by Lauren Carr
Mac asked, “What’s wrong?”
“I got a very strange call this morning.” Neal dropped down into an empty chair at the table. “I handed it off to Kaplan to handle.” With a handkerchief, he mopped sweat that poured down his forehead and neck. It was hard to tell if the sweat was due to the heat or nerves. Mac surmised it was the latter.
“I even called my lawyer to give him a heads up,” Neal said, “but the more I thought about it—”
“Would you like some iced tea?” Wrinkles from concern formed across Archie’s forehead. She looked like she feared Neal Hathaway was going to have a coronary before their very eyes.
Neal’s eyes widened with surprise when he noticed her. With the handkerchief hanging from his chin, he stopped wiping his face. “Hello.”
Mac tried to introduce them, but Archie was already running into the kitchen for a fresh glass of iced tea for their guest.
Forgotten, Gnarly jumped up to plant his front paws on the table and stuck his nose into Neal Hathaway’s face as if to introduce himself since no one else would.
“This is Gnarly.” Mac pulled him down from the table by the collar. “Go steal a beach towel from someone’s dock. This is a private meeting.”
With a humph noise, Gnarly trotted off the deck and disappeared down the path in the direction of Archie’s cottage.
After gulping almost the full glass of tea that Archie served him, Neal was able to continue. “This morning, I got a call from a woman saying that she’s investigating Ilysa’s murder—”
Mac glanced over at Archie, who shook her head. “It wasn’t me.”
When Neal looked from her back to him, Mac explained, “Archie does research for me. She had looked up the background on your wife’s murder for our investigation.”
“But I didn’t call you,” she asserted.
“No, it wasn’t you,” Neal replied. “This woman’s voice was deep and gravely. It almost sounded like a man’s voice.”
“She’s investigating Ilysa’s murder?” Mac asked.
“And with what she’s uncovered so far, it could be very embarrassing for me and my company. She could let the case go cold, or she could continue with the investigation, in which case it could prove to be very expensive and messy. The choice was up to me, based on how much I wanted it to cost me.”
Archie said, “Sounds like a shake down to me.”
“That’s exactly what it was,” Neal said with relief that he wasn’t imagining the purpose of the call. “So I called Peyton Kaplan and gave him the phone number she had given me to call back with my answer. He did a quick check. It was a cell phone number that he couldn’t trace because it was one of those throw away phones. But he said he’ll take care of it. Then, the more I thought about it—Who was this woman? Why now? Why the shake down? Could she be one of O’Callaghan’s people? Maybe she’s a dirty cop working for him.”
Mac shook his head. “Definitely not one of David’s people. He has two women on the force. One is the desk sergeant. Tonya. I know her. She’d never shake down a suspect.”
Neal Hathaway’s voice shot up an octave. “Suspect? I thought I was a victim. It was my wife that was murdered.”
Archie’s gentle tone calmed him down. “Mac didn’t mean it that way. Clearly, this woman considers you a suspect.”
“Everyone is a suspect when there’s a murder,” Mac said. “None of the women in David’s department are directly involved in this investigation. The other woman is a patrol officer. When did this call come in?”
“A little after nine this morning—right after breakfast. Usually I don’t answer the phone, but today is Greta’s day for grocery shopping. Since she’s out all day, I go ahead and answer it. If I hadn’t picked up, I doubt if she would’ve put the call through.” He smiled. “She’s very good at screening my calls. After fifteen years of working for me, she’s excellent at knowing what calls to put through and what ones are crackpots.”
“If it was at nine o’clock,” Archie noted, “that was more than four hours ago.”
“I know,” Neal said, “I should have come sooner, but I was going to just let Kaplan and my lawyer, George Scales, handle it; but the more I thought—O’Callaghan called me last night. Victor Gruskonov is dead.”
“That’s right,” Mac said.
His face contorted with emotion. “That means one of my people did it.”
“Your people?” Cocking his head at him, Mac fought the grin that came to his lips.
My people. It was a term he had heard bantered about when he was on the police force. “I’ll have my people call your supervisor,” suspects would say. Mac considered it a joke. The well-to-do considered having people working for them to be as much of a status symbol as a Mercedes or Jaguar. Since his move to Spencer, he had been told more than once, “I’ll have my people contact yours to set up a lunch date.” To which Mac would reply, “I don’t have any people...but I do have a dog.”
Neal sat forward in his chair. “All these years I’ve thought Gruskonov killed Ilysa. If he didn’t do it, then it had to be someone who was at the estate that weekend. Kaplan or his wife. Susan. Rachel. My family. My employees. My friends. My people.” He choked. “I’m responsible for all of them.”
Archie took his hand. “That doesn’t make you responsible for her murder. If any of them killed her, it’s their fault.”
“Could any of them be behind this shake down?” Mac asked him.
“No,” Neal said.
Mac was doubtful. “You don’t think any of them could shake you down, but they could kill your wife?”
Neal let out a small gasp. “Ilysa used to tell me that I was too trusting. … Why is this person doing this? Now? The painting? The case opening up again? Everything?”
“I think we’ll find that this shakedown artist is an opportunist,” Mac said. “It’s been all over the news about the painting showing up. That has dredged up a rehashing of the murder. So this woman is trying to take advantage of it. Wait for Kaplanand your lawyer to find out what they can, and then we’ll see about nailing her for attempted extortion.”
Neal wiped his sweaty face again. “I guess you’re right. I apologize for running over here like this. I guess I’m jumpy with all this coming up again—It’s brought back a lot of bad memories from when Ilysa died.” He turned to Archie. “She was the love of my life.”
“I can see that you loved her very much. You two must have been very happy.” Archie stood up. “Would you like to see the painting? We’ve moved it down to the study.”
The reminder of the painting brought a smile to Neal Hathaway’s face. “I would love to.” He turned to Mac. “Have you given any thought to my offer to buy it from you?”
Before Mac could answer, Gnarly came galloping up the steps from where he had disappeared earlier. He clutched a beach towel in his jaws. His pace didn’t slow when he trotted across the deck and stopped in front of Mac where he dropped the towel at his feet. Gnarly then looked up at Mac with expectation filling his face.
When Mac was unable to respond due to shock, Gnarly barked and sat up on his hind legs. He was waiting for his reward for a job well done.
Neal was impressed. “How about that? You told him to go steal a beach towel and that’s what he did. That’s one smart dog.”
“If he’s so smart,” Mac replied, “why doesn’t he know sarcasm when he hears it?”
“Are you kidding me?” Joshua blurted out his objection when Cameron called his cell to break the news about her suspicions of Sherry Bixby inserting herself into the investigation.
He punched the dashboard of his SUV and cursed. He really liked the teamwork he was developing with Cameron—and it wasn’t only romantically. They were in sync—like he’d never had with any partner in the past.There was no room on their team for an obese, obnoxious, chain smoker.
“I don’t like it any more than you do, darling,” Cameron told him. “I don’t even know where she is. Priscilla said she was actually
giddy about finding out that Jane Doe was Neal Hathaway’s wife and talked about how much money he has. I’m afraid of what she might do.”
“She wouldn’t!”
“She doesn’t think straight,” she said. “Everyone has noticed it since she’s been plucked down here, but no one has the guts to blow the whistle to have something done. Now, it may be too late.”
“Have you tried calling her cell?”
“She’s not answering,” Cameron said. “I’m searching her office now. Where are you? If I need backup, can you get here?”
“I’ve got your back, baby.”
He had her back more than she knew. He was watching when Priscilla Garrett broke the news of her betrayal. The two women’s body language told him that something had gone wrong. Cameron’s call served to confirm his suspicion.
Directly across from Joshua’s car, two men in a black SUV with Virginia plates had also watched the show.
We’re going to have a convoy. Them following Cameron, and me following them.
Joshua climbed out of the back of his car. Keeping low, he made his way to the black SUV, where he threw open the back door and jumped into the back seat.
“You know you’d get more information faster if you flashed your badges, introduced yourselves, and said please,” he told the two agents reaching for the guns in their holsters.
“Thornton!” the older investigator said. “Someday you’re going to get shot doing that.”
“You’d think after thirty years of doing this that you’d be better at tailing people—especially a state police homicide detective.”
Seeing that his partner clearly knew the intruder, the younger man relaxed and went back to eating the submarine sandwich and chips he had in his lap.
The older man in the driver’s seat introduced him. “Thornton, meet Special Investigator Kenny Hill, he’s my replacement. Kenny, meet Joshua Thornton, former JAG lawyer, now small town lawyer.”
Kenny wiped his fingers on a napkin before shaking Joshua’s hand.
“So Harry Bush is finally retiring, huh?” Joshua asked the driver. “I thought I’d never see the day.”
“Seeing the way you keep popping up after you retired what? Eight years ago?” Harry chuckled. “But I thought I’d give it a shot. My wife has been bugging me to move to a mountaintop in Virginia and grow wine.” He shrugged. “We’ll see.”
“This must be your last case. Ilysa Ramsay, I assume.”
“Talk about going out with a bang!” Harry laughed. “If I can nail Ilysa Ramsay, then I can go out a legend.”
Joshua said, “I assume when AFIS got a hit on Ramsay, some sort of red flag went up. Why was it flagged? What interest does the FBI have in her?”
Before Harry could answer, Kenny announced with his mouth full of lunchmeat, “She’s on the move.” He pointed with a potato chip. “And she’s got the skunk with her.”
“I’ve got her.” Harry started the car.
The three men watched while Cameron climbed into her cruiser.
“She still has grass in her hair,” Kenny said. “You’d think she’d clean up after tackling that dude a little while ago.”
“She’s hunting down her boss.” Joshua sat back to buckle his seat belt. “She’s inserted herself into this case and right now no one knows where she is.”
“Everyone and their brother has gotten involved in this case.” Harry pulled out of the parking space to fall in behind her police cruiser. “You do know your girlfriend’s crazy?”
“She’s not crazy. Her cat is.”
“Cat? I thought that was a skunk,” Kenny said.
“He thinks he’s a dog.” Joshua asked Harry, “Why do you say Cameron’s crazy? What do you know about her?”
“When that flag went up, I got backgrounds on everyone involved,” Harry explained. “Detective Cameron Gates. Widow.”
“Widow?” Joshua replied. “She was married?”
“Only for about four months,” Harry said. “Very sad. It was seven years ago. Her husband was a state trooper. He pulled over a guy for a routine traffic stop and got run over by a drunk driver that sideswiped him and the car he pulled over. Gates lost it.”
“Do you blame her?” Swallowing, Joshua understood why she never mentioned it.
“After months of one issue after another,” Harry said, “she took a year off from the force. Disappeared off the radar. Then she came back and has become a top cop. Only one reason she’s not in charge.”
“What’s that?” Joshua asked.
“She’s crazy,” Harry and Kenny answered in unison.
When he received no more details about their claims, Joshua went back to the case that had brought them in to tail Cameron Gates. “What interest does the FBI have in an artist?”
“If she was just an artist, nothing,” Harry replied. “Ramsay is more than an artist.”
“A spy?”
“I wish,” Harry said. “She and her partner stole classified information and sold it to the highest bidder—the winner in this auction being Al Qaeda.”
“And Neal Hathaway’s company puts up satellites that collect defense information,” Joshua said.
“Some of the most sensitive information pertaining to Unites States defense,” Harry said. “If Al Qaeda got their hands on it …” He shook his head.
“Is Neal Hathaway aware of what his late wife did?” Joshua asked.
“We could never prove anything,” Harry said. “She and her partner are that good.”
“Who’s her partner?”
Finished with his sandwich, Kenny pointed up ahead with his rolled up wrapper. “She’s turning into that little airport.”
Up ahead, the cruiser turned off the four-lane freeway onto Darlington Road, a two-lane access road to enter Beaver County Airport, a small county-owned public airport.
The cruiser was turning into a gate leading to a private hangar when a black Jaguar came racing around the corner of the building to threaten a head-on collision. Cameron veered to the right so hard the the tail-end of her SUV whipped around to send her into a one-eighty turn.
Harry had enough warning to swing the steering wheel in order to pull out of the way of the Jaguar, which flew out the gate and down the road.
“Talk about a bat out of hell!” Kenny yelled.
“What was chasing him?” Joshua turned around in time to check out the Jag’s Pennsylvania license plate. It read SCALES.
“Must be late for a meeting,” Harry said. “Hathaway has a couple of his company jets here.”
Kenny told Harry, “Hang back. She’s going to see us.”
“Do you think so?” Harry said with sarcasm. “Like she would have missed us just now.”
“That’s okay.” Joshua was dialing on his cell phone. “She wants me to back her up.” When Cameron picked up, he said, “I’m in the black SUV behind you with a couple of friends. What’s up?”
She answered, “I did some old fashion gum shoe stuff and found where Sherry had written on a notepad to meet a secret informant from Hathaway Industries here at the airport hangar to talk about the Ramsay murder. You would have been proud of me. I scribble across a used notepad to pick up the impressions from the note before. It said:
Hathaway
Beaver Airport
Hangar #3.
1:30.
She added, “I’m so good I scare myself.”
Joshua checked the time on the clock dashboard. It was quarter to two. “We’re late. The meeting’s over.”
A black Chevy with a dented rear fender was parked along the side of the airplane hangar. “Her car’s still here.” She pulled up beside it.
Joshua hung up the cell. “You might as well pull in next to her. I think your cover’s blown.”
After they climbed out of the car, Joshua introduced them to Cameron.
Irving stuck his head out of the cruiser’s open window. Seeming to determine that the two agents weren’t worthy of his attention, he curled on the passeng
er seat to go back to sleep.
Kenny noted the grass that hung from Cameron’s shaggy locks.
“How old are you?” she asked him.
While the young agent hesitated, she looking him up and down before smirking. “When you’re forty years old, I’d like to see you chase a nineteen-year-old perp two blocks and tackle him.” She pointed at the grass stains on her clothes. “These are badges.”
Agreeing, Harry told her, “He’ll learn.”
Her hand on her gun, Cameron went around to the front of the airplane hangar where the doors were closed. “Sherry,” she called. “Bixby. I know you’re here.”
Joshua drew his gun from his belt holster and followed her. The two FBI agents drew their guns and split up to go around to the other side of the building.
No cars or trucks were parked around the hangar reserved only for private jets belonging to Hathaway Industries. Since flights weren’t regularly scheduled, the hangar was vacant unless Neal Hathaway or one of his executives was traveling.
Joshua said, “Where did that Jag come from? If he’d just come in from a flight, then the pilot and other personnel would still be here.”
“Maybe he was rushing from a meeting, instead of to one.” In front of the building, Cameron placed her hand on the doorknob to test it. It was unlocked. She pushed open the door and dropped back. “Sherry, are you in there?” The only response was the call and flapping of birds up in the rafters.
Joshua gestured that he would cover her while she went inside.
Her gun pointed to the ground, Cameron hurried inside. “Bixby.” Her voice bounced off the far walls and the two jets parked next to each other. Tables, boxes, racks filled with a wide assortment of tools, equipment, and supplies lined the building. After the echo faded into the rafters, they listened to silence.
The two FBI agents came in behind them. “I think we missed your boss’s meeting,” Kenny said.
“I guess so.” Cameron turned around. “She must have gone with them.”
She stopped when she saw the blood splatter at eye level on the file cabinet next to her. “Blood.”
It was all she needed to say to signal for them to go back on alert.