The Sam Prichard Series - Books 9-12 (Sam Prichard Boxed Set 3)

by David Archer

  Sam looked at her. “So it was still going on?”

  She looked down at the ground, and nodded. “Yes, but I had been trying to break it off. If he'd wanted to make it a serious relationship, I probably would have left Ronnie, but I saw other girls going in and out too many times, so I knew he was just using me for sex. I told Carlos I couldn't keep it up, and he'd say he understood, but then he'd call me up when Ronnie was gone, and he'd start talking, and the next thing I knew I was sneaking back over to his place.”

  Sam nodded. “And were you there on Sunday morning? Charlie thinks he heard you come in.”

  Marcy crossed her arms across herself and cupped her elbows in her hands. “Earlier that morning, yeah. Ronnie had a big golf date and left early, and Carlos saw his car pull away. He called and…”

  “And you went over, used the key he had given you to unlock the back door and get inside. Right?”

  She nodded as if she was ashamed. “Yeah.”

  “Were you there when his ex-wife showed up?” Sam asked.

  Still keeping her eyes lowered, Marcy shook her head. “No, I had already come home. I saw her, though, when she pulled up.”

  Sam just looked at her for a moment, to see if she would say any more. Finally, he asked, “Marcy, do you have any idea who might have wanted to kill Carlos?”

  She finally looked up at him, meeting his eyes with her own. “No, not a clue. It wasn't like we were, you know, a couple. He never told me things about his personal life.”

  “What about your husband, Ronnie? If he found out, do you think he would do anything like this?”

  “No, not Ronnie.” She rolled her eyes. “Ronnie—I actually think he knew about it, but he just didn't seem to care. I mean, there were times he came home early, while I was over there. Once he was even in the backyard, and saw me coming out of Carlos's back door. He smiled and asked me how Carlos was doing. I waited all that evening for him to ask what I was doing over there, but he never did. I don't think he knows how to be jealous. If he did, it probably never would have happened at all.”

  “Let's get back to Sunday morning. Did you happen to see anyone around Carlos's back yard, after his ex left? Right now, we're thinking that someone came in the back door, probably someone who had a key, grabbed the butcher knife and just walked right up to him before stabbing him. Now, that sounds a lot like someone he knew, someone he never would've felt threatened by.” He stared hard into her eyes, to see if she had figured out what he was implying.

  Unfortunately, Marcy seemed oblivious, at least at first. “No,” she said. “After I saw Candy pull up, I sort of did my best not to pay any more attention.” She looked at Sam for a moment, and then realization dawned. “Wait a minute, are you saying you think I did it?”

  Sam shrugged his shoulders. “Well, I'd have a hard time thinking of anyone else he might trust that much, other than someone he was intimate with. Wouldn't you?”

  She started shaking her head emphatically. “No, no way,” she said. “I might have wanted out of it, but not that bad.”

  “Really? You weren't showing any signs of grief when I talked to you on Monday. Seems to me that if you'd had a relationship going on with the guy for a year, you might have been feeling some sort of remorse that he was gone, even if you did want out of it.”

  Tears suddenly began running from her eyes. “I feel it,” she said. “I just had to keep up an act, so no one would notice. I wouldn't want anyone to think I had anything to do with what happened to him, so I was doing my best to keep it from showing in my face. You can understand that, can't you?”

  Sam nodded. “Sure, I can understand it,” he said. “I'm not sure how well the police will understand it, or your husband, but I suspect you'll be able to come up with an act for them, too.” He handed her his business card, even though he knew he had given her one before. “I'm going to have to report this to Detective Parks, and she will undoubtedly be in touch pretty soon. You might want to be thinking about how you're going to explain this to your husband.”

  Sam turned and walked away, heading for his car, but then he paused and looked back. “Marcy, do you have a sister?”

  She was still standing there, just looking at him. “Yeah,” she said. “A younger sister, why?”

  “Brittany, right? Works over at Sammy's Coffee Shop?”

  Marcy nodded, but didn't say anything.

  Sam stood still for a couple of seconds, just looking at her, then turned and went to his car without another word.

  He now knew who the mysterious girlfriend was, and her fairly amazing acting ability, plus the fact that she had advised Brittany not to confirm Candy's alibi, had moved her up near the top of his list of suspects. It was a little difficult for him to believe that Marcy could have been as close to Carlos as she claimed without knowing anything at all about his business, and her ability to keep up an innocent act right after he was killed made him wonder if she might have practiced it. Add in the fact that she had helped them to keep Candy's alibi from being confirmed, and he suddenly had a lot of circumstantial evidence.

  She had told him she was trying to get out of the relationship. Was it possible that she had actually planned and executed the murder? Sam wondered if she might have simply waited until Candy or another potential murder suspect stopped in and left, then hurried over to do the job quickly and let it be blamed on the visitor.

  In the past, he had certainly known both men and women who were capable of such coldhearted planning. Under the right circumstances, any of us, he knew, can be capable of cold-blooded murder. There was little doubt in his mind that any woman could kill, if her motivation was strong enough.

  16

  Sam decided that it was time for lunch, so he fired up the Corvette and pointed it toward downtown, then took out his phone to call Detective Parks.

  “Karen,” Sam said when she answered, “I got an ID on McAlester's girlfriend. Her name is Marcy Osgood, she lives next door. I was right about her being married, too.”

  “Any sense that she might be our killer?” Karen asked.

  “I'd put her up pretty high on the list of suspects,” Sam said. “She says the affair went on for about a year, and that she'd been trying to get out of it, but Carlos could always talk her into coming back. Could be she decided to take matters into her own hands. She's a cool customer, and if she feels any grief over him, she keeps it hidden well.” He decided not to mention her relationship to Brittany just yet, but it could always be brought up later.

  “I'm gonna pull her in for questioning. What about her husband, could be we're dealing with jealous rage, maybe?”

  “Everyone I talked to seems to think her husband is too meek to hurt anyone, but you and I both know that anyone can snap. My gut says it isn't him, but that doesn't mean I would leave him out of the questioning.”

  Sam took a right onto Fifth Avenue, and a quick glance in his rearview mirror showed the car behind making the same turn. He had vaguely noticed it back there when he had pulled away from Marcy's place, and it struck him as a little odd that it would be going the same way he was.

  “Sorry? I missed that,” Sam said to Karen, who had spoken.

  “I just said we'll bring him in and talk with him, too. Your gut tends to be pretty right on, but we can't afford to leave any possible suspects out of the investigation. I'll let you know if I come up with anything, and I'd appreciate it if you'd do the same for me. And now that I think of it, aren't you done with this case? You already cleared your client. Surely they're not going to pay you to keep looking for the killer, now that she's in the clear, are they?”

  Sam laughed. “This was a pro bono case,” he said. “Our band isn't rich enough that they could afford to pay me. I just sort of need to know who killed Carlos for my own satisfaction, now. Besides, Chris had to give all his money to Candy's lawyer.”

  “Poor guy,” Karen said. “Good luck with getting any of that money back. Lawyers can hold on to money better than anybody else in the
world.”

  “Yeah, well, I would have hired a lawyer, too. The case looked pretty bad for her when I started on this, and I wouldn't have taken any bets on whether she could get out of it or not.”

  “I gotcha. Well, listen, I'm going to jump on this. I'll let you know how it goes.”

  “Same here,” Sam said, and then he ended the call. The powder blue Mustang was still behind him, and he changed lanes to get ready for another turn, this time onto Broadway. The Mustang moved over behind him, and when he turned right, it followed again.

  Peering hard into his rearview mirror, Sam tried to figure out who might be driving the car, but its blacked-out windows made it too dark in the car's cabin to get any kind of look at the driver. He thought it was a woman, and wondered for a moment if it could be Marcy, but her car had still been in her driveway when he’d left, and it wasn't a Mustang.

  Sam weaved in and out of traffic for a few minutes, and the Mustang stayed within a few car lengths of him. He waited until the last possible moment to make his next turn, onto West Seventeenth Avenue, then whipped around the corner without even touching his turn signal.

  The Mustang came around behind him, its own signal blinking. There was no doubt that Sam was being followed, and the hairs on the back of his neck began to rise. Just ahead, he saw Steuben's restaurant, and deliberately fishtailed into the parking lot. He spun the car around as quickly as he could and backed it into a parking slot.

  The Mustang turned in more sedately, and Sam watched as it motored slowly to where he was parked. There were no empty spaces nearby, but the car suddenly stopped right in front of the Corvette. It just sat there for a few seconds, and Sam let his hand rest on the grip of his pistol.

  The driver window of the Mustang suddenly powered down, and Sam found himself looking into the face of Jackie Porter, the CSI tech. She was looking directly at him and smiling, so Sam popped his door open and climbed slowly out of the Corvette.

  “Did I spook ya?” Jackie asked.

  “Maybe just a little bit,” Sam said. “When you're trying to track down a murder suspect and someone starts following you through the city, it does tend to make you just a little bit nervous. What are you doing, tailing an old geezer like me?”

  Jackie laughed. “I was actually going back to McAlester's house to take a look at a couple of things that were unclear, when I spotted you driving away. I just figured I'd catch up with you at your next stop and see if you had any new brilliant epiphanies about the case.”

  Sam grinned. “Brilliant epiphanies aren't something that tend to happen to me very often,” he said. “Actually, I'm about to go have lunch. Care to join me? Maybe if we brainstorm a bit together, we'll come up with something.”

  “Sure,” Jackie said. “Just let me park this behemoth, and I'll meet you at the door.”

  Sam nodded, and made his way toward the front door of the restaurant. The place was known for its incredible food, and was a highly popular tourist destination. Fortunately, Sam knew just about everyone who worked there, so it wasn't hard for him to get a table. He held up two fingers to the hostess, and a moment later one of the waiters came to show him the way. Jackie came jogging up just then, and simply followed them inside.

  The waiter took their drink orders as he seated them and gave them menus to look over, and both of them were ready to order by the time he came back. Sam went for the cheesesteak sandwich, and after asking his opinion of it, Jackie opted for the same.

  “So what were you looking for at McAlester's place?” Sam asked when they were alone.

  Jackie grinned. “You got me to thinking about just how odd it was, the way McAlester was laid out. It was almost like somebody positioned him, but that should have left smears in the bloodstains and there weren't any. On top of that, I wanted to find out just how easy it would be for someone to come in the back door without being seen. I took a quick glance the other day, after you left, and there are enough garages and hedges and such back along the alley so that only one of his immediate neighbors might have seen whoever came in that way. I know you talked to them; did anyone mention seeing someone in the backyard?”

  Sam nodded. “Old couple across the street,” he said. “They saw the neighbor, Marcy Osgood, slipping between the two houses, going from her own backyard into his. Karen is talking to her today, I think. Right now, she's pretty high on the suspect list.”

  Jackie's eyebrows went up. “Oh, really? I met her the other day, right after you left. She was out in her front yard as I was going to the van and said hello. She didn't act like someone who cared much about him.”

  “No, she made it pretty clear that it was just a sexual thing. She implied that if Carlos had ever wanted it to be more, she might have been willing to explore the possibility, but she said he was only using her. She claims she wanted out of the relationship, but said he could always talk her into coming back. If she really wanted out and felt she just didn't have the willpower to stop, that could be motive for murder.”

  “True,” Jackie mused. “Was she the only one they ever saw going in there?”

  Sam shrugged. “The old lady might have implied that there were others, but I guess it wasn't anyone she knew. I didn't actually think to ask for more information, and now that I think about it, I should have. I'll run back over there this afternoon, see if she might have gotten a description of any of the others.”

  “Well, if she had seen somebody going in there regularly, she probably would've mentioned that, don't you think?”

  “Yeah, probably,” Sam said, “but you can never be sure. It can't hurt to run back by.”

  “I guess not. Hey, I heard you got your bass player girl out of this mess. How'd that happen, if you don't mind my asking?”

  “I got to thinking about the girl at the coffee shop, the one who said she didn't remember Candy being there. When I went in to show her Candy's picture, she didn't want to look me in the eye when she insisted she'd never seen her before. That left me thinking that she was lying, even though I couldn't figure out why she would want to. Turns out she said it when the cops first called her just because she didn't want to get involved, but then she said her sister advised her not to say anything, because changing her story might get her into trouble. With a little nudge from me, she owned up and then wanted to be helpful. She remembered exactly what Candy had ordered and found the cash register printout that showed the time she was there. That proved Candy couldn't possibly have killed Carlos, because she would've been in the drive-through line at Sammy's at the time. Oh, and the sister? The one who told her to keep her mouth shut? Marcy Osgood.”

  Jackie nodded appreciatively. “Good work there, Mr. Private Investigator. So now the cops have to find the real killer, right? You're not working on that, now, are you?”

  Sam shrugged again. “Just for myself,” he said. “Whoever did it is probably the person who sent me this.” Sam pulled out the photo of Kenzie with the crosshairs and handed it to Jackie. She took it carefully, as if afraid of getting her fingerprints on it.

  “Oh, my God, Sam,” she said. “Is that your little girl?”

  Sam nodded. “That's McKenzie, and that picture was taken in our backyard. Somebody snapped it, printed it out, drew the crosshairs on it and stuffed it in an envelope addressed to my wife, Indie. She found it in our mailbox, but it didn't have stamps on it and didn't come through the mail. I guess they thought that would make me back off.”

  Jackie looked up from the picture. “Where is your family now? Surely you got them put away safe, right?”

  “Damn right,” Sam said. “Sometimes it's nice to have powerful people owe you a favor. My wife and daughter are enjoying a vacation in Orlando right now, with enough security on them to take care of a small army. They're safe, and I dare whoever did this to try coming after me.”

  He took the photo back from Jackie and slipped it back into his pocket. She shook her head, as if stunned that anyone would try such a stunt. “Well, maybe now that you got your c
lient cleared, the real killer will just leave you alone.”

  “I hope not,” Sam said. “Whoever killed Carlos McAlester did it while his eight-year-old son was in the house, and it was the boy who found him dead. I want to nail whoever did this, for that kid's sake.”

  “Yeah, that was pretty rotten. Maybe it will turn out to be the neighbor lady, maybe she didn't even know the boy was there.”

  “I don't know,” Sam said. “I just want to get to the bottom of it, or help the cops get there.”

  Sam's phone rang suddenly, and he pulled it out to look at the caller ID. His eyes went wide when he saw that it was his mother calling, because she almost never called him. “Mom?”

  “Sam, it's Kim, I don't know what's gotten into her,” his mother said. “It's that ghost of hers, she's gone into that trance thing again. She says the ghost wants to talk to you, right now.”

  “Oh, dear Lord,” Sam said. “Okay, fine, put her—put it on.”

  “Samuel?” The voice that came through the phone didn't sound like Kim at all, but had a deeper, more masculine quality and a Southerner's accent. “I do hope you'll forgive me, but my message to you is urgent, and I could not wait for this dear lady to gain the courage to speak to you about it.”

  Sam gave a sigh, and tried to avoid the piercing look Jackie was casting his way. “What is it, Beauregard?”

  “You need to know that the man who died was not the killer's first victim, and that this murderer will strike again. You already know the killer, and if you can deduce who it is, you can save lives.”

  Sam's eyes went wide, and he threw a hand to his forehead. “Beauregard, can't you just give me the name? Tell me who it is, so I can stop it?”

  “I don't have the name, Samuel,” the eerie voice said. “I cannot choose the knowledge that comes to me, I can only pass on those parts of it that may pertain to you.” Suddenly Sam heard coughing, and then he heard his mother-in-law's voice. “Grace? Who's on the phone? Hello?”