The Lady Who Cried Murder (A Mac Faraday Mystery) (22 page)

It looked as if he would not have to work a day for the rest of his life. Maybe there is justice after all.

Charles’ grandson was burying him in the sand while he tended to his fishing pole. He hadn’t caught any fish yet, but that was okay. He was happy enough to have the sun in his face and the wind coming in off the ocean to toss his hair.

“Grandpa, I think you got a fish! Your pole!”

“I’ll get it tomorrow,” Charles said while drifting off to sleep.

Meanwhile, Kevin Cooper was freezing his butt off on a fishing boat in Alaska.

“Hey, butthead, quick goofing off and get to work!” the boat captain yelled at him when he caught him throwing up the so-called food that he had for breakfast.

Even if Cooper wanted to run off to start a new life on his own, separate from the Witness Protection Program, it turned out that he couldn’t. Some hacker had drained every penny from the millions of dollars that he had stashed away in two offshore accounts. He had nothing, and he couldn’t even report the theft. To whom do you report the theft of your bribe and otherwise ill-gotten money?

Cooper slipped on the icy deck to land face first in the holding bin for recently caught fish, which gave his crewmates a good laugh.

“Shut up, you bunch of morons! Can’t you see I don’t belong here! This was some sort of mistake! I’m supposed to be in Hawaii!”

“Quit yer bitchin,” one of them replied with a shrug. “Shit happens.”

Detective Cameron Gates and Joshua Thornton returned to their quiet life in Chester, West Virginia. The state homicide detective would have been happier if she had captured Bevis Palazzi, but she took consolation in knowing that Irving had a paw in thwarting his latest murder attempt.

Sick of hearing about Senator Harry Palazzi and his perverted son who invaded their home in a blue dress and humongous fake boobs, Chelsea ordered the news off-limits during her move into her condo on the lake. Mac and Archie joined in helping her and David.

Like small children, Molly and Gnarly enjoyed the empty boxes and packing that scattered the two floors of the condo. They took turns chasing each other from room to room.

Mac was carrying in boxes of dishes into the kitchen when David abruptly laughed.

“Care to share what’s so funny?” Mac asked him.

“Really?” David turned to him. “Plucked eyebrows? Was that really the first clue that told you Bevis was the killer? His plucked eyebrows?”

“And you tried to shrug it off saying that a lot of men pluck their eyebrows.”

Cutting open the box of dishes, David shook his head. “Not pluck. Wax, and only enough to clean them up.”

“Did you get a look at Bevis’ eyebrows?”

“The last time I saw him, he looked like his head had been shoved into a blender that had been turned on.” David opened an overhead cabinet and put a stack of dinner plates inside.

“Before Irving got his paws on him.” Mac took out a stack of salad plates and handed them to David. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Nothing has ever stopped you before.” David cut open the second box. That one contained glasses.

“How is Chelsea dong?” Mac asked him in a low voice. “She was really shaken up, and now she refuses to talk about it.”

David looked around to see if she and Archie were in hearing distance before answering, “She’s having nightmares.”

“I was afraid of that.” Mac shook his head. “Good thing Ben is being fair about it and not giving her a hard time.”

“She’s going to need some counseling,” David said. “But she’ll come through it okay. She’s strong. She’ll be fine.”

“Of course she will. She’s got you.”

“That’s exactly right.”

They bumped fists.

“Time for dinner!” Chelsea came down the stairs. “I’m starved. I hope you guys are hungry.”

“Starving,” Mac said.

“I have a six-pack of beer in the fridge for you and David,” Chelsea said. “Archie, I have a bottle of white wine for you. I also have a Chianti for dinner for you three. I’ve got my own bottled water, and for dinner, I have…” She threw open the oven to reveal a lasagna. “I made it at the manor last night and put it in the oven to cook while you guys were out getting supplies.”

They all “ooh’d” and “ahh’d.”

Delighted at the impression she gave as an ace hostess, Chelsea beamed when she announced, “And for dessert, I made a fruit torte from scratch.” She turned to the kitchen counter, only to find the torte not there.

“Maybe it’s under the packing.” David picked up loose packing paper and tossed it to the floor in search of the dessert.

Archie opened the refrigerator to look inside. “Maybe someone put it in the fridge.”

After searching the small kitchen everywhere the dessert could be, Mac asked, “Where are the dogs?”

The four of them froze. They looked at each other, and Chelsea said, “Molly would never…”

Mac went into the sunroom off the sitting room, where he saw two tails sticking out of either end of the sofa. David took one end of the sofa, while Mac took the other. On the count of three, they lifted the sofa and pulled it out from the wall.

How the two dogs had managed to take the dessert from the kitchen counter, carry it out to the sunroom, hide it behind the sofa and devour it in their own private party, no one would never know.

“Molly!” Chelsea gasped. “How could you?”

The white German shepherd’s ears lay back flat against her head. She crawled on her belly against the wall to hide behind Gnarly, who was licking the creamy filling from his snout.

“So much for Molly being a good influence on Gnarly,” David said. “It looks like the other way around to me.”

Fighting the smile that came to his face, Mac said, “Gnarly, I’m going to kill you.”

The End

Real Murder--Book Excerpt

A Lovers in Crime Mystery

Coming January 2014!

Prologue

Friday the 13th, August 13, 1976

Dolly’s Gentlemen’s Club, Newell, West Virginia

On the map, the Northern Panhandle of West Virginia appears like an odd miscalculation by a surveyor. For a reason that most people don’t understand, it sticks up out of West Virginia between Ohio and Pennsylvania. While the western boundary follows the Ohio River, the eastern side goes straight down to Morgantown. The most northern point of West Virginia is home to Chester, which lays in the most northern corner of the state. Go a mile in any direction and you can find yourself in either East Liverpool, Ohio, directly across the Ohio River, or Hookstown, Pennsylvania.

The next town downriver from Chester is Newell, West Virginia, which has two claims to fame. Homer Laughlin China Company, whose wares are used in restaurants and fine dining all over the world, and Waterford Race Track.

Folks would travel for miles to see the Thoroughbreds race for the finish line. This vocation brought various types of folks to Newell. There were the jockeys and other transient type of folks who took care of the horses and the business people who owned them.

If you have the bankroll for more exotic type of entertainment, say after winning from the betting of a great race, and wanted to celebrate, men in the know would head further down river, and make a left turn halfway between Newell and New Cumberland to pay a visit to Christie.

Located half a mile off the road, nestled behind a row of pine trees, on a quiet afternoon, one would think that the huge white Victorian farmhouse with a wrap-around porch was simply that—a quiet farmhouse.

They may even think the young women living there were farmer’s daughters … a farmer with a lot of daughters … who threw huge parties.

As far as the local law knew, Christie’s was a boarding house for women, who liked to throw big parties on the weekends.

There was no sign out front and they didb’t have to do any advertising, but everyone in the know knew that if you were a gentleman with a wallet full of cash, and you were looking for a good time, Christie’s was the place to go.

Fridays were always Christie’s busiest nights. Most men would spend Saturday nights with their girlfriends or wives. Friday nights, after a long week of working for their family, they would swing into Christie’s for a drink or two or three or four, enjoy the entertainment, and then go upstairs to one of the private rooms for some personal entertainment.

By one o’clock in the morning, after the girls had danced their last dance, the bar would close up and they would hustle the men out and send them on home to their families. Bart, the club’s bouncer, would sometimes have to help a customer who had too much to drink and passed out during his private entertainment.

This Friday the thirteenth, Bart was in a hurry to get out and home to his wife. During the day, he worked as a bank security guard. On the weekends, he earned extra cash under the table by taking care of Christie’s girls. A faithful husband, he could be counted on to take care of the girls who he protected like a big brother looking after his little sisters—all eight of them.

The bartender was done cleaning up the lounge. Sitting at the bar, Bart made a mental check when Cassie’s john walked out the door.

Only one more left. That tall skinny kid who went upstairs with Ava.

As a security guard, Bart prided himself on his powers of observation. He managed to keep track of the time that johns would go upstairs with the girls, which girls they went up with, and what time they left.

Bart checked his watch. He had gone up with Ava at eleven-twenty. Looking barely old enough to drink, the bartender had carded him. When Ava, a red-head who had a girl-next-door quality to her, took him upstairs, Ted, the bartender and Bart joked about it being the kid’s first time. He looked that young and nervous.

Give them five more minutes.

Even so, Bart was anxious to go home to his own woman and get away from the cigarette smoke and floral smell and perfume.

“Hey,” he called out to Cassie when he saw her start up the stairs after wishing her john good-bye. “Can you tell if Ava is done with her customer?”

Cassie frowned. “I didn’t know she had one up there.”

“She took a john up there around eleven,” Bart said. “He hasn’t come out yet.”

“Maybe they fell asleep,” Cassie said. “The light is off in her room.” She paused. “But then, the music is on.”

Each of the girls had a record player in their room to play music in order to drown out the noise of other girls and customers in the rooms next door. The music in a room was a signal that the girl had a customer with her and not to disturb them.

“She’s not allow to let him spend the night.” Bart stood up.

The two of them went upstairs. The room at the end of the hall, Bart banged on the door. “Ava! Wake up! It’s time for your customer to go home. Wake him up.”

They waited.

“Ava!” Cassie wrapped her robe around her. “Wake up, sweetie. You know men aren’t allowed to spend the night. You don’t want to get into trouble with management, do you?”

The other girls started to come out into the hallway. A few, whose customers had left earlier, were dressed in their real night clothes, which included terry robes. Some had night cream on their faces.

They all waited and listened for Ava to respond.

“Ava!” Bart tried to doorknob. A glass door knob which was standard in the old farmhouse. The door was locked. As loud as they were, Ava should have been answering the door. Now he was worried.

Has she overdosed? Does she even use drugs?

Bart had to admit that he didn’t know Ava well enough to know if she did drugs.

He took the keys he had for the bedroom doors out of his pocket. As a guard, he had the keys for in case any of the girls got into trouble with a john, or, as in this case, possibly had a medical emergency.

He unlocked the door and forced his way inside. The lights were indeed off. The girls crowded in the doorway to see what was going on to keep Ava from answering the door.

Barth flipped on the wall switch to bathe the room in light.

The stereo was set to repeat the album Stairway to Heaven.

Ava was in bed. Her last customer lay next to her. Both of their hands were tied behind their backs and their mouths gagged with bandanas tied behind their heads. The strap used to strangle them was still tied around Ava’s pretty little neck.

Chapter One

June 13, 1996

Allison’s Diner, Carolina Avenue, Chester, WV

“Dad, why does Murphy always get the last fry?” seven-year-old J.J. Thornton objected when he saw his identical twin brother going after the last fry on the plate set between them at the booth. “I never get the last bite.”

“You do so,” Murphy said.

“When?”

“Last night,” Murphy said. “You finished the popcorn.”

“Did not,” J.J. argued, “Tracy got that.”

“Point is I didn’t.”

Murphy reached for the fry only to discover that his sister, two- year-old Sarah, had snagged it while they were arguing, smashed it in her little hands, and shoved it into her mouth to create a nasty mess on her face and everything she touched.

“Dad!” the two of them called out in unison.

“What?” Joshua Thornton found it difficult to keep the irritation out of his voice when he looked up from the reports in the file he was reading. Even though he had been sitting at the table during the ordeal, he had managed to block out their squabbling.

It was a talent he had developed while working his way up in this Navy career as a Navy Officer and lawyer with a growing and rambunctious family.

Not so great for marriage, especially when your wife is trying to organize a move halfway across the world while keeping four children, all under the age of seven, in line. Joshua tried to help his wife as best he could, but that was difficult when he got his first assignment, an investigation of an officer accused of raping a fellow officer, for when they arrived in Naples and he was expected to lead the investigation as soon as he arrived.

How do you prepare for a major investigation while moving a family of six half-way across the world? Carefully.

Joshua had agreed to take the kids out for lunch at the downtown diner on the main drag of Chester while his wife, Valerie, and his grandmother finished the last of the packing.

“Sarah ate the last fry,” J.J. pointed a finger of accusation at her. “It was supposed to be mine.”

“It was mine,” Murphy said.

“Why don’t I ever get the last fry?” Five-year-old Tracy refused to be left out.

“Because you never call dibs,” J.J. answered.

Murphy told his father, “You said I could have the fry.”

“No, I didn’t,” Joshua replied.

“You did so say so!” This irritated Murphy more than losing it to his sister. He went on to recount in detail that while they were eating the fries that he had asked if father if he could have it to which his father replied, “Uh-huh.”

Joshua hated to admit that Murphy’s statement could be true, considering that he was in the midst of reading a witness account and not necessarily paying attention.

“Josh?”

With a smile of relief, Joshua looked up to see a young man dressed in the uniform of a Hancock County sheriff deputy making his way from the door to their booth.

“That is you!” He grinned widely at Joshua. “How have you been?”

“Mike … Gardner?” Joshua stood up and greeted the muscular deputy with a warm handshake that turned into a hug. “Mike, how are you?” When he pulled back, he looked the muscle bound man up and down and let out a whistle. “Look at you.”

Mike gestured at the booth filled with children. “Look at you. Are these all yours?”

“Yeah,” Joshua replied.

“Is that a real gun?” Tracy pointed at the gun on the deputy’s belt.

“Yes, it is.” Mike grasped the weapon to protect her from reaching for it. “And what is your name, pretty lady?”

“Tracy,” she replied. “And this is my baby sister Sarah. She’s two years old. I’m five.” She held up her hand to show him all of her fingers.

“Well, Tracy, my son is five years old, too,” Mike said.

“What’s his name?” she asked.

“Andrew.”

“Does he have any brothers or sisters?”

“Not right now,” Mike said. “But we keep hoping to give him a little sister.”

“He’s lucky, “ Tracy said.

“I’m Joshua Thornton Junior,” J.J. said. “I was born first. This is my brother Murphy. I’m seven minutes older than him.”

“What’s your name?” Murphy pointed at the deputy to demand the information.

“Deputy Mike Gardner,” the deputy replied. “I grew up with your father. We lived one block apart and went all through school together.” He turned to Joshua. “I had no idea you were back in town.”

“We’re on one month’s home leave,” Joshua said. “Tomorrow morning we’re on our way to Naples.”

“Italy?” Mike’s eyes grew big.

“For three years,” Joshua said.

“Well, you always wanted to see the world.”

“And that I’m doing.” Not wanting to brag, Joshua steer the conversation back to his friend. “What about you? I see you made it through the police academy.”

“After college and doing my time with the Marines,” Mike said. “I’ve only been with the sheriff’s department for about six months.” He looked around before lowering his voice. “Working on my first murder case.”

“Really?” Joshua asked. “Interesting?”

“I’m going to meet my CI out at the park.”

“What’s a CI?” Murphy asked in a loud voice.

Mike shushed the boy while Joshua answered in a low tone. “Confidential informant.”

“Man,” Mike told Joshua with a shake of his head. “I wish you weren’t going tomorrow. I could really use your help in this case.”

“What type of case is it?”

“A murdered prostitute.” Mike’s eyes got a far-away look in them. “No one seems to care about finding out who killed her … but I care.”

“That’s what matters,” Joshua said.

When the server interrupted their conversation to give the deputy his lunch in a take-out bag, Mike refused to give Joshua a chance to get away without finishing his thought. His eyes were bright when he suggested, “Hey, Josh, maybe you can come with me to meet my CI. You’d know what to ask him. You could help me to tell if what they’re telling me is the truth or not. You always had a good sense—trusting your gut, you used to say—“

“I can’t, Mike.” Joshua said with a shake of his head.

Saying nothing, Mike stared at his childhood friend.

Guilt washed over him. “I can’t.”

“I could really use your help, Josh. This case is important to me. It would only take a few hours.”

“I’m leaving for Naples at six o’clock in the morning,” Joshua held up his watch to show him. “That’s in less than twenty-four hours.”

“I understand.” Mike flashed him a smile. “I guess I’m just a little nervous.” With a hasty good-bye, he hurried out the exit.

Joshua slapped the folder down on top of his other papers. “Anyone want dessert?”

Four hands went up.

That was when Joshua noticed the mashed fried potatoes on Sarah’s hand and face. He was wiping it off when J.J. declared his intention was for a hot fudge sundae with nuts and cherries. Murphy put in his vote for a hot fudge brownie delight with extra whipped cream and chocolate ice cream instead of vanilla.

The server arrived at the table with extra napkins. “Everyone save room for dessert?”

In a voice one decibel over the children’s, Joshua ordered, “Two single scoop of vanilla ice cream. Two single scoops of chocolate, and one hot fudge brownie delight with whipped cream, nuts and cherries for me.”

J.J. and Murphy’s faces fell as the server walked away. “No fair!” J.J. cried out.

“It’s very fair.” Joshua looked out the window to the passing traffic on Carolina Avenue. He saw Mike climbing into his sheriff deputy cruiser and pull out into traffic. Behind him, a black Bonneville pulled out to fall in behind him. Joshua couldn’t make out the driver through the smoky window. His stomach tightened up.