by Carr, Lauren
“Hold that thought,” he told her before connecting to the caller on the other end of the line. After hearing the caller’s news, he smiled broadly. “I’ll meet you there.” He hung up.
“Looks like we got some good news for a change,” Archie said.
“We certainly did,” Mac said on his way to the front door. “We’re going to catch a killer.”
* * * *
Pete Mason lived in a million-dollar home tucked in the trees at the end of Mickey Forsythe Court. Two state police cruisers, two Spencer police cruisers, and one unmarked car with Detective Sam Groom and David O’Callaghan inside were waiting at the entrance to the court when Mac pulled up in his sports car with Archie.
“How did you like that little trick with spilling the wine into his lap?” Sam asked Mac. “No judge would give us a warrant until we got proof positive that Mason is Marlstone. He may have changed his weight and face, but he couldn’t change his fingerprints.” The detective pulled an envelope from his pocket. “The warrant for Peter Marlstone’s arrest.” He patted his breast pocket. “I also got one here for Herman.”
“First, we have to find him,” David said. “He must have found out that we fingered him. He disappeared during the middle of the night.”
“Herman may have gotten away, but at least we got Marlstone.” Mac got back into the car to follow them down the court to the stone home at the end. Lights inside and out lit it up like a showplace.
They stood off to the side to ring the doorbell and waited. When they didn’t get a response, Sam rang it a second time.
A small woman with a weathered face trotted across the foyer and pulled open the door. She started when she saw a group of men and a woman on the stoop.
Sam flashed his badge. “Is Mr. Mason home?”
Her eyes widened more. “Yes, but he can’t be bothered right now. He’s got company.”
Before she could finish with her objections, the officers charged into the house with their guns drawn. The elderly woman shrieked. “What do you want? You have no right. What do they want with Mr. Mason?”
Before Archie could explain, a trooper called from up the stairs. “We’re too late.”
Mac cursed. “He got away again.”
“No, he didn’t run,” the trooper said. “Someone else got him first.”
Upstairs, Peter Marlstone was lying spread-eagle in his king-sized bed. Black and silver fur covered his chest down to his pelvis, which he had squeezed into a pair of red silk bikini briefs that matched the sheets on the bed. The ice bucket on the nightstand contained an empty bottle of champagne and two crystal flutes. Marlstone’s head rested on a blood-soaked pillow. Blood had overflowed from his open mouth into his goatee.
He had a bullet hole between his eyes.
The maid screamed and ran from the room.
“Looks like I wasn’t the only one who found Marlstone,” Mac said.
“Where’s the woman?” Sam asked.
One of the state troopers stepped into the doorway. “Marlstone’s Mercedes is gone.”
Mac picked up a black jewel-cut stone resting in the dead mayor’s open palm. “You won’t be finding the woman.” He handed the jewel to Sam. “A black diamond. The trademark of the mob’s top assassin. She leaves a black diamond on the scene to signal her hits. The Sanchez family spared no expense in finding Peter.”
“The Black Diamond,” Sam admired the dark stone. “Damn!”
* * * *
One week before Memorial Day, residents returning for the summer season filled every table at the Spencer Inn’s restaurant. Patrons on the waiting list crowded into the lounge. Neighbors catching up on the latest scandals around the lake caused a dull roar that replaced the Inn’s usually elegant ambiance. Four murders in two days right in their back yards and their missing police chief made the top of the list on the gossip circuit.
Refusing to let Jeff evict a party from his table, Mac, Archie, and David sat at the bar for drinks while deciding if they wanted a late dinner, or to turn in and get a fresh start in the morning.
After the bartender delivered a glass of wine from Mac’s private stock, Archie said, “At least you got the Black Diamond’s descript—”
“Mine to add to a long list of descriptions,” Mac interrupted her. “That’s what’s bizarre about this woman. She doesn’t care about witnesses seeing her because she’s a chameleon. She’s tall. She’s short. She’s skinny. She’s voluptuous. She’s fair skinned. She’s olive skinned. She’s got delicate features. She’s ethnic looking. She’s a brunette. She’s a blond. Today, I saw a redhead.” He concluded, “The only thing consistent in witnesses’ descriptions is that she’s drop-dead gorgeous—and I mean drop dead.”
David nursed his beer while thinking out loud. “So Peter Marlstone was a mob hit. Roy Herman is most likely dead, via the Black Diamond or another mob hitman. Their killer or killers will probably never be caught.”
“I’ll bet money that they’re long gone.” Mac agreed.
Archie smiled when she asked, “How much?”
“That leaves the Hardwicks and Betsy Weaver,” said David.
“Could Betsy’s death be a suicide?” Archie asked.
David answered, “The medical examiner told me today that she had been dead twenty-four to forty-eight hours before her body was dumped by Travis’s pool. Plus, forensics found fish blood on her clothes. Tuna, to be exact.”
“What was the cause of death?” Mac wanted to know.
“Drug overdose. Pills mixed with booze.” David added, “But she didn’t take them on her own. She had bruises on her neck and jaw. Someone pried her mouth open and forced the pills down her throat. Why would someone want to kill a mousy loner like Betsy? I can understand the Hardwicks. We have enough suspects who wanted to see them dead to fill this whole place.” He gestured to indicate the Inn’s spacious lounge.
Archie proposed, “Have you checked out those notes that Betsy wrote?”
Mac chuckled, “It would take a year to read all those notes. Betsy was obsessed with writing them. Why?”
“Writers make notes,” she explained. “The rest of us have our real world to deal with, which gets complicated enough. Imagine if you had the real world, plus a fictional world. Robin would be in the middle of writing a shootout between Mickey Forsythe and a street gang, and suddenly, right when Mickey runs out of bullets, her publicist would call about a speaking engagement. She couldn’t completely switch her mind from directing Mickey in a getaway. So, she’d write a note on the notepad next to her laptop, put the call completely out of her mind, and keep writing away until he had made his escape. Then she’d refer to her notes.”
David wondered, “What good would an unknown writer’s scribblings be in helping us to find out who killed her?”
“Betsy was always lurking,” Archie said. “People never noticed her. There’s no telling what she saw. Maybe when she bumped into Peter Marlstone and Roy Herman the other night, she overheard something they didn’t want her to hear.”
David recalled, “I walked in on Betsy questioning Herman at the police station. She told him that she had been doing a background check and it didn’t add up.”
“Maybe Herman disappeared because he killed her when she found out who he really was,” Archie suggested.
Mac said, “If Betsy found out who they really were, she could have told Travis, who has already been pointing the finger at Herman.”
“If she’s a frustrated writer like Travis says,” Archie asked, “why give him all the good stuff?” She gasped before they could respond.
“What’s wrong?” Mac asked her.
“Three Witches incoming.”
Sucking in a deep breath, David sat up straight. “Are they coming this way?”
Mac turned around on his barstool. “Who are the three witches?” He spied two men and a woman crossing the lounge in their direction. Dressed to kill, they projected the arrogant air of success and power he had come to spot with ease w
hen he worked in Georgetown.
“Ol’ Pat used to call them that,” Archie explained in a low voice. “The town council members who hired Pat were cool. They were from Spencer and understood the way things were. Then they died off and these bozos from the city retired out here and got into local politics. They were all corporate CEOs making like fifty million dollars a year to stab backs and throw their weight.”
“They hated Dad,” David said. “He’d never let them tell him what to do. They can’t stand people who aren’t afraid of them.”
“Here they are,” Archie hissed when the Three Witches stepped up behind David’s stool.
“David?” The taller man with a muscular build removed his mirrored sunglasses to initiate the conversation. “Jeff told us that you happened to be here.”
Mac recognized his voice from the radio. He was the town councilman whom David had identified as Bill Clark.
With a glance in Mac’s direction, David picked up his beer glass and turned around to face them.
It was an even match with three against three.
“We heard that you inserted yourself into investigating the events of this past weekend,” the woman standing between the two men said. She had plump cheeks, a flabby neck, and middle-aged spread. Her silver-blond hair fell to her jaw line in a bob cut.
“Only after I discovered that the police chief you hired was a bail-jumping member of the mob who killed two girls while drunk driving, Nancy,” David replied. “I guess where you come from, you trust the little people to run background checks on potential employees. If any of you had, you would have discovered that, according to the Social Security Administration, Roy Phillips died forty years ago.”
The Third Witch objected, “We trusted the mayor—”
“Are you talking about the same mayor wanted for murder?” Mac asked.
The three witches responded to Mac’s dig with a glare. He hadn’t been invited into their conversation.
Yep, they’re from Corporate America.
“Excuse me,” the third witch told Mac, “but this is a private conversation about town business.”
“Then, as a resident of this town, I’m most interested in listening. Looks like you have a town with no mayor or chief of police, which may or may not be bad considering that the ones you had hired were unqualified criminals.”
“Now look here—” Bill Clark took a step toward Mac, who rose to challenge him.
David stepped between them. “It is what it is, Bill. No spin—exactly the way you don’t like it. Now, if you don’t mind, the three of us were having a private conversation and if you don’t have anything of importance to tell me, then I suggest you leave.”
Nancy replied in a smooth tone, “We do have something important to ask you, David. Like your friend said, we don’t have a mayor or a chief of police. Word is spreading like wildfire about how Pete and Roy misled all of us. Confidence in the town council—”
“In other words, you three,” Archie interjected.
“—is very low. Summer residents are talking about changing their plans—”
“Summering someplace else and taking their money with them,” Archie translated.
Nancy glared at her before continuing. “We need to do something to instill confidence in Spencer. We need a police chief, one with a name that says ‘You’re safe with us.’”
David replied, “So you want to hire a police chief and call him Pat O’Callaghan?”
Bill Clark sneered. “Cut the BS, David.”
“I’d watch it if I were you, Bill. My father taught me to be overly aggressive at a young age. Growing up in his shadow, there’s no telling what it’s done to my psyche.”
The councilman’s face flushed.
“I’ve had a lot of time to listen to the media,” David said.
Mac asked, “’How much are you talking about?”
Bill Clark’s smile contrasted with his arrogant tone. “Frankly, I don’t believe that’s any of your business, mister.”
“It’s mine,” David countered.
Nancy began, “Considering that you don’t have the same experience your predecessor had—”
“He had none,” Archie, Mac, and David interjected in unison.
All Three Witches flushed.
The third councilman suggested, “I guess we could match his salary.”
Before David could respond, Mac said, “I’ll match that offer plus up it ten percent.”
The Three Witches turned to him with angry expressions.
Mac smiled at them. “I happen to be looking for a vice president in charge of security for the Forsythe Foundation, and I would love to have a vice president by the name of O’Callaghan. Like you said, the name instills confidence.”
The council members looked from one to the other.
“Maybe I should order another round of drinks while you chew on that.” Archie whirled around on her stool to gesture for the bartender. “Put our drinks on their tab.”
Chapter Eighteen
Mac couldn’t sleep after encountering four murders and a missing police chief in two days. Even when he worked homicide in the city, four murders in two days was pushing it.
They ended up closing the Spencer Inn after the Three Witches caved in to David’s demands for accepting their offer to become Spencer’s police chief. The sweet deal included a generous hiring bonus.
Mac had let Gnarly outside when he returned home in the middle of the night. The dog disappeared into the fog. Too keyed up to sleep, Mac warmed his hands on a hot mug of decaf coffee and stretched out on the chaise to wait for Gnarly’s return. He almost spilt his coffee when he awoke with a start.
In the dim light of early morning, he saw a silhouette with tall pointy ears at his feet. It resembled the superhero Batman. With a shriek, he sat up.
“Gnarly! I’m going to kill you!”
Swinging his legs around to sit on the edge of the chaise, Mac checked his watch to see that he had been asleep for over an hour. The dog laid down on the vacant end of the chaise to rest his head in his master’s lap.
“What did Gnarly do now?” Clutching her own mug and a sheet of paper, Archie called from the top of the steps leading down to her cottage. Like Mac, she was in the same clothes she had worn the night before. His assumption that she had gone to bed to get some sleep was wrong.
“I couldn’t sleep so I decided to check my e-mails.” She shook the sheet of paper at him while sitting in the chair across from him. “I never expected it, but I got a reply from Victor Morgenstern.”
“Who’s Victor Morgenstern?”
“Only one of the top talent agents in Hollywood,” she said.
“Thinking of becoming a movie star, Arch?”
“No, but you reminded me yesterday that Travis Turner went to Hollywood to become a star.”
Now awake, Mac remembered Travis telling him that Betsy had been his agent’s assistant.
“Victor never represented Travis Turner. He wants to make that abundantly clear,” Archie said. “Betsy Weaver was Victor’s Girl Friday.”
Mac took the e-mail. He saw that Victor had written a long narrative in reply to Archie’s message informing him about Betsy’s murder and asking what he could recall about his former employee.
She continued. “Victor couldn’t stand Travis. He says he was all gloss and schmooze, but no talent. Travis didn’t want to act. He wanted to be a movie star, which Victor explains are two different things. Then, suddenly, Plain Jane Betsy was dating. Guess who.”
He sat up straight. “Travis Turner.”
She nodded her head. “Victor says it’s not unusual for ambitious actors to try to get in with top agents by dating their employees in order to have a good word put in for them. Victor tried everything he could to warn her, but she was in love with Travis. Suddenly, out of the blue, Travis signed a book deal that made history, and she quit her job to help her fiancée with his blossoming career as a famous mystery writer.”
�
��Fiancée?” Stunned, Mac repeated the word. “I only saw Betsy once, but from what I saw they weren’t anything other than boss and admin.”
“I saw them together more than you and thought the same thing.” She stood up. “I can’t see Travis—”
“He referred to her as a fat cow.” He gasped. “He had to have been using her. But for what?”
“Editor,” Archie said. “Not to blow my profession’s own horn, but good editors play a vital role in a writer’s career. There’s more to a hot book than a good story. There’s the boring technical stuff.” She concluded, “If Betsy hadn’t edited his books, I guarantee Travis would never have gotten where he is today.”
“If they were romantically involved, why did Betsy stay on after Travis married Sophia?” Mac had to think a moment. His conversation with Travis the day before seemed so long ago. “I don’t get it.”
She said, “You’d be surprised how many women think a cheating man is better than no man at all. I’m willing to bet Sophia knew nothing about it. She told me yesterday that she knew Travis was cheating. Can you imagine what she’d do if she found out that Betsy Weaver was the other woman? Maybe she killed her.”
While reading the e-mail Mac sipped his cold decaf coffee and sat back on the chaise. With Gnarly at the other end, he couldn’t stretch out his legs. When Mac tried to urge the dog off by pushing against him with his feet, Gnarly growled. Eventually, the dog permitted Mac to warm his feet under him.
After a long stretch of silence during which they both turned over the case again and again in their minds, Archie stretched her legs until her feet rested under the edge of his chaise. “What are you thinking so hard about?”
“Where does a frumpy, overweight book editor fit into this? What connection does Betsy have to Katrina? Who was Pay Back?” Mac sighed. “I have this feeling that if we can figure out what he was paying Katrina back for, then we’ll know everything.” He made a circling gesture with both hands. “It will all come together.”
Archie reached for his hand. “Maybe we need to step back and look at the whole picture. When Robin would get to this point in a case, she’d go work in her garden.”