by Lauren Carr
“What kind of people are you to steal beef jerky for 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 stop to buy a pack of jerky on the way to the hospital and somehow slip it into the bottom of 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,” Mac told both of them. To change the subject, he 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 on 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 when he walked through the front doors. 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 may be in the mood for. If Mac and Archie were dining at his table in the gourmet restaurant at sunset, they 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 a middle-class kid from the suburbs who grew up to become 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 to hold for them open for Mac and Archie when they spied them crossing the lobby.
Unsure of where they wanted to eat, Mac and Archie paused. They glanced down at their coats and gloves and dirty boats and jeans that they were still wearing from the search. In the luxurious resort, they appeared more out of place than usual.
Archie suggested the lounge.
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 once 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. After she gave her approval, he uncorked and served the single swallow for her to sample 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 this evening?” Archie replied. “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 US 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 was definitely not 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 Ingle, 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 top hotels and restaurants in country.
“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 had 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 to 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 only long enough for Hector to pick up a beer served in the bottle at the bar 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. David had just gotten out of college and was going into officer training with the Marines. It was vacant at the time—”
“We were using it as a vacation rental,” Jeff interjected.
“David said there were between twenty to thirty people—all in costume,” Hector said. “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 left the castle,” 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 and 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 grasped Mac’s arm 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 wants 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.”
Please note: Changes may be made to the excerpt that you have just read during the editing stage of publishing The Murders at Astaire Castle.
About the Author
Lauren Carr
Lauren Carr fell in love with mysteries when her mother read Perry Mason to her at bedtime. The first installment in the Joshua Thornton mysteries, A Small Case of Murder was a finalist for the Independent Publisher Book Award.
Lauren is also the author of the Mac Faraday Mysteries, which takes place in Deep Creek Lake, Maryland. It’s Murder, My Son, Old Loves Die Hard, and Shades of Murder, have all been getting rave reviews from readers and reviewers. Blast from the Past is the fourth installment in the Mac Faraday Mystery series.
Released September 1012, Dead on Ice introduces a new series entitled Lovers in Crime, which features prosecutor Joshua Thornton with homicide detective Cameron Gates. The second book in this series, Real Murder will be released Spring 2013.
The owner of Acorn Book Services, Lauren is also a publishing manager, consultant, editor, cover and layout designer, and marketing agent for independent authors. This spring, two books written by independent authors will be released through the management of Acorn Book Services.
Lauren is a popular speaker who has made appearances at schools, youth groups, and on author panels at conventions. She also passes on what she has learned in her years of writing and publishing by conducting workshops and teaching in community education classes.
She lives with her husband, son, and two dogs on a mountain in Harpers Ferry, WV.
Visit Lauren’s websites and blog at:
E-Mail: [email protected]
Website: http://acornbookservices.com/
http://mysterylady.net/
Blog: Literary Wealth: http://literarywealth.wordpress.com/
Gnarly’s Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/GnarlyofMacFaradayMysteries
Lovers in Crime Facebook Page:
http://www.facebook.com/LoversInCrimeMysteries?ref=ts&fref=ts
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/900970.Lauren_Carr
Twitter: @TheMysteryLadie
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The Mac Faraday Mysteries
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The story takes hold immediately and the reader quickly identifies with Mac. The plot is well done without being overplotted. There are just enough twists and turns to keep the reader guessing. The climatic confrontation with the killer is good and the wrap up leaves you laughing and feeling good. The writing style is easy and draws the reader in effortlessly. I am looking forward to the next installment!
Reviewer: Ariel Heart, Mystery and My Musings Review
What started out as the worst day of Mac Faraday’s life, would end up being a completely new beginning. After a messy divorce hearing, the last person that Mac wanted to see is another lawyer. Yet, this lawyer looked very unlawyer-like, wearing the expression of a child about to reveal a guarded secret. This secret would reveal Mac as heir to undreamed of fortunes and lead him to Spencer, Maryland, the birthplace of America’s Queen of Mystery, with her millions and an investigation that unfolds like one of her famous mystery novels.