Blast from the Past (A Mac Faraday Mystery) (13 page)

One of the agents said, “I saw the dog jump out of the bed of the truck and tackle the guy, and then they both disappeared.”

“If anything happens to that dog, I’ll be sleeping in the guest room for the rest of my life,” Mac muttered. “Gnarly!” His call was answered by a whimper from out of the darkness. “Anybody got a flashlight?”

Delaney was already shining a pen light in front of him while they made their way through the dark toward the woods where they had last seen the gunman.

“Gnarly!” Mac called again.

The bark and whine came from in front of them. Delaney shone the light down to the ground.

If they had gone only a couple of steps further, they would have fallen into it—the grave—freshly dug for the agent who had pushed Bonito too far. It ended up being the grave of the gunman, who had landed on his own gun, which cut him in half.

Gnarly stood on his hind legs with his front paws up on the side of the grave which was too deep for him to crawl out of nor was it long enough him to be able to gain the speed to jump out.

Mac couldn’t help but laugh. “What did you get yourself into now?”

Gnarly backed up and tried to jump out of the pit, only to manage to get his front legs on the rim. Unable to gain traction with his back legs, he tumbled down to land on his back on top of the dead gunman.

“I guess you need my help, huh, Gnarl?” Mac laughed.

Answering him with a snarling bark, Gnarly dropped down and dug in the dirt.

“What are you going to do? Dig yourself out?” Mac laughed again.

Gnarly stood and stretched up the side of the grave with something in his mouth.

“What’s that he’s got?” David knelt next to Mac.

Delaney directed his light on Gnarly, who had something clutched in his teeth. They all moved in to get a closer look at the prize Gnarly had dug up in the bottom of the grave.

It was a decomposed arm with the hand still attached.

Chapter Seventeen

“You’re letting that filthy dog sit in my seat?” Randi Finnegan’s voice went up two octaves when she came around the corner of the cruiser to find Gnarly in the front passenger seat with the window open.

“Hey, he deserves it,” David said while scratching the dog behind both ears. “He’s taken out two hired assassins in twenty-four hours. Better than what you accomplished back there.”

Too mad for words, she rammed her knee into David’s groin, causing him to buckle over and fall to his knees.

“Am I going to have to separate you two?” Mac asked when he hopped over a fallen tree to join them, only to find David down on his knees.

“I’m going to have Delaney drive me back to the manor.” Randi whirled around to go hunt down the agent.

“Are you okay?” Mac watched David slowly pull himself up to his feet.

“Sure,” David answered in a pained tone. “I didn’t want to have any kids anyway.” Steadying himself against the side of the cruiser, he made his way around to the driver’s side and climbed in.

“What did you do to Finnegan now?” Mac asked after climbing into the back seat.

“What I always do to women. I opened my mouth without thinking.” He started the cruiser. “How’s Delaney’s man?”

“Got hit in the shoulder,” Mac answered while fastening his seat belt, “which is better than the guy who shot him. He got one in the forehead.”

“Any idea who the hand belongs to?”

“Could be one of a dozen people,” Mac said, “that they know of. That’s not counting the guys they don’t know about.”

“But no thoughts about where Bonito is,” David said.

While looking over his shoulder to ensure that the way was clear for David to back out onto the mountain road, Mac shook his head. “They found the cell phone. It forwarded the texts from another phone, which, from what they were able to determine here, had been shut off.”

“He could have called from anywhere in the world.” David spun the wheel to turn the cruiser around to head back down the mountain to Spencer Point. “Most likely, he’s not even in the area.”

Seeming to agree with him, Gnarly turned around in the front seat, planted his front paws on top of the back of the seat, and uttered a low bark.

“Yeah, Gnarly,” Mac said to the German shepherd, “That’s something to think about.” He asked David, “Are you heading back to the station?”

“I still have a few questions for Nora Crump,” David said. “Something doesn’t smell right about her husband’s murder.”

“That bad smell started when she sent you on a wild goose chase,” Mac said.

“Did you ever have a witness send you on a complete wild goose chase?” David asked.

“Only those who were in on it,” Mac said. “Who was in the car she sent you after?”

“I said I didn’t catch ‘em.”

“You lied.”

David caught his eye in the rearview mirror. “What makes you think I lied?”

“Two things.” Mac held up his index finger. “You’re too good to lose a suspect. If they had outrun you, you would have hunted all night for them. You came back too soon to have lost them.” He held up a second finger. “You’re mad about it. What happened? Was it a car full of nuns and you pulled your gun on them?”

“No.” With a heavy sigh, David concentrated on the road.

“You can tell me.” Even in the back seat on the passenger side of the cruiser, Mac could see the firm set of David’s jaw. “What happened?”

“It was a car full of drunken women on their way home from a bachelorette party,” David finally said. “They offered me seventy-five dollars to strip for them. When I told them that I was the chief of police, they giggled.”

Mac burst out laughing.

“They had a designated driver. She had the decency to be mortified and kept trying to get them all in line, but they were drunk out of their gorges. When I refused to strip, two of them tried to tear my clothes off. They were grabbing for things they had no right grabbing.” He raised his voice over Mac’s humor. “It’s not funny, damn it!”

Mac bit his lip. “You’re right. It’s not funny.” He chuckled. “They should have at least offered you a hundred.”

“Of course you can laugh about it.” David pulled over to the side of the road, put the cruiser into park, and whirled around in the seat. “Look at you. Mac Faraday. The Lord of Spencer Manor. Simply because of the accident of your birth, you get respect from people who haven’t even met you.”

“You get respect,” Mac argued.

“Seventy-five dollars to take off my clothes!”

“Which you didn’t do, I assume.”

“Look at me, Mac!” David said. “Stab wound from a little old lady in a wheelchair who happens to be my mother, who hates my guts, and hiding in my big brother’s home because I’m too much of a wuss to handle the nightmares in my own home!” He whirled back around to face the front. Mac suspected he didn’t want him to see the tears in his eyes.

“No wonder,” David said in a low voice. “I wouldn’t respect myself, either.” 

The two of them sat in awkward silence.

When David reached for the gear shift to put the car into drive, Mac reached up to clasp his shoulder. “Yeah. Look at me. I’m sitting in the back seat of a cruiser while my dog is sitting in the front because he doesn’t respect me enough to let me sit up there.”

With a whine, Gnarly lied down and buried his face in his paws.

“You’re talking about a dog, Mac. Big difference.”

“I respect you.”

“You feel sorry for me.”

“No,” Mac said. “You’re feeling sorry for yourself right now—anyone would with what you’re going through with your mother. I went through the same thing when my wife left me. If my own wife, the woman who had vowed for better or worse, who knew me better than anyone on the face of this earth, had so little respect for me that she would take another man into our bed, then how could anyone else respect me and my badge?”

David hung his head. “I guess there are similarities.”

“I know it’s tough, David.” Mac squeezed his shoulder. “But you’re not alone in this. I’ve got your back. Archie has your back. Bogie has your back.” He chuckled. “Even Gnarly has your back. You’re never alone.”

“That’s hard to remember sometimes.”

“Remember it,” Mac said. “Have faith that when you come out on the other end, you’re going to be stronger for it.”

“If it doesn’t kill me first.” David put the cruiser into drive and pulled out onto the road to continue down the mountain.

After a long silence that made his head ache with the tension David was going through, Mac leaned against his seat belt to ask him, “Did you know that Gordon Crump drank his coffee with double cream?”

Slowly, careful to keep one eye on the road, David turned his head to look over his shoulder at Mac.

“Considering that he was at the Dockside Café this morning,” Mac said, “where two men were murdered with poisoned cream, I find that very interesting. Don’t you?”

David pressed his foot down on the gas pedal.

To have your spouse murdered is hard enough. Homicide detectives understand that. However, they must also face the reality that, in many cases, it is the spouse who has committed or commissioned the murder.

When Mac looked through the two-way mirror at Nora Crump, looking like a wrung-out rag in the interrogation room, he thought of how many times he had questioned the wife of a murder victim. Most of the time, he felt like a heartless monster for suspecting someone who had lost the love of her life to violence. The only thing that alleviated his guilt was the thought of how many times the wife ended up being the very one behind her husband’s death.

With the case file that he had put together since the murder four hours before, David threw open the door. “If you want to be in on this case, you might as well be in on the fun.”

Mac followed David out into the hallway and then over to the next door to go into the interrogation room.

Nora looked up from where she was staring down at her hands on the table. There was no recognition in her red, swollen eyes when she saw Mac come in, or when David introduced him as the squad’s homicide detective. Mac surmised that she didn’t notice him that morning when she hurried past him and Gnarly on her way into the Dockside Café.

David sat down in the chair across from her.

“I’m sorry for your loss, Mrs. Crump.” Choosing not to remind her of their brief meeting, Mac took the seat at the end of the table.

The police chief began by opening the file. “Mrs. Crump—”

“Don’t call me that please.”

David jerked his head up from the case file. “Excuse me?”

“Don’t call me Mrs. Crump. I hate that name.”

“What do you want me to call you?”

“Nora,” she answered.

David and Mac exchanged puzzled expressions. Sharing the same O’Callaghan eyes, their furrowed brows held an identical appearance with the left brow arched in question.

“Okay,” David finally said to her. “Nora, we have a problem.”

“Is all this about my sending you after that car and it not being the killer?”

“Partly,” David replied.

“I told you—my husband was just shot right in front of me.” She touched a blood stain on her shirt. “I have his blood on me. He took his last breath in my arms. The last thing I noticed was where the man who shot him ran off to.”

“Actually,” Mac cleared his throat, “most people, when someone is right in front of them shooting down people, won’t ever take their eyes off of the guy with the gun, if only to ensure that they don’t get shot next.”

Nora gazed at him. “I was in shock,” she said. “I don’t remember everything that happened.”

“Like that you were standing right next to your husband when he was shot?” Mac asked.

“I was.”

“We have witnesses who said you were several feet away,” Mac said, “and that the killer walked right past you to go up to your husband and shoot him.”

The fright in Nora’s eyes transformed into anger. “Was someone you loved ever killed right in front of you?”

“Yes,” Mac replied to her stunned dismay, “and I remember vividly every move, every sound, every instant. Because when it happened, everything went into slow motion, and I replayed it over and over and over again until it was seared into my memory. So don’t give me that bull about you not remembering.”

Her voice was cold. “Not everybody is the same. So I’m different from you. When I face trauma, I block it out.”

“Why did you leave the restaurant?” Mac threw her off-balance by asking.

“Same reason anyone leaves a restaurant,” she replied. “I was done eating.”

“The server said that you suddenly got into such a big hurry to leave,” Mac said, “that your husband left his credit card behind because he had to run to keep up with you.”

Nora’s eyes glazed over with deep thought.

“I thought this was a pleasure trip,” David said, “a nice, pleasant dinner date with your husband. Why would you suddenly need to leave?”

She opened her mouth. Nothing came out. She swallowed.

“Now is the time to tell us everything,” Mac said.

“But I don’t know everything,” she said in a low voice. “That man in black—he was wearing a hood up over his head—he shot my husband. I know people saw him do it.”

“Who was he?” Mac asked.

“He worked for Tommy Cruze,” she said.

“Who happens to be dead,” David said.

“What?” Covering her mouth with her hands, she gasped.

“Tommy Cruze was at the café across the street from the hotel where you and your husband are staying,” David explained. “Witnesses saw you and your husband there this—yesterday—morning. Shortly after you left—”

“Abruptly,” Mac interjected, “much like you did last evening.”

“Tommy Cruze and his body guard dropped dead,” David said. “They were poisoned.”

“But the man who shot Gordon said he worked for Tommy Cruze,” she said. “‘This is for Tommy Cruze.’ I heard him say that.”

Mac looked from her to David, who was looking back at him.

“Maybe…” she started.

“What?” David urged her to continue.

“I guess it’s possible,” she said in a low voice. “I guess it makes sense.”

“What makes sense?” Mac asked.

She moved her chair in closer to the table. Placing her hands on the table top, she leaned in to explain, “Gordon inherited a very successful kitchen and bath supply company. His father was real smart. They had three stores when he passed. But then Gordon…” her voice trailed off.  “My husband had issues.”

“What type of issues?” Mac was unable to keep the suspicion out of his tone.

“Gordon lacked his father’s charisma. Most everyone did business with him because they loved the guy. He was everyone’s friend. Gordon was…” She sighed. “It didn’t take long for all of the business’s regular customers to go elsewhere. Two out of the three stores were closed within two years. We were clinging to the last store by a thread. I wouldn’t be surprised if Gordon did something stupid.”

“Like what?” Mac asked.

“Make a deal with the devil,” she said. “I have no idea what this Tommy Cruze was into, but I do know Gordon was getting threats. He owed someone a lot of money, and if he didn’t pay up…I only found out by accident. Gordon claimed not to be afraid, but I was.” She nodded at Mac. “Yes, I did leave suddenly last night because I felt like someone was watching us. It felt like—I got so scared that I couldn’t take it any longer—us sitting there in a public restaurant in the open like that—so I told Gordon that we had to go. I wanted us to get back to the hotel and lock the door.”

“What happened at the Dockside Café?” David asked her.

“I had no idea what this Tommy Cruze looked like,” she said. “We were sitting there in the café. Gordon had taken some containers of cream out of his pocket.” She demonstrated taking something out of her pocket. “I had no idea that he had them.  I asked him what he was doing with cream in his pocket. He told me to shut up. He put them in the bowl.  He told me that we had to go. I wanted to stay, but he said it was time to go. So we got up and left—and left that bowl with the cream that he had put in it on the table.” She sucked in a shuddering breath. “I guess Gordon thought his problem would be gone if he got rid of Tommy Cruze, but he was wrong.”

She looked down at her hands, folded on top of the table. “Even though he was dead, Tommy Cruze still killed him.” She choked. “Just like Gordon’s dumb luck.”