by Carr, Lauren
“Sounds like a murder of opportunity to me,” Mac said. “If it was planned, she did a bad job doing it. In either case, Lee Dorcas had drawn so much attention in threatening her that Katrina decided to accuse him of killing her husband. Unfortunately for her, he ended up having an airtight alibi, which she found out about after she had already pointed her finger at him. Then she was married to that statement. She could only wiggle out of it by changing her story and saying that she had been hit in the head and was disoriented.”
Yvonne recalled, “She did have a bruise on her cheek.”
“Holt probably hit her in self-defense while she was shoving him off the rock,” David said. “He had to grab onto something to save himself and in doing so got her sweater fibers under his fingernails.”
“He also ripped off her necklace,” Mac said. “Robin was right in the first place. Katrina killed her first husband and she lied about Dorcas harassing her.”
Archie disagreed. “But we all saw Pay Back.”
“And someone murdered Katrina,” David reminded them.
“But not the same person who killed Katrina’s first husband,” Mac said.
* * * *
Mac suspected Gnarly of wrongdoing. The dog was waiting for him when they got home from the Spencer Inn, but instead of nudging Mac’s hand for a greeting or begging for a biscuit, Gnarly raced upstairs to the bedroom. Mac noticed his tail tucked between his legs.
Interpreting his posture to be guilt, Mac called out, “You better not have messed on the floor.”
Normally, Gnarly would follow Mac and sprawl out on the floor at the foot of his bed until his master turned the lights out. If Mac failed to tell him goodnight with a pat on the head, the German shepherd would nudge him until he petted him, or preferably scratch him behind the ears. Only after a proper goodnight would the dog crawl under the bed and go to sleep.
There was no nudging or begging for a goodnight that night. Gnarly dove under the bed and stayed there.
At six o’clock, Gnarly jumped on the bed to wake Mac up, the German shepherd’s morning wake-up routine. Feeling like he was sleepwalking, Mac staggered downstairs to open the back door to let the dog out and then went back to bed. He refused to open his eyes all the way for fear of waking up beyond the point of returning to sleep.
One hour later, Gnarly barked below his window to be let back in.
Mac shuffled back down the stairs and opened the door. Still in a sleep-filled fog, he sensed rather than saw Gnarly come inside. Groping the counter, Mac felt his way to the coffeemaker and punched the button. He was on automatic pilot when he opened the cabinet and dished the dog food into Gnarly’s bowl before pouring coffee into his mug. After downing a half a cup of the caffeine, Mac sucked in a deep breath and turned to the animal gulping down pellets from his blue ceramic bowl.
He blinked.
Sucking in another breath, he gulped another mouthful of coffee to clear his vision.
The vision remained the same.
After another gulp of caffeine, Mac woke up enough to know that he was seeing what he thought he was seeing.
Two dogs were eating from one dog dish. One was a German shepherd. The other was a purebred standard poodle.
“You’re a dognapper, too!” Mac’s outburst prompted both dogs to gallop from the kitchen and up the stairs to his bedroom. “I don’t believe it! Gnarly! I’m going to kill you!”
A scream stopped him from giving chase.
At first, Mac thought the scream came from Archie at her cottage. When he heard it again, he realized that the screamer was further away. He threw open the door and ran out onto the deck.
Clad in a slinky pink nightgown, Archie ran up the steps from her cottage. “What’s going on?”
Another cry made them realize that it came from across the cove. They ran down to the lake’s edge. There, they could see Travis holding Sophia in his arms while she cried into his shoulder.
Sirens signaled the oncoming police.
“What’s going on?” Archie asked as if Mac would know.
Even if he knew, he wasn’t available to answer. He had jogged back inside. The phone was ringing when he ran into the kitchen. Mac snatched it from the base and checked the caller ID.
“What’s going on at Turner’s?” he asked.
“DB,” David answered. “Sophia found Travis’s assistant dead.”
“But Roy—” Mac started to remind David that their police chief was an embezzler and bail jumper hiding from the mob.
“I’m on it. Meet me at Turner’s in fifteen minutes.”
Chapter Fifteen
“Okay, men, we know what to do.” Even though officially he was still suspended and a murder suspect, the officers on Spencer’s police force listened to David O’Callaghan as if he were wearing his late father’s shoes. “We need to contain this crime scene.”
Mac and David arrived poolside at Travis Turner’s estate anticipating a scene with the police chief, only to have Roy Phillips, aka Roy Herman, be a no-show.
Assigned to keep Chief Roy Phillips under surveillance, Bogie called David to announce that the police chief had disappeared during the night. His cruiser was still in the garage where he had parked it after returning home from the explosion at the Hardwick home, but Phillips was nowhere to be found.
Grabbing the reins, David ordered the officers to rope off the patio and pool area where the dead body of Travis Turner’s secretary was sprawled out face down in a chaise.
While David directed the investigation, Travis leaned against the outdoor bar warming his hands on a mug of hot coffee. He wore a cardigan sweater over jeans.
“How’s Sophia doing?” Mac asked him.
“She’ll be okay.” Travis sighed. “I should have known Betsy would do something like this. She’s suffered from depression since I’ve known her. She went off her meds and has been drinking a lot.”
“What meds?”
“Anti-depressants. I don’t know what ones. You’ll find them in the guest house.”
When the pool area was sealed off with crime scene tape, the officers proceeded to snap pictures of Betsy Weaver’s body from every angle. David knelt next to the chaise to study the scene closely.
Face down, the woman’s bulk, clad in cream-colored polyester pants and a tunic-type top, resembled a beached sea mammal. An overturned patio table surrounded by glass from a broken goblet and bottle rested in an alcoholic puddle next to the chaise.
“Was she drinking the last time you saw her?” Mac asked Travis.
“Probably,” he replied. “I went swimming in the pool last thing before leaving to pick Sophia up at five o’clock yesterday and it was nothing like this.” He indicated the dead body and mess. “Sophia’s plane came in about six and we went to my place, Turner’s—Have you been there yet?”
Mac said that he hadn’t.
“Really? You should come as my guest. It’s very popular with the out-of-towners looking for a good time…Anyway, we went there for dinner. Since I own the place—you know, celebrity and owner of the establishment—I had to mingle with the guests and the next thing I knew, it was closing time. We didn’t get back here until after one and went straight to bed.” He shrugged with a shake of his head. “Betsy stays in the guest house and I didn’t see her at all yesterday. I assumed she was working on my next book. The deadline is the end of this month. For all I know, she was over there swilling away.” He held out the mug to Mac. “Coffee?”
While his host fetched the coffee in the kitchen, Mac took in the home of the famous author.
From across the cove, the Turner home appeared to be the same size as Spencer Manor. When he had arrived that morning, Mac realized that it was noticeably bigger. The living room equaled the size of his living and dining room combined. Like the manor, granite made up the floors. The artwork and furnishings were so impressive that Mac felt as if small cards reading “Do Not Touch” should be displayed.
Travis arrived from the kitchen with
the fresh mug of coffee. “Try this. It’s a private blend I get from a man living in the hills of San Luis Obispo, California.”
Mac cupped the warm mug in both hands and sipped it.
“How do you like being an innkeeper?”
Mac blinked while digesting the question. “What?”
“The Spencer Inn,” Travis said. “How do you like the sudden awesome responsibility of running one of our country’s most prestigious resorts and restaurants?”
“Not as overwhelmed as I do now that you laid it out for me like that.”
“I’d be glad to take it off your hands,” Travis grinned, “at a very nice price I might add.”
“No, thanks.”
“I wouldn’t be so fast to turn me down if I were you. You haven’t heard my price.”
“I don’t need to.” Mac took another sip of the coffee. “For the first time in my life, I have a legacy. You can’t put a price on that. Granted, I wasn’t raised with it, but now I have it. It’s something that my ancestors built for their descendants and I intend to pass it on to my children.”
He saw displeasure with a hint of anger on Travis’s face.
This is a man who doesn’t hear no very often.
“Do you know who may have wanted to kill your secretary?”
“What?” Travis scoffed. “She was a secretary. She had no friends. She’s never dated in all the years I’ve known her.”
“How long is that?”
Sneering, Travis shrugged. “I don’t know.” After a pause, he answered in a questioning tone. “Seven years? She was my agent’s admin assistant back when I was an actor. When my first book sold, I hired her away from him.” He said, “Listen. I’m not going to let you or David blow this whole thing out of proportion. Betsy either killed herself or had an accident.”
“And in either case, her death has to be investigated. Any death determined to be from other than natural circumstances has to be investigated by the police.”
Mac had had this conversation more times than he could count. Someone dies either by his own hand or in an accident and the victim’s family and friends assume that a couple of forms are signed and the investigation ends there. They don’t realize that the police need to answer how said accident or suicide came about.
Travis’s face turned red. “Figures that cow would turn this place into a circus.”
“I’m sure David and his crew will do everything they can to stay out of your way.” Mac drained the coffee mug.
The writer sucked in a deep breath. “Want another cup?” After Mac accepted his offer, he took the mug.
Mac followed him into the kitchen. The pantry included a walk-in refrigerator. The top-of-the-line appliances and utensils shone like they had never been used. He assumed Sophia wouldn’t lower herself to common household duties such as cooking. Travis poured Mac’s coffee into the mug from a technically intimidating coffee maker.
“I suggest you look at the police chief, Roy Phillips.” He handed the mug back to Mac. “If that’s his real name.”
“What makes you think it isn’t?”
Travis leaned against the kitchen counter. He crossed his arms over his chest. “Betsy was a frustrated writer. Since we got here, she’s been spending her free time working on her own book. I offered to recommend it to my agent after she finished it. She got this idea for a story about a small-town police chief who was really a murderer hiding from the law. For the last year, she’s been following Roy around. Somehow she got under his skin. I saw them at the Inn a few days ago and he told her in no uncertain terms to stay away from him. He shook her up pretty bad. By the time I got home, she was drunk and babbling that he was going to kill her.” He cocked his head at Mac. “You don’t think that maybe she found out something and he killed her, do you?”
“Hey, Mac?” David called from the hallway before entering the kitchen. “There you are. The state police are here and the cottage is open. Are you coming to check it out?”
* * * *
Betsy Weaver’s home had one bedroom, a bathroom the size of a walk-in closet, a kitchenette, and a great room with a dining area. The great room served as her office. She had a small patio area that, judging by the lack of furniture, she didn’t take advantage of. The smell of musty carpets, dirty laundry, and rotting garbage assaulted Mac’s and David’s nostrils when they stepped through the door to search for the cause of her death.
Notepads like the type Mac had seen her writing in filled every flat surface available: kitchen counter and table, end tables, coffee tables, crammed in among the books on her bookshelves, sofa, and floor. Not a page was left unmarked.
“Steve realizes the sheriff killed his missing wife. He tricks him into leading him to the body by making him think he had already found it,” David read a paragraph from a notebook on top of the stack on the kitchen table. Bills in unopened envelopes rested next to the notepads.
“Travis says Betsy was a frustrated writer.” Mac went to the sofa. An empty prescription pill bottle rested on the floor under the coffee table. Not wanting to touch it for fear of disturbing evidence, he pointed at it with his hand encased in evidence gloves that David had given him. “Pill bottle, but it doesn’t have a pharmacy label on it.”
“Maybe she was self-medicating.” David snapped a picture of the bottle on the floor, as well as the empty wine bottle next to a water glass with residue of red wine crusted at the bottom. He recognized the label on the bottle as being a cheap wine available at the local store. “Pills and booze.” He shook his head. “What a way to go.”
“What was here?” Mac had noticed rust-marked indentations in the carpet in the corner of the room. The marks formed a rectangle next to a minute computer desk that held a laptop computer and printer.
“File cabinet.” The answer came from the open front door. Travis leaned casually in the doorway with his arms crossed over his chest.
“Where is it now?” Mac asked.
“Don’t know,” Travis answered. “It was locked. Betsy lost the key a long time ago and couldn’t get into it. When Sophia and I came back from California a few weeks ago, the cabinet was gone. She must have gotten rid of it.”
When David demanded to know what had been in it, Travis shrugged while replying, “Manuscripts. Contracts. Whatever it is people keep in locked file cabinets.”
The author looked around the cluttered room. “If you won’t be needing me, Sophia and I have appointments with our hair stylists. Can you be sure to get that body out of here before you leave? We’re hosting a party tomorrow.”
Stunned by the order, Mac glanced at David, who paused long enough for Travis to read the glare in his eyes before responding. “Betsy Weaver will be moved after, and only after, the medical examiner has completed her on-scene examination. I’m sure if Betsy was aware of how inconvenient her dying next to your pool was going to be to you, she would have chosen someplace else to expire.”
Travis uttered a noise that sounded like a “humph” before sauntering back to his house.
David muttered, “Did fame make him that self-centered or has he always been like that?”
“You tell me.” Mac went into the bedroom. House cleaning-wise, he found it to be the same as the rest of the cottage. The closet overflowed with two piles of laundry. One pile smelled clean, the other didn’t.
Water glasses with varying amounts of water littered the nightstand too small to hold everything on it. It also contained an alarm clock, lamp, and cordless phone crammed to the side closest to the bed.
Why does she have everything crammed to one side? Mac knelt to study the set up. What was on the far side of the stand?
When he opened the door on the front of the nightstand, an avalanche of notebooks spilled out. Like the others, notes filled the pages, front and back. The nightstand also had a drawer that contained one notepad that appeared to have been started recently and a pill case, which Mac recognized to be birth control pills.
“Travis told me that Be
tsy didn’t date,” he called out into the living room.
“As long as I’ve known her, I’ve never seen Betsy with anyone.” David came into the bedroom where Mac held up the pill case.
“How long have you known her?”
“Since she moved back here with Travis after he hit the big time,” David answered. “She’s been living here in the guest cottage for years.” He paused before adding, “Come to think of it, she probably spent more time here than Travis.”
“Anyone stay here with her?”
David shrugged his shoulders. “Someone could have. I know she stayed here by herself that whole summer Travis and Sophia got married and honeymooned in Europe. We should ask Archie. Betsy was a big fan of Robin and used to visit her.”
“Robin did mention her in her journal. No boyfriend? Are you sure?”
“None that I know of.” David suggested that some doctors would put women on oral contraceptives for medical reasons other than birth control. For example, to control their menstrual cycle.
Mac was half-listening. Something sharp had punctured his knee. He rose up to find that he had put a hole in his pants. Blood seeped from a small wound. Imbedded in the carpet where he had been kneeling, he found the cause of his injury: a shard of glass.
“With all those glasses on the nightstand, she must have knocked one off,” David suggested.
Mac studied the clear piece of glass. The water glasses were thick and rounded. This four-inch-long piece was thin, flat, and clear. One edge was a clean and straight cut.
He held the broken glass up on the vacant portion of the nightstand. “What do you think?” he asked. “Picture frame?”
David glanced around the room. The trash contained no broken glass. “Where’s the picture now?”
“Maybe the boyfriend knows.”
One of the town’s police officers stuck his head in through the doorway. “The ME is done. Want to talk to her before they haul away the body?”
* * * *
The body bag rested open on top of the gurney. It took two troopers and two Spencer officers to lift Betsy’s body to put on it. Along with the medical examiner, David and Mac examined the body before they zipped the bag shut to take her to the morgue.