by Lauren Carr
Randi nodded. “The investigators were never able to prove that Cruze killed his wife, but her car was found in a secluded rural area with two shell casings inside and a giant blood splatter on the seat. DNA proved the blood to be a match with Harper Cruze. No evidence could be found to put Cruze or his people at the scene. Richardson claimed she had left Cruze. Without a body, no one could prove who was right.”
Mac muttered, “So she could have survived.”
“If she is alive,” David said, “after a decade in jail for killing her lover, Cruze would have to have her at the top of his list of most wanted dead.”
Randi looked into the rearview mirror back at Mac. “How old would you have guessed the woman of this couple to be?”
“Late thirties, early forties,” Mac replied. “How old was Cruze’s wife when he went to jail?”
“Late twenties.”
David said, “Then that would make her about the right age.”
“Why come after him?” Mac asked. “Why come near him?”
“Same reason as Archie,” Randi said. “Kill or be killed.”
Mac agreed. “I guess Cruze would know if she was really alive and out there.”
David pulled the cruiser into the hotel lot and parked the cruiser next to the lobby entrance. “Only thing is, according to Alan Richardson, it was only this morning that Cruze decided to go to the café.” He unsnapped his seat belt. “So how would this woman, who may or may not have been his wife, know he was going to be there?”
“Same way the FBI knew he’d be there,” Randi said. “Someone on the inside.”
Mac leaned forward toward her seat. “If Cruze’s wife is alive and in the program, now would be a good time to tell us.”
Randi turned around in her seat. “I don’t have a membership roster of everyone who’s in the witness protection program.”
Mac peered closely at her face. When he had first met her the day before, he had thought she was hard looking. She would be called a handsome woman—not unattractive, but not pretty, either. Up close, with her face illuminated by the parking lot light, he could see that her features were pretty. She had high cheekbones and dark eyes. With the right makeup, she could be striking.
Having spent a career working with numerous female police officers, Mac was aware that attractive women who played up their feminine features were taken less seriously than women who played them down. It was a subconscious fact of life, not sexism. Men instinctively want to protect pretty women. Spending too much time out in the field worrying about the “pretty woman” can distract you from someone who might be trying to kill you.
“You didn’t answer his question, Finnegan,” David said.
Randi broke the stare to lock eyes with David. “Even if I knew, I couldn’t tell you. You both know that. Why do you even ask?”
David looked over the back of his seat to Mac as if to ask his opinion.
Tired of waiting for someone to open the door to let him out, Gnarly stomped his front feet and groaned.
“Okay,” Mac said to the agent, “but if I find out that you’re holding out on us…”
“What?” she challenged him with a razor-sharp glare back at him. “What are you going to do?”
David threw open his door, climbed out, and opened the back door of the cruiser to release Gnarly and Mac. “Let’s start with the desk clerk.”
“Oh yeah,” the desk clerk nodded his head quickly when Mac described the couple who had escaped the massacre at the Dockside Café.
Seemingly bored with the interview portion of the investigation, Gnarly yawned and plopped down with his head resting on Mac’s feet.
“The odd couple,” the clerk said.
Having seen the couple up close, Mac understood the clerk’s reference.
Randi and David exchanged glances. “Odd couple?” Randi asked.
The clerk, a young man with thick, dark eyebrows and a goatee, laughed. “I’ve been working here for five years. By the end of my first, I figured out the people who check into this place. I can spot a couple married to each other like that.” He snapped his fingers. He leaned over the desk to whisper, “I can also tell who’s meeting with someone who isn’t his wife.”
“Tell us about the odd couple.” With a circular motion of his finger, Mac urged him to get back on topic.
“Well, you know how a lot of couples look like they belong together? You can tell by looking at them that they match in some way. They mesh.” He shook his head. “Not those two. This morning, I came in for the first shift, and she went running out the door looking like an Olympic athlete. He came stumbling down around seven o’clock looking like something the cat dragged in—and smelled like it, too.” He shot them a wicked grin. “My guess, he must have money to have snagged a looker like that.” Seeming to have a second thought, he shook his head. “But she doesn’t strike me as the trophy wife type. Not that we get that many here. Couples like that check in up at the Spencer Inn.” He looked at Mac, dressed in a sports jacket over a pair of dress jeans. “You look more like the Spencer Inn type.”
Not revealing that he owned the Spencer Inn, Mac chuckled. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Do you have the odd couple’s names?” David asked.
“Gordon and Nora Crump from Lancaster, Pennsylvania.”
“What room are they in?” Mac asked.
“Two-oh-four,” the desk clerk answered without checking. “But they aren’t there. They went out to dinner a couple of hours ago.”
Confident that the desk clerk would know the answer, Mac asked, “I don’t suppose you know where they went to eat.”
“She asked me.” The young man grinned. “She had heard someone talking about a Southwestern restaurant on the lake. The Santa Fe Grill and Cantina. I gave them directions to it. They were all dressed up. He even looked like he took a shower…maybe.”
“The odd couple?” Randi repeated after they had climbed back into the cruiser.
“Odd.” David maneuvered the cruiser on the twisting road along the lake.
“Why is it so hard to believe that a beautiful woman can fall for an unattractive man?” Randi asked with an accusatory note in her tone.
“The clerk wasn’t saying that Gordon is unattractive,” David said, “but that they didn’t look like they have anything in common.”
“How can you tell that by looking at a couple?” she asked.
“He’s right,” Mac called out from the back seat. “I saw them. They don’t look like they belong on the same planet, let alone in the same bed.”
David turned the cruiser up an entrance ramp that climbed up a slight hill into a crowded parking lot.
The Santa Fe Grill was a very popular Southwestern restaurant. Adding to its popularity, it sported a boat dock where guests would pull in for outdoor dining. Loud Southwestern music blared from the outdoor speakers to practically drown out the guests that filled the outdoor café. Inside the restaurant, there was an outdoorsy feel with high ceilings under which the guests’ chatter could bounce and echo to mix with the music.
After climbing out of the cruiser and opening the back door for Mac and Gnarly, Randi said, “It’s going to be almost impossible to find them in this crowd.”
The blast of six gunshots fired in rapid succession followed by a woman’s scream drowned out Mac’s reply.
David pointed beyond the rows of parked cars toward the restaurant’s main entrance. “Over there!” he shouted over the screams while pulling his gun from its holster.
Gnarly was already on the run. He charged at the sound of the first shot. Like a salmon fighting to swim upstream, he dodged around the fast moving legs to get to where Gordon Crump was sprawled out in what would be a flower bed during the summer months with his wife Nora kneeling over him.
“Did you see who shot him?” Randi grasped the hysterical woman’s shoulder.
Jumping at the agent’s touch, Nora looked up at them and covered her mouth with her hands.
“Did you see where the shooter went?” David searched the crowd for someone with a weapon.
Not answering, Nora gazed at the police chief standing over her.
Behind them, car horns were blaring. Patrons not wanting to be part of the scene, or possible victims, were frantically seeking escape routes. Some cars were making impromptu exits over curbs and down the hillside to the main road.
“Is he still here?” Randi asked the dead man’s wife.
She pointed out at the exit ramp. “There! That’s him in the black car.”
Craning his neck to get a look at the driver of the black car that had turned out onto the lake shore road, David raced back to his cruiser while calling in a description of the vehicle speeding away.
Seeing that Gnarly was hot on someone’s trail, Mac had opted to follow the barking dog. As he was dodging the courtyard bench, Mac noticed a rack with a silver bike chained to it. Silver bike! Mac paused long enough to note it. Could it be the same killer? What could be the connection?
He turned the corner of the building to the back of the restaurant to witness a flock of kitchen help who had been lounging outside scattering at the appearance of the canine hot on a trail. Determining that his prey was not amongst them, Gnarly was clawing and barking at the staff entrance.
“Hey, man!” someone called to Mac, “What’s wrong with your dog?”
With no time for conversation, Mac threw open the door to let Gnarly scurry in. Cooks and servers were yelling and jumping up onto counters to avoid the dog galloping straight through the kitchen followed by a man with a gun. Mac weaved through frightened cooks and servers while fighting to keep the shepherd in sight.
Gnarly followed the scent into the dining room, turned a corner and stopped at the men’s restroom door.
“Is this where he’s hiding?” His gun poised to shoot, Mac opened the door for Gnarly to charge in. Mac thrust his arm through the doorway with his finger on the gun’s trigger. Inside, he searched each stall for the shooter before determining that Gnarly had led him astray. “No one’s here, Gnarly.” Mac holstered his gun. “I’m afraid your nose misled us this time.”
His nose to the floor, Gnarly turned in circles until he came to the sink.
“Come on.” Mac clapped his hands to get the dog’s attention. “David needs our help.”
Instead of going to him, Gnarly bolted under the sink to the trash container and rammed into it. It fell over with a loud metal clang.
“Gnarly!” Mac yelled. “What are you looking for? Did someone dump an old donut in there?”
While his master chastised him for the mess he was creating, Gnarly stuck his head inside the trash can. Dragging a black running jacket, its hood clutched in his teeth, he backed out. As he extracted it, the jacket became unfolded and a handgun fell onto the floor. After dropping the jacket to the floor, Gnarly let out a round of boisterous barks at Mac. When he was finished telling him off, the German shepherd sat down, peered at the jacket and gun, and then back up at Mac.
“Not bad, Gnarly,” Mac admitted. “But that still doesn’t get you off the hook for clogging up my toilet.”
The reminder of the toilet caused Gnarly to hang his head in shame.
Chapter Fifteen
Mac gets to go play cop and mobster, and I’m sitting home like the little woman waiting for her man to come home.
Archie tossed her e-reader onto the sofa and turned around to look at Bogie, who was reading a Zane Grey novel he had found in Robin’s library. It was an autographed first edition that the author had purchased at an estate auction years before. “It’s not fair,” she told the deputy chief.
“Life isn’t fair.” Bogie turned a page. “Haven’t you learned that yet?”
“I guess I should have learned that twelve years ago when I gave up my family and went into the program,” she said. “How ironic. I did the right thing, but I ended up on the run.”
Bogie looked up from his book. “But look at where it landed you.”
“If it was really fair, I’d be out there with Mac and Gnarly chasing down the truth instead of here.”
“Hey,” Bogie objected. “I may not be as handsome as Mac and Gnarly, but I can still be pretty good company.”
“It isn’t that.” Archie looked around the spacious living room. As luxurious as it was, she felt like a caged lioness wanting to be out on the hunt with her lion. “Maybe a nice, long soak in the tub will make me feel better.”
Upstairs, she noticed that the door to Leah’s room was open. I should at least try to be civil. After all, she is my guest. She paused in the open doorway while weighing the consequences of not saying hello.
Leah was sitting in the chair by the window with her smart phone in her hand. Her fingers flew gracefully across the screen while she texted away.
“Hello,” Archie interrupted her communication.
Startled, Leah thrust the phone behind her back. “Don’t you people knock before entering someone’s room?”
“The door was open and I was going by on the way to my room.” Archie replied. “Is everything okay?”
“Yes.”
The two women stared at each other.
“Good night,” Leah said in a forceful tone.
“Same to you.” Archie moved on down the hallway.
“Did you catch him?” Marshal Randi Finnegan hurried over to ask David after he parked the cruiser along the curb in front of the restaurant.
David saw Nora Crump sitting in the back of one of the fleet of cruisers that had arrived at the scene in response to his call. They were still waiting for the ME. He tried to contain his disgust when Gordon Crump’s widow tore her eyes away from the dead body to look at him.
“No.” David whizzed by the marshal to go up to speak to Nora.
Randi let out a quick breath. “Do you mean he got away?”
“Yes.”
She followed him. “How?”
“He just did.” David whirled around to tell her. “I’m not super cop, you know.”
“Why is your face red?”
“Because I’ve had a lousy day, that’s why.” He turned to Nora. “Tell me what happened here tonight.”
The widow’s eyes bugged at his sharp tone. Her mouth hung open. Her eyes darted to Randi.
“David,” Randi said, “the woman lost her husband.”
“I’m sorry.” With a sigh, David covered his face and started again. “I’m sorry for your loss. Can you tell me what happened?”
One of his officers came out of the building to tap him on the arm. “Chief, Mr. Faraday found something inside that you ought to see.”
“Just a minute, Oakley.” David held up a finger to the officer as an order to wait. At that moment, he wanted a statement from Nora Crump about what connections she had that would cause three men, one her husband, to suddenly end up dead. His arms folded across his chest, he peered down at her.
With frightened eyes that resembled a deer crossing the road in the dead of night only to be caught in the high beams of a racing truck, Nora gazed back up at him. “I don’t know,” she said in a small trembling voice. “We had dinner. We were having a good time. We came out to go to our car and this man suddenly came out from the courtyard and walked right up to Gordon and shot him. Not just once. He kept shooting, even when Gordon was down on the ground…and all I could do was stand there. I don’t know… Did I scream? I felt like I was screaming, but I don’t remember if I did or not.”
Randi asked, “Did he ask for anything? Your husband’s wallet or watch?”
“No.” She gasped. “He did say somethin
g right before he started shooting. When he came up to us, he said, ‘Hey, Gordon.’ Gordon stopped. Then, I saw the gun. This man—he was wearing a dark running jacket and a hood up over his head so I couldn’t see his face. He said, ‘This is for Tommy Cruze.’ That was when he started shooting.” She covered her ears. “I don’t know how many times he shot. He wouldn’t stop shooting.”
David asked, “Did your husband do business with Tommy Cruze?”
She sobbed. “Business? Maybe.” She shrugged. “We never really talked about his business dealings. But I do remember taking a phone message at home once from some guy who said his name was Tom Cruze.” She offered a weak smile. “I remember it because I made a joke asking him if he made movies. You know? The movie star.” Her smile fell. Tears came to her eyes. “’But the man on the phone didn’t see the humor in it. His voice was so hard when he said, ‘If your husband knows what’s good for him, he’ll call me back.’” Tears rolled down her face. “Who is this Cruze guy? Why would anyone kill Gordon? I mean, who would want to kill someone who sells toilets?”
“Toilets?” Randi asked. “What did your husband do?”
“Gordon owns a kitchen and bath supply store.”
While David and Randi exchanged puzzled expressions, the officer whispered in the police chief’s ear. His eyes lit up before he told the officer, “Take Mrs. Crump down to the station and make her comfortable.”
“Do you want me to take her statement?” Officer Oakley asked.
“No, I’ll take it.” David turned around to go into the restaurant. “Call Bogie on his cell and tell him what’s going on.”
“Do you want him to come down here?”
“No,” David said with a sharp tone. “I want him to stay with Archie Monday. This isn’t over yet.”
His arms folded over his chest, Mac was standing guard in front of the men’s restroom door when David and Randi came in. “Took you long enough,” Mac called to them.