5 The Murders at Astaire Castle

by Lauren Carr

  “She’s not there.” David’s hard expression ordered him to drop it.

  “We won’t know unless we look,” Mac said in a steady tone.

  “Check it out,” David said. “Do you see any sign of humans being in this area in recent years? This road is completely overgrown. No sign of hikers. No one comes over to this side of the mountain. We’re talking about an eighty-six year old woman with Alzheimer’s. She’s fragile and on foot. She’d never be able to make it this far.” With a wave of his finger, he ordered Mac to turn around. “We’re going back.”

  The order only served to make Mac more suspicious. “What’s up that road?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Then why are you afraid to go up there?”

  David whipped off his sun glasses as if to show him the glare in his blue eyes, which were identical to his. “Drop it, Mac. Forget about this road. Forget about this side of the mountain. Now turn your vehicle around and go back to the Spencer Inn and forget about coming back here ever again. Got it?”

  Mac met his glare. “And what if I don’t? Like you said, it’s my property. You can’t stop me from going up there to search … or whatever.”

  “Don’t make me shoot you, Mac.”

  “Shoot me?” Laughing, he shook his head. “Are you serious?”

  Any shred of humor that David had when they started talking was now gone. “If you go out that road, there’s nothing I can do to help you. Have I made myself clear?”

  The corner of Mac’s lips curled while he studied the intense nature of David’s order. “Very clear.”

  They were halfway back to the command post set up at the Spencer Inn when the call came in from Deputy Police Chief Art Bogart: Mac Faraday’s German shepherd, Gnarly, and Archie Monday, Mac’s housemate and “lady love” as he liked to call her, had found the woman.

  Gnarly had followed her scent down the mountain trail. He had zig-zagged through the ski slope to the service shed that managed the electronic chair lift. The elderly woman had forced her way into the shed and fallen asleep in the dark corner.

  Gnarly was hero of the day, which was why Mac thought it suspicious when he found the German shepherd hiding in the backseat of his SUV.

  “We need to go,” Archie whispered in a hurried voice to Mac. “We need to go now.” There was fear in her deep emerald green eyes. Her pink cap was pulled down to cover her pixie blonde hair and ears. With her petite features, the cap made her resemble Tinker Bell in Peter Pan.

  “Why?” Mac received part of his answer when he saw the dog lift his head to peer out of the back window. Mac caught a glimpse of what appeared to be a cigar in the dog’s mouth. Seeing Mac, he laid his pointy ears back to rest flat on his head and ducked back down.

  Mac heard a crackling voice yell from the open back of the ambulance. “I’m telling you, one of you robbed me. How dare you rob an old woman! You should all be ashamed of yourselves—all of you.” He turned around to peer through the window at where Gnarly was crouched.

  Hurrying up to them, David asked, “Mac, Gnarly was the one who found her, wasn’t he?”

  Mac hung his head.

  The police chief turned to Archie. “That scent that Gnarly was following—we assumed it was her, but could it have been the scent of beef jerky?”

  “He did find her,” Archie said. “Whether it was her or the beef jerky she was carrying in her purse doesn’t matter.”

  “Thieves! You’re all thieves!” They heard the impact of her purse hitting one of the EMTs.

  “Mother, calm down,” her daughter said to her. “I’ll buy you another package of beef jerky on the way to the hospital.”

  “What kind of people are you to steal beef jerky from an old woman?” the mother demanded to know.

  “Is she going to press charges?” Archie asked David.

  “We’ll replace the jerky,” the police chief said.

  “Oh, a cover up?” Mac replied.

  “Only because it’s Gnarly,” David said. “Bogie is going to buy a pack of jerky on the way to the hospital and slip it into her purse while she’s being treated so they’ll think she missed it.”

  “Sounds like you’ve been down this road before,” Mac said.

  “Only since Gnarly came to town.” David paused before telling him in a soft voice, “Sorry I was so hard on you out there.”

  “How were you hard on him?” Archie wanted to know.

  “He threatened to shoot me,” Mac said.

  “Well, you must have done something to deserve it,” she said.

  “It was nothing.” To change the subject, Mac glanced at his watch. “Hey, it’s late and I’m starved. How about dinner here at the Inn? My treat.”

  “I’m meeting Finnegan at her place,” David replied. “But you two go ahead. I have to stop by the cottage to shower and change. I’ll take Gnarly back home to Spencer Manor and drop him off.”

  Mac wrapped his arms around Archie. “I guess it’s just you and me, kid.”

  Mentally, Mac Faraday would often have to pinch himself when entering the Spencer Inn. Before his inheritance from his birth mother, he would never have been able to afford to set foot in the elegant mountaintop resort.

  With its five-star rating, the Spencer Inn was the place to go for romance and luxury. There were a dozen other little out of the way places around Deep Creek Lake that couples could patronize to explore the intimacy of love. For those blessed with wealth, and who desired the best in fine food, drink, and romance, then the Spencer Inn was the place to go.

  Two years later, Mac was still getting used to receiving the royal treatment. Doors were opened for him. Trying to anticipate the inn owner’s every need or desire, clerks would race to get his favorite cognac or predict what type of dinner he might be in the mood for. If Mac and Archie were dining at his table in the gourmet restaurant at sunset, the host would ensure the blinds were set to perfection to block the sun from his eyes, while still allowing him a view of the mountains and the lake below.

  Mac Faraday was forty-seven years old when he had learned that the teenaged girl who had given him up for adoption had grown up to become Robin Spencer, an internationally famous murder mystery writer. She had come from a long line of blue bloods, who had founded the upscale resort town of Spencer, Maryland. For an underpaid homicide detective, the whole experience was still surreal.

  Mac didn’t think he would ever get used to it.

  The hosts of both the lounge and the restaurant opened their cut-glass doors when they spied Mac and Archie crossing the lobby. Unsure of where they wanted to eat, the couple paused. Glancing down at their coats and gloves and dirty boots and jeans, Archie suggested the lounge where they would not appear so out of place—even if they did own it.

  The host hurried in ahead of them to signal for a server to prepare the corner booth where Mac usually sat when visiting the lounge. By the time they crossed the bar area, the bartender was getting a bottle of Archie’s favorite white wine from Mac’s private collection—2008 Domaine Leflaive Puligny-Montrachet Les Folatières. He also fetched two wine glasses.

  “What happened between you and David?” Archie asked after they were settled in the booth.

  “Nothing happened,” Mac insisted in a low voice.

  “Liar.”

  The bartender showed the gold bottle with the white label to Archie, the wine expert of the couple. He uncorked and served a single swallow for her to approve before filling their glasses. “Have you decided on what you would like for dinner this evening?”

  Mac turned to Archie for her choice. Dining with Archie Monday was an adventure. As Robin Spencer’s assistant, she had traveled all over the world. Fearless when it came to exotic food, she loved to test the culinary skills of the chief chef.

  “What does Iman feel like trying t
his evening?” she asked. “Tell him that I’m drinking a 2008 Domaine Leflaive Puligny-Montrachet Les Folatières and to surprise me with something to complement it.” With a wicked glance in Mac’s direction, she added, “Make it a dinner for two.”

  The bartender went back to the kitchen to deliver her message.

  After a toast, Archie took off her cap and ran her fingers through her hair to revive the circulation to her scalp before urging Mac to continue. “You had to do something to make David threaten to shoot you.”

  “David wasn’t going to shoot me,” Mac said. “He only threatened to.”

  “He’s been down lately,” she said. “He tries to hide it, but I can see it. You do know that Finnegan is leaving for Quantico tomorrow.”

  “Yeah, that’s right.” Mac confessed that he had forgotten about David’s latest girlfriend, a former U.S. Marshal, was starting a new career with the Federal Investigative Agency. She was moving to Quantico, Virginia. After her training was completed, she would be transferred to her first assignment, which would definitely not be western Maryland.

  “How long do you think that relationship is going to last?” Archie asked with a frown. “It’s like Yvonne all over again. It’s all hot and heavy. She gets a big job offer. They say they’ll make it work long distance. After less than six months, she’s sleeping with someone else and dumps David.”

  Mac was only half listening. He was remembering the determination, with a hint of something else, etched on David’s face when he turned around and ordered that they were coming back. They were going no further.

  Fear. “Something scared him,” Mac said more to himself.

  “Do you mean like a bear?”

  “David had a weapon,” Mac told her. “We were both armed. If it was a bear, we could have shot it if we had to. No, he didn’t—”

  “Mac, they didn’t tell me that you were here.” Jeff Ingles, the manager of the Spencer Inn, was hurrying across the lounge in their direction. “I am so glad they found that lady.” He trotted at a quick pace, while trying to maintain the dignity befitting the manager of one of the country’s most elegant resorts.

  “Gnarly found her,” Archie said.

  The manager’s grin quivered at the thought of the rambunctious German shepherd. “I’m glad.” He turned to Mac. “Hector is debriefing the Inn’s security team to find out how these types of incidents can be avoided in the future.”

  “The woman has Alzheimer’s,” Mac said. “I didn’t get any vibes from her family that they intended to hold us responsible for her wandering off.”

  “Well, you never can be too safe,” Jeff said. “If you want to have a word with Hector before—”

  Shaking his head, Mac took a sip of his wine. “Tell him to go home and enjoy his evening. We’ll talk about it later.” Jeff was about to turn away when Mac interrupted his departure with a question. “What’s on the Spencer Inn property over on the south side of the mountain?”

  Mac didn’t miss Jeff’s posture straightening. It was like a rod had been rammed down his back. Standing up straight, his shoulders tense, the manager turned to face him. “Pardon me?”

  “What’s at the end of the road leading over to the other side of the mountain?” Mac asked again. “David and I went out there, and I saw signs saying, ‘No Trespassing, Spencer Inn Property.’ But I don’t know what’s out there.” He shrugged. “I can’t believe I’ve never gone—” He recalled, “You took me on a tour of this whole resort when I inherited it, but you never took me out there.”

  “Because there’s nothing out there,” Jeff said firmly.

  Mac turned to Archie, who shrugged. “I’ve never been out that way either. The further you go, the more overgrown the road gets—nothing but rocks and trees. I assumed there was nothing.”

  “She’s exactly right,” Jeff said. “There’s nothing.”

  Mac narrowed his eyes at the manager. “What are you not telling me?” Beyond Jeff, he saw the man whom he knew would be truthful with him.

  Hector Langford, the Inn’s chief of security, was a straightforward Australian who had been working for the Spencer Inn for over twenty-five years. He would know what was on the south side of the mountain that could spook David O’Callaghan, the chief of police and Marine officer. After serving two tours overseas, David wasn’t easy to spook.

  Mac waited for Hector to stop at the bar to pick up a beer, served in the bottle, and take a seat across from them—all under Jeff’s warning gaze—before he asked, “What’s at the end of the road leading to the south side of Spencer Mountain.”

  While helping himself to a handful of peanuts from the middle of the table, Hector laughed at Jeff’s glare. “Oh, do you mean the castle?”

  Mac’s and Archie’s mouths dropped open. “Did you say ‘castle’?” Mac asked.

  Hector nodded his head. Jeff rubbed his face.

  “As in moat and alligators and drawbridge … castle?” Mac leaned across the table at him.

  “Well,” Hector drawled, “this one doesn’t have any moat or alligators or drawbridge, but it is an honest to goodness castle.”

  “Castles are kind of big,” Archie said. “Why can’t we see it from the lake?”

  “Because it’s on the other side of the mountaintop, facing the valley to the south,” Hector said. “Used to be—back in the old days—that you could see it from the valley below. After about a decade of no one going near it, it’s all overgrown and everyone has forgotten about it. In the winter, when all the leaves are down, if you know it’s there, you can see from the valley floor if you look for it. It’s made of stone. So, if you don’t know about it, with the trees and rocks, you could miss it.”

  “Why don’t I know about it?” Mac asked. “I got a list of my holdings and property that I inherited from my mother, and I don’t recall seeing any castle on that list. I would have noticed if I owned a castle.”

  Jeff answered, “Because it was listed as a vacation rental property under the Spencer Inn. It’s identified as a luxury mountaintop vacation cabin.”

  “There’s a big difference between a castle and a cabin,” Archie said.

  “Why has everyone been keeping this castle a secret from me?” Mac asked. “Why all the secrecy? Even David refused to go out there this afternoon.”

  “He had a bad experience out there,” Hector said with a wave of his hand. “We used to have a devil of a time keeping kids, looking for ghosts and scaring each other, out of there.”

  “There was that boy who disappeared out there,” Jeff said with all seriousness. “David knew him.”

  “The Adams kid,” Hector said with a nod of his head. “David was there the night he disappeared.”

  “What happened?” Archie asked.

  “It was back in 2000,” Hector recalled. “A bunch of young people, David and some of his friends, wanted to have a Halloween party out at the castle. He had just gotten out of college and was going into officer training with the Marines. There were between twenty to thirty guests—all in costume. We’re not talking high school kids that were out of control. They were responsible young people. After the party, one of his guests was missing. He never made it home.”

  “Maybe something happened to him after he’d left the party,” Mac said.

  Jeff and Hector shook their heads in unison. “No one saw him leave,” Jeff said.

  “It wasn’t an open party,” Hector said. “David knew everyone who was there. None of them did anything to him.”

  “He disappeared in that castle?” Mac asked.

  “Riley Adams,” Jeff recalled the name. “The whole state was looking for him.”

  “He was dressed in a werewolf costume,” Hector recalled. “A lot of the guests believed that he was killed or captured by a ghost. We had no trouble keeping kids out after that. He was never
found, but unofficially, it was believed that he got drunk or was on something—witnesses said he was acting very strange that night—and wandered off into the woods or fell off the cliff—died—and his body was never found. If he had fallen off the cliff, his body could have been caught in some deep crevices of the rocks where searchers couldn’t find it.”

  “I think the ghosts got him,” Jeff said.

  “Ghosts?” Mac laughed. “Seriously?”

  “Seriously,” Jeff responded without humor. “Look it up. The Astaire Castle is one of the ten most haunted houses in America.”

  Excited, Archie tapped Mac’s arm. “I’ve heard of Astaire Castle. I knew it was in Maryland, but I never knew it was here.” She hugged him and squealed. “And you own it!” She dug into her bag to extract her computer tablet to look it up on the Internet. “This is totally wicked!”

  Jeff uttered a hollow laugh. “Yeah, congratulations,” he said with heavy sarcasm.

  “It’s haunted?” Mac still laughed.

  “Not a week goes by that some paranormal expert doesn’t want to come film it,” Jeff said. “The answer is always the same. No. After the last murders, Robin ordered the place boarded up and to never let anyone inside it ever again.”

  His attention piqued, Mac sat up straight in his seat. “The last murders?”

  Hector locked his gaze on Mac and said in a sinister tone, “The last of several.”

  Chapter Two

  “Two suicides, three mysterious disappearances, and four murders have taken place at Astaire Castle.” Archie leaned against Mac to show him the tablet on which she had found a website about the most haunted places in the Unites States.

  “Really?” Mac took the tablet from her to read the article.

  Jeff groaned and sank into the booth next to Hector. “Why did you have to tell him?” he chastised the security manager.

  “He had a right to know, don’t you think? Considering that he owns the place …”

  “Don’t tell me that you believe in ghosts.” Mac laughed at the two men across from him.