Old Loves Die Hard (A Mac Faraday Mystery) (22 page)

“I’m sure some heads are going to roll,” she said. “I have no doubt that it was Hamilton Sanders. He worked for OPM. Maguire brought him over to the U.S. Attorney’s Office to be his assistant. Sanders wasn’t qualified. Took him three tries to pass the bar. But Maguire got what he wanted, per usual. He seemed to owe Sanders for something.”

“And now Sanders is in town lying, cheating, and stealing trying to retrieve what Stephen Maguire had brought up here.” Now that he had her alone, out of Sabrina’s presence, he asked her, “Do you have any idea what Stephen Maguire was doing in Spencer?”

“I assumed he was seducing his latest young woman,” she said.

“He had some case files with him and was interviewing witnesses.”

Her expression shifted from cocky to worried. “What kind of witnesses? What kind of case files? Were any of them from family court cases?”

“No,” he answered. “What can you tell me about Themis?”

“What?”

“Themis,” Mac repeated.

“What’s that?” Her confusion appeared genuine.

“I was hoping you’d tell me.”

“Could it be a name of a defendant or victim, or maybe an organization? It almost sounds like an acronym.”

Sabrina called to them. Her voice holding a note of annoyance, Roxanne called back that she was coming. Before going out the door, she turned to him. “I hope you understand why I feel guilty about Christine. I loved her. Do you think she knew that?”

“Of course,” he said, “She had no doubt.”

With a weak smile, she left. At the end of the hallway, she turned left to go into the kitchen, while Mac continued to the living room where Archie was tapping away on her mini-laptop.

“How are you doing?” he plopped down next to her and dropped his head onto her shoulder.

Archie hit a button to bring up a news item on the screen. “I’d put Emma Wilkes’s name in a search engine and found a news item dated this morning. Her body was found in the trunk of her car parked at the airport. The last time she was seen alive was Saturday night.”

“Emma Wilkes is dead?” Mac asked.

“That’s right,” she replied. “The police report I hacked into said that time of death was Saturday night. COD is a shot to the head.”

“Then they couldn’t have been killed by the same perp,” Mac said.

“Unless Themis is a big conspiracy and there’s more than one assassin.”

“I don’t know about you, but I still don’t know what Themis is. Did you do a search of it on the Internet?”

“Themis was the Titan goddess of law and order.”

Mac waited for her to continue. When she didn’t, he asked, “Anything else?”

“Do you know who the blindfolded lady holding the scales of justice is?”

“Themis?”

“The blindfold symbolizes that justice is blind.” She wondered, “What would a Titan goddess have to do with this?”

“In each one of those cases that Maguire was going over,” Mac said, “the defendants got off even though we had conclusive evidence that they’d done it. Maguire wanted to make a bid for U.S. Attorney. Most likely he was gathering in-formation on these cases so that he could claim Hunter and the attorneys working under him have been incompetent because of all these known killers getting off.”

“Makes one wonder if his boss is behind his murder.”

“He was at the party where Maguire was poisoned,” he said.

She said, “Well, I also found out why Bonnie Propst was so reluctant to talk to Maguire and us.”

“Besides that someone wanted to kill her and succeeded, by the way?”

She pointed at the computer monitor. “I’ve discovered an interesting timeline. Douglas and Bonnie Propst got married and moved to Morgantown around a year after his last trial, which ended in a hung jury. Less than a year after that, Bonnie was admitted to the WVU hospital emergency room with a broken arm and black eye. She said that she fell.”

Mac was already nodding his head. “But you don’t think so.”

“I believe in giving people the benefit of the doubt, except that in this case, less than two weeks after she got her arm broken, Douglas Propst was shot dead, execution style. The police report says that, according to Bonnie, her husband had come home that night and got a call from the police saying that they caught someone breaking into his office and asked him to go down to make a statement. The police found his body a few hours later. They said that call never came from them.”

“It was a lure.” Mac looked at her.

Her eyebrow was arched in a seductive way.

He asked, “Do you think she realized she had married a monster and arranged to have him killed?”

“Think about it,” she said. “He got away with murder before.”

“Why did she marry him then?”

“Easy,” she explained. “These lonely pathetic women believe these poor misunderstood brutes claiming to be victimized by the system and the media—It’s you and me against the world, babe! Then when they get behind closed doors, they discover that they’ve climbed into bed with Jack the Ripper. But, it’s too late. Now, they’re trapped. She probably thought having him killed was the only way out.”

Mac agreed. “And then when Maguire calls her out of the blue asking questions about Propst’s case, she panics.”

Archie said, “And owning a security company, she would know how to get up to the penthouse suite.”

 “But Bonnie Propst had no way of knowing he was going to be in the penthouse,” he reminded her. “He wasn’t registered in the suite. Not only that, but, according to the security tapes, the killer was in the penthouse while Bonnie was having dinner with Maguire in the restaurant.”

“You’re right,” she said. “But who killed Bonnie and why? Maybe it has nothing to do with Maguire. What do you think?”

“I’m more interested in who killed Dylan Booth. His murder was my case and Maguire had written a note to call me. I assume about Booth.” Patting her knee, he leaned over to kiss her on the cheek. Saying that he was going to take a nap in hopes of getting rid of his headache left over from Gnarly’s head butt, he stood up, but she cut him off.

“Don’t forget garbage day is tomorrow.”

Banging his head on the underside, Gnarly scampered out from under the table. He loved escorting Mac in taking the garbage bin from the garage out to the curb. It gave him a chance to check the perimeters and remind Otis who was boss.

Gnarly started barking as soon as he hit the sidewalk. He was barking so hard that he bounced all the way to the stone pillars marking either side of the driveway.

“What’s wrong with you? Otis isn’t out there.” Being the only one who hadn’t seen the fat squirrel, Mac was beginning to think he was the butt of a joke.

After twirling around in search of his master, Gnarly spied him in the garage getting the trash bin. His bark took on an urgent tone when he ran over and jumped up as if to “tag” Mac on the back with his paws, before turning back to lead him to the end of the driveway.

“Okay, I’m coming.” Mac followed him to the end of the driveway to see if he could catch sight of the infamous Otis, who had turned Gnarly’s outings into such crazed adventures.

He wished his sense of smell was as acute as the dog’s.

If it had been, he would have had some sense of the danger Gnarly was trying to warn him about.

As soon as Mac saw the back of the black Ford SUV, his hand flew for the gun he kept in the holster under his shirt. At the same time, he felt the barrel of the red-head’s gun press into his side when she stepped out from where she had hidden behind the stone pillar when she heard Gnarly coming.

“Don’t do it! Don’t even think of doing it.” Pushing him back up the driveway, out of sight of his neighbors with both her gun and body pressed against his back, she reached around from behind him and held out her hand. “Now, using only two fingers, hand it to me slowly.”

Meanwhile, Gnarly was standing beside them sounding the alarm for all to hear. It was like the boy who cried wolf when it came to Gnarly’s barking. Archie and the neighbors were all used to his barking at Otis and every other animal on the Point.

Mac slowly drew his gun out of his belt.

She grabbed it and aimed it at Gnarly, who responded by raising the pitch of his bark a notch. “Tell that damn dog to shut up or I’m going to shoot him.”

“Don’t!” Mac yelped, not pleased with the panic that had crept into his tone at the thought of her shooting his dog. “Gnarly!” he snapped. “Quiet! Listen to me.”

To his surprise, Gnarly stopped barking and sat. Concentrating on the months of sessions they had had with the dog trainer, Mac recalled what she had been drumming into his mind with every session. Gnarly wanted his master to be in control. If they were to get out of this alive, Mac would have to convince the dog that he was in control of the situation.

His tall ears poised for his master’s next command, Gnarly gazed up at him.

“Good,” she hissed into Mac’s ear.

“Gnarly isn’t going to give you any trouble,” he told her while keeping Gnarly’s eyes on him. “Okay, boy, do as I say.” Mac made two hand gestures at the dog.

Gnarly cocked his head at him. He seemed to ponder the wisdom of Mac’s order.

Hoping he was giving him the right command, Mac said, “Go,” before repeating the hand gestures that the dog trainer had taught him.

Without a look back, Gnarly raced up the driveway and around to the back of the house.

“Where’s he going?” she asked when the dog that had previously threatened to tear her apart disappeared out of sight.

“I gave him hand signals to go lie down.”

“You better be telling me the truth and that bitch had better be listening because if he so much as sniffs me, I’ll blow him away.”

Shoving him face first into the side of the garage, she patted him down after holstering her gun into the waistband of her pants. While pressing his gun into his ribs, she ran her hand over his body in search of other weapons that he could use against her. Her moves were thorough and efficient. She didn’t miss a spot. Mac sensed that she wasn’t your average, run-of-the-mill perp.

Finding him clean, she spun him around by his shoulder. “I guess I got you pinned down, Faraday.”

With her face close to his, he could see that it was not so much the years that had aged her, but the mileage. Her eyes were yellowed, grayed out, and glazed—and crazed—from years of chemical abuse. When he had first seen her the night before, he’d thought she was slender and youthful. Up close, he saw that she wasn’t slender, but skinny, with her flesh hanging off her bones.

“Now here is what we’re going to do—”

“Are you going to kill me?” Mac surprised her by interrupting to ask about his fate. “Considering that you’ve already killed Bonnie Propst and shot at Nancy Brenner, I believe it’s most likely that you intend to kill me, whether I cooperate or not. That being the case, I won’t waste either of our time. If you’re going to kill me, kill me now because you’ll be wasting your breath lying to me about how I need to do what you say or you’ll kill me, or do what I say and I won’t kill you. I believe you do intend to kill me no matter what I do.” Patting his chest, he stepped back. “So you might as well shoot me now and go on about your business.”

Her darting eyes and working mouth indicated that his unexpected challenge knocked her off guard. She hadn’t expected such a bold move on his part. It took a full moment for her to regroup. She charged forward with his gun and jabbed him directly below his ribs with it.

“If you don’t do exactly what I want, I’m going to kill everyone in that house, including that crazy dog of yours, in front of you, one by one, before I kill you. If you get me what I want, then I might just let them live.”

Mac wanted to tell her that he doubted it. Instead, he asked, “What do you want from me?”

“We’re going to go into the house. You’re going to introduce me to everyone as Emma Wilkes, a journalist that you’re giving an interview to about your dead wife and her lover. Then, we’re going to go into your study and you’ll close the door. There, you’ll call that stubborn police chief and convince him, I don’t care how, bribe, whatever, to bring you the evidence box with everything he’s got on the Maguire murder.”

Mac scoffed, “He won’t do that.”

She held the gun up to his face and pressed the muzzle up against the bridge of his nose between his eyes. “Convince him. You have a lot of power in this town. Use it. If you don’t, a lot of people you care about are going to die right before your eyes.”

“Okay, you’re the boss.”

He turned around to start up the driveway to the house. The muzzle of his gun pressed against the small of his back, her breath hot on his neck, she warned him, “Remember, your gun will be aimed at your spine the whole time.”

Taking the steps up to the wraparound porch one at a time, Mac prayed that for once, Gnarly would do as he had ordered him. Ever since he had inherited the German shepherd, the dog was intent on doing everything his way. The trainer claimed it was due to his high intelligence. Gnarly was smart and he knew it. He preferred to come up with his own plans.

If Gnarly had decided to disregard Mac’s order and come up with his own plan, Mac prayed it would work.

When they stepped through the foyer, Archie called to him from the living room. “Hey, Mac, what’s wrong with Gnarly? He went tearing through here like a bat out of hell.”

With her gun in his back, the red-head steered him toward the living room.

Seeing the unexpected guest, Archie looked up from her mini. “Excuse me, I didn’t know we had company.”

The armed visitor called out, “I’m Emma Wilkes, an investigative journalist. Mac was kind—”

“But Emma Wilkes is dead,” Archie blurted out before she had time to rethink her response.

Mac’s scream was drowned out by the wave of emotions and actions that flooded the room like a tidal wave.

Instantly, the intruder drew the gun she’d been holding against the small of Mac’s back and aimed it at Archie, who, realizing the stupidity of what she’d said as soon as the words had come out of her mouth, dove for the floor.

The second before the gun shot went off, the red-head’s arm was taken into a toothy vice that sprang from the closet behind her. Catching her forearm directly below the elbow, like a whale nabbing a seal at the surface of the ocean from down below, Gnarly dragged her down to the floor.