by Lauren Carr
“Kassandra! Have you?”
“Let’s just say I have had my own personal bodyguard this weekend,” Kassandra said with a roll of her eyes. “Hector told me that Troy’s lawyer intends to have his confession tossed. You know how Mac is. He’s not taking any chances. I’ve just spent the last twenty minutes getting drilled about Clarissa Sanchez’s death.”
“Rico’s wife?” Joan caught her breath.
“You know how thorough I am. I did a whole search of every salad in that restaurant where Clarissa died and found no explanation for how those bits of peanuts got into her salad.” Kassandra tossed her head in the direction of the man in the suit. “Mac Faraday is no underpaid detective in major crimes anymore. He’s got friends in high places. If Rico doesn’t play ball and testify against Troy, Mac’s going to get Clarissa’s case reopened. They’ll exhume her body and insist on re-examining the evidence. Since my report says there’s no explanation for how the peanuts could have accidentally gotten into that salad, Mac can make a case for it being murder. Well, you know how it is. The prime suspect is always the spouse. Believe me, it will get ugly.” She held up her hands. “Just saying.” She pushed up from the table. Struck with another thought, she asked, “You didn’t bring a present to Brie’s wedding, did you?”
“Why—”
“Rico asked me, which was a really strange question if you ask me.” She tapped her cheek with a finger as she said slowly, “I told him I didn’t think so. Most of the guests had their presents delivered. Those I returned and there were none from you and Troy.”
“That was a long time ago, Kassandra, and you were in shock.”
She shook her head. “The night of the wedding and murders, we told everyone to take their gifts home with them. I stood guard at the table to make sure no one stole any presents that didn’t belong to them.”
“It—”
“I didn’t see you leaving with any gift,” Kassandra said.
“There were a lot—”
“Why are you lying, Joan?”
“I am not lying!”
“Clarissa tried to tell me,” Sanchez told Joan from behind. “I had never seen her like that—that night of the murder. She was physically ill after Kassandra found them dead.”
“Clarissa was distraught that two people she knew had been killed,” Joan said.
“She kept telling me that you had no present.” Sanchez cocked his head at her. He chuckled. “So sad. For months, my wife kept giving me all these clues and I couldn’t see them. That night, Clarissa got worried because you took so long going to the car. She went looking for you. When you two came back, Clarissa looked sick. She was fine before that.”
“I remember I was struck by Clarissa saying this bizarre thing about Brie and Trevor getting killed before I found the bodies,” Kassandra said. “At the time, I thought she was being overly dramatic—but then, they were dead.”
“Clarissa told me that she found you in the ladies’ room, Joan,” Sanchez said. “What were you doing there?”
“I had to go to the rest room,” Joan said with a roll of her eyes.
“Clarissa told me that you didn’t have any wedding gift,” Sanchez said.
“She—”
“And it was after that night that Clarissa suddenly didn’t want us to do anything with you and Troy anymore,” Sanchez said. “You two were best friends. Our kids played together. But suddenly—and I realized it was after that night—Clarissa started pulling away from your friendship—until the only thing left was the athletic club and Clarissa was even talking about quitting that.” He moved in closer to her—glaring down into Joan’s face. “You didn’t go get any wedding gift from the car, did you, Joan?”
The party had become eerily quiet. Joan gazed around to find several eyes on them—waiting for her answer. The truth was out there. It was now up to her to put it into words.
“I did get Brie a wedding present,” Joan spat out. “Exactly what she deserved. And I delivered it to their bridal suite—personally. A lovely bottle of De Margerie Grand Cru Brut—1988.”
Tears filled her eyes. “Brie was surprised to see me when she opened the door. She wasn’t afraid. After all, I was just a dumb little housewife—too weak to fight for my man. She had no idea what I was made of until I took her husband—permanently. Then, she put up a fight.” Tears were rolling down her cheeks. She swallowed. “That was when she found out what I was really made of.”
Tapping his ear to indicate that the wires Sanchez and Kassandra were wearing had collected a wealth of information to arrest Joan Underwood, David stepped forward to arrest Joan but found Mac’s hand on his arm.
“Wait,” Mac said. “I think there’s more.”
“How did Clarissa find out?” Sanchez’s tone was threatening.
“Blood on my dress,” Joan said. “She had found me cleaning it off my dress in the ladies’ room. I had made up an excuse about running into a homeless man in the parking garage and him stealing the wedding present. She believed me. That’s why she made the comment about murder when we suggested that Kassandra go check on Brie and Trevor. When she found out they were dead, Clarissa realized what had happened. I had vented to her quite a bit about what I wanted to do to Brie for cheating with Troy. She put everything together and confronted me about it. I told her that if she was my friend, she’d say nothing. She kept quiet for a while, but …” Her voice trailed off.
“But as time wore on,” Mac said, “Clarissa couldn’t keep quiet anymore.”
“She told me to plead insanity.” Joan’s eyes blazed. “Me? Insane? Brie Pratt ruined my marriage. She stole my happily ever after—so I took hers!”
“When did Troy figure out what you’d done?” Sanchez asked.
“I think he suspected from the first,” she said. “We never talked about it.”
“He didn’t ask because he didn’t want to know the answer,” Kassandra said. “The spouse always suspects the truth. Talking about it makes it real.”
“But he was a detective,” Mac said. “So he figured it out on his own.”
“I didn’t nag him into joining the Secret Service,” Joan said. “He left because he couldn’t face Rico after Clarissa died.”
“She didn’t die! You killed her!” Before anyone could stop him, Rico Sanchez had his hands around Joan Underwood’s throat.
Joan collapsed onto the floor with Sanchez on top of her. Mac, David, and Hector fought to loosen his grip on her throat. Fury over the loss of his wife seemed to give Sanchez super-human strength. Joan’s face turned red from the lack of oxygen.
“You’re killing her!” Mac yelled in Sanchez’s ear while attempting to pull him back by his shoulders.
Joan’s lips turned blue.
“She’s not worth it!” Mac said.
“Clarissa wouldn’t want you to go down for her, baby!” Rosa pleaded. “Don’t let her take anything else from us!”
The reminder of his compassionate wife, the mother of his children, worked. Sanchez released his hold on Joan’s throat and threw his arms up.
With a loud gasp, Joan dropped back onto the floor.
Rosa grabbed her husband and sobbed into his chest. “It’s over, baby. It’s finally over.”
“Joan Underwood,” David said while slipping a pair of cuffs onto her hands, “you are under arrest for the murders of Brie Pratt, Trevor Polk, and Clarissa Sanchez.”
Epilogue
The sun was rising on Deep Creek Lake to bathe Spencer Manor in the warmth of what promised to be a beautiful autumn day. David and Gabriel were sitting on the dock with fishing poles in the water. They were flanked by dogs.
Behind them, a catering crew from the Spencer Inn was setting up a breakfast buffet table on the back deck.
Archie took two glasses of mimosa from a server and handed one to Hope, who watched her two men from the
deck with a wistful expression. Hope looked splendid in a winter-white pantsuit. Archie wore a long emerald dress that matched her eyes.
“I imagine this is a little sedate for Gabriel,” Hope said. “I doubt if Deep Creek has any swordfish.”
“But we do have some pretty big catfish.”
With a bark, Gnarly looked over his shoulder at her.
“You said ‘cat.’” Mac carried a rose covered trellis from the wedding the day before and set it on the deck in front of a built-in bench.
“I said ‘fish.’” Archie sighed. “Gnarly’s still pretty sensitive about Constance’s cats tormenting him.”
“What’s going to happen to the cats next door?” Hope asked.
“Tonya has made arrangements with a cat rescue to collect them, sterilize them, and move them to a cat sanctuary where they will be cared for and safe from predators.”
“And where they won’t prey on innocent dogs,” Mac said.
“You really were upset about her picking on Gnarly, weren’t you?” Archie winked at Hope. “Mac acts like he’s indifferent to Gnarly, but he really does care.”
“That’s the cat!” With a shout, Mac pointed to the far corner of the deck where Gnarly was nose-to-nose with a white, long-haired cat.
“What cat?” Hope asked.
“The cat Gnarly killed,” Mac said. “He jumped out of the bushes and attached himself to his face. Gnarly threw him up into the air, caught him, and snapped his neck.”
“They look pretty friendly now.” Archie moved in to observe the cat rubbing his face against Gnarly’s jaw. He had two black dots behind his ears.
“I swear Gnarly killed him,” Mac said. “We were late for the book signing, so I threw Gnarly in the SUV and called David and Bogie to get rid of the body. When they questioned Constance, they got suspicious and called Tonya.”
“And if Tonya hadn’t come in on the case, then we wouldn’t have nabbed Constance for killing her second husband,” Archie said.
“That’s right,” Mac said. “It was because of that cat that we caught Constance.”
“If I recall correctly, Constance shot her first husband behind the ear twice,” Archie said. “The bullets went right through his brain and out the other side of his skull.”
Hope shuddered. “What a witch.”
“This white cat has two black spots behind both of his ears.”
The white cat leapt onto the railing. With a glance over his shoulder, he jumped down into the garden. Curious about where he lived, Archie and Mac looked over the railing. The cat was gone.
The white cat with two black dots behind his ears was never seen again.
“Do you think he was …” Archie asked in a soft voice.
“I’m ready to believe anything after three murderers and a wedding in three days,” Mac said with a heavy sigh.
“Hello!” Gina and Seth stepped around the corner of the house. “Sorry to drop by unannounced, but we’re on our way back to the city and wanted to thank you again.”
Gina ran into Mac’s arms and gave him a big hug, which he returned. “Thank you so much … for everything.” She whispered into his ear. “And I mean everything. You kept your promise.”
“I never make a promise I don’t intend to keep.”
Wiping tears from her eyes, Gina stepped back to allow Seth to shake his hand. “That was some wild reception you gave us,” he said. “First one I’ve ever been to where a guest got arrested.”
“Things are never dull at the Spencer Inn,” Mac said.
“To think I actually felt sorry for Joan,” Gina said. “What put you onto her, Mac? I’ve known her since I was a little girl. As I grew older, I realized Troy was a cheat, but I never thought she was a murderer—” With a catch in her voice, she added, ”that she’d ever do something so horrible like kill my mom.”
Seth wrapped an arm around her waist. “What made you suspect her, Mac?”
“Something I said,” Archie said. “Though I’m not sure what it was.”
“Archie told me to remind her not to forget your wedding present,” Mac said. “But before that, she mentioned what a motivating factor guilt can be when you love someone. Now, Underwood confessed to killing your mother, Gina. He claimed his motive was anger because she had ruined his marriage by seducing him into an affair. That alone sounds twisted, but I have had murder cases where one lover kills the other for ruining their marriage. So, that motive worked for me except for the fact that Kassandra said that he was fooling around with Dani Derringer and had even hooked up with her at the wedding reception.”
“If his marriage meant so little to him that he’d cheat with Derringer, then it wasn’t important enough to kill for,” Archie said.
“And if that’s the case, then he didn’t have any motive to kill Brie,” Mac said. “Once I realized he had no motive, then I knew that he really was in the supply closet hooking up with Derringer. There was no murder conspiracy between them.”
“But if Underwood didn’t care enough about the marriage to kill Brie for ruining it, or even stay faithful to Joan, why would he confess to murder to protect her?” Seth asked.
“You haven’t been married long enough to understand, Seth.” Mac chuckled. “This falls under the category of ‘it’s complicated.’ Troy Underwood loved his wife enough to confess to murder to protect her.”
“Otherwise, why would he have kept begging her to take him back after she’d get fed up with his cheating?” Gina said.
“But he was a cheat,” Archie said.
“Deep down, I think Underwood blamed himself for driving Joan mad enough to kill Brie and Trevor,” Mac said. “He admitted last night that he realized what Joan had done years ago. He felt so guilty, especially after Joan killed Clarissa, that he transferred to the Secret Service because he was too ashamed to face Rico.”
“Once you realized Underwood couldn’t have killed them,” Hope asked, “why didn’t you go back to thinking Harrington did it?” Hope asked.
“Because Harrington said he got the bottle of champagne from the hotel wine locker,” Mac said. “The hotel didn’t carry the year left at the crime scene.”
“Which meant the killer had to have brought the champagne to the crime scene with her,” Gina said.
“That’s what Joan went back to the car for,” Archie said.
“Even when I realized it was Joan, the problem was proving it,” Mac said. “So much time had passed. We had no physical evidence. The only possible witness, Clarissa was dead. We needed a confession. So, when I got to the wedding, I took Sanchez aside and asked for his help in getting Joan to admit it to him while he wore a wire. I got Kassandra to come on board, too.”
“Did you know Joan killed Sanchez’s wife?” Gina asked. “Everyone was floored by that. Even Kassandra had no idea.”
“But she said last night that when she did the on-scene investigation into Clarissa’s death that she found no evidence to prove how the peanut bits accidentally ended up in her salad,” Hope said.
“Kassandra told me that was absolutely true,” Seth said.
“But she’d known Joan for so many years,” Gina said. “It never occurred to her that she would have done anything to hurt Clarissa. They were best friends.”
“Joan was above suspicion,” Mac said. “Just like Will Harrington had been above suspicion. He’s confessed to killing more than a dozen people who had escaped justice during his time with the police department. I was so close, but since he was above suspicion, I wasn’t able to consider him until someone on the outside looking in made me face it.”
“Which is why none of us looked at Joan Underwood,” Gina said.
“Did you tell Rico Sanchez that Joan killed his wife, or did he figure that out on his own?” Seth asked.
“When I started suspecting Joan of killing Brie and Trevor, I remem
bered how physically ill Clarissa became after the murders,” Mac said. “Like Troy, being a detective, Sanchez had suspicions. But, he was afraid to face the truth that someone had killed his wife. Once I told him that I suspected Joan of murdering Brie and Trevor, all of the clues that Clarissa had dropped for him started clicking into place. He confronted Joan about her death on his own.”
“And he ended up being right on the mark,” Archie said.
“Well, now Gina knows the truth about her mother’s death.” Seth kissed his bride on the cheek.
“Yes,” she said. “Now I can move on with my new life without wondering what had happened and why she was taken from me.”
“Is Kassandra going back to the city with you?” Mac asked.
“Oh, no, she decided to stay here a few more days,” Gina said. “She’s gotten quite used to having her own personal bodyguard.” She winked at him.
“Made a new friend from down under, huh?”
Seth laughed. “I think Kassandra had more fun after the wedding than we did.”
Gina hugged and kissed Mac once more, as well as Archie and Hope before she and Seth left to start their new life together. The sound of their vehicle’s engine faded away in time for their guests to arrive.
“Is this where the party is? I smell food. You wouldn’t believe the junk they passed off as food at that hospital.” On crutches, Bogie led a mob around the corner of the deck. He hobbled to a table with Doc rushing ahead to pull out a chair for him to sit in.
Gnarly greeted each of their guests, which was made up of the officers of Spencer’s police force and their families. Together, they took up most of the back deck. Two servers rushed from table to table to make sure everyone had coffee and fresh drinks.
With everyone busy filling their plates with food, Archie led Gnarly into the house. Down on the dock, David and Gabriel collected their fishing equipment. Seeing people and fresh food worthy of begging, Storm galloped up.
“I’m so glad David found a family member who enjoys fishing as much as he does,” Mac said. “Hopefully, that means I don’t have to fish with him anymore.”