Blast from the Past (A Mac Faraday Mystery) (9 page)

Chapter Thirteen

“Oh, no!” Archie cried into the phone. “You can’t do that! Can’t you give me just another hour? Forensics should be here any minute.”

“I’m sorry, Archie,” Misty replied. “But my schedule is full and I have other clients waiting. This Pekingese has been trying to get in for three weeks.”

“A Pekingese? Not a Pekingese.”

Gnarly’s head snapped up and around from where he was involved in a staring contest with Sari. He was lying in his favorite spot on the loveseat. Clutching her toy collie, the little girl sat on the sofa across from him.

“I feel for Gnarly,” Misty told Archie. “Really, I admire him for being so heroic, but I can’t hold appointments again and again indefinitely. Once things settle down over there, call in and reschedule.”

Even though she understood, Archie was heartbroken for the German shepherd when she hung up the phone. “I’m sorry, Gnarly.” She reached over the back of the loveseat to pat him on the top of the head. “Next week, I’ll call and make another appointment for you.”

Leah came up from the dining room with a plate of cookies and a glass of milk for Sari. “Would you like a snack, sweetie?”

The little girl sat up to peer at the plate of sugar cookies. The dog raised his head to take in the goodies only one long jump from his snout.

“Gnarly, no,” Archie said in a firm tone.

Gnarly trained his eyes on the woman holding the plate of cookies.

Leah eyed the hundred pounds of fur and teeth. “Does he always look so mean?”

“He isn’t really. Gnarly will behave himself,” Archie said more to the dog than to her.

Together, the two women went into the dining room to join Randi, who was on her cell phone.

Archie could see one of Spencer’s police officers out on the deck talking to one of the security guards from the Spencer Inn. Upstairs, Bogie had made it his duty to fix Mac’s toilet. It was the first time she had ever seen a plumber packing a Colt semi-automatic in his tool belt.

“I guess the café is going to be closed for a while,” Archie told her.

When Leah opened her bag and took out a tube of lipstick, Archie saw a smartphone resting on top of her wallet. “Yeah, I guess so.” Leah stopped reapplying her lipstick to glance over at Randi. “We’re blowing this joint. Within forty-eight hours it will be a new city and new identities.”

Archie looked up into the living room where Sari was eating her snack. “Must be so hard for your daughter—being in the program at such a young age.”

“She’ll get used to it,” Leah said with only a small drop of compassion.

“When did she stop talking?” Archie asked.

“Her father used to always say that children are to be seen and not heard,” Leah said. “I guess one day she decided to make him happy and stop talking.” Slipping her lipstick into her bag, she shrugged. “He never complained about her being too noisy after that.”

“Have you tried therapy?”

Her hand still in her bag, Leah glared up at Archie. “Why? She’s happy. As long as she’s happy, then I’m happy. If everyone is happy, why mess with it?”

In the living room, Sari clutched her stuffed dog tightly while eating one of the cookies her mother had brought to her. Her eyes met Gnarly’s. The two of them stared at each other as if they could penetrate through each other’s eyes to read each other’s thoughts.

With a look over her shoulder, Sari saw that her mother was at the dining room table talking to the other two women. Silently, she slipped off the sofa, picked up a cookie, and, holding it out far in front of her, slowly moved across to the loveseat until the cookie was in front of Gnarly’s nose.

Unsure, Gnarly lifted his head to look up across the living room. Archie was still engaged in a conversation with Sari’s mother. Archie was seemingly unhappy with how the conversation was going. His brown eyes came back to focus on the child offering the goodie.

“Nice doggie,” she whispered so low that only he could hear.

Gently, he took the cookie from her hand, stood up, and turned around on the loveseat so his back was to Archie and Sari’s mother.

As soon as he had taken the goodie from her hand, Sari ran back to the sofa to climb back up on it.

Randi hung up her cell phone and pointed it at Archie. “The marshal’s office wants to wait for a confirmation from someone on the inside that the contract is cancelled before releasing you from protection. Better to be safe than sorry. Once we get that confirmation from one of our undercover agents, you’ll be free to come out from under the radar.”

The marshal then turned her attention to Leah. “We’re going to release a statement to the media that a young mother and her little girl were killed in the poisoning. That way, if you and Sari were the targets, they’ll think the hit was a success.”

“Do they know who those men with the submachine guns were working for yet?” Leah asked. “Was it Mario?”

“We’re still trying to identify them,” the federal agent replied.

“How about what happened inside the café? Did you see what happened to those men?” Archie was asking Leah.

Her dark eyes wide, Leah shook her head frantically. “I have no idea what happened,” she said. “I was in the kitchen cooking their orders when suddenly there was screaming. I heard dishes and furniture crashing. Sari came running into the kitchen. When I went out, men were on the floor—coughing up blood, twisting, and screaming. They were shaking something awful—” She covered her face. “I once saw—It reminded me of—” Breaking down, she dropped her head into her hands.

Randi told Archie, “Leah’s husband had been known to use poison.”

“It’s a terribly painful way to die,” Leah whispered. “I’ve seen dinner guests in our own home die after sharing an after-dinner cocktail with Mario. They start coughing up blood, shaking and twisting and grabbing their heads—poison that attacked the nervous system. That’s what it was.” She clutched her chest. “Suppose it was planted there for me. He would have used that poison to let me know—”

Randi shook her head. “If it was Mario, it would have been a more direct attack. Like the men with the machine guns.”

“But how—” Archie started to ask when Gnarly let out a bark. Leaping over the back of the loveseat, he charged for the door.

“Who is it?” Grabbing her purse, Leah jumped up from her chair.

Archie stopped her. “It’s Mac. Gnarly always barks at Mac like that. It’s Gnarly’s way of reminding Mac that this is his house and he’s is only letting him stay here.” 

Gnarly was jumping on the door when Mac eased it open to make him back up. When he spotted David behind him, Gnarly rushed between Mac’s legs to greet the police chief. It was only due to a quick move on his part that Mac avoided landing face-first on the floor.

Archie rushed into Mac’s arms. “I’m so glad you’re home. It scared the life out of me when Bogie said there had been a hit at the café.”

Mac embraced her tightly in his arms. “I guess Gnarly is good for something.”

David was easing the dog’s paws from his shoulders to the floor. When he saw Randi coming up from the dining room, David’s eyes narrowed into a glare. “Finnegan.”

She stopped to shoot back an equally vicious glare. “O’Callaghan.”

“I need to have a word with you.”

Randi eyed Mac. “You told him.”

“Of course I told him,” Mac said. “This is a major murder investigation in our town. Those were two hired assassins who meant serious business. I couldn’t let David go on working on the assumption that Tommy Cruze was their target when it could have been someone else.” He glanced over at Leah, who was clutching Sari.

Seeing the fear in the little girl’s face upon the two men’s entrance, Archie went over to Sari and knelt down. Mac saw the grip of her blue Ruger stick out from under the back of her shirt. “Sari,” Archie asked, “would you like me to show you the room where you and your mommy will be staying tonight?”

When her mother nodded her consent, Sari slid off the sofa. When Archie reached for her hand, she pulled away and hugged her stuffed dog to her chest.

Leah explained, “Sari doesn’t like it when strangers touch her.” She offered a nervous smile. “It’s hard for her to trust anyone enough to open up to them.” She knelt down to her daughter. “You can go with Ms. Archie.  She’s a nice lady. Deputy Chief Bogie is upstairs. He’s here to protect us. It will be okay.” She added in a firm tone, “Just don’t go too far.”

Silently, Sari followed Archie up the stairs. Once they were certain that she was out of earshot, David turned to Randi.  “Don’t you think I had a right to know that a major mob target was living under my nose?”

“Leah and Sari live in McHenry,” Randi said. “That’s not Spencer territory. The Garrett County sheriff knows about her. Besides, you won’t have her under your nose much longer. We’re relocating her and Sari. It will take a couple of days to get the relocation all set, but then we’ll be gone.”

“Don’t you think I had a right to know about it this morning when you were in the van and you knew that a major crime boss was marching right into her place of business?”

“Come on, O’Callaghan,” Randi replied with a laugh. “You know damn well how the government works. Nobody tells anybody anything.”

As much as it pained him, David admitted in a soft tone that Randi was right.

“Right now we all need to put our egos in check and concentrate on the matter at hand.” Mac stepped in between the police chief and marshal to separate them. “We have four dead men—”

“Five,” David corrected him.

“Four,” Mac said. “The fed was faking. He was alive when they took him out. That’s why Delaney wanted him out of there so fast.”

“How did I miss that?” David muttered.

Hearing him, Randi smirked when she asked, “What did you say?”

“When a fed tells me to look to the left, I make a point of looking to the right,” Mac said. “Cruze and his body guard coughed up blood. The fed didn’t. My guess is he faked being dead on the off-chance that he was the target. They aren’t going to be looking for a dead man.”

“A man came running through the kitchen and out the back service door when people started screaming,” Leah said. “I saw him come in with the man you said was a federal agent. Was he working undercover for the FBI, too?”

Reminded of the civilian amongst them, Mac and David exchanged glances before Randi ordered Leah, “Forget you heard that.”

“Hey, I’m out of here and in another part of the country in three days.” Shaking her head, Leah held up her hands in surrender. Mac saw a cell phone clutched in her palm. “As far as everyone is concerned, Sari and I were two victims of that poisoning.”

“Another local restaurant bites the dust,” David said. “I pity the fool who buys the Dockside Café with all the so-called victims added to the actual body count.”

“Unless we find out what really happened,” Mac said. “Okay, we know they were poisoned, but how?” He turned to Leah.

She clutched her chest. “I didn’t do it.”

“We’re not saying that you did,” David said.

Mac noticed that Randi, who had turned away, was silent in defending the café owner. “I’m sure forensics is testing everything to find the source,” he said. “But I think we can narrow it down the old fashioned way. I noticed that they didn’t have their food yet. So it wasn’t in the food.”

“I was in the kitchen cooking their breakfast orders when it happened,” Leah told them.

“Then the poison must have been in their drinks,” David said.

“What did they have to drink?” Mac asked her.

“Coffee,” Leah said. “Only one of the men didn’t have anything, the one who came in last with the undercover operative. He was the man who ran out through the kitchen.” She added, “And orange juice. I had served them orange juice when I took their orders.”

Mac rubbed his finger across his lips. “Did they all drink the orange juice?”

“All of them, except the agent who ran.”

“Did the bald man with the mustache have orange juice?” Mac asked.

After she nodded her head, David said, “Richardson wasn’t poisoned, so it wasn’t in the juice.”

“It was in the coffee,” Mac said. 

Randi said, “They all had coffee.”

“Different people drink coffee different ways,” Mac said.  “Some use cream, some use sugar, some use both cream and sugar.”

“It was in either the cream or the sugar,” David said. “The cream was in those little plastic disposable tubs.”

“The big fat man and one of the other men who died had cream in their coffee,” Leah said before shaking her head. “The man who came in last, with the man who ran out, he drank his coffee black—no cream or sugar.” 

“But he faked his death,” Mac muttered.

“The two men who died, Cruze and his bodyguard, both had cream in their coffee,” David said. “It was in the cream.”

Mac turned back to Leah. “What about the couple who left? What did they have?”

“Nothing,” Leah said. “The man insisted that his coffee had to be fresh. So I brewed a fresh pot. I was bringing it in to him when his wife threw a hissy-fit and they got into a big fight and left. They didn’t have anything.”

“They left, and suddenly people started dropping dead,” David said. “Did they dodge a bullet?”

“—or fire it?” Mac asked.

They all looked up when they saw Bogie coming down the stairs. His uniform was wet.

“What happened to you?” David asked.

“From the upstairs windows, you get a clear view around the lake,” Bogie explained. “While I was watching, I busied myself by fixing the clog in Mac’s toilet.” He turned to Mac. “It was wedged down there pretty tight. So I took the toilet up off the floor and got it for you.” He pulled a yellow rubber duck bath toy out of his pocket.

“What—”

Before anyone could react to the surprise, Gnarly leapt over the back of the loveseat in one bound, grabbed the rubber duck out of Bogie’s hand, and tore up the stairs with it in his mouth.

“I don’t like that … dog,” Leah said. “I don’t like the way he looks at me.”

“Gnarly’s not vicious,” David said. “Possessive of his stuff, but not vicious.”

Randi put her arm around Leah to comfort her. “Leah is afraid of dogs.”

With a sigh, Bogie said, “Guess I better go put the toilet back together again.” He turned to Mac. “Want to lend me a hand? After all, it was your dog, and it’s your toilet that he flushed his duck down.”

“Gnarly,” Mac muttered to the dog that had run up the stairs, “I’m going to kill you.”

“What’s Leah’s story?” Mac demanded of Randi after she had shown the café owner her guest room upstairs.

After Leah was comfortable, Randi rejoined David and Mac in the study where they were enjoying a before-dinner cocktail. After the day they had had, they felt they deserved it.

Of all the rooms in the manor house, Mac felt most comfortable in Robin’s study. There he felt the essence of the woman who had given birth to him.

Robin Spencer’s famous mysteries had been penned in the most cluttered room in Spencer Manor. Built-in bookshelves containing thousands of books collected over five generations took up space on every wall. Robin had left her son first editions of all her books. First editions that famous authors had personally inscribed to her, and books for research in forensics, poisons, criminology, and the law also lined the shelves. With every inch of bookshelf space taken, the writer had taken to stacking books on her heavy oak desk and tables, and in the corner.

Portraits of Spencer ancestors filled the space not taken up with books. After almost two years, Mac was still in the process of learning many of their names and histories. Some appeared to be from the eighteenth century. Others wore fashions from the turn of the nineteenth century and on.

The most recent portrait was a life-sized painting of Robin Spencer dressed in a white, strapless formal gown from the 1960s. She looked like a young Elizabeth Taylor. When he had first seen the picture, Mac was taken aback by how much Robin resembled his grown daughter, Jessica.

The portrait of the demure-looking author filled the wall between two gun cases behind the desk. One case contained rifles and shotguns, while the other had handguns. Some of the guns had been handed down through the Spencer family. Others, the author had purchased for research.