by Carr, Lauren
“A couple of months ago, Travis bought seventy acres on the south end of the lake from Chad Singleton. He’s planning to move Turners there, and build a hotel and bungalows. He’s going to call it Turner Village.”
“I didn’t know the Singletons owned seventy acres on the south end of the lake.”
“Katrina’s first husband bought it before he died. He organized this group of investors. They called themselves the Eagle Group. Their goal was to get rich developing everything that could be developed on Deep Creek Lake.”
“Really?” Archie asked. “And they continued after he died?”
“Was killed.” Betsy glanced out the window at the view of the lake. “Have you ever met a true femme fatale? A real live one, I mean?”
“A couple. Have you?”
“Yes,” Betsy said. “They make such a big deal about prejudice in this country. Equal rights for blacks and women. What about equality for the fat and ugly? If you’re beautiful, not only can you get away with murder, but the chief of police will take you out for dinner. People like me haven’t got a chance.”
Archie challenged her. “Have you tried?”
“Yes,” she spat out. “I sent my books to everyone. No one would even read them. But then Travis sends a book to Robin Spencer and within a year he’s got a feature in Publisher’s Weekly.”
Archie told herself that it had to be difficult for Betsy to take orders from the likes of Sophia Hainsworth-Turner. “I admit, Robin read Travis’s book because she’s known him since he was a child and it’s easier if you know people. It’s unfortunate, but that’s the way the world is. Very often, it’s not how talented you are, but who you know. But her reading Travis’s book and it ending up on the bestsellers list had nothing to do with how good-looking Travis is. Robin would never endorse a book that she didn’t love. If she didn’t like his book, she would have told him. But she loved it. Robin said his first book was the best mystery written by an unpublished writer that she had ever read.”
Betsy’s face turned pale.
“Are you okay?” Archie asked her after a long moment of silence. “What femme fatale are you talking about? Is it Sophia?”
“Did you know that Travis’s stepmother was murdered?”
Archie reacted with surprise. She would have thought Robin would have told her about that, or at least David.
“She was young—skinny and gorgeous, of course.” Betsy recounted, “She sold real estate. One morning, she went to her office and there was a fire. They found her body after they had put it out. She had been shot in the head.”
“Did they catch whoever killed her?”
“No.”
“Does Travis have any ideas about who killed his stepmother?”
Betsy’s eyes met hers. She whispered, “His father.”
“Why? Was she cheating on him?”
“Yes…with Travis. She was his first love. He said it broke his heart.”
When she found her voice, Archie asked, “Did Travis ever tell anyone back then about his suspicions? He could have told his friend David or maybe Katrina.”
“Katrina wasn’t his friend. She wasn’t anybody’s friend. She pretended to be my friend, but she wasn’t.”
“I didn’t know that you knew Katrina,” Archie said.
Betsy replied, “I interviewed her about her husband’s murder for a project I had been working on. She thought I was going to make her famous. That’s the only reason she even spoke to me.”
“Did you interview her before or after Pay Back came to town?”
“Before.” Betsy frowned when she took a sip from her milk shake and found the glass empty. “Wasn’t that the name on the jacket of the body they found in the mine?”
“Yes,” Archie said. “They positively identified the victim as Lee Dorcas, but his DNA doesn’t match that found at Katrina’s murder scene. So he didn’t kill Katrina. Do you know why someone would go to so much trouble to kill her?” She grinned at her. “Come on. You edit mysteries. You have to love them yourself. Don’t tell me that you haven’t been thinking about who killed her.”
“You should be asking Travis,” Betsy said. “He’s been researching Katrina’s murder for his next book.”
“And you were researching Niles Holt’s murder.”
“I abandoned that project.”
“Why?”
Betsy shrugged. “I didn’t have time to finish it.”
Archie could see that she didn’t want to talk about it any further. “Do you know what Travis has found out in his research? What has he written so far about her?”
In silence, the famous author’s assistant gazed out across the landscape.
“Betsy?”
She blinked. “You’ll know when everyone else does.” Announcing that she had to go, Betsy picked up her handbag. “Sophia needs her dress to wear to her next fancy party with
Travis.” She leaned over to whisper to Archie. “He really hates these parties. He only goes because she makes him.”
What a strange girl, Archie told herself after Betsy left. She was the outcast, but seemed to be a wealth of information. Is it because nobody notices her lurking? Archie dismissed that thought. From what she had observed, Travis Turner lived for the party scene. She couldn’t see him being made to go to any party where he could rub elbows with high society.
“Archie!”
She heard her name called out so sharply that she almost spilt the last drop of wine on her way to the bar.
“Is that you?” Francine Taylor rushed across the lounge in her direction. “I thought it was.” Inquiring if she had come for a local women’s group luncheon, Ira’s wife plopped down in the seat Betsy had vacated. “Want some company?” Francine explained that she would prefer to have a last cocktail before going home to the chore of cleaning her husband’s morning catch.
After ordering a second glass of wine and one for her guest, Archie gave Francine an update on the Singleton case. “Evidence proves Lee Dorcas, Katrina’s disgruntled client, didn’t kill her. So it had to be someone else. Can you think of who that someone would be?”
Francine thought over the question in silence. After the server arrived with her glass of wine, she answered, “Maybe Roy Phillips. Katrina played him for a fool.”
“The police chief? How?”
“Roy made a play for her before Niles’s body was even cold. It was quite laughable. Phillips is a dolt. You do know that he had served in the army with Mayor Mason, don’t you? That’s the only reason he got the job of police chief.”
“Did he just make a play for her, or did they actually become lovers?” Archie asked in a breathy voice. She couldn’t envision a beautiful woman like Katrina with the unattractive police chief.
“It was over before it began,” Francine said with a wave of her hand. “Katrina played him along, got him completely hooked, and then ran off to Washington in the dead of night. It had to be humiliating for him.”
“Humiliating enough for him to want her dead?”
As if struck with a sudden thought, Francine announced, “If anyone hated Katrina enough to want to kill her that would be Pete Mason.”
“The mayor?” asked Archie in disbelief.
“He always swore Katrina cheated him,” Francine told her, “and no one cheats Mayor Mason and gets away with it.”
“How did Katrina cheat him? The same way she cheated Lee Dorcas?”
“Pretty much. Katrina was his financial advisor until she lost him a bundle. It isn’t like he lost his lunch money. He comes from money. But all the same, you don’t cheat Pete Mason. He blacklisted her. I’m sure that’s one of the reasons she went back to Washington. No one who mattered in Deep Creek would have anything to do with her.”
“If she lost so much of his money, why didn’t he sue her?”
“Maybe because he got more pleasure out of making her wish she was dead.”
* * * *
“Pull!” Mac shouted.
Two clay pig
eons simultaneously took to the air. He aimed his shotgun and fired two shots that took them both out. The group of men behind him applauded.
Mayor Pete Mason slapped a hundred dollar bill into Mac’s palm. “Where did you learn to shoot like that?”
“In my line of work, being able to shoot was a job requirement.” Mac handed the shotgun back to the attendant and pocketed the bet. Their session was over and he had shot a perfect score.
Ben Fleming and Mac fell in step behind the group of men on their way to the lounge for a round of drinks. “I find it interesting that you showed up here looking for me the day after David O’Callaghan is suspended from duty and becomes a suspect in two murders. Is that a coincidence, or does it have something to do with your mother’s relationship with his late father?”
“I’m interested in knowing what you’re going to do about the case.”
“Order me a drink and we’ll talk about it.”
When Mac and Ben went into the lounge, Archie looked up from where she and a silver-haired woman sat at a table in the corner. Both women had a glass of white wine set before them. Mac winked at Archie before following Ben Fleming to the opposite end of the bar where he ordered two beers.
“David O’Callaghan is in deep trouble,” Ben said.
“How deep?” Mac felt his first gulp of beer go down his throat and cool his churning innards.
“According to evidence he gave Phillips—”
“Which Phillips failed to find himself.”
“Phillips found it, but David became the prime suspect. Phillips made the bad decision to save the police department scandal since one of their own was the only suspect who could have done it.”
“What’s David’s motive for killing Katrina Singleton?”
“She dumped him for another guy when they were in school. She comes back to town and seduces him into an affair. He thinks this time they’ll make it, but she dumps him again.” Ben took a sip of his drink. “Screw me once, shame on me. Screw me twice, shame on you.”
“Let’s say David slept with Katrina,” Mac suggested. “Let’s say she dumped him a second time. Is there any real evidence to prove David killed her and Dorcas? Do they have anyone to put him at the scene? Do they have any evidence to prove he crushed her throat? Do they have the murder weapon with his fingerprints on it? Do they have any evidence that he shot Dorcas in the head and dumped his body in the mine? Has anyone bothered asking David for his DNA to compare with what forensics got off Gnarly?”
“Why was the one cop who happened to be sleeping with the victim the first one on the scene?”
“David didn’t do it.” Mac asked the question that had brought him to the Inn that afternoon. “What do you intend to do about him?”
Ben shrugged. “Mac, I have a certain loyalty toward David, his father, and your mother. They have all saved my reputation more than once.”
“Then you owe him.”
“I know,” the lawyer said in a low voice, “but I can’t turn my back on a killer.”
“He’s not a killer, and Phillips is no police chief,” Mac said. “He doesn’t know the first thing about investigating a murder case.”
“But if he brings me enough evidence to take to a grand jury—”
“If there’s no real evidence, then he can’t bring it to you,” Mac said.
“What do you propose? I’m straight, Mac. I won’t be a party to anyone destroying or tampering with evidence.”
“I’m not going to destroy evidence—I’m going to find it. All I want from you is to hold off on indicting David with whatever circumstantial evidence Phillips brings you until I find out the truth about what happened. Think about it. If you indict an innocent man and then I bring in the real killer—which I will do—you’re going to look like a fool. Won’t it be bad enough when I make Spencer’s police chief look like an idiot? Do you want to be in that company?”
“You sound so much like your mother, it’s scary,” the prosecutor said. “How much time are you talking about?”
“How much time are you willing to give me?”
“Not much.” Ben groaned softly. “Don’t look now but Chief Phillips just walked in.”
Mac wished he had eyes in back of his head. “Is he heading this way?”
“Straight for me.” Ben whispered hurriedly, “I’ll give you as much time as I can.”
Phillips stepped toward the prosecutor with his hand out.
“Hey, Roy, how are you doing?” Ben greeted him.
“As well as can be expected with two less officers.”
“So you told me this morning.”
Ben directed him to a table away from the bar on the other side of the lounge. “Let’s have a round and talk about what we should do.”
With a glance over his shoulder, Mac headed for the exit at the opposite end of the bar. He saw Archie sitting with her back to Ben and Roy’s table.
“Excuse me, but I need to—” Before Archie could finish excusing herself, she saw three people come into the lounge.
She recognized Prissy and Gordon Hardwick. Their unpleasant demeanor contained an overabundance of smugness. Their companion was plump to the point of obesity. She wore her black hair in a bluntly cut bob. After leading the couple to the bar, she tapped Jeff Ingles on the shoulder.
“Hello, Jeff,” their female companion said. “As the manager of the Spencer Inn, I believe these should go to you.” She extracted a folded bunch of papers from her purse and slapped him in the chest with them.
The Hardwicks smirked at the customers in the lounge.
“How much?” Jeff asked their lawyer.
“Seven million dollars.”
Jeff laughed. “That’s an awful lot of money to sue a group of people you hated to begin with for expelling you from their club.”
“We hated you because you hated us,” Gordon said. “You’re all a bunch of anti-Semitics.”
“Now you’re reaching. Nowhere on the membership application does it ask anything about religion. To tell you the truth, I thought you were a couple of atheists. You certainly acted like it.” Jeff scoffed, “You joined this club to get expelled in order to file this suit.” He dropped the papers onto the top of the bar. “It’s not going to work. I won’t let you use my establishment to support you in the high life.”
“We’ll see you and Mr. Faraday in court, Mr. Ingles.” The lawyer urged the Hardwicks to leave before engaging in any more sparring of words.
“What do you intend to do about them?” Ben asked the manager.
“What else? I intend to get rid of them.”
Chapter Nine
“The more I get to know people, the more I like my dog,” Mac told Ed Willingham in Jeff Ingles’s corner office off the Spencer Inn’s reception area. “And he stole my breakfast this morning.”
Ed Willingham had requested a meeting to discuss the Hardwicks’ lawsuit against the Spencer Inn. Again, Jeff Ingles dressed better than the Inn owner in a tailored suit made of a material Mac couldn’t identify. He had thrown on a red t-shirt, black jeans, and loafers without any socks.
Mac’s lawyer explained the Hardwicks’ agenda in simple terms. “They are willing to accept, and expect, a hefty out of court settlement to make this whole nuisance go away. Otherwise, they’ll drag it out as long as need be and drag the name of the Spencer Inn through the mud along the way.”
“But I—we’ve—done nothing wrong,” Mac argued.
“Of course not,” Ed said. “If it’s dragged out, then most likely they’ll lose the case. They’re banking on you paying them so you don’t have to be bothered.”
“I’m already bothered,” Mac said. “What do you mean ‘most likely’? I thought you said they didn’t have a case.”
“My firm handled the restaurant from whom they won the multi-million dollar lawsuit,” Ed told him. “The server tripped over Gordon Hardwick’s briefcase, which he had left on the floor where anyone could trip over it. None of us expected the jury to co
me back on the side of the plaintiff. You can never tell what a jury is going to do.”
“The Hardwicks were begging us to kick them out,” Jeff Ingles grumbled.
“Of course,” Mac said. “That’s why they joined the Inn the same week it hit the news that I inherited Robin Spencer’s estate. They’re banking on me rolling over and playing dead to avoid the hassle? They’re in for a big surprise.”
“This could get expensive,” Ed warned him.
“I once went to arrest a child killer who refused to be taken alive. He shot my partner before cornering me in a warehouse. My backup was nowhere to be seen and I had to turn off my radio so he wouldn’t know where I was. It was dark and I couldn’t see him.” Mac grinned. “He’s now six feet under. When I was broke I refused to go down without a fight. Now that I’m rich, I don’t plan to start.”
Ed slapped his notebook shut. “Then I guess I have to get to work.”
The manager said, “I can give you a whole list of witnesses who will testify to the Hardwicks’ shenanigans since being admitted into the club.”
“Thank you, Jeff.” The lawyer rose and shook the business manager’s hand.
With effort, Jeff stood up. In spite of his young age, he moved like an elderly man.
“Back giving you trouble today?” Ed asked.
“Rain must be on the way.”
“What ever happened with the woman who did that to you?” Remembering Mac’s presence, Ed explained, “A couple of years ago Jeff was on the wrong end of a hit and run. He spent a month in the hospital.”
“That’s terrible.” Mac now understood the hotel manager’s slow and sometimes painful movements.
Jeff said, “It happened right out here in the parking lot during the off period between Labor Day and autumn leaf peeper season. I came out the side entrance after locking up and heard this couple fighting in the garden. I remember hearing a woman running across the parking lot on the way to my car. Suddenly, this Ferrari came out of nowhere. The lights came on right in my face. I think she was as surprised to see me as I was to see her. She swerved and hit the brakes, but it was too late. She clipped me. I landed on the trunk of my car. Broke both of my legs and back. The doctors said that the pain in my back will be with me for the rest of my life. I have pins all through me.”