Candidate for Murder

by Lauren Carr

  Now that’s a hotel. Where the grown-up guests outnumber the ankle biters. Where most of the food isn’t deep fried and served on chipped plates.

  “Rough day?”

  Caleb had to turn around completely to locate the owner of the familiar throaty voice. Struck by her striking good looks and the way she filled out her faded blue jeans and soft summer-blue off-the-shoulder top, the hotel manager needed a full moment to recall how he knew Dallas Walker.

  As though a switch had been flipped, he changed his mind from wanting to invite her to the lounge for a drink and possibly to check out one of the hotel’s king-sized beds to wanting to send her on her way.

  “What makes you think that?” he said, stepping toward his car in the parking space reserved for the manager.

  She lifted one bare shoulder. “Just…You look like a man who’s got yellow jackets in his outhouse.”

  That was enough to make Caleb come to a halt. He was unsure about whether he should engage her in a conversation and find out what that meant. He looked her up and down while she stood before him, clutching an oversized shoulder bag. He liked what he saw until he remembered that the last time he had seen her, she’d been having dinner with Spencer’s chief of police.

  “Nancy Braxton was murdered the other night,” she said.

  “So what does that have to do with me? Sure, she was a local celebrity running for office and was married to Nathan Braxton, but she never lowered herself to come in here—”

  “Even though her brother owns the place?”

  That got his attention.

  She could see the wheels turning in his head. “And you”—she pointed a finger at him and moved toward him—“are his silent partner. V & M Enterprises. The V stands for ‘Vance,’ and the M stands for ‘Montgomery.’ I found your business license. V & M Enterprises started operating less than two months after Sandy Burr’s murder in this hotel, where you were tending bar while Nancy Braxton was having a long talk with the murder victim. The hotel’s owners had been trying to unload it for years, and suddenly it was sold to this brand-new company in which you were a partner. Less than a year later, it was renovated and reopened with you, a former bartender with no hotel-management experience, as its manager. Funny thing,” she scratched her ear. “I can’t find any record of how much money you invested into this venture.”

  “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “Hey,” she said with a wave of her arms. “You don’t have to convince me as much as you have to convince my readers.”

  “I told you that I wasn’t going to talk to you.”

  “And you don’t have to.”

  Pleased, he turned away. She followed him.

  “I have enough facts and documentation to write the story without an interview with you,” she said. “Of course, without your side of the story, readers will have to come to their own conclusions. Do you think your employees are going to respect you when they find out that you aren’t the manager but really a one-third owner of the hotel—a position that you didn’t earn but rather received as blood money in exchange for your silence?”

  Caleb stood with his back to her. After a long silence, he said, “I didn’t ask for anything. It was offered to me.”

  “And you took it, and then you conveniently got amnesia about what you saw that night.”

  He whirled around. “It wasn’t like I saw her kill Burr. I just saw her and Burr together at the table. They ordered two rounds of drinks. Look, that was over twenty years ago. I took care of a lot of customers before that night, and I’ve taken care of a lot since that night. You expect me to remember two customers having two rounds of drinks one evening decades ago?”

  “How many of those customers ended up as buzzard bait less than two hours later?”

  “I have nothing to say to you.” Caleb Montgomery yanked open his car door.

  “She was scared of something,” Dallas said.

  He paused.

  “Nancy Braxton. The night she was killed,” she said. “Someone or something scared her. Now, a lot of money has been flowing in and out of Braxton Charities—not all of it clean. Of course, you know that, since Hugh Vance had enough money to pay you off with this hotel. Sandy Burr was asking for information about Braxton Charities, and he ended up dead. Nancy Braxton was the face of Braxton Charities, and she ended up dead. You witnessed the last hour or so of Burr’s life, and you must have seen or heard something. Hugh Vance is very slick—his sister was too. They would not have invested what they did if you hadn’t seen something—”

  “Why would he want me dead now?”

  She moved in for the kill. “Because Nancy Braxton was murdered, and the police are asking questions. There’s no telling where this investigation is going to lead. Vance can’t leave any loose ends lying about.” She cocked her head at his back. “Seen any strange-looking characters around the hotel lately? Like maybe the fat man you saw at the bar that night?”

  “It’s a three-star hotel,” Caleb said. “It’s a strange night when we don’t have strange characters hanging out in the lounge.” He slid into the front seat of his car. “You want the truth? I never did think that Burr’s murder had anything to do with Nancy Braxton.”

  “Then why did the killer take Burr’s research?”

  Caleb looked up at her. His eyes were wide.

  “Sandy Burr’s sister told the police that he’d brought a boot box with all of his research in it that weekend. However, the morning after his meeting with Nancy Braxton, when he was found dead, the boot box was not in his hotel room. It was filled with articles and notes and his manuscript. A bunch of papers. Why would the killer take a box full of research if the murder had nothing to do with it?”

  They stared at each other in silence. Dallas willed him to speak. She could see from his eyes that he was in a quandary.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said with conviction.

  Dallas grasped his arm. “Was Vance the fat man you saw watching Burr and Braxton that night?”

  “No,” Caleb said. “I never saw the fat man before or after that night.” He put his car in gear. “And I’m sure of that. The guy weighed, like, four hundred pounds. Hard to forget someone like that.”

  With that, Caleb drove off.

  Watching him drive away, Dallas mulled over the one thing he’d offered: Hugh Vance was not the fat man. Also, Caleb Montgomery had seemed extremely certain that Sandy Burr’s murder had had nothing to do with Nancy Braxton or Braxton Charities.

  If he doesn’t know anything about Sandy Burr’s murder, then how does he know what it doesn’t have to do with?

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “Do you see that?” David asked Mac, who was sitting in the front passenger seat of his police cruiser.

  Mac checked the reflection in the side rearview mirror. “They’re not very good at tailing, are they?”

  David tried to keep his attention on maneuvering the cruiser along the twisting road leading up to the Spencer Inn, but it was difficult to keep from watching Hap’s ancient, broken-down pickup truck, which had been following them since they’d left the sheriff’s department.

  “Why are they tailing us?” David asked Mac.

  “They’re worried about Gnarly,” Mac said. “I don’t think they bought my excuse for him being gone for a few days. Ignore them.” He took out his cell phone. “I’ll give Turow a heads-up.”

  In the midst of the busy summer season and with an emotionally charged mayoral election going on, the Spencer Inn was hopping. Sheriff Turow and David would have preferred their undercover operation to take place in a less populated place. But it was where Cassandra Clark had insisted they meet when Nathan Braxton had called to inform her that he had run into problems with setting up the hit for her.

  A rendezvous with a former football star in a popular resort seemed li
ke a reckless endeavor—especially since that rendezvous was a meeting to arrange a murder. But then Nathan had noted that Cassandra got off on taking such risks.

  “When Nancy slugged Clark during the debate and you arrested them,” Nathan said to David, “Cassie and I were having a quickie in the men’s restroom. We didn’t know they were in jail until after you had hauled them both away.”

  “Bill Clark has a town-hall meeting scheduled for this evening at the Spencer Inn,” Mac said. “Cassie will be expected to sit in the front row and to play the role of the devoted wife. So we can expect that she’ll want to meet in the rose garden beforehand.”

  Sheriff Turow uttered an audible groan, which perplexed Roxie Greyson. “Why is that a problem?”

  The Spencer Inn was famous for its elaborate floral maze made up of rose bushes and twisting vines. “During the summer months,” Mac said, “when the flowers are in full bloom, guests love to lose themselves in the maze. But it’s the worst place for the police to keep tabs on suspects. I guarantee that that’s where she’ll want to meet.”

  “Then we’ll get deputies dressed in plain clothes scattered throughout the garden before they actually meet,” Sheriff Turow said.

  Nathan Braxton was fitted with an audio wire, and a tiny camera was concealed in the American flag pin that he was wearing on his lapel.

  Sheriff Turow and his deputies parked their surveillance van in a contractor’s lot next to the landscaper’s supply building. From there, they had a view of the gardens, but not a clear view.

  Keeping close enough to Nathan to see him but far away enough that it wouldn’t be obvious that they were following him, David and Mac entered the Spencer Inn through the main door. One hour before Bill Clark’s town-hall meeting, a herd of journalists and cameras operators with television equipment filled the lobby.

  The mob was focused on George Ward and on Erin Devereux, who was dressed in a becoming business suit. The sling she had been wearing the day before was gone.

  “What’s going on with them?” David asked as if Mac would have an answer.

  “Ward wasted no time replacing Nancy Braxton on our party’s ticket,” Salma Rameriz, who happened to have heard the question, said. “With Erin Devereux, Nancy’s executive assistant. Interesting, huh? Considering that Erin was the last one to see Nancy alive.”

  “Can he do that?” Mac asked. “Erin Devereux never ran for mayor. They should replace her with someone who actually ran for mayor.”

  “Erin Devereux isn’t even a resident of Spencer,” David said.

  “Yes, she is,” Salma said with a slim smile. “She owns a condo down on the lake. Has for a year. It’s listed as her legal residence. That’s all she needs to be considered a resident of Spencer, which makes her eligible to run for mayor.”

  “And she has the right genitalia, which is the most important thing to your party,” David said.

  “I always suspected you were sexist, Chief,” Salma said. “How is it that out of a dozen police officers on your force, not one is a woman?”

  “Our desk sergeant is a woman.”

  “But she doesn’t do patrols,” Salma said.

  “She used to,” David said. “Now she’s the sergeant and has ten men serving under her. They answer to her.”

  Having no comeback, Salma rolled her eyes and scoffed.

  “Say a woman comes to me to apply for a police officer’s position in my department,” David said. “And according to her application, she’s had very little actual training and was fired from her last position for botching an arrest. Yet she’s a woman. Wouldn’t I be just as sexist to overlook her lack of qualifications and hire her because she’s a woman? Wouldn’t that be unfair to the man I don’t hire, who has more training and better experience?”

  “I have better things to do with my time than listen to your hate speech.” With a shake of her head, Salma Rameriz spun on her heels and walked out into the night.

  “It was a question,” David said to Mac. “What was hateful about it?”

  “She’ll come around when she grows up and learns how the world really works,” Mac said in a low voice. “In the meantime, when was the last time you read a newspaper?”

  David looked in the direction in which Mac was jerking his chin. Sitting in the lounge area in front of the fireplace, Hap and Bernie were hiding behind two newspapers. Despite their effort to blend in, they immediately drew Mac’s attention away from the hotel guests who were doing their reading on computer tablets.

  “Cassie called Nathan,” Sheriff Turow texted to David. “Mtg. in maze.”

  After tapping David on the arm, Mac led him to the elevator, where he pressed the call button for the private penthouse elevator. Before it arrived, the guest elevator’s doors opened, and Bill Clark, along with his entourage, stepped out. Carrying a martini, the councilman was so enthralled in his conversation with a young man whose blond hair was slicked back that he collided with David before the police chief could get out of the way. The drink spilled down the front of Clark’s shirt in the collision.

  Clark whirled around. “You stupid son of a bitch!” Upon seeing David, he sneered. “O’Callaghan!” Clark waved the martini glass about, spraying David and anyone unfortunate enough to be nearby with the remnants of the drink. “I should have known it’d be you.”

  David was wiping the drink off of his shoulder and the back of his uniform. “You ran into me.”

  A member of Clark’s entourage took the glass from the councilman’s hand, possibly to prevent him from using it as a weapon. His hand then free, Bill Clark poked David in the chest. “Which is unfortunate for you because I’ve got something to tell you.”

  David looked down to where Bill Clark was pressing his finger against his breastbone. Seeing David’s expression, Mac wondered if he was going to break Bill’s finger.

  “What’s this about you digging into my mother’s death?”

  “I’m not digging into your mother’s death.”

  “That’s not what I heard,” Clark said.

  “You heard wrong.”

  “Then why was the sheriff asking my mother’s doctor about—”

  “Your mother died in Oakland,” David said. “Even if I wanted to investigate it, which I don’t, I couldn’t, because she died out of my jurisdiction. I have no authority.”

  A smug expression filling his face, Bill Clark moved in closer and peered into David’s face. Refusing to be intimidated, David matched the glare in his eyes.

  “That’s absolutely right,” Bill Clark said in a low voice. “You have no authority. I’m warning you—you’d better stop looking for dirt on me, O’Callaghan.”

  “Afraid of what I’m going to find?” David asked.

  “You’re the one who should be afraid,” Clark said.

  “Are you threatening me, Clark?”

  Poking David with each word, Bill Clark said, “I’m a member of the town council. That means that you work for me—”

  “Wrong.” With one hand, David grabbed the offending finger and twisted it. The pain brought Bill Clark down to his knees. “You listen to me, you son of a bitch. I work for the people of Spencer. I do what I have to do to protect and defend them—and you don’t.” With a shove, he released Clark, who fell backward and was caught by the blond-haired man.

  Clutching his finger, Bill Clark sputtered and fought to recoup his demeanor and save face among his underlings. “That’s it, O’Callaghan,” he said while his assistant helped him to his feet. Once he had his footing, Bill shoved the young man away. “This race is now between Gnarly and me, and you’d better pray that by some miracle, Gnarly wins, because when I win, my first act on my first day will be to fire you.” He shot a smug grin in Mac’s direction and laughed. “Even your rich bastard brother won’t be able to protect you.”

  His entourage joined in the laughter, an
d the blond-haired young man laughed the loudest.

  “I wouldn’t be so certain about winning the election, Clark,” Mac said. “Even without his face in front of the camera, Gnarly is still well ahead of you in the polls. He picked up PETA’s endorsement after the army confirmed that he wasn’t a suspect in the murder of his handler and that he saved that mother cat and her twenty kittens. He’s got the vote of every animal lover in Spencer.”

  Bill Clark’s eyes narrowed. He directed his gaze toward David. “Have you met my campaign manager?” Without taking his eyes off of David, he jerked his head in the direction of his companion, who jumped forward at his boss’ command. “Simon Spears. He’s the best. Last year, he won two senatorial seats for his clients.”

  “He leaked a picture of one client's opponent shaking hands with a KKK clansman who showed up in the crowd at his college graduation,” Mac said, “a man the candidate had never met before and hasn’t seen since. And then there was Spears’ other client. Spears smeared the opposing candidate by paying Internet trolls to flood social media with accusations of extramarital affairs that never happened. The hired trolls also launched attacks against the opponent’s supporters.”

  “So you’ve heard of me.” Simon grinned with pride.

  “I do my homework, Spears, and I know more about you than your own mother does.” Mac moved in on the young man, who was several inches shorter than he was. “Don’t think we don’t know who planted that phony story about Gnarly killing his handler. You sent the story to Rameriz using an e-mail address similar to Devereux’s to make everyone think it came from Braxton’s camp,” he said in a low voice. “You want to take on the big dog? Then you’d better make sure you’re man enough to handle yourself in a dog fight.” Mac whispered into his ear, “Believe me, you don’t want to get Gnarly mad at you. The other night, a mountain lion ticked him off. That lion is now at animal control…in a body bag…in a freezer.” He finished by making a cutting motion across his throat.