Twelve to Murder (A Mac Faraday Mystery) (7 page)

Chapter Six

“Can everybody hear me?” Lenny said into the microphone on the stage.

Perturbed that the ballgame was being interrupted,, Bernie frowned into his beer. Even Hap’s toothless grin fell when he turned in his seat on the bar stool. From the stage, Lenny grinned at his captive audience working on their second pitcher of beer. With a groan, Gnarly dropped down onto the floor and buried his snout in his front paws.

Mac tore his attention from LeClair DuBois, who was watching him from out of the corner of her eyes while facing the deck at the back of the pub. Unlike the other hostages, she was sipping a glass of warm white wine that Edith had served to her. When the cook walked by with the glass, Mac had caught a sniff of the cheap wine, which turned his stomach. He noticed LeClair grimace after taking the first sip.

Lenny waved his gun. “Now that I have your attention, I’d like to take this time to thank you all for coming today. I hope everyone is having a good time. A funny thing happened to me on the way over here. After years of licking the curb, I’m once again on top. I’ve finally made the top ten—yep, that’s right! I’m the most wanted man in the country right now—as in the FBI’s ten most wanted. How many of you out there have ever made the ten most wanted listed?” He waved the gun around the pub. “Don’t be shy. Let’s have a show of hands. Who all here is wanted for a couple of murders?”

Hap’s smile fell and he turned to Bernie, who asked Mac in a loud whisper, “Is he going to be doing that throughout the game?”

Mac went over to the stage.

“Oh, we have a volunteer, ladies and gentlemen,” Lenny called out into the microphone. “Tell the audience your name.” He held out the microphone for Mac to speak into.

“Lenny…”

“How about that? My name’s Lenny, too. What did you do to get in the top ten?”

When Lenny held out the microphone to him, Mac snatched it out of his hand. “You gave me less than twelve hours to find the Stillmans’ killer. Well that isn’t going to happen without you pulling yourself together and helping me.”

“I told you,” Lenny replied. “Sally Riggleman. Pick her up, grill her, and she’ll confess. Either that or pin it on her somehow…if you want everyone here to survive the bar’s last call.”

“And you don’t? Have you that little compassion?”

“Listen,” Lenny replied in a low voice. “No one gives a shit about me—never did. Did you ever call me even once after the movie wrapped? No! You just moved on to the next case and left me behind—just like everyone else. So why should I give a shit about you, Diablo—” He waved the gun in the direction to the group at the bar. “Or them?”

Unsteady on his feet, he turned in the direction of the one hostage who had not bellied up to the bar.

“How about if I prove to you and everyone else how serious I am by shooting her?” Lenny aimed the gun at LeClair.

She whirled in her seat. Oddly, instead of screaming and ducking out of the line of fire, she glared at the threat.

Mac grabbed for Lenny’s wrist, but Lenny was too fast for him. Pulling back, he thrust the gun into Mac’s face. “Back away, Sport, or I’ll make you my first victim.”

Mac’s hands shot up. “Okay, okay. Calm down, big guy.” His tone was as calm as possible in the face of Lenny, his eyes crazed, waving the gun around. “You’ve already proven to me and everyone outside how serious you are. Killing hostages won’t prove your claim that you are not a murderer.”

“You were the only one who treated me like I mattered. How was I supposed to know you were acting?” He laughed. “Of course, you were acting. That’s what everyone around me has done my whole life. I should have known better, but hey! What was I supposed to think? I was a kid. How was I supposed to know that the drug—all that fame and wealth and success, everyone telling me that I was ‘it’—was only temporary?”

“No one knows that, Lenny.”

A snarl came to Lenny’s lips when he thrust the gun in Mac’s direction. “It wasn’t temporary for you, Mickey.”

Gnarly was on his feet. Mac held out his hand in a signal for the dog to stop.

“What would you do if someone took all of it away from you, Mickey?” Lenny asked. “Only then would you find out that you, too, are an addict.”

“I’m fortunate not to be addicted to anything, Lenny.”

“Everyone who tastes it is addicted to it.”

“Tastes what?”

“Success. Fame. Stardom. Once you taste it, you never want it to stop. You give that to a kid, like I was, then of course he’ll do anything to get his toys back when you take them away.”

“Which led to your other addictions,” Mac said.

“It’s worse than heroin.” Lenny’s eyes were glazed over. “Even people who get close to it, but can’t quite grasp it, will risk everything—”

Mac saw the hand holding the gun go limp as Lenny became lost in a memory—of what, Mac did not know.

“—even put his life in the line of fire and get himself killed for that one chance at the brass ring—”

Flexing his fingers to make a grab for the weapon, Mac inched in closer.

“That’s what got Drake killed,” Lenny said in a loud whisper. “His addiction. Wasn’t my fault.”

Mac’s eyes met Lenny’s.

Startled to see Mac so close to him, Lenny leapt back out of his reach and aimed the gun at him. “What are you doing?”

“I want to help you, Lenny.”

“Then have your people pick up Sally Riggleman and pin these murders on her.” Keeping his eyes on Mac, Lenny lowered himself down to pick up the beer mug next to his floor. He drained what was left in the glass.

Scratching his neck, Mac shook his head. “Do you seriously think that she set up this phony meeting here? That she lured you here? That she killed two people to maneuver herself into the headline act? How could she ensure that after all that she would end up being the headliner? It doesn’t make sense, Lenny. Is there anyone else you can give me?”

“Like who?”

Mac propped his foot up on the stage. Peering into Lenny’s bloodshot eyes, he asked, “Did you recently have a conversation with Zachery Harris about your kidnapping?”

Lenny’s chest expanded with the deep breath that he sucked in. “Yeah, what about it?”

“He wrote a book about it,” Mac said. “About your kidnapping, and he named Janice Stillman as the mastermind behind it.”

“She wouldn’t do that to me.”

“Seems he made quite a case for it,” Mac said.

“Not really,” Lenny said with a chuckle. “Yeah, I talked to him. He called me because he wanted me to tell him what happened. Of course, I wouldn’t help him. Last I heard, Janice sued his butt.”

“His butt, but not the rest of him?” Mac replied.

It took a full moment for Lenny to catch onto Mac’s quip. Laughing, he grasped him by the shoulder. “I like you. You have a weird sense of humor.” His breath was so foul that Mac had to turn his head to cough.

“Hey, Edith!” Lenny released his grip on Mac’s shoulder. “My beer mug is empty. Can you help me out?”

“Coming up!” Edith was in the midst of refilling the pitcher from which she, Carl, Bernie, and Hap were drinking.

A crash came from behind Mac.

Instinctively grabbing for the gun that he usually wore on his hip, he turned around to find the table where LeClair DuBois had been sitting was now overturned. She lay sprawled on the floor. Her legs were twitching.

“Oh, dear!” Edith hurried around from behind the bar to help the fallen girl.

Mac grabbed the hand-held radio and pressed the button to call the sheriff in the command center on the other side of the parking lot. “We need some help in here.”

Chapter Seven

Spencer Police Department

Archie was at work on her laptop at an empty desk in the squad room when David escorted the two federal agents downstairs and out the door. “Took you long enough,” she called to him through the open doorway.

“They’re feds and were willing to talk,” David replied while on his way into the squad room. “I don’t get that very often. I assume Tonya filled you in.” He went over to her desk to look at the laptop’s monitor. The screen was filled with a montage of websites and databases that made no sense to him. Only Archie would be able to decipher it.

“I’ve been running a full background check on Lenny Frost,” she said.

“So is everyone else right now.”

“He’s been blackballed from Hollywood for years,” she reported.

“Due to his drug problems,” David said with a nod of his head. “Tell—”

“Not just drugs,” she interjected. “He’s got some real emotional problems.”

“Paranoia,” David said. “We picked that up from the audio feed.”

“Symptoms of manic depression as well,” she said. “He was diagnosed years ago during rehab at the Recovery Center in Hollywood. He’s supposed to be on meds. Whether he stays on them or not is up for debate.”

“He shouldn’t be drinking while on those meds. He’s been drinking one beer after another since taking those hostages.” David cracked a smile. “So have the hostages.”

“Are you serious?”

“It’s a very unusual collection of hostages.”

“I’ll say,” she replied. “If I was taken hostage by a man with a gun, I would want to be cold-stone sober in order to keep my wits about me.”

“If we get lucky, they’ll all pass out drunk and we can just go in, wake them up, and send them home,” David said.

“Or Lenny could go completely off the deep end and shoot everyone before midnight,” she replied.

“I thought you were the optimist.”

“I was until I got a look at Lenny’s history,” she said. “He’s also got a host of assault charges against him. Black belt in martial arts.” Her emerald green eyes were ablaze when she turned to him. “Why did you let Mac go in there?”

“Does Mac listen to you when you tell him not to do something?”

“You’re the chief of police,” she argued.

“Like my orders mean something to him,” he said with scoff. “What did you expect me to do?”

“You have a gun,” she said. “Why don’t you use it?”

“I can’t shoot Mac.” David stood up straight. “That’s illegal.”

Tears came to her eyes. “What if Lenny kills him?”

Draping an arm across her shoulders, he gave her a hug. “Mac’s going to be fine. Gnarly’s with him.”

She pulled away and rose up from her chair so fast that David stumbled. He had to catch himself on the next desk to keep from landing on the floor. “You let Gnarly go, too? How could you? What if that maniac shoots him?”

David became aware of another pair of eyes glaring at him from Tonya’s desk in the reception area. “You let that poor innocent dog go in there with that lunatic?”

“Gnarly is about as innocent as the serpent in the Garden of Eden,” David said. “If you don’t believe me, ask every shop owner whose inventory he has regularly pilfered. Gnarly’s picture is actually up in most businesses around Deep Creek with a red circle and a slash through it.”

“So he’s got sticky paws,” Tonya said with a shrug. “That’s still no excuse to send him into the line of fire.”

Their eyes, filled with fury, were locked on David from both sides.

“Archie, you can help,” David said.

Her eyes narrowed.

“I’m suspicious about one of the hostages in the pub.” David brought up the image on his cell phone to show Archie. “She doesn’t seem to fit with the rest of the customers. I’m wondering if she’s part of the set up to lure Lenny Frost to the pub.” He held up the phone for her to see. “The name she gave Mac was LeClair DuBois. I sent this picture to you. Can you run a facial recognition on her to see if she has any other identities or background that we should know about?”

Still, Archie did not move.

Tonya’s glare broke when the phone rang.

“Archie, I’m sorry,” he said. “I hate it when you get mad at me. Will you accept my apology?”

“After this is over, you won’t let Mac and Gnarly do something stupid like this again?”

“Next time I’ll shoot them before I let them go into another hostage situation.”

“You promise?” she asked.

“Promise.”

She plopped down at her laptop and went to work bringing up the image he had sent her.

“It’s Bogie, Chief.” Tonya hit the mute button on the phone. “One of the hostages has collapsed. The EMTs are going in to remove her.”

“Lenny is letting her go?” David asked.

Tonya shrugged her shoulders. “I guess so.”

“Which hostage is it?” David asked while the phone on his hip vibrated.

“I’ll find out.” Tonya reached to tap the mute button.

“If it’s that DuBois woman,” David said while bringing his phone to his ear, “send Fletcher to the hospital and tell him to stick to her like glue. I want to question her after Archie brings up what she can find on her.”

David turned around to make his way down the hall to the interrogation room where Derrick Stillman was still waiting. He was surprised the victims’ son hadn’t started screaming for his lawyer yet. “O’Callaghan here,” he said into the phone.

“Chief O’Callaghan,” the police officer from Maryland replied, “I hope you haven’t released that suspect whose alibi you asked us to check out for you?”

“No,” David said. “Why?”

“Because it looks like it’s worthless,” the officer said. “From what we’ve been able to find out, Madelyn Preston doesn’t exist. She doesn’t have a driver’s license. We finally got the cell phone number for the woman whose name is on the lease for that apartment and managed to get in touch with her on an aircraft carrier in the Pacific. She didn’t sublet her apartment. She has no idea who Madelyn Preston is.”

David halted in front of the interrogation room door. “His alibi is a lie?”

“That’s what we think. You still got him?”

“You bet.” David disconnected the call and placed his hand on the door knob. He was a hair’s breath away from throwing open the door and barging in to demand the truth before he remembered his conversation minutes before with the two DEA agents.

Derrick Stillman was under surveillance. He has an alibi. The DEA confirmed that he had gone into the apartment building for a date with a woman. Then why lie about who he had spent the night with? Unless he’s not the one lying?  Only one way to find out.

David threw open the door to the interrogation room. Derrick Stillman jumped in his seat when the police chief slammed the door shut. He couldn’t move fast enough to escape when David smashed his hand down flat on the tabletop.

“You’ve got some serious problems, Derrick.”

The young man regrouped to return his glare. “Yeah! Number one, my parents have been murdered and you’ve had me cooped up in here. Have you guys picked up Lenny Frost yet?”

“Oh, we have Lenny all right,” David said. “He’s holding several people, including a very good friend of mine, hostage. But right now, that’s the least of your problems. Your alibi is junk.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s a lie!” David pounded the tabletop and leaned across at him. “Lying to me is a big mistake, Stillman. You know why? Because it wastes my time. I hate to have my time wasted—especially when I don’t have it to waste.  Not only that, but the only thing worse than a liar is a stupid liar.” He rose his voice an octave. “Did you really think we weren’t going to check it out, Stillman? Did you really think that we weren’t going to look for Madelyn Preston to confirm your alibi?”

Derrick’s glare was transformed to bewilderment followed by fear. “I gave your people her cell phone number. Call her.”

“There’s no answer,” David said. “Her cell phone is turned off.”

“She must be—”

“She doesn’t exist, Derrick!” David leaned in closer. “Madelyn Preston is a lie—just like your alibi!”

“Hey!” Derrick thrust his chin out in defiance. “Who I spent the night with last night was no lie!”

David cocked an eyebrow. The corner of his lip curled. “Are you telling me that you slept with her? You were with her all night? In her bed?”

Derrick opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. David could see his mind working. The standoff broke up when Derrick averted his gaze.

Slipping into the chair across from him, David softened his tone. “How long have you known this woman?”

Derrick took a couple of beats to answer with a shrug. “A week?”

“How did you meet her?”

Again, Derrick hesitated before replying. “She asked to borrow my phone to make a call. Her cell battery was dead and she needed to call her agent to tell him that her car had broken down.”

“Where did this happen?”

“The coffee shop where I eat breakfast every morning.”

“Every morning?” David asked. “Same time every morning?”

Derrick’s face was blank.

“What type of agent was she needing to call?” David asked. “Real estate?”

“Talent,” Derrick said. “She’s a model, a cheerleader for the Washington Redskins.”

“Did you ever see her perform at the games?” David’s tone was filled with doubt. He tried not to smile at what appeared to be the oldest con in the book.
Guy’s lucky she didn’t roll him and take his wallet.

Derrick covered his face with his hands.

No, this is worse. She set him up to take the fall for his parents’ murders.
David’s amusement evaporated. “Tell me about last night.”

“Last thing I remember is showing up at her apartment. We were supposed to have dinner. The table was set. I smelled food in the kitchen.” He shook his head. “She claimed I got drunk and passed out on the sofa, but…”

“You woke up on the sofa?”

“She woke me up,” Derrick said with a snarl. “She told me that I had too much to drink and passed out. Thing is, I don’t drink. I’ve been sober for nine years. I didn’t ask her for a drink. But she said I was drinking and I can’t remember. I thought I had a relapse, but now—” He sucked in a deep breath. “She set me up!”

David could see by his flushed cheeks and deep breaths that Derrick’s efforts to control his anger were failing as he was beginning to realize what may have happened to him. “What time did you get there?”

“Six o’clock.”

“Even if she had slipped you a mickey right after you got there,” David said, “she wouldn’t have had time to get out here to Deep Creek Lake.”

“Mom wrote Lenny’s name in her blood,” Derrick pointed out.

“Why would Lenny have killed your parents?”

“He’s crazy,” Derrick said. “Ever since Hollywood spit him out when he stopped being cute. I know it’s not fair, but hey—you adapt. Lenny couldn’t.”

“Does he blame your mother for getting him blacklisted?”

“He thinks everyone is out to get him,” Derrick said, “or if they aren’t out to get him, that they have screwed him somehow, someway. Even Mom, who bent over backwards after she retired to try to help him out after his career went to pot.” He sucked in a deep breath. “That’s the type of person she was. She wasn’t anything like the Hollywood agent stereotype. She cared, and most of her clients were kid actors like Lenny.”

He sat up in his seat and leaned across the table to David. “Do you want to know why we moved out here? Mom was at the top of her career. She had big-name clients, but she retired and gave it all up to move us out here and set Dad up in business, which did great—don’t get me wrong.”

“Why did she give it up, Derrick?”

“Because of me.” Derrick blinked away the tears in his eyes. “Lenny had no home life. He was a star, but both of his folks were up to their eyeballs in sex, drugs, and rock and roll. So Mom would bring him home to give him a taste of a stable environment. He even had his own room at our house. When he got kidnapped and they released him from the hospital, he wanted to come stay with us—not his folks—us! He considered our family his and our house his home.”

Derrick uttered a hollow laugh. “Mom expected me to be a good influence on him.” His smile fell. “Unfortunately, it was the other way around. Lenny had all these women and drugs of every kind that you could want and he shared it with me. The studio actually hired a man, his assistant, to keep Lenny happy. But when Lenny started being too happy and it affected his work, they turned off his faucet, which shut it off for me, too. Mom and Dad sent me to rehab, and by the time I got out, we were living in a new house and I was going to school back here in the east.”

Thinking about the DEA investigation, David asked, “Have you been clean ever since?”

“I wish it was that simple,” Derrick said. “It would have saved my folks a lot of heartache.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I partied all through college. Somehow I managed to graduate. Then I ended up in rehab again. This time, I wanted to get off the stuff. Dad was ready to throw me to the wolves, but Mom…” He swallowed. “She had a heart of gold. She bought me the club.” He laughed. “I had graduated with a degree in business, but literally, everything I know about running that club I learned the hard way.”

“Have you been clean since then?” David asked again.

“Ever since.” His voice shook when he added, “Mom and Dad were really proud of me.”

Believing him, David studied the man sitting across from him. Derrick was fighting to regain control of his emotions long enough to help them capture his parents’ killer.
Are you playing me? Do you know the DEA is investigating you? Are you playing the innocent to get me on your side? If so, you’re good. You’re very good.

“I am very sorry for your loss, Derrick.” David then added in a casual tone, “It must be hard running a comedy club with the Hollywood types coming in carrying their little recreational drugs when you’re a recovering addict.”

“Struggle every day,” Derrick said. “Once I got over being an idiot, it became easier.”

“Excuse me?”

“I used to be a real idiot,” Derrick said. “Don’t get me wrong. I still am an idiot, but not the type I used to be. I always had to be the player—the big shot. Drugs made me feel like I really was the coolest player. Once I got sober and my brain dried out, I saw that it was the big shots who were the real idiots. Now that I see them all for what they really are—idiots—then it isn’t so important for me to be one of them. Now, I’m able to walk away—which I do every night when the club closes. That’s why I couldn’t believe Madelyn when she said I got drunk. I don’t remember even having one drink, but she said I was drunk when I got there.”

Something is not right here. I’m believing this guy.

Derrick chuckled. “I’m not Superman. I’ll admit it’s a struggle every day. As a matter of fact, I don’t work the club on the weekends because of all the drugs and booze flowing around.”

“Aren’t the weekends your biggest nights?” David asked.
It’s probably when the major drug deals are going down.

“I’ll work during the day,” Derrick said, “but being on hand when the club is open—I leave that to my assistant. It’s just too much temptation.” He shrugged. “It’s my handicap and I’ve learned to live with it. That’s why I have such a great assistant. We wouldn’t be the success that we are if it wasn’t for her.”

“What’s your assistant’s name?” David had his pen poised.

“Zoe Reese.”

After making note of the name and the spelling, David sat forward in his seat. “Tell me about Lenny. If your mother moved you from the West Coast to get away from Lenny, how did he end up here?”

“Easy,” Derrick said, “He’s a great actor. Remember, he’s won an Academy Award. He had the talent. If he could have cleaned himself up and stayed clean, then he could have gotten any agent he wanted to represent him. But every single time he got clean, within thirty days he was right back where he started and it was all Mom’s fault for abandoning him.” He rubbed his chin with his hand. His eyes filled with tears. “Lenny played the poor little abandoned one-time child star card a lot.  So much that after his last stint in rehab a few years ago—
Star Rehab
—Mom brought him out here and foisted him on me with a permanent gig at the club. Once again, she hoped that I could be a good influence on him.”

“But you weren’t best friends anymore?” Unsure whether to believe him or not, David cocked his head.
A reformed drug addict playing drug dealer? That doesn’t make sense. Either he’s lying or the DEA has it wrong.

Derrick stared across the table at him. His eyes widened. Holding out his hands, palms up, he asked, “If you don’t believe me that Lenny’s nuts, then I can prove it to you.”

“How?”

“YouTube,” Derrick said. “Two weeks ago, this new headliner, a whale of a talent, Sally Riggleman—remember that name, she’s going to be big—started doing our main show on the weekends. She came in during one of the open mic nights and Mom happened to be there. Mom insisted that we hire her. She was right. This lady has talent with a capital T. Well, Lenny threw a fit. He decided she was out to get him. So, a couple of weeks ago, Lenny starts heckling her from the audience. Very bad form. Well, he heckled the wrong lady because Sally buried him.” With a shrug of his shoulders, Derrick finished. “I’m surprised it wasn’t Sally who ended up dead.” 

“That video is on YouTube?”

“Went viral.” Derrick thumbed the screen on his smart phone. “I’ll send it to you. I’m sure he’s convinced that Mom insisted on hiring Sally as part of some conspiracy. That’s why he killed her.”

“Well if this woman drugged you, then it most likely would have something to do with the murder,” David said. “Will you agree to a blood test to see what she may have slipped you last night?”

Derrick nodded his head. “You bet. A blood test should also show whether I did get drunk like she said. I’d want to know that. I’m only a couple of months from my ten-year pin.”

“We should be able to find that out for you.” David stood up to leave when, struck with a thought, he turned back to Derrick. “What did Madelyn Preston look like?”

“Gorgeous,” Derrick said with a grin.

“I don’t suppose you have her picture?”

“You bet.” With a cocky grin, Derrick turned his cell phone around to show David the screen. “I snapped this picture of her while she was mixing what was supposed to be a Virgin Mary last night.” He held up the phone to show David the image of the stunning redhead, her back to him, mixing a drink at the bar. Her lovely face and blue eyes framed in long lashes were reflected in the mirror behind the bar.

“That’s Madelyn Preston?”

“Yep.” In response to David’s chuckle, he asked, “What’s wrong?”

“I know why she’s not answering her phone.” After handing the phone back to him, the police chief jotted down a phone number on the notepad and slid it across the table for Derrick to read. “Send the picture and video to this phone number.”

David’s cell vibrated on his hip when he rose from the table. With one hand he opened the door while bringing the phone to his ear with the other. “O’Callaghan here.”

“A couple of my deputies are searching Frost’s suite at the Wisp,” Sheriff Turow told him. “They found something that you should see for your murder investigation.”

“I’ll be right there,” David said while making his way into the reception area. “How’s things on your end?”

“Frost is still waiting for Forsythe, a.k.a. Faraday, to work his magic. He’s definitely unstable. But we have had a break, if that is what you want to call it.”

“What’s that?” David asked.

“One of the hostages was smart enough to fake an epileptic seizure. Frost is letting the EMTs remove her from the scene. I sent in one of my guys in an EMT uniform to scope out the place. Faraday slipped him a note.”

“What does the note say?”

“Don’t let this woman out of your sight,” Turow said. “Whatever that means.”