A Wedding and a Killing (7 page)

David tapped the button. “Evacuate the canine. Repeat, evacuate the canine—ASAP.”

Seeing the dog galloping toward the police cruiser, Mac threw open the rear door to allow Gnarly to jump into the back. Then, he casually opened the passenger door to climb in. Equally casual, David slipped into the driver’s seat and started the engine.

“Has anybody seen my hat?” Helga Thorpe raced into the parking lot from the bike path through the pine grove that separated the church grounds from the parsonage next door. “There was a gust of wind from off the lake and I turned around to catch my hat and suddenly—it has to be here someplace!”

While stomping across the parking lot, she continued ranting to anyone who would listen. “Someone must have picked it up. I’ll bet it was the pastor’s kid. I wouldn’t be surprised if Chase Hess stole it right off my head somehow. It couldn’t have blown completely away. He’s evil, I tell you! He absolutely refused to let me in the house just now. Says Natalie is too upset!” She scoffed. “Upset, my eye! Those two are having sex, I tell you! S-E-X! Right now. I’ll bet you money! They’re having sex while laughing about stealing my hat!”

“Ma’am,” one of David’s officers suggested gently while pointing out onto the water, “I think I just saw your hat out on the lake. A pelican had it.”

While Helga followed the direction of the officer’s finger, behind him, David turned his cruiser, in which Gnarly was crouched in the back seat with his ill-gotten good, onto the lake shore road.

“What does a
pelican
need with a hat?” Spinning on her high-heels, Helga slammed the uniformed officer on top of his head with her handbag.

“Sirrus! We’re leaving!” Upon seeing the empty space where her husband’s truck had been parked earlier, she refocused her fury. “Sirrus, where are you, you twit!”

Chapter Five

McHenry was located on the opposite end of Deep Creek Lake, the man-made body of water that was the center of the resort area in western Maryland. The small town consisted of the lakeshore and a mountain, at the top of which rested The Wisp Resort.

Homes spotted the landscape all the way up the mountaintop. Some were luxurious with fabulous views of the lake and countryside. Others were cozy, tranquil, and secluded among the heavily wooded area.

Abby Harmon’s home fit in with the latter. Tina Van Dorn’s mother lived in a small, three bedroom home that was tucked deep into the woods off a side road halfway up the mountain. It barely afforded a view of lake.

During the short drive to the other end of the lake, Mac wrestled with Gnarly to keep him from swallowing the styrofoam bird he had captured at the church. While Mac won that battle, Helga’s hat was a casualty of the war. Gnarly had managed to shred it into a hundred pieces. Holding up the mangled bird to show David, Mac announced, “Yet another police cover-up thanks to Gnarly.”

“We’ll frame the seagulls,” David said. “It’ll be easy. We’ll wait until it gets dark, and plant the feathers along the lakeshore. Helga will never know … unless one of us breaks down and confesses during interrogation.”

Eying Gnarly, who was still tearing into the hat, Mac said, “My money’s on Gnarly for being the weak link.”

In the rearview mirror, David glanced at the huge German shepherd growling and digging at the purple hat with both front claws. “Nah, Gnarly’s tough. He won’t break.” With a wicked grin, he added, “I think you’ll be the first to cut a deal.”

Seeing the emergency vehicles lined up along the mountain road, the police chief said, “Looks like a full house.” He continued past the cruisers until he came upon a sheriff’s deputy he knew. Stopping, he rolled down the driver’s side window and held up his police chief’s badge. Since he was still dressed in plain clothes, David didn’t want to take a chance on being mistaken for a “civilian,” as if the cruiser he was driving was not enough of a clue that he was on official business.

After the deputy indicated with a nod of his head that he recognized the police shield, David clipped it back on his belt. “What’s the situation inside?”

“We got here to find a bunch of cars filling the driveway,” the deputy said. “The sheriff went in to check it out and he hasn’t come out yet. Deputy Chief Bogart is inside, too.”

“Guess that means it’s safe,” Mac told David. “We might as well join the party.” He turned around to Gnarly. “Guard the car … and don’t steal anymore hats.”

Inside the Harmon home, they found Abby Harmon’s living room filled with a dozen women taking up every available chair. They all sat with their fingers and toes gingerly extended while freshly applied nail polish dried. Some of the lucky ladies held their hands under one of the two driers set up in the kitchen to speed things along.

Two of the women were soaking their feet in plastic tubs filled with sudsy water.

Flustered to have her party interrupted by a team of uniformed officers, the beauty consultant, a busty redhead with big hair and heavy make-up clad in a white linen robe, offered a bowl of fruit on ice. “Grapes, gentlemen? I do have products for men, if you’re interested in a manicure.” She flashed a nervous grin.

While Mac shook his head, David accepted a handful of the fruit. “We’re looking for Tina Van Dorn,” he said before popping a grape into his mouth.

Instead of answering, she grabbed David’s hand. “You have great hands.” She squeezed. “Strong, and such long, elegant fingers.” An eyebrow arched. “You know what they say about men with long fingers, don’t you?” She wet her full lips.

Mac stepped forward. “Tina Van Dorn, please?”

She pointed toward the kitchen. “In there with her mother, talking to the sheriff.”

After they brushed past her, she thrust a business card into David’s hand. “Call me to make an appointment. I would love to give your hands a massage.”

“I don’t think she’ll stop with your hands,” Mac muttered while dragging David through the crowd of women, being careful not to mess up any of their freshly polished nails.

In the tiny kitchen, they found a teary eyed young woman holding out her hands flat on the table. Her fingernails were painted bright purple. She sat with cotton balls wedged between her toes to protect the wet polish that matched her fingernails.

Unable to move for fear of messing up the beauty treatment, Tina Van Dorn relied on her mother to dab the tears that seeped from her eyes.

“I take it Chip Van Dorn isn’t here,” David whispered to Sheriff Christopher Turow, a middle-aged man with a military haircut.

Bogie had taken a position near the kitchen window. Regularly, he would peer out the window to check in case Chip Van Dorn was planning to make a surprise visit.

“She spoke to him first thing this morning,” the sheriff said.

“He sounded really strange,” Tina sobbed. “I should have called the police, but … I guess I’ve been in denial about his sanity.”

“What did he say when you spoke to him?” Mac asked.

“He said that he was calling to say good-bye,” she answered.

“I told her that he was leaving town,” Tina’s mother said. “I knew he was a jerk, but I didn’t think he was—”

“Oh, Chip has a horrible temper,” Tina said. “It was scary sometimes. That’s why I was always glad that we didn’t have a gun. I mean, Chip was the type that if he had a weapon, he would just grab it and shoot someone without thinking about it.”

Mac, David, Bogie, and the sheriff exchanged grim expressions.

Tina stopped sobbing and looked up at their faces. Her mother stopped mopping her daughter’s tears.

Silence fell over the room.

“Don’t tell me Chip has a gun,” Tina said.

“A man was shot at Spencer Church this afternoon,” David said.

“The church?” Stunned by the news, Tina stopped sobbing. “Why would he go shoot someone at the
church
?”

“He was angry with them for nixing his bake sale,” Mac said. “He had threatened Eugene Newton in front of witnesses.”

“Yeah, but Chip has been mad and threatened at least a dozen other people since then,” she said.

“Chip is always threatening someone for something,” Abby said.

“If my husband got his hands on a gun, he wouldn’t be going after the church. He’d go after—” Tina stopped. Her face turned white.

“Who?” Sheriff Turow asked. “Who would Chip be mad at enough today to kill?”

Tina swallow. “I am so humiliated.” A fresh flow of tears came to her eyes.

Abby mopped them away. “Tell them, dear. Tell them about Heather.” She told the officers, “He’d go after Heather. The bartender at the bar where he hangs out. He’s been having an affair with her and she called Tina last week to tell her about it. It’s been going on for over six months and she wanted Chip for herself. Tina said she could have him and left. Chip was furious with Heather for calling Tina. He wanted the best of both worlds—a devoted wife and a sex slave on the side.”

Sheriff Turow was writing down the name. “Heather—What’s her last name?”

Tina choked out a gut wrenching sob. “No!”

“We have to tell them, dear.” Abby patted her daughter’s shoulders. “Even if she was sleeping with your husband, we can’t let him—”

“No!” Tina covered her face with her hands. “You don’t understand.”

“We do understand,” Abby said before adding, “Be careful of your nails, dear. They’re still wet.”

“No.” Tina shook her head firmly. “It wasn’t Heather who called me.”

“Who told you about Heather?” David asked.

“You don’t understand,” Tina said. “Chip wasn’t having an affair with Heather. I just said it was her. She had nothing to do with it. Chip was cheating on me with …” She took in a deep shuddering breath before choking out, “Frank-Frankie!”

Sheriff Turow crossed out the name on his notepad. “Frankie. What’s her last name?”

“His
last name is Sandler,” Tina sobbed. “My husband cheated on me with a man!”

“Frankie Sandler,” Abby said with a gasp. “That creepy clerk at the bookstore who always wears long dangly earrings and—” She stopped to shudder. “Ee-eewww!”

“Eeewwww is right!” Grabbing a handful of tissue, Tina rattled on while mopping the tears that flowed freely from her face. Clearly, she cared no longer about disturbing the wet nail polish. “Frankie called me last week and told me that he and Chip were in love and, if I cared for Chip, I’d let him go. Of course, I confronted Chip and he didn’t deny that he was having sex with Frankie, but he said he didn’t want to come out of the closet. Frankie had been insisting that if Chip loved him, he’d go public with their relationship. Chip said he loved me and didn’t want me to leave him.”

She clenched both hands into tight fists. “Well, no way am I competing with a man for my husband!”

“He wanted you to be his cover,” Abby said with disgust.

Tina nodded her head. “So I left and Chip was furious with Frankie for breaking up our marriage.” Her voice cracked when she continued, “This morning, when Chip called, he said that he was sorry for embarrassing me and that he was going to end it today.”

“Did you say Frankie was a clerk at the bookstore?” Bogie tapped David on the shoulder after she nodded her head. “The assistant manager at the bookstore said Chip and one of his clerks was supposed to open this morning. Neither of them showed.”

“Chip ended it by taking out Frankie,” Mac said. “We need Frankie’s address.”

In Friendsville, Sheriff Christopher Turow found telling evidence that Chip Van Dorn was on the scene. His van with the bookstore logo on the side was parked out front.

“He’s here.” Sheriff Turow told David and Mac before trotting up the steps into the apartment house.

The apartment manager was both annoyed and pleased to see them. She had been receiving complaints all day about the music blaring in the ground floor apartment and was about to go check on her strange tenant when the sheriff demanded that she let them inside.

Upon following David through the door, Mac felt as if ice water had been poured down his back. It was late afternoon but the apartment was dark with the blinds drawn. A musty smell hung in the air.

Even though there was no physical person coming after him, Mac felt an intense, heavy presence lurking in the shadows.

After turning off the computer that was blaring offensive curse-filled lyrics from the Internet radio, David eased open the bedroom door and, with his gun drawn, went inside.

An eerie silence fell over the apartment that was cluttered with sex toys catering to sadomasochism, including chains, leather, handcuffs, and whips.

“Feel that?” the sheriff asked with a shudder. “I felt it overseas, usually in places that had been taken over by terrorists. It’s the presence of evil.”

“That’s what it is.” Mac nodded his head. “I’ve felt it before, too. More times than I like to remember.”

David came out of the bedroom. “Wait until you see this.”

Bracing themselves, Mac and the sheriff stepped into the apartment’s only bedroom. Reeking of sex and violence, the room looked like a den of depravity with magazines, pictures, and toys focused on male on male sex scattered about the room.

They found two naked men in the bed. A slightly built man was handcuffed spread-eagle to the bed, face down and blind-folded. The back of his head was blown off.

The naked man on top of him still clutched the gun that he had stuck into his mouth before pulling the trigger and blowing the top of his head off to propel him backwards. The bloody pulp that was left of his head and upper torso hung over the foot of the bed.

Mac bent over to study the gun that Chip Van Dorn clutched in a death grip. “Nine-millimeter Colt-semi-automatic.”

David read the driver’s license he found in the wallet on the floor next to a pair of trousers. “Chip Van Dorn. He certainly fell a long way since walking away from the church last year.”

“Unfortunately, that’s how it happens,” Mac said.

Chapter Six

With a sigh of pleasure, Archie dropped her head onto Mac’s shoulder. Slipping her arms around his moist shoulders, she took in the scent of citrus left over from the steam shower where she had ambushed him. “That’ll teach you to try to take a shower without me.”

She had launched the attack by sneaking uninvited into the master bath’s steam shower. Engrossed in washing off the discovery of three violent deaths in one afternoon, Mac didn’t realize he had company until she wrapped her arms around him and planted a kiss on his naked back.

He finished what she started by carrying her into the bedroom, placing her in the bed, and making love to her the way he had planned after taking their wedding vows … the vows that had been so rudely interrupted by murder.

Hugging her tight, Mac pulled the comforter up around her shoulders. “I’m going to need a lot of showers to wash the smut from Van Dorn’s lover’s apartment off me.” He sighed. “Yep, what we have, compared to what I saw there, brings the difference between love and depravity all home.”

“Oh, the way I feel about you can only be called love, my darling.” She reached up to stroke his face before kissing him.

He held her gaze to admire the striking hue of her emerald eyes. Her face resembled that of a pixie with her short blonde hair. “I’m sorry things didn’t work out today.”

She brushed her fingertips down his bare chest. “You already told me you were sorry.”

“Now I’m using words.” He kissed her on the tip of her nose.

“That was action, not words.”

His breath feathered her face while he resisted the urge to kiss her again on the mouth. “Do you have any idea how much I love you?”

“Tell me.”

“I want to marry you, Archie Monday. I’m done with this rolling around in the hay stuff. I want you by my side for the rest of our lives, through thick and thin, better or worse, richer or poorer.”

She held up her hand to admire the engagement ring he had put on her finger. “It’s going to happen. It’s just a matter of when.”

“It would probably be bad form to go back to Deborah to ask her to marry us tomorrow after one of her best friends was murdered,” Mac said. “How about if we go to the justice of the peace in the morning?”

“No.” Sitting up, she confirmed her answer with a shake of her head.

“Why not?”

“Marriage is more than a legal contract,” she said.

“Try telling that to my lawyer,” Mac said.

“Marriage is a moral and spiritual commitment,” she said. “Yes, there’s a legal part, but the real commitment—the exchanging of vows where they really count—is between those two people and the big guy who brought them together in the first place—God. And that has to be in His House, in church. As far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t count unless it’s in church. And I want Deborah to be the one to marry us.”

He took her hand and pressed it against his chest. “I never knew this was so important to you.”

“Neither did I.” She sighed. “Going into that church today brought back so many memories. Robin had a very strong faith about her. She used to beat herself up for not being more committed to that church that her parents went to every Sunday. She said her mother, your grandmother, was a big church lady. Robin was always very generous and contributed a lot of money, but …” Her voice trailing off, she held his gaze.

“Maybe we’ve seen so many bad things that we’ve become blinded to all the good things that God has blessed us with.” Mac stroked her bare shoulder. “My adoptive parents were devout Catholics. I grew up surrounded by priests and sisters. To me, believing in God was never a question. I only stopped attending Mass after I became a cop. Usually, I was too busy and my schedule didn’t work out. Other times, I felt like what’s the use—especially after a particularly brutal case.” He sighed. “That scene in that apartment today was as far from God as you can get.”

He lifted his eyes to hers. “I guess we need to solve this murder so that we won’t feel like such heels asking Deborah to marry us—if she’ll marry us after I told her to shut up.”

“But the murder is solved,” she replied. “We just need to give Deborah a couple of days—”

Mac was shaking his head.

“You don’t think Chip Van Dorn did it? But he bought a gun. He was a hot head.”

“With a short fuse and a short attention span to go with it,” Mac said. “One of the trustees said so and, based on what witnesses said about him, he would have gone to the last guy who ticked him off, this male lover who blasted him out of the closet, before going all the way back to the church to blame them for things going wrong.” He concluded, “They’re going to find out he didn’t do it.”

Mac’s cell phone rang from where it rested on the night stand. “I’m not going to answer that.”

Archie reached across him to grab the phone. “Why do they all have to be complicated?”

Playfully, Mac swatted her bare rump. “I’m going to remind you of this next time you accuse me of ruining a moment.”

“David,” Archie gasped into the phone, “what’s up?”

“Are you okay?”

“Sure,” she replied, “why are you asking?”

“You sound out of breath,” David said.

Ignoring his comment, Archie put the phone on speaker. “Mac’s here.”

“Hey, Mac,” David said, “I’ve got good news and bad news.”

“The bad news is Chip Van Dorn did not kill Eugene Newton,” Mac said.

“Give the man a cigar,” David said. “Doc Washington puts Chip’s and Frankie’s time of death between ten and eleven o’clock—before Eugene’s murder. Plus, Van Dorn’s gun is a nine-millimeter. The slugs they took out of Eugene are forty-five caliber.”

“What’s the good news?” Archie asked.

“Carmine Romano, one of the trustees, stopped by the church after you left, Archie,” David began.

“He makes the best pizza in Deep Creek Lake,” Mac interjected.

“I never ate it,” Archie said.

“All these years that you’ve lived here and you never ate Carmine’s Pizza?” David asked her.

“That’s what I just said.”

“Carmine’s is only one of the best Italian restaurants in the area. It’s where all the young kids hang out,” David said. “They aren’t fancy enough for snobby socialites like you, Archie.”

“Hey!”

David plunged on, “If you’re under thirty and like loud music, cheap beer, and good pizza for a reasonable price, you go to Carmine’s.”

“Carmine never serves fish with their heads still attached.” After dodging Archie’s elbow to his ribs, Mac asked, “What’s the lead, David? We need to get this case solved so Archie and I can make it legal.”

“You were there, Mac,” David said. “Do you remember Carmine saying how Helga Thorpe has been a real bad sport about not being chief trustee and she was in danger of being removed from the board, as well as the church?”

“That’s a motive,” Mac said. “Does she own a gun?”

“We’re running a check on that as we speak,” David said. “Bogie went to the hospital. Everyone there is extremely distraught—”

“Of course,” Archie said.

“But he found out something extremely interesting from the ladies,” David resumed, “and Ruth confirmed it during her statement. Eugene was shot in the little office down the hall from the church’s main office.”

“We know that,” Mac said.

“That office is used by Eugene and the trustees for various business operations,” David said. “Because of the safe in that office, it’s always locked—unless someone is using it—usually a trustee. Now follow me. Ruth cleaned the whole church on Saturday, including that room. She dusted the furniture and ran the sweeper. She closed and locked up afterwards. That room remained unused until the murder. The church has two Sunday services. Immediately after the offering, two ushers will carry the money into that office, which Deborah unlocks before the service. They put the offering into a money bag and drop it into the safe, which is like the safes they have at convenient stores. You can drop the money in but, unless you have the combination, you can’t open the safe and take money out. After the second service, Deborah locked the office. Allegedly, no one else was in that office until this morning when Eugene went in to take the money out of the safe to prepare the deposit. Are you following me, Mac?”

Mac was nodding his head. “That means the only fingerprints that should be in that crime scene belong to Ruth, Deborah, Eugene, and the four ushers who put the money in the safe.”

“Unless one of them’s our killer,” David said, “we’ll be able to nail him.”

“Unless our murderer wore gloves and didn’t leave fingerprints,” Archie said.

“No,” Mac said firmly, “this is going to be an easy case. Our killer is not one of those ushers, did not wear gloves and is going to confess to the murder, and Archie and I are going to get married before the end of the week.”

“Yeah, right,” Archie said with a sigh, “and Gnarly is going to be your best man.” With a roll of her eyes, she threw back the comforter and climbed out of bed.

“No, really,” Mac called after her while she went to the bedroom door and threw it open. “Tomorrow. I can feel it. We’re going to get a confession by noon.”

Without bothering to dress, she made her exit from the room—upon which Gnarly made his entrance. From halfway across the room, the German shepherd jumped to land next to Mac on the bed. After plopping down and burying his face in the cushions, the dog uttered a deep sigh.

“This isn’t how I envisioned the day ending when I got up this morning,” Mac said.