by Lauren Carr
“Say nothing. Ed on his way.”
Across the studio, he saw David read the text as the detective stepped up to him.
Mac was slipping his phone back into his pocket when he felt it vibrate in his hand. Reading the Caller ID, he saw that it read “Unknown Number.” Curious, he brought the phone to his ear.
“Mac,” He recognized the sultry voice of Ali Hudson.
“Ali,” Mac said. “How’s your chipped tooth?”
“Better than Yvonne’s,” she replied. “Is it true? Yvonne Harding ate a bitter pill?”
“If you’re asking if she’s dead, yes. Where are you?”
“Outside,” she said. “They’ve sealed off the building, and I can’t get in. Do they have who did it?”
“Carl Rubenstein,” Mac said. “They found his body down at the bottom of the stairwell, along with what they believe to be the murder weapon. Somehow he had smuggled a gun into the building.”
“How did he get a gun past security?” Ali asked. “He’s been threatening Yvonne. I called them myself to tell them not to let him in—”
“I overheard the security guard who let him in say his name was on the guest list for an interview on Crime Watch. He said that when they sent Rubenstein up, he was bragging that Yvonne Harding was personally going to interview him for her show.”
“That’s a bunch of bull hockey!” Ali continued cursing under her breath.
“I’m sorry,” Mac said. “I knew Yvonne, and—”
“Rubenstein did not kill her,” Ali said forcibly. “He wouldn’t have.”
Across the studio, Mac saw Lieutenant Wayne Hopkins stepping toward him. “Listen, Ali, I have to go. Can you meet us somewhere to talk about this? We’re staying at—”
“I’ll find you.”
Click!
“Mr. Faraday,” Lieutenant Hopkins said, greeting Mac with a smug grin. “Second time in less than twenty-four hours that I find you standing over a dead body.”
“Yvonne Harding was a friend,” Mac said. “She was a dear friend to David O’Callaghan, so I strongly suggest you talk about her with respect.”
“I had nothing but respect for her as a woman and as a journalist,” the detective said. “First, tell me what happened. Where were you?”
“Over by the control booth.” Mac pointed in the direction of the stage lights he had been waiting behind when he saw Yvonne collapse.
“Inside or outside the control booth?”
“Outside,” Mac said. “Behind the stage lights.”
“Hiding?”
“Watching David and Yvonne Harding.”
The annoying smirk filled the detective’s face. “What were they doing?”
“Talking.”
“What about?”
“They were old friends,” Mac said with a shrug. “They grew up together. Used to date a few years back. Most likely, they were talking about old times. I was too far away to hear anything specific.”
“Date?” the detective said. “Are you sure all they did was date?”
Mac chuckled. “Listen, Hopkins, I’ve conducted more interrogations than you ever will. I know you need to dig deep and find out everyone’s secrets to uncover the reason for this murder. But you’re digging in the wrong spot right now. If you want to know the personal details of David’s relationship with Yvonne Harding, you talk to his lawyer, who is on his way here now.”
“Lawyering up already, huh?” Lieutenant Hopkins chuckled as if he had succeeded in scoring a goal in a nasty game of one on one. “And I’m sure, as a former homicide detective, that you know that nothing spells ‘guilty’ like lawyering up.”
“David has over a dozen witnesses, me included, who saw him standing in front of Yvonne Harding when she was seemingly shot in the back,” Mac said. “Is that what the on-scene examiner found? A bullet entry wound in the back?”
“Yes,” Lieutenant Hopkins said. “Shooter had to have been several feet away and must have used a silencer.”
“And a three-eighty caliber pistol with a silencer was found at the bottom of the stairwell,” Mac said, “along with Carl Rubenstein, who had threatened Yvonne earlier today.”
“Who is conveniently dead and unable to defend himself,” Lieutenant Wayne Hopkins said. “As you are aware, we need to know where everyone was and what they were doing at the time of Yvonne Harding’s death. Problem is”—he grinned—“no one seems to know where you were. You just told me that you were hiding over there”—he pointed—“behind the stage lights, with a perfect target of Yvonne Harding’s back.”
Mac held out his hands. “Your crime-scene people are here. Do a paraffin test on my hands. You’ll see I haven’t fired any weapons in the last few days.” He took his gun out of its holster and handed it to the detective. “You’ll also see that my weapon has not been discharged recently.”
As Mac had expected he would, Lieutenant Hopkins took his gun and inspected it. With a nod of his head to show his agreement, he handed it back to Mac. “How about your backup weapon?”
Mac knelt down to extract his thirty-two caliber semiautomatic from his ankle holster and handed it to the detective, who sniffed it and checked the magazine to see that no rounds had been discharged from it before giving it back to him.
While returning the gun to his ankle holster, Mac reminded Hopkins about the gun found in the stairwell. “That was fired.”
“And we’re assuming it was used to kill Rubenstein until forensics gets a chance to examine it,” Lieutenant Hopkins said. “They’ll also check to see if it was used to kill Harding. Funny thing about that gun—besides the fact that it’s plastic—is that it was wiped clean. Has no fingerprints. And forensics says Rubenstein wasn’t wearing gloves and hadn’t fired a weapon. No gunpowder on his hands or clothes. Plus, he didn’t land on a gun. He was shot from several feet away at an upward angle.”
“The gun was fired from down the stairs below him?” Mac asked.
Hopkins’ eyes locked with Mac’s.
“The uniformed officers found Rubenstein at the bottom of the stairs and saw me when I reached the ground floor,” Mac said. “No way could I have gotten down to the bottom of the stairwell ahead of Rubenstein to fire up at him.”
“You’re a rich man,” Lieutenant Hopkins said.
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“I’m sure if you wanted to hire someone to take out your brother’s rich wife so that he could inherit her fortune, you would have all the resources necessary to make it happen.”
Mac gritted his teeth. “Are you arresting David or me?”
“Not yet.”
“Then we’re leaving.” Mac stepped around the detective. Mac had managed only to get around him before Lieutenant Hopkins stopped him with a warning that he had used many times himself.
“Don’t leave town.”
The street outside the News Corps building was mobbed with journalists and paparazzi trying to get pictures and information—anything to post on the news or the Internet about the death of Yvonne Harding. Unidentified sources from inside ZNC had already leaked that she had been shot in the back.
As she headed down Sixth Avenue, Ali Hudson took out her cell phone and pressed the speed-dial button to connect her to the Four Season. While Manhattan contained a host of grand hotels, it had been her experience that most of the rich and famous opted for the Four Seasons, which sported the most fabulous view of Central Park, or the Plaza, which was a couple of blocks away. From East Fifty-Seventh Street, it was only a twenty-minute walk to the Four Seasons, which was the closer of the two hotels.
“Four Seasons Hotel,” the operator answered.
“Mac Faraday’s suite, please?” Ali requested while taking note of a man in dark clothes and a red hoodie who had broken away from the mob in front of the News Corp building at about the same
time she had. In the reflection of the shop windows, Ali could see that he was heading in the same direction as she was.
A moment later, she was connected to a guest room’s voice mail. As she had expected, it did not say which room Mac Faraday was staying in.
At least I know the hotel. Slipping the cell phone into her jacket pocket, Ali turned the corner onto Fifty-Third Street. Casually looking up at the buildings towering above her, she took note of the fact that the man in the red hoodie had turned on the same corner.
Reaching into her jacket pocket, she wrapped her fingers around the ninja spike that she used for a key chain. The weapon’s unique shape and compact size disguised its true nature. She carried it with her everywhere. During the five months that she had worked for ZNC, not once had any of the security guards given the weapon, with its sharp spikes that extended more than an inch beyond her fingers, a second look when it passed through the X-ray machine.
She quickened her pace, and she was approaching an alley between two restaurants when she sensed someone rushing up behind her. Before she could turn around, a leather strap was dropped over her head and wrapped around her neck, and she was jerked backward into the alley.
“This is going to be fun,” she heard someone whisper harshly into her ear.
Her attacker’s laughter was cut off by a gasp followed by a gurgling sound when Ali, instead of lunging forward to fight the strap meant to control her, spun around on her high heels and punched him in the throat.
Two of the spikes punctured her attacker’s vocal cords. Stunned by the unexpected assault, he dropped the strap and clasped his neck. Blood squirted out between his fingers.
Instead of running away, Ali continued her attack with a knee to the groin and another blow to his ribs. The spikes ripped through the jacket. Her attacker fell back against the wall. She dropped him to the ground with a high heel to his knee.
Before her attacker had time to collect his wits, she hurried back out onto the street and trotted on to the Four Seasons.
Chapter Ten
“It’s all over the news,” Mac said to David, breaking the silence in the back of the taxi. “You should call Chelsea to tell her what’s happening.”
Looking around Gnarly, who was seated between them, to where David was sitting on the other end of the backseat, Mac wondered if David had heard him. His expression was one of being completely stricken.
“I could call her for you,” Mac offered.
“No,” David said in a soft voice. “I’ll call.”
“Has she spoken to you since—”
“No,” David replied. “Did you hear the shot?”
“No, but it was so noisy in that studio, with the director calling out to people over the intercom and sets being moved and lights—”
“When I’m doing my reserve duty, I can always pick out gunshots.”
“The gun they found had a silencer.”
“You know as well as I do that silencers only suppress the sound of the gun shot. They don’t complete mute it. I should have heard the shot.”
“What if you had? Yvonne would have still been shot. Your hearing it would not have saved her.” Trying to be as gentle as possible, Mac asked, “When was the last time you tried to call Chelsea?”
“None of your business,” David shot back.
“It is my business,” Mac said. “I’m your best man. If there’s not going to be a wedding, I have a right to know. Maybe I’d like to do something else this Saturday instead of making sure another one of your old girlfriends doesn’t cross paths with—”
“Four Seasons,” the cabdriver said, interrupting Mac.
David sat up to reach for his wallet, only to see Mac handing money to the driver with instructions to keep the change. Seeing a wide grin cross the driver’s face, David concluded that Mac had given him a hefty tip. Throwing open the door, David climbed out and took Gnarly’s leash. “You don’t have to take care of me,” he told Mac when he joined him at the front entrance.
A doorman held the door open so they could enter the lobby. He seemingly did not notice that David was dressed in what appeared to be blue hospital scrubs. The crime-scene investigators had confiscated David’s blood-covered clothes for evidence. They had supplied him with a blue cotton top, drawstring trousers, and cloth slippers to change into.
“Next cab, I’m paying for,” David told Mac while he led Gnarly across the hotel’s elegant marble lobby.
Without a word, Mac followed them past the throngs of guests, a few of whom took notice of David’s less than sophisticated attire, to the elevators. David waited until they were on the elevator and Mac had pressed the button for the twenty-third floor to slump over. “Sorry,” he muttered.
“Don’t be. You’ve been through hell today.” Mac shot a grin in his direction. “I’d say you even have a pass to get drunk tonight.”
“I’d settle for a nice hot shower and a good night’s sleep.” David sighed. “But I don’t think it’s going to happen … ,” he said, his voice trailing off.
The elevator doors opened, and Mac led David and Gnarly down the hallway to their suite. After using the keycard to enter it, Mac stopped inside the door. Seeing a dark figure sitting at the table in the window that provided a brightly lit night view of the New York skyline, he grabbed for the gun on his hip.
“There’s no need to get your boxers in a bunch, Mac!” she yelled while holding up both hands. “Don’t shoot!”
Yanking the leash out of David’s hand, Gnarly bounded across the suite to plant both front paws in Ali Hudson’s lap and lick her face. After that, he grabbed the food that she had had room service deliver while she’d been waiting for them.
When Mac started to chastise the dog, she cut him off with a wave of her hand. “That’s okay, hon. I was done anyway. That burger was big enough to feed an army.” She set the plate down on the floor for Gnarly. Holding up a bottle of beer, she added, “I broke into the minibar. I hope you don’t mind.”
“How did you get in here?” Noticing a fresh floral arrangement in the center of the table, Mac extracted the card to read the name of the sender. The card read, “Thank you for last night, Bubbles.” Furrowing his brow, Mac tossed the card to the table.
The corner of her lips curled. “Once I determined that you were here at the Four Seasons, I went to the gift shop and ordered a flower arrangement to be sent up here to your room. Then I waited in the lobby for them to deliver them, at which point I followed the clerk. When he came out of your suite, he ran into me as I was just ’bout to insert my key card into the lock—or so he thought. So, like a gentleman, he held the door open for me to come in.” Pleased with herself, she smiled up at him.
Mac turned to exchange glances with David, only to find him studying his cell phone. He seemed to be weighing his options in regard to calling Chelsea.
“I’m sorry ’bout Yvonne,” Ali said to David. “From what little I know, I saw that she really cared ’bout you—a lot.”
“Thanks,” David murmured before excusing himself to go into his room. “I’m going to call Chelsea and take a shower.”
“Is Chelsea his—” she started to ask Mac.
“Fiancée.” Mac saw a shadow of disappointment cross her face. Crossing to the minibar, he took out another bottle of beer, which he handed to her, and two minibottles of scotch. He emptied each one into a glass. Then he took one into the bedroom where he found David, his back to him, speaking into his cell phone.
“The detective in charge of the case told us not to leave town,” he said. “No, we aren’t suspects.” He turned around to find Mac holding out the glass to him. “We’re witnesses. Willingham is on his way up now. He should get everything sorted out so that we can come back to Deep Creek tomorrow. Mac has the charter jet company on standby, so we can leave as soon as we’re free to go. We’ll get our license first thing when I
get back, and we’ll be ready to get married on Saturday.”
About ready to turn around and leave David alone to talk to Chelsea, Mac paused when he saw a flicker of worry cross David’s face. “Did they say what they wanted? Sure. If they need to talk to someone—I’ll call them tomorrow morning to give permission for them to talk to you. Take Bogie with you. He’s got that magic touch with Mom. He’ll be able to calm her down.”
The reference to Bogie, the deputy chief of Spencer’s police department, was all the evidence Mac needed to understand that Chelsea had received a call from the nursing home where David’s mother, an Alzheimer’s patient, was living.
Of course, everything has to hit the fan at once—the week before David’s wedding. First he finds out he’s married and didn’t even know it. His wife is gunned down in front of him. His bride is not speaking to him. Now his mother, who’s been suffering from dementia for years, is having some sort of relapse while we’re being held as witnesses, if not suspects, for murder.
Deciding to make his own drink a double, Mac went back into the sitting room, where he found Ali Hudson lounging on the sofa with Gnarly stretched out next to her. He was resting his head on her chest. She was drinking her second beer straight from the bottle.
“Have the police contacted you yet?” Mac asked her while pouring the second bottle into his glass. He quickly took a healthy gulp of it. It felt good flowing down his throat.
“Ryan Ritter called me right before I called you,” she said.
“Ryan Ritter?” Mac repeated. “Why would—”
“He told me ’bout Yvonne gettin’ shot and was worried ’bout me since I wasn’t there,” she said. “I’m usually in the studio during shootin’ to assist Yvonne.”
The corners of Mac’s lips curled. “Why weren’t you there tonight?”
“I had a dental appointment.”
“Because you chipped your tooth on a hot dog at lunch.” Cocking his head at her, he chuckled.