leading to the car. “She’s eliminating the crime scene as we speak. She’s scrubbed down the walls in the bedroom—probably with bleach—and she’s painting the room.”
“Let her,” Mac said. “Our forensics people will be able to detect the blood splatter.”
“Unfortunately, we’ve got a problem,” David said while searching the car. “We had no legal grounds to place Constance under surveillance. It was all unofficial—no warrant. Everything Tonya witnessed will be inadmissible in court. So right now, all we have is the car and dead body. The car was parked at the Spencer Inn when it had been taken.”
“She told Fletcher that Edward was on his way to Scotland,” Tonya said. “She going to claim the murder happened someplace else.”
David gestured at the golf clubs squeezed under the multiple garbage bags.
Donning evidence gloves, Mac peered closely into the trunk. He noticed a cell phone resting next to one of the tail lights. “What’s this?” He picked up the phone and pressed the button to turn it on.
A text thread appeared on the screen:
The Queen of Pain: I’m waiting. You know how the Queen hates to be kept waiting.
Momma’s Naughty Little Boy: You’re going to have to spank me.
Reading the texts over Mac’s shoulder, David shook his head. “Looks like the queen had his head.”
“Not the queen,” Tonya said. “Constance.”
Chapter Twelve
On the back deck of her home, Constance was on her second cigarette before she realized that she was free to smoke indoors. A giggle escaped her lips as she plucked a tortoiseshell cat from the flor and stroked it.
It’s all mine.
She wondered how long it would take the police to notice Edward’s Mercedes abandoned in the parking garage at the Spencer Inn. Hopefully, no one would notice the smell of his decomposing body with it sealed in the heavy-duty garbage bags and closed in the trunk.
It didn’t matter. The body needed to be found. The insurance companies wouldn’t pay out on his policies until they found his body. She grinned when she multiplied her windfall by two with the double indemnity clauses.
She had rehearsed collapsing with grief when they gave her the news of her husband’s brutal murder.
This won’t be like the last time. This time, I’ll be properly grief-stricken and ask all the right questions about when and how it happened.
The motive she an intricately prepared for his murder would send Chief O’Callaghan’s focus far from her.
It would start with the discovery of a second account on Edward’s laptop where he had met with his fellow perverts. She would be properly shocked and dismayed.
Then, with great reluctance, she would be forced to reveal their painful secret.
Edward was obsessed with sadism and masochism sex. He was the submissive.
I refuse
d to have anything to do with that sick perverted practice. But I loved my husband. She would sniff and dab her eyes at that point. I gave him permission to hire women to please him. He’d arrange to meet these women—total strangers. I believe he’d pay them. I’m not sure. I stayed out of it. I guess he went to the Spencer Inn to meet someone and it went too far.
She once again made a mental note to ask for details about how he had died.
Don’t mess it up again!
Unbeknownto Edward Kleinfield, while he was enjoying his new role of a wealthy heir at the athletic club, his wife was making dozens of connections in S&M chat rooms in his name.
There were so many details that she had to keep straight. She had packed his bags. She’d put his golf clubs in the trunk of the car. After all, she stated that Edward had told her he was going to Scotland to play golf.
If the police don’t find him, I’ll report him missing on Monday. As soon as I finish this cigarette, I’ll text his cell phone. Leave lots of messages on his phone about how worried I am since I haven’t heard from him. That will leave a trail that my lawyer can submit in my defense—if it goes that far.
The important thing was to not let Chief O’Callaghan and Mac Faraday get suspicious.
With Edward gone, she’d inherit his uncle’s fortune, plus three-quarters of a million dollars in insurance.
Hugging the cat, Constance giggled. Not a bad return for two years’ worth of work.
Her delight gave way to fear as she felt a pair of eyes focused on her. Turning her head in the direction of the Spencer Manor, she saw him.
His ears standing at attention, Gnarly sat on top of the stone wall. His dark eyes were directed straight at her. He looked like a canine judge declaring her guilty.
She dropped the cat over the deck railing. “Get out of here!” She hurled the lit cigarette at the dog.
The corner of his mouth kicked up.
“Oh, you think you’re so cute.” She tapped a cigarette out of the pack and took her time lighting it—all the while, aware of Gnarly’s unblinking gaze on her. She took a deep drag on it, then blew the smoke out of the side of her mouth. “Go ahead. Accuse me all you like. You and your weird human fan club. Monday, I’m going to buy a brand new Mercedes and I’m going to run over you with it.”
