The Murders at Astaire Castle (A Mac Faraday Mystery) (8 page)

“What?” Ed’s voice went up even higher than before. “Are you serious?”

“I can’t sell it now anyway,” Mac said. “It’s a crime scene. Tell Gould that his wedding present can wait. The castle isn’t going anywhere.”

“You don’t know Stan Gould,” Ed said. “He’s got powerful friends and when he wants something, he tends to get it.”

“I heard that before,” Mac said. “While I was a detective, I was told that all the time by murder suspects—eventually they would end up in jail. I refused to let myself be pushed around when I was poor, I’m not going to start now.”

Ed uttered a long groan. “I say this with all due respect, Mac. You can be a real pain in the butt sometimes.” Before Mac could hang up, the lawyer said, “You are going to be around that conference call tomorrow.”

“What conference call?”

“The one I emailed you about,” Ed said. “You, me, and your business manager to discuss diversifying your assets. You’re going to get killed in taxes next year if you don’t do something.”

“I never thought I would live to see the day that I was making too much money,” Mac said with a sigh.

“Ten o’clock tomorrow,” Ed said. “I’ll call you.”

After a quick goodbye, Mac tossed the phone onto the night stand. When he turned back, he met Archie’s gaze. “Stan Gould, the billionaire? He wants to buy the castle?”

“Yep.” Mac lay back down.

“Are you going to sell it to him?” She wrapped her arms and legs around him.

“Maybe, maybe not,” he said. “Ten million dollars is a lot of money for a broken down haunted castle. Robin refused to sell it for a reason.” With a deep sigh, he grasped her and held her close. “In any case, I can’t sell it while it’s a crime scene.”

She gazed up into his face. “While you’re thinking about it, I’ll dig more into its history.”

He kissed her. “That’s my girl.”

Mac couldn’t believe how easily Archie would fall asleep. Snuggled against him, her face tucked into his neck, her breath brushing across his chest, she would fall asleep as easily as a baby in his arms—a beautiful , sexy, sassy, grown-up baby.

As always, after she had drifted off to sleep, she rolled over onto her side to face away from him. Mac then rolled over and pulled her back so that they could sleep like a couple of spoons fitted together. Now, on his side, with one arm tucked under the pillow under his head, he would be able to fall asleep.

As usual, Mac woke up at three o’clock in the morning with a rumble in his stomach. He was in need of a little snack to hold him over until morning. He pictured the unopened pack of bologna in the lunch meat drawer in the fridge. It seemed to be calling to him from down in the kitchen.

When he got out of bed, Mac saw the moon beam shining through the skylight to illuminate the closed bedroom door. He followed the beam to look up at the moon—big and bright and full.

Full moon. Time for the werewolves to be out.

Mac looked over at the bed where Gnarly’s two rear paws usually stuck out from where he had burrowed into his makeshift den.

They weren’t there. Mac knelt down to peer under the bed. Gnarly wasn’t there.

The sneak. He’s down on the loveseat sacking out.

Wanting to sneak up on Gnarly to catch him in his dirty nocturnal hi-jinks, Mac crept to the top of the stairs. Down below, he saw that the loveseat was empty.

Mac made his way down to the living room. Across the room, down in the dining room, he saw a light shining under the kitchen door. The bang of a drawer closing and movement revealed that something was in the kitchen and not trying to be quiet about it.

That hog is in the fridge again! He’d better not be stealing my bologna!

More than once Mac had caught Gnarly stealing food from the fridge. He had even managed to close the refrigerator door behind him by swinging his body around and hitting the door with his hip and butt.

On his toes, Mac made his way down into the dining room. He wanted to catch Gnarly red pawed in the act of chowing down on whatever he was stealing from the refrigerator … and it had better not be the bologna.

At the door, Mac gently pushed it in and peered inside.

The sight took his breath away. His heart felt like it was going to beat out of his chest when he saw the big hairy beast at the kitchen counter—on his hind legs—standing several feet up so that he was a head taller than the refrigerator—at least ten feet tall—slapping slice after slice of bologna and cheese on the bread neatly placed on a plate. With his broad chest and back, he was as wide as the fridge. His long tail swayed gracefully behind him.

When he stepped away from the counter to go to the fridge, Mac saw that the package in which the bologna was kept was now empty.

That werewolf is eating the whole thing!

Gnarly was taking the jar of mayonnaise out with his right paw—with his dew-claw acting as an opposable thumb, when he saw Mac frozen in shock in the doorway.

Mac’s eyes met those of Gnarly, standing several feet taller than him, with fangs at least six inches long.

On his hind legs, Gnarly walked towards him. He huge head towered over Mac. He looked down on him, his face so close that he could feel his hot breath in his face. It smelled like peanut butter.

That beast ate all of the peanut butter, too! What a hog!

“Yeah, that’s right. I’m a werewolf,” Gnarly spoke in a voice that sounded eerily like that of Vincent Price. “So what are you going to do about it?”

“Bad, werewolf! Put that bologna back where you found it!” Mac screamed at him while springing upright in his bed.

Archie jumped up from where she was sound asleep and grabbed for the lamp on the night stand to use as a weapon.

Beneath them, Gnarly banged his head on the underside of the box springs and yelped.

“What’s going on?” Archie rolled back to him in the bed.

“Gnarly’s up to his old tricks again.” Mac switched on the light and hung down over the edge of the bed to look under it. To his relief, Gnarly was blinking at him with a touch of disgust about being woken up. He was the same size he had been the day before.

“Did I hear you say ‘bad werewolf?’” she asked.

Mac sat back up in bed and turned off the light.

“What were you saying about bologna?” Archie asked while he pulled up the covers to cover his shoulders. “Were you dreaming about werewolves and bologna?”

“Gnarly was raiding the fridge again.”

“Oh, is that all?” She rolled over and wrapped her arms around him. “What’s so bad about that dream? He does it all the time.”

“He ate all the bologna,” Mac said.

“It’s okay, honey,” she squeezed him. “If Gnarly eats all the bologna, I’ll buy a new pack just for you.”

They settled back into bed, but Mac wasn’t able to close his eyes. The feeling of Gnarly towering over him, as broad as a refrigerator, with six-inch fangs, eating the whole pound of bologna, was still too fresh in his mind. The beating of his heart refused to slow down.

Mac threw off the covers and jumped out of bed.

“Where are you going now?” Archie sat up to ask.

Mac shrugged into his bathrobe. “To check on the bologna.”

Exasperated, Archie plopped back down onto the bed.

A moment later, she heard a scream from down in the kitchen. “That bologna-sucking werewolf! He did eat the whole thing!”

From under the bed, she heard Gnarly utter a long guttural groan.

Chapter Eight

It was during Gnarly’s six o’clock check of the perimeter that David came out of his cottage and closed the door. Under his police chief’s winter coat, he was fully dressed in his uniform and heading out to go on duty.

Overseeing Gnarly’s patrol from the back deck, Mac felt a twinge of jealousy. While David was digging into Damian Wagner’s murder, he was going to be on a conference call with his business manager about how best to diversify his earnings since his inheritance. Surprisingly, Mac discovered that he had quite a talent for making investments. Since he had inherited two-hundred-and-seventy million dollars, his investments had made his worth increase twenty percent. His worth was now well over three hundred million.

He’d give away every penny to be back on duty and delving into Damian Wagner’s murder case. “You’re up early,” he called over to David before he turned the corner of the cottage to take him to the garage.

After halting, David turned to the back deck to see where Mac was concealed by the early morning darkness that had yet to lift with the rise of the sun. He followed the sound of Mac’s voice to where he was waiting in his bathrobe for Gnarly’s return from securing the estate from Otis and other trespassing squirrels gathering nuts for winter.

“I have a lot of work to do,” David said. “I have to dig out the case files for the murders at Astaire Castle and see what could have been missed to help us find out who killed Damian Wagner, Genie, and the editor.”

“Didn’t Bogie say something yesterday about a housekeeper?” Mac asked.

David nodded his head. “She found the bodies.”

“Is she still around?”

“That’s something I need to find out,” David said. “I’ve got a lot to do. I found Riley’s sister, Chelsea, last night. She’s working for the state attorney general’s office in Annapolis. I gave her a call.”

“I thought you were going to have Tonya do that.”

“I figured it would be better her hearing it from me,” David said with a shrug of his shoulders. “Chelsea has to make a few arrangements in Annapolis, but she’ll be out here as soon as possible.”

“You’d think she’d be coming out here ASAP,” Mac said. “I didn’t even grow up with you, but if someone called to tell me that you’ve spent the last decade living in the woods like a wolf, I’d be flying out on the first flight.”

“Most people don’t have a private plane available to take them anywhere at a moment’s notice.”

“I don’t have a private plane,” Mac said.

“You also don’t have a boss to answer to,” David said.

“What do you call him?” Mac pointed at Gnarly who was clawing at the door to signal that he was now ready to go inside for his breakfast.

“I don’t have time to judge Chelsea,” David said. “I’ve got three murders to solve.”

“And only a small staff to help you.” Mac wanted to offer his help but didn’t want to overstep his bounds. Like a racehorse that had been retired and put out to stud, he resigned himself to being forced to enjoy his life of leisure while the younger race horse got to go for the glory in the big race. While the life of leisure was nice, it wasn’t for Mac Faraday.

“True.” Patting his service weapon on his utility belt, David turned around and crossed the deck to head out to his cruiser.

Longingly, Mac gazed at his back as he walked away.

David stopped at the corner of the deck. Without turning, he called out, “Mac, are you coming?”

Mac rushed to the deck doors to go inside. “I just need to feed Gnarly and get dressed. Don’t leave without me.”

In the upscale resort town of Spencer, Maryland, where many of the town’s residents were listed in Marquis Who’s Who in America, the small police station resembled a sports club. Located along the shore of Deep Creek Lake, the log building that was home to the police department sported a dock with a dozen jet skis and four speed boats. Its fleet of police cruisers was top of the line SUVs, painted black with gold lettering on the side that read:
SPENCER POLICE
. For patrolling the deep woods and up the mountains trails, they had eight ATVs. Like the cruisers, all of the vehicles were black with gold lettering and trim.

It was the first time Mac had been to the Spencer police station before it opened for business. He had forgotten that small town police stations usually closed their doors after business hours. Coming from Washington, Mac was used to the metropolitan police stations that never closed.

Small resort towns don’t have the budget or manpower to keep their offices open twenty-four-seven. The police force worked in shifts. Only two officers would work the graveyard shift, with each of the officers in the department taking turns. Police Chief David O’Callaghan and Bogie, his deputy chief, were on call twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, including holidays.

On their way to the station, David stopped at the local bakery for a box of donuts for his officers and two coffees for him and Mac to hold them over until the first pot of the morning was brewed. They also picked up a croissant for Gnarly, who was stretched out across the backseat in David’s cruiser. Threatening to come through the barricade between the front and back of the cruiser, Gnarly insisted on getting his croissant immediately, instead of waiting for them to reach the station.

“You’d think after a pound of bologna that he’d be full,” Mac told David.

Gnarly practically vacuumed up the back seat while sniffing the cushion in search of any crumbs that may have escaped his attack.

“Have you ever known Gnarly to get full?” David asked with a laugh.

“True.”

It was a surreal experience for Mac to follow David into the station and wait for him to switch on the lights, unlock doors, and check for messages on the voice mail. He had never seen a police department so quiet.

“Doc Washington left a message,” David called out to Mac, who was preparing the coffee. “Dental records were a match. The corpse was Damian Wagner.”

“Which means we have a triple homicide to solve, but then, we already knew that.”” Mac punched the button to set the coffeemaker in motion.

By the time David had finished taking down the messages and putting them on each officer’s desk, the coffee was brewed and Mac freshened both of their cups.

Gnarly was already asleep in his bed, which Tonya, the desk sergeant, had brought in for him to use during his visits.

The file room was located on the ground floor. Rows of shelving contained white file boxes for each of Spencer’s cold case files, those cases not yet solved. David had no trouble finding the three boxes for the murders of Genevieve Wagner and Bill Jansen, and the disappearance of Damian Wagner—which was now officially a homicide.

David pushed a box in Mac’s direction while taking one for himself. “You take Genevieve Wagner,” he said.

“Is that because you slept with her?” Mac asked with a grin.

“I’d appreciate it if you could keep that information to yourself.” David’s cheeks turned pink.

“I’ll do my best,” Mac said while taking the lid off his box, “but there’s no guarantee that it won’t come out, considering how I found out about it.”

A silence fell over the police station while Mac and David became absorbed in their respective cases—even though they were shared. Upstairs, they could hear the station coming to life. Officers were arriving and checking in—Sergeant Tonya being the first.

She came halfway down the stairs to greet them. Gnarly was by her side. When she stopped, he sat down on the step next to her feet to study them. When she returned up the stairs, Gnarly followed. He was confident that she would be giving him a donut after his plea of starvation.

“Here’s something I didn’t expect to find.” David broke the silence that had fallen back over the table. “Bill Jansen wasn’t hacked to death.”

“Was the COD stabbing?” Mac asked.

“No,” David said, “Poison. They found evidence of strychnine poisoning. Forensics was able to uncover that in his remains. He was already dead when he was dismembered and then burnt.”

“That’s strange.” Mac referred to the autopsy report. “Genevieve was stabbed. They found evidence of blade marks on her ribs that are consistent with a butcher knife.” He tapped the top of his pen against the report. “Why two different CODs? This was meant to look like a madman run amuck.”

“Maybe that’s why the killer tried to burn the bodies,” David said. “To cover up the poisoning.”

“Why poison Jansen? Why stab Genevieve, but not Jansen?”

David opened his mouth to make a suggestion, but when he came up with no answer, he shut it and shook his head. “If the killer didn’t have the stomach to stab Jansen, then he wouldn’t have had the stomach to stab Genevieve.”

“Maybe Genevieve escaped the poisoning and so the killer had to improvise,” Mac said. “I had a murder case like that once. A wife tried to poison her husband, but he wouldn’t eat her meatloaf. Said he was full from lunch. So she had to find another way to kill him.”

“What did she do?”

“Burnt down the house after he went to sleep,” Mac said. “She was furious when the fire fighters saved him.”

“He didn’t die?” David asked.

“Nope,” Mac said.

“How did you end up with the case?”

“She killed the psychic who told her that her husband was going to kill her,” Mac said.

David was still digesting that news when his cell phone rang. From where he sat across from him, Mac could read the caller ID, even though it was upside down. Randi. Her smiling face filled the screen.

“She’s calling early.” Mac noted the time was nine-thirty.

Excusing himself, David took up the phone. “Hey, Rand. How’s it going?” As the conversation continued, David’s grin fell from his face. The topic shifted from conversational to serious—directed from her end. “Yeah, I can talk.” He got up from his seat and moved across the file room.

“I’m going to go get some more coffee.” Grabbing both of their cups, Mac went upstairs to give him privacy.

As Mac expected, Gnarly was eating his second donut. Tonya had sent most of the officers out on patrol. Hanging up the phone, she held a message sheet out for Mac to see. “The wolf man’s sister, Chelsea Adams, called and left a message for the chief.”

Setting down his coffee cup, Mac took the message sheet to read while she reported, “She’ll be leaving this morning and expects to be here later on this afternoon. She’s coming to the station and would like to meet with the chief to discuss her brother’s case.”

“Why doesn’t she go to the hospital to see her brother?” Mac asked.

“Because the news has been reporting that Damian Wagner’s body was found, and that a crazed wolf man was captured there,” Tonya said. “I saw it on the news this morning. They’re already speculating that this crazy wolf man, a deranged obsessed fan, killed the king of horror fiction, which included a lot of werewolves, his daughter, and his editor.”

“And was sane enough to hide Damian Wagner’s body so everyone would think he did it?” Mac asked with a shake of his head. “I don’t think so. Who’s the leak?”

“No one here,” Tonya said with an air of insult at the suggestion. “Most likely the hospital. It isn’t every day they get a real wolf man. I feel sorry for this Chelsea. She sounded stressed out. Here she’s been thinking her brother was dead—I remember when that happened. Their mother died of a broken heart. David felt responsible. And now poor Riley gets found, and they’re calling him a man-eating wolf man.”

As if in response to her assertion, the phone rang. She read the caller ID. “That’s the newspaper,” she groaned.

“Riley Adams didn’t kill those people,” Mac said.

“Tell them that.” She nodded to the ringing phone.

Leaving her to the tough job of handling the media, Mac refilled their cups with hot coffee and went downstairs, where he found that David had finished his phone call and returned to leafing through the case file for Bill Jansen’s murder.

After murmuring a thanks for the coffee, David said, “I compared the ME reports for Jansen and Genie. His body showed signs of being in the fire longer than hers. The burns were more extensive.” He closed the folder. “He was killed first, dismembered, and then put into the fire. Genie was killed at a later time, dismembered with the ax, and put into the fire pit. The killer then left shortly before Rafaela arrived to discover the murders.”

Mac sat back in his chair to enjoy his coffee while envisioning the scenario. “When was Damian Wagner killed?”

“That’s going to be hard to determine,” David said. “Rafaela Diaz, the housekeeper, stated that she saw no sign of him when she arrived or while she was there. The question would be, was he killed before Jansen and Genie were killed, between those two murders, or afterwards?”

“Maybe they were killed to cover up his murder and not the other way around,” Mac said. “Think about it. If he was alive, what would he have been doing while people were being poisoned and stabbed and hacked up and set on fire? He had to have been dead already.”

“That’s a thought.” David sat back to drink his coffee.

In silence, Mac watched him sip his coffee.

Finally, David cleared his throat. “What I predicted would happen, happened.”

“What?” Mac asked.

“Long distance relationships don’t work,” David said.

“She’s only been gone one day.”

“Last night, Randi went to a diner next to the complex where she’s leasing her apartment,” David said. “You’d never guess who she ran into.”

“Who?”

“Butch.”

“Who’s Butch?”

With a chuckle, David looked up from his coffee cup. “Randi’s ex-husband.”

“I thought he was in Alaska.”

“Was,” David said. “He’s in training in Quantico. They ate dinner together. One thing led to another and she ended up at his place. By morning, they decided to give reconciliation a try.”

Mac searched for the words to make David feel better. He wanted to say Randi was in the wrong, but in his heart, he felt that marriage was a sacred institution. He was never crazy about how David and Randi had plunged into their relationship so soon after her marriage had ended. If there was a chance for her to save her marriage, she should at least try.