by Lauren Carr
“I heard on the news that you were in Italy,” Ed said.
“No,” Mac said. “She’s been working undercover at ZNC for the last five months.”
“As stubborn as your mother, I see.”
“Pap used to say that the nut doesn’t fall very far from the tree in our family, which was his way of sayin’ we were all nutty.”
“You need to keep an eye on this one,” Ed said to Mac over his shoulder.
“I know that already,” Mac replied.
Ed turned back to David. “We have to talk about Yvonne’s murder.”
“I’m not a suspect, Ed. I was standing in front of her when she was shot in the back. Over a dozen members of the cast and crew saw me.”
“And not one member of that cast and crew saw where Mac, your best man, was.” Ed jerked a thumb in Mac’s direction. “With her dead, not only can you marry Chelsea on Saturday, but you can also give her a very wealthy husband.”
“Wealthy?” David muttered. “She did tell me that her father had left her a lot of money, but I wasn’t really paying attention.”
“But if she didn’t know she was married to David,” Mac asked, “then why would she have put him in her will?”
“I contacted her lawyer last night after I talked to you,” Ed said. “He was as surprised as everyone else to find out that Yvonne had been married. He told me that Yvonne didn’t really have anyone, but since she was worth so much, she’d had a standard will drawn up.” He glared at David. “Everything goes to her next of kin, which gives you, David, a very strong motive—about nine million motives—to want Yvonne to die, and not to sign those divorce papers. Plus, we haven’t even talked about the life insurance policy she had with the network—a million to her next of kin, and double indemnity since she was killed on the job.”
“But David didn’t do it,” Mac said. “He’s got witnesses.”
“The police are thinking you did it for David,” Ed said. “Can you think of anyone else who would want Yvonne Harding dead?”
“Ian Griffith,” Dallas said. “He was so jealous of Yvonne that he couldn’t see straight. Another network was offerin’ Yvonne her own show. ZNC was in a biddin’ war with them to keep Yvonne and was gonna give her more money and her own show with Ryan Ritter as the lead-in. When Ian got word that Ruth Rubenstein had been murdered and that her husband was plannin’ to sue Yvonne and ZNC, he was practically dancin’ with joy.”
“How about Pam Wiehl?” Mac asked. “She overheard you talking to Sergeant Roberts.”
Dallas shook her head. “I can’t see Pam killin’ anyone. Professionally, she’s fat and sassy. Crime Watch’s executive producer is her husband, who loves the daylights out of her. The show is secure in its ratings. Really, they’re a couple of homebodies. They spend every weekend home with their daughters.”
“But she’s getting a little long in the tooth,” Ed said. “In her business, you’re over the hill after forty. It would be very easy for the CEO and board to decide to go for a younger audience by replacing her with a younger host—like Yvonne.”
“Yvonne didn’t want Crime Watch,” Dallas said, “because even as the lead host, she’d share the spotlight with three other hosts. She wanted to be the one and only host of her own show and ZNC was gonna give her that.”
“Unless she cost them a million or so dollars in a lawsuit,” David said. “Ian told us that yesterday.”
“With Yvonne and Rubenstein dead, both ZNC and Ian Griffith scored,” Mac said. “We need to take a look at him.”
“Ian Griffith isn’t smart enough to pull off a murder,” Dallas said with a laugh. “The only reason the Wiehls keep him on Crime Watch is because the lady viewers think he’s pleasin’ to the eye and he’s got a great sense of humor. But when it comes to competence, he couldn’t knock a hole in the wind with a sackful of hammers.”
“Not only that, but wouldn’t Ian Griffith be taking a big chance committing murder?” David asked. “If he expected Yvonne to get fired, why didn’t he just wait for Rubenstein’s lawsuit to run its course and then make his move for the top spot on the show?”
“Maybe Blakeley offered Ian his own show in exchange for eliminating Yvonne and the lawsuit,” Ed said. “With both of them dead, everyone wins.”
Tossing the blanket aside, Dallas stood up. “I’ll check out Ian and Mr. Blakeley when I get to the office.”
“David and I are coming with you,” Mac said. “I have a bad feeling about that man who attacked you last night. If he did turn out to be a police officer, then we need to check out his connection.”
“What man attacking—” Ed asked, only to have Dallas cut him off.
“Do either of you have a button-down shirt? People’ll talk if I go in wearin’ the same clothes I wore yesterday. I don’t have time to go back to my place.”
“I only packed for overnight,” David said, “and the police confiscated my clothes last night.”
“I have a button-down shirt.” Ed tossed his suitcase onto the coffee table and opened it up. “Is white okay?”
“White’ll be perfect,” she said while unbuckling the belt on her pants. “I’ll also need a white undershirt. Otherwise, everyone will see my chocolate-brown Fleur Turner.”
“Whatever that is.” David rose from his seat. “I do have an extra white T-shirt I can lend to you.”
After she followed David into the bedroom, Ed turned to Mac. “If Dallas is anything like her mother, which I can already see she is, you and David need to stick real close to her.”
“Audra was spunky, but she wasn’t stupid,” Mac said.
“The woman spent ten days in jail rather than give up her source for Sleeping with the Enemy,” he said. “That’s takes more than spunk. My lawyers have represented more than one journalist that the police and feds have gone after for sources. With most of them, you threaten to send them to jail, and they cave. Not Audra Walker.”
Mac quickly said, “Sleeping with the Enemy was about the murder of Zachery Bailey, the doctor-husband of a superior court judge in Washington State. Everyone thought he was killed in retaliation for some mob cases she had presided over. Walker’s book said the judge hired a hit man to kill her husband, who came from a wealthy family, so that she could inherit his fortune and be with her lover.”
“Walker’s book had so many details in it that the feds knew her source had to have been the hit man Judge Bailey hired, but she had given her word that she wouldn’t give away the assassin’s identity, and”—he sighed—“she kept that word.”
“I never understood how she could go to jail for not divulging her source,” Mac said. “What about her First Amendment—”
“Justice department argued that since she wrote books freelance, not for any news organizations, she could not hide behind the shield law,” Ed said. “I got that overturned pretty easily. Even so, she spent ten days in jail protecting this professional killer and was tough enough that she was prepared to stay even longer.” He chuckled. “She probably wanted to stay longer. She came out of jail with another award-winning book—a story she got from her cellmate. She made about three prison pen pals. Audra Walker was one tough cookie.”
“So’s her daughter,” Mac said. “Someone put three bullets into Audra Walker and sealed her body in a wall, killed the last journalist who interviewed her, and tried to kill her daughter last night. My gut is telling me that all of this is connected. Can you call your contacts in the police force to find out about this off-duty police officer who was killed last night? Dallas says someone tried to mug her. We suspect that attack is connected.”
“Could she have blown her cover?”
“I doubt it,” Mac said. “Since Dallas was Yvonne’s research assistant, the killer would have wanted to eliminate her to avoid risking any loose ends.”
Ed was nodding his head. “I’ll make a few phone calls
about that off-duty cop to see if he’s dirty.”
David was aware of Dallas’s following him into the bedroom and closing the door, but he didn’t think anything of it. After all, she needed his undershirt and a place to change her clothes.
Taking the white undershirt out of his suitcase, he said, “This may be a little big in the shoulders, but it should do.”
He turned around to find her standing on the other side of the bed. She had taken off the double-breasted top of her pantsuit. Above the waist, she wasn’t wearing anything but a chocolate-brown silk-and-lace bra. The hue of her underwear matched the brown in her eyes. With a toss of her head, she shook her hair back behind her shoulders, letting it spill down her back, and held out her hand to take the shirt.
Stunned by her lack of modesty, David made no move to give it to her.
“Let’s see how this looks.” She snatched the shirt from his hand. After pulling it on over her head, she unzipped her pants to tuck it in. Frowning at her image in the mirror, she put on the stark-white button-down shirt and fastened the bottom buttons. Cocking her head, she studied her reflection. “Whatta ya think?”
She turned to David, who was trying to get the image of her perfectly toned body out of his mind.
He swallowed. “Good.”
Turning back to the mirror, she furrowed her brow. “You can see my bra underneath.”
With her calling it to his attention, David had to agree she was right.
“That won’t work.” In one movement, she pulled both white shirts off over her head. While David’s mouth hung open, she undid the bra’s clasp between her breasts and shrugged out of it.
As much as he did not want to take in her beautiful, plump breasts, he couldn’t resist uttering a gasp of surprise. “Obviously, they don’t teach modesty in Texas.”
“I grew up surrounded by rough and burly ranch hands. I would’ve never survived being prissy and modest.” With a naughty grin, she tossed the bra to David, who caught it with one hand. “Souvenir of your trip to New York,” she said with a wink.
“And all I was looking to take back to Deep Creek Lake was a divorce.” David tossed the bra into his overnight bag.
She had already pulled both shirts back on over her head. “How is it that Yvonne was married to a hunk like you and never told anyone?” While tucking the undershirt into her pants, she turned to David and looked him up and down. “If I was your wife, I’d shout it from the rooftop.”
“Neither of us knew.”
Hands on her hips, she cocked her head at him. “Dude! How do you get married and not know it?” Her tone was filled with doubt.
“Picture it,” David said. “Drunk in Vegas.”
Her hand shot up. “’Nuff said!” She strapped the belt that she had previously worn on her pants around her waist to cinch in the men’s white button-down shirt that hung down low enough to cover her hips. She left the top four buttons undone to show the white undershirt beneath.
With only a few pieces of clothing, she had transformed her look into stylishly casual. Without asking, she picked up David’s comb and ran it through her thick locks. “Wish I had time to wash my hair. Do you have a rubber band?”
David went into the bathroom to go through his shaving kit. He returned with an old, worn rubber band to find that she had begun French braiding her hair from the crown. “I have no idea where this came from.” He held out the band to her.
Because she was using both hands to work the braid, she was unable to take it. “Take a tater and wait, sweetie.”
“What?” David asked her.
“It means don’t get your boxers in a wad,” she said to his reflection in the mirror.
He stared back at her reflection for a moment before shaking his head. “I don’t understand half of what you say … but you sound good saying it.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment, sir,” she replied to his reflection in the mirror.
Their eyes locked.
Guilt washing over him, David turned around to break the connection, leaned against the dresser, and focused his attention on the rubber band.
“Did you love her?” she asked. “Yvonne, I mean.”
“Yes,” David replied.
“But you’re marryin’ this other woman.”
David nodded his head.
She noticed a dark shadow cross his face. When she finished braiding, she reached for the rubber band, allowing her hand to rest in his. “Do you want to marry this other woman?”
“I wouldn’t have asked her if I didn’t,” David said.
“Didn’t. You’re speakin’ in the past tense, sugar.” Taking the rubber band, she turned back to the mirror. “Maybe you wanted to then, but you aren’t so sure now.”
“Why would I not be sure now?” David’s tone was sharp. Turning away from her, he went to the nightstand and opened the drawer.
“I don’t know.” Through the mirror, she watched his reflection as he picked up a gun from the drawer. “How does she feel ’bout your gettin’ drunk and marryin’ Yvonne Harding in Vegas?”
“None of that was Chelsea’s fault.” David slipped the gun into a holster he wore on his belt behind his back. “She has a right to be upset.”
“Yes, she does,” Dallas said. “If it was me, I’d raise hell and stick a chunk under it.”
David turned around to face her. Placing his hands on his hips, he asked her, “What does that even mean?”
“She has every right to be mad at you,” she said. “What I don’t understand is why you’re mad at her.”
“I’m not.” David extracted a smaller handgun that was still tucked in its holster from the overnight bag.
She folded her arms across her chest. “Are so.”
“Am not.” He propped his foot up on the bed and lifted a leg of his blue jeans.
“Is she talkin’ to you yet?” she asked while watching him fasten the holster around his ankle.
“As a matter of fact”—he tightened the holster’s fastener with a sense of vengeance—“she is.” He dropped his foot to the floor so hard that it caused a stomping sound.
“I stand corrected.” With a shrug, she whirled on her heels and sauntered to the door. “Before you go back home to marry your second wife, whatta ya say we go catch your first wife’s killer?”
“I can’t believe you haven’t visited Violet since coming back to Spencer,” Deputy Chief Art Bogart told Chelsea during their drive to the nursing home in Oakland, Maryland, where David’s mother lived. Molly, Chelsea’s white German shepherd, was sitting in the backseat of his SUV.
Bogie, as everyone called him, had spent his entire law-enforcement career working for the Spencer Police Department. Sixty-five-year-old Bogie had been Patrick O’Callaghan’s best friend and was David’s godfather. His hair and bushy mustache were gray, but he had the huge muscular build of a man half his age. More than once, young police officers had tried to challenge the older officer to a bout, and every time they ended up eating mat in less than a minute.
“I think David preferred that I not see her,” Chelsea said. “That I remember her the way she was, which was pretty mean and nasty anyway. David used to be ashamed of letting his friends meet her.”
Unsure of how much David had revealed about his personal family situation, Bogie simply said, “Violet has her own personal demons. Problem with demons is that some people like to hang onto them and refuse to let them go, not realizing that if you hang onto them too long, they’ll consume you—and drive you mad.”
Unsure of what Bogie was trying to tell her, Chelsea looked at him from out of the corner of her eye.
“I visit Violet pretty regularly,” Bogie said while keeping his eyes on the road. “I’m one of the very few people she still recognizes. She’s convinced David is his dad. Sometimes she’ll get violent when he comes to see her. Th
e nursing home told him that he shouldn’t visit her alone anymore. That’s why I come.”
“Why would she get violent with David if she thought he was his dad?”
“I’m sure you heard all those rumors about him and Robin Spencer.”
“Well, it turns out there was some truth to the rumors,” Chelsea said. “They had a baby together.”
“That was long before Pat even met David’s mom,” Bogie insisted. “It was ancient history. Even though he married her and started a family with her, Violet never felt secure in their marriage. Instead of letting Pat’s past go, she let it get to her and destroy everything she had—not the least of which was her mind.”
At the nursing home, Bogie reminded Chelsea of a beloved politician as he shook hands, slapped backs, and asked this resident or that one about this daughter or grandson. He welcomed everyone by name. Obviously, he didn’t visit just Violet regularly. They stopped in three different rooms before they finally made their way to their intended charge.
When they stepped into the lounge where the television was on, the face of every resident in the room lit up, and there was a chorus of “Hi, Bogie!”
While the big deputy chief made his way around the lounge, Chelsea managed to pick Violet O’Callaghan out of the residents. Thinking back, she concluded that it had been over fifteen years since she had seen David’s mother. In that time, she appeared to have aged fifty.
Her thick blond hair was disheveled. Sunken into her skull, her small eyes darted about the lounge while her lips worked. Slumped over in her wheelchair, she resembled a nasty predator looking for someone to attack—not because it was hungry, but simply because it wanted to.
No wonder David never brought me to visit her.
“Hello, Violet, how are you today?” With a jolly greeting, Bogie pulled up an ottoman and sat in front of her. “They tell me that you had a really bad day yesterday.” With a wave of his hand, Bogie beckoned Chelsea to join them.
Like a mouse approaching a lion, Chelsea made her way across the lounge in their direction. In a flash, she recalled an afternoon when she had visited the O’Callaghan home not long after she had started officially dating David. Chelsea’s older brother, Riley, and David had grown up together. Even though they were best friends, visits to the O’Callaghan home had been few and far between.