by Lauren Carr
“Sandy Burr does sound familiar,” Archie said. “Tell me a little about the case.”
“Found with his wrists slashed at the Lakeside Inn. The last person he was seen ’live with was Nancy Braxton.” She quickly added, “He was an investigative reporter who found irregularities in how Braxton Charities awarded research grants.”
“I’ve heard about that case,” Archie said with certainty. “It was murder. I remember it now. The slashes in his wrists had been made from the left to the right—on both wrists. If he had sliced his own wrists, one slash would’ve been from the left to the right, and the other one would’ve been from the right to the left.”
“That’s right.” Dallas nodded her head in agreement. “Because he would’ve had to switch the blade from one hand to the other.”
Whirling on her heels, Archie crossed the deck to the door. “Robin wasn’t involved in the case—she might have been out of town at the time,” she said over her shoulder. “If she did any research on the case, there will be a folder for it in her file cabinet down in the study.”
As soon as the door was open, Storm and Gnarly raced up onto the deck and practically knocked Dallas over in their furor to get inside. While Storm followed Archie downstairs to the study, Gnarly galloped into the living room to join Mac and David.
“I never noticed that about you before,” Mac said to David when Gnarly leaped over the back of the sofa and landed on the cushions next to him. Mac had changed into his pajamas and a bathrobe and had taken a dose of medicine for his cough, flu, and sore throat.
“Noticed what?” David said, chuckling where he was sitting across from him. “You look like hell, and you sound worse.”
“That you’re crazy. What sane man nominates a dog to run for mayor?” Mac pulled the afghan from where it was draped across the arm of the sofa so that he could warm the chill that was sending shivers up his back and across his shoulders.
“I was making a political statement. All I intended to do was get Gnarly’s name on the ballot. So many people in Spencer are furious with the direction this town has gone in. Mayor Gannon doesn’t give a darn.”
“I think our current mayor just got tired of fighting with Clark,” Mac said. “That’s why he’s retiring. He’s sick of it.”
“Everybody I talk to,” David said, “dislikes the nominees. They need another option. An independent who can’t be intimidated and who doesn’t feel obligated to toe any party line. Who will simply do the right thing no matter who it ticks off.”
“Then why not you?”
“I may be crazy, but I’m not insane.”
Mac gestured at Gnarly, who was looking from one of them to the other. “In all honesty, I can’t in good conscience vote for someone who drinks out of my toilet.”
“Everyone knows Gnarly. Everyone loves Gnarly.” Seeing Mac cock his head at him and arch an eyebrow, he corrected himself. “Almost everyone. I think that most of the people in this town, when they see Gnarly’s name on the ballot, will vote for him simply because they don’t want to vote for Clark or Braxton. It won’t be a huge percentage, but hopefully, it’ll be enough to embarrass the two parties into asking themselves why so many voters are so angry.”
“And what about this?” Mac pointed at the collection of news journalists perched on the stone wall like a flock of birds.
“I had nothing to do with that.”
In spite of his best effort, David was unable to avoid Mac’s gaze. Almost fifty, Mac was fifteen years old than he was. From his tall slender build to his dark hair with a touch of gray, Mac had dipped generously from their father’s gene pool. Often, David was struck by how many traits Mac had inherited from the father he had never met—like wordlessly extracting a confession simply by glaring at him with those penetrating blue eyes.
“It must have been Bernie and Hap,” David said in a low voice.
“Bernie and Hap?” Mac sprang upright on the sofa. “How did they get into this?”
David wiped beads of sweat from his forehead. “They’re Gnarly’s campaign managers.”
Mac’s cursing could be heard downstairs in the study, where Archie was searching through the folders in a file cabinet kept in a small room about the size of a walk-in closet. The musty file room was coated in a thick layer of dust.
When Dallas sneezed, Archie blessed her. “I so rarely use this room that I keep forgetting to dust it.”
“I’m surprised you don’t have a housekeeper.”
Archie knelt down to check the bottom drawer. “We tried. Problem is finding someone who suits Gnarly. Either he doesn’t like her, or once she gets a look at him, she runs away screaming like a little girl. Our last applicant refused to get out of her car. As soon as Gnarly ran down off of the front deck toward her car, she did a U-turn and fishtailed out of the driveway. That was when we decided to hang it up.” She removed a thick folder from the drawer. “I think I found it.”
Dallas followed Archie into the study.
The late 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 of her books. First editions that famous authors had personally inscribed to her and books for research into forensics, poisons, criminology, and the law also lined the shelves. Once every inch of bookshelf space had been taken, the writer had taken to stacking books on her heavy oak desk and tables and in the corner.
Portraits of the Spencers’ ancestors filled the space not taken up by books. Some portraits had been painted in the eighteenth century. Others portrayed ancestors in fashions from the turn of the nineteenth century and throughout it. The most recent portrait was a life-size painting from the 1960s of a young Robin Spencer dressed in a white, strapless formal gown. When he had first seen the picture, Mac had been taken aback by how much Robin resembled his grown daughter, Jessica, who was married to a naval officer and living in Great Falls, Virginia.
Archie set the folder on the desk, where Storm was sitting, opened the folder, and scanned a few lines of notes resting on top of the pile of reports. “Here we go. This is it. Sandy Burr. Investigative journalist.” Aware of Dallas’ chosen profession, she asked, “Are you sure you want to look into this?”
“If Nancy Braxton really did kill someone ’cause he was investigatin’ her charities, wouldn’t you like to know ’bout it before she becomes your mayor?” Dallas picked up the report resting underneath the notes. “Robin Spencer got a copy of the police report.”
“It pays to have friends in high places.” Archie checked the date at the bottom of a page of the notes. “Robin started researching this case about fifteen years ago.” She scanned through the notes. “‘Journalist travels to an out-of-the-way resort town to investigate dirty dealings within an international charity foundation and ends up dead in a bathtub with both of his wrists slashed. Charismatic and sexy police detective is determined to investigate the case as a murder in spite of the pressure from higher-ups to close it as a suicide.’”
“Sexy and charismatic?” Dallas grinned.
“Mac’s birth parents had a complicated relationship.” Archie continued reading. “‘Case is taken from the detective and closed. But the detective’s integrity makes him refuse to back down’—Robin used this case for Cause for Murder.” She went to the bookcase and perused the titles until she found one of Robin Spencer’s first editions and removed it from the shelf. “Oh, this was a great one,” she said with a smile. “Of course, I thought all of Robin’s books were great.”
“What dirty dealin’ was the journalist investigatin’?” Dallas asked.
“Money laundering,” Archie said. “In Cause for Murder, a wealthy businessman with mob ties marries a socialite. He then sets her up with this charitable foundation. She hobnobs all over the world, so
liciting donations to the foundation from some of the world’s rich and powerful. In turn, the foundation disburses the money to the charities underneath it.”
“Just like Nancy Braxton does,” Dallas said.
“Don’t get so excited,” Archie said. “Robin would sometimes base her books on real cases, but then her imagination would let loose, and she’d take off in other directions. Just because this foundation was crooked doesn’t mean that Braxton Charities is.”
“If it’s clean, why did its members kill Sandy Burr? How is the foundation in the book crooked?”
“Remember, the wife’s husband has mob ties,” Archie said. “The foundation he sets up for his wife is really a money laundromat for the mob. Dummy charities are set up for bookies, drug dealers, and arms trafficking.” She shrugged her shoulders. “They give bribes to cops and prosecutors and judges. Dirty money is filtered through the foundation and deposited into the accounts of the phony charities, which are really offshore bank accounts for the mob.”
“I can’t believe a charity could get away with that,” Dallas said. “Wouldn’t someone realize that those dummy charities don’t exist and get suspicious ’bout mobsters donatin’ so much money to charity?”
“In Robin’s book, this foundation is huge and famous. Plus it does have legitimate charities under it.” Archie hugged the book to her chest. “That being the case, when people see the organization listed on an account during an investigation, they never think anything about it. The foundation has an inside man whose job is to separate the legitimate donations from the dirty money.” She looked down at the book she was clutching. “Can I trust you to give this back to me?”
Dallas looked at the book that Archie was holding out to her. “Is it available as an e-book?”
Nodding her head, Archie uttered a sigh of relief.
“I’m not the enemy, Archie,” Dallas said while checking a text on her cell phone. “I know you don’t like me—” Abruptly, she uttered a curse at what she had read on the screen of her phone and ran out of the study. Barking, Storm scrambled out of the chair and ran after her. At the bottom of the stairs, Dallas yelled up to the living room. “David! Mac! You’re gonna want to see this!”
Archie ran up behind her. “What’s going on?”
Dallas thrust the phone into Archie’s hands. “Look at this!” After reading the text message, Archie led the way into the home theater, where she clicked through the buttons on the television to take them to the home page of her Internet browser.
With Gnarly leading the way, Mac and David galloped down the stairs to ask what had gotten Dallas so excited. Gnarly and Storm jumped up onto two chairs and lay down to see what Archie was bringing up on the screen for them to watch.
“A friend of mine with ZNC in New York just sent me this link,” Dallas said. “It's all over the news!”
Abruptly, Gnarly’s face and a red, white, and blue background filled the wide-screen television. Upon seeing Gnarly’s face, Storm let loose a round of loud barks until Dallas shushed her.
The presidential march floated from the speakers. In block letters on the home page were the words “Don’t Give a Paws! Vote for Man’s Best Friend for Mayor! Gnarly!”
“He’s got a website?” Mac turned to David. “How much does it cost to set up a website?”
“Maybe it’s a freebie,” David said in a hopeful tone.
“Oh,” Dallas said with a smile, “it gets better.” Pointing the remote at the television, she pressed a button.
A video scanning the tranquil lakeshore late at night filled the screen. There were porch lights and dim lights shining on the homes around the lake.
“It’s three a.m. on Deep Creek Lake, and your children are home asleep,” the smooth, low, masculine voice of the narrator said as the scene dissolved to a child tucked safely in her bed.
“Oh, Lord, tell me it isn’t so.” Covering his face with his hands, Mac sank down into a chair.
The narrator continued: “But a phone is ringing at Spencer Manor. Something is happening. Your vote will decide who will answer that call. Will it be someone who knows the area’s leaders, whose loyalty has been tested, and who you can trust to do the right thing for the right reasons? It’s three a.m., and your children are safe and asleep. Who are you and your family going to entrust with your safety? A politician or someone with integrity who has stood the test of time? Someone with loyalty embedded in his DNA? Someone who has been known for generations as ‘man’s best friend’?”
The scene shifted to a mother closing a bedroom door while the narrator asked, “Who do you want answering that phone?”
The scene then cut to a picture of a phone and a dog paw slapping the receiver off the hook, and it was followed by a picture of Gnarly—looking seriously pensive.
Seeing Gnarly’s face, Gnarly and Storm sat up in their seats and barked loudly as if to applaud the commercial.
“Well,” David said, “the ad is true. Dogs are man’s best friend for a reason. I can’t tell you how many canines have given their lives in law enforcement and the military. Can you see Bill Clark giving his life for anyone?”
In silence, Mac stood up from his seat and turned to David. He opened his mouth to speak, but before any words could escape from his mouth, Mac fell face first to the floor.
The Next Morning
Mac woke up to Archie’s voice. Lying next to him in their bed, she was speaking softly into the phone.
“He’s okay, Jessie,” she said. “Luckily, David was here to take care of him while I called nine-one-one. He came to, like, two minutes later and insisted that we cancel the EMTs.”
Shaking his head to clear the fog from his brain, Mac coughed, raised his head from the pillow, and saw that he was in their master suite. Gradually, he remembered the events of the day before—he had started feeling sick, then he’d arrived home from Europe, and had been ambushed by the media asking about—no, that had to have been a dream.
His last clear memory was of watching a political commercial. Must have been a hallucination.
“I think he’s awake,” Archie said to Mac’s daughter, Jessica, over the phone.
“I’m awake.” Mac was surprised by his own voice. The words came out as a croak. He extracted his arm out from under the covers to hold out his hand for the phone, which Archie placed in it. “Hey, Jessie, how are you doing?”
“Better than you,” Jessica Faraday said with a smile in her voice. “I heard you fainted like a girl yesterday.”
“I did not faint like a girl. I stood up too fast and passed out.”
“You need to see a doctor,” she replied. “You were just in Europe. There’s no telling what you picked up or where you picked it up.”
Jessica Faraday, who was in her midtwenties, was Mac’s only daughter. The only grandchildren of Robin Spencer, she and her brother, Tristan, had both received multimillion-dollar trust funds after Robin’s death. Mac was proud to see that while Jessica enjoyed the luxuries that her inheritance afforded her, including a mansion tucked away in Great Falls, Virginia, she still kept her feet on the ground. After a couple of years of making the high-society circuit, she’d settled down and gotten married and was then returning to school for a doctorate in forensics psychology.
Tristan was even more grounded than his sister and father. Calling himself a “professional student,” Tristan rented the guesthouse at his sister’s estate and attended George Washington University. He had only recently purchased his first car. The last Mac heard, he was studying cybersecurity. The time before that, he’d been pursuing a double major in natural science and computer science.
“It’s the flu,” Mac said. “I think my fever has already broken. How are things in your neck of the woods? Has Murphy come home yet?”
“No,” Jessica replied.
Even in his weakened state, Mac picked up on the forced up
beat tone of her voice. “How long has your husband been gone this time?”
“Ten days,” she replied.
“With no communication from him.” Mac’s tone was disapproving. He didn’t like his daughter being frightened about her husband’s well-being. “What if—”
“Dad, I went into this with my eyes open,” Jessica replied. “You don’t like Murphy’s worrying me when he goes on these missions and is gone without my knowing where he is or if he’s dead or alive. Well, I don’t like your worrying Archie when you’re sick and refusing to see a doctor. So there!”
“Doc called last night,” Archie said in the direction of the phone so that Jessica could hear her. “She’s coming out to take a look at him.”
“Doc is coming to look at me.” Mac threw back the covers and swung his feet to the floor. Feeling slightly dizzy, he paused at the edge of the bed. He could feel Archie watching him. If he so much as stumbled, she would tackle him, shove him in the car, and drive him to the emergency room.
“Are you drinking plenty of fluids?”
A water glass on the night table told Mac that he was. Carefully, he pulled himself up to his feet and made his way to the window seat that looked out across the gardens and the circular driveway below.
“How does your stomach feel?” Jessica said, continuing to bombard him with questions.
“It’s not my stomach as much as it’s my head and chest,” Mac said with a chuckle. “I have never had such funky dreams in my life.” Grateful that he’d made it to the window seat without stumbling, even if he hadn’t made it in a straight line, Mac plopped down onto the cushion. He saw Archie cocking her head at him with suspicion in her eyes.
“Why kind of funky dreams?” Jessica asked.
“I had this dream that Gnarly was running for mayor—”
“Mayor?” She laughed. “Good one, Dad.”