Blast from the Past (A Mac Faraday Mystery) (3 page)

Chapter Three

“I can’t believe I let you talk me into this.” Cursing, Randi Finnegan punched the button on her radio to turn off the station David had turned on without her permission. “I should be back at Spencer Manor with Archie, trying to talk some sense into that pretty little head of hers.”

“Mac, Bogie, and my officers will protect her, and Gnarly won’t let her out of his sight.” David pressed the button to tune in to the sports station to catch the score for the ball game that he was missing. That was another thing he needed to get Tommy Cruze for.

“You really don‘t know Cruze’s people.” She shook her head before punching the button off again. When David reached for it, she slapped his wrist. “My car. My radio. My station. I hate baseball.”

“I sensed from the first time we met that there was something seriously wrong with you. Now I know.”

She grumbled, “I am so fired for letting your people take Archie without me going with her.”

“I need you with me to see your boss,” David said. “You admitted it. Without you, he won’t talk to me about who the possible leak is. For all we know, it’s him.”

“Wilson is the most straight up guy there is,” she said with a shake of her head. “He knew J. Edgar Hoover.”

“Just because he’s old doesn’t mean he’s not crooked.”

“It’s not Wilson.”

“Then maybe it’s you,” he said. “You know everything about Archie’s whereabouts, habits, and cover.”

“How do I know it’s not you?” She shot back. “It was your cruiser that got stolen. Who gave them the key to the garage? How many people on your force know about Archie?”

“Bogie and I are the only ones who knew about her. No one else.” From the passenger seat, he shot a glare in her direction. “They didn’t use any key to break into the garage. They took out the security camera before breaking the lock with bolt cutters.”

When he turned back to look out through the windshield, David noticed that she had turned down a two-lane country road to cut over the mountains heading east. “Where are you going?”

“To the field office I work out of in Cumberland.”

“Why aren’t you taking the freeway?”

“This way is faster,” Randi said. “It’s more direct.”

“It’s not faster,” he said. “It’s longer. It’ll take us through every mountain ghost town in Maryland.” He pointed across her to the side window. “Take the next left and go up to the freeway.”

She gritted her teeth. “My car—”

“I know!” He mocked her. “My car, my radio, my driving—grrr! Next time I’m driving!”

“Hopefully, there won’t be a next time.”

They continued to ride along in silence, both of them were worried about where Archie was, and if she was safe. They would have preferred to be back at Spencer Manor standing guard over her, but this was something they had to do now. They needed to find the leak who had betrayed their friend and find out what other information he or she had divulged to Tommy Cruze.

“How’s your mother?” Randi jolted David out of his thoughts.

He sat up in his seat in time to notice a goat and her baby on the porch of a dilapidated farmhouse located only a couple of feet from the road. With a slight swerve of the car, they could have been driving across the front porch to run down the critters. “She’s in a nursing home.”

“Really?” Randi’s tone went up an octave. “I’m sorry. When did that happen?”

“A couple of months ago,” he said while staring out the passenger window. “I had to put her there after she stabbed me with a fork.”

“What did you do? Change her radio station?” It was a hollow attempt to lighten his mood that failed.

“She thought I was Dad,” he said. “I tried to ignore it or handle it or whatever. Her nurse kept saying that she was becoming more difficult. Every time Mom would see me, she’d be more hateful…”

“Because she thought you were your father?” Randi asked, “What did your dad ever do—”

“Dad didn’t
do
anything. She had imagined it all in her mind. She was convinced Dad was having an affair with Robin Spencer. It got worse after Mac moved to Spencer. Dad was already dead, but her dementia got the best of her and she took it out on me. One day, she stabbed me in the chest with a fork.” He rubbed the left side of his chest. “I ended up in the ER. Luckily, it wasn’t too deep. The next day, I sent her to the nursing home.”

“Why did her dementia get worse when Mac Faraday moved to Spencer? What does one have to do with the other?”

David turned to look at her profile. “You don’t see it?”

She glanced over at him.

David’s eyes narrowed. He cocked his head at her. “If you look, you can see that the only difference between me and Mac is that my hair is blond and his is brown. He gets that from Robin. I got my hair from my mother. We both have Dad’s eyes.”

“Mac…Robin Spencer’s illegitimate son… you mean your father—” She had to fight to keep her car on the winding country road while looking over at David to see the family resemblance that she had missed.

“It was before he had met Mom. He wanted to marry Robin, but she was only seventeen years old and her parents would have none of it. They sent her away to college. By the time Robin came back, Dad had married my mom.  But Dad swore to me, and so did Robin, that he never broke his marriage vows.” He sighed. “But Mom let herself get so consumed with jealousy that she lost her mind.” He said in a low voice, “When I go to see her, she either won’t talk to me, or tries to attack me. Last time, the doctor told me that I shouldn’t see her alone anymore. Me, big, old police chief, needs a body guard when he visits his own mother.”

“I’m sorry.”

David responded with a shrug. “How’s Butch?”

“Butch?”

“Your husband.”

“We’re divorced.”

“Really?” David turned to her. “When did that happen?”

“It was final six weeks ago.”

“Archie never mentioned it.”

“She never mentioned your mother.”

“What happened?” David asked. “If you don’t mind my asking…”

“Butch was offered a transfer to another part of the country. He wanted to go. I didn’t. I told him to stay. He said he’d rather go. I said if he went, I’d want a divorce because I never heard of a cross-country marriage that worked, especially in our profession. He said fine. That was that.”

“Let me get this straight,” David said, “You gave him a choice of staying and being married to you or leaving, and he left?”

“Yes.”

“Where was the transfer?”

“Alaska.”

David laughed.

“It’s not funny,” she insisted.

“Depends on how you look at it.”

“Which is?”

“Your husband moved to Alaska to get away from you.” He continued to laugh.

“He did not.”

David shrugged. “If I was your husband, I’d move to Alaska to get away from you.”

“If you were my husband,” she sputtered in anger, “I’d slip pesticide into your coffee.”

“If I was your husband, I’d drink it.”

“I’ve imagined you moving your toothbrush in here under much more pleasant circumstances.”

The sudden sound of his voice made Archie jump to knock over her cosmetics case and spill the contents all over Mac’s bathroom floor. Fighting to keep the nervous tears out of her eyes, she stooped down to pick up the rolling perfume bottles, make-up cases, and loose earrings. “I’m sorry. Look at the mess I’ve made.”

“Will you stop apologizing?”

He was kneeling on the floor with her, his hand on hers, which was clutching a ruby earring. In a flash, she remembered him giving it to her along with the matching necklace that Valentine ’s Day.
Was that really only last month? Everything seems so long ago since the shooting.

After Bogie had released her from the scene of the shooting, Archie went to her cottage to change her clothes into slacks and pack some of her belongings to move into the more secure manor. She had returned to the master suite to find that Mac had showered, dressed in jeans and a light sweater, and mopped the bathroom floor from where he had been plunging his clogged toilet.

Mac cupped his hand under her chin. “You’ve done nothing wrong.”

“I made a mess of things.”

“No, you haven’t,” he said. “Cruze did.”

She smiled softly at him. “Cruze didn’t drop his stuff all over this floor. I did.”

He smiled. “Mess or not, I’m glad you’re here…in my room…staying with me.” He kissed her. “When this is over, I may never let you go back to the guest cottage.”

She swallowed. “Mac, it’s been over ten years since Cruze put out that contract on me. It’s not going to be over until one of us is dead.”

“The one who’s going to end up dead won’t be you.”

“How can you be so sure?”

He cupped her face with both his hands. She peered into his blue eyes, so much like his birth father, Patrick O’Callaghan, a man Mac had never met. She had met him, and could see why Robin Spencer had fallen in love with him. Mac had been blessed with the best qualities of both his parents—his father’s quick thinking and courage, his mother’s imagination and wisdom, and both of their unbending strong-will.

“I won’t let anything happen to you,” Mac said.

She threw her arms around his shoulders to kiss him. The jewelry she had gathered up was still in her hands. As they parted, they gazed into each other’s eyes.

The clearing of a throat made them realize they were not alone.

“I don’t mean to interrupt,” Bogie’s voice came in from the bedroom, where he had stepped away to allow them their privacy, “but there’s a phone call for Archie. It’s Misty from the Doggie Hut.”

“Oh, no!” Archie almost knocked Mac over in her haste to get up and out of the bathroom to grab the phone from Bogie. “Misty! Gnarly’s appointment. I completely forgot!”

Feeling her excitement, Gnarly jumped up onto the bed where Archie sat to talk on the phone. He hung his head over her shoulder as if to listen in on the call.

“You missed an appointment with Misty?” Bogie asked. “Do you know how hard it is to get in to see her?” He turned to Mac. “Gnarly will be lucky if he can get back into her scheduled before Christmas.”

“Poor Gnarly.” Mac’s tone dripped with sarcasm.

“Misty is the hottest dog groomer in all of Deep Creek Lake,” the deputy police chief said. “I once pulled over a Mercedes with an Irish Setter that had just left from seeing Misty. She smelled of Irish Crème and was wearing a crisp emerald green bandana. Cutest dog you’ve ever seen.”

“What about the driver?”

“Gave her an eighty-five dollar ticket for speeding,” Bogie said, “but her dog was really cute.” He glanced around behind Mac into the bathroom where the plunger was resting next to the toilet. “You got a clog?” After Mac nodded his head that he did, the deputy chief said, “I was a plumber’s apprentice back when I was in school—before getting drafted—before I became a cop. Want me to take a look at it?”

Mac stepped aside and gestured for Bogie to go to work. “Be my guest.”

Archie hung up the phone with a whoop. “We did it, Gnarly.” She grabbed his head in both hands and kissed the German shepherd on the snout.

“What did we do?” Mac asked.

“Misty can squeeze Gnarly in tomorrow.”

“You can’t take him in tomorrow,” Mac said.

“Why not?”

“What if Cruze’s men make another attempt?”

Archie stood up. “I’m not locking myself in this mansion and closing the blinds and never leaving again. If I do, then he wins. We’re not going to let them scare us out of living our lives.” She pointed at the shepherd on the bed. “I’m taking Gnarly to see Misty tomorrow, and then we’re going to lunch at the Spencer Inn.”

“And what if Cruze’s people make another attempt like they did today?” Mac asked.

She reached around behind her back and took out a blue Ruger thirty-eight caliber pistol. “I have a baby blue Ruger semi-automatic with their names on each bullet.”

Admiring the small pistol, Mac folded his arms across his chest and chuckled. “How many guns do you have?”

“Only six.” She returned the gun to where she had it tucked into her rear waistband. “Most of them are gifts. The pink one that Bogie took into evidence this morning was from your mother. I hope I get it back. I have a lot of sentimental attachment to it. This blue one is from your father. I also have a pearl-handled handgun that David picked up for me at an antique gun show for my birthday.”

“I don’t believe it,” Mac said, “a girl who prefers guns to diamonds.”

“Cruze taught me something when he killed those other witnesses and the marshals guarding them,” she told him. “I can’t depend on other people to protect me. I need to take care of, and protect, myself. I never even held a gun before I went into the program, but I learned how to handle one, and I’m proud to say I’ve become a very good sharp shooter.”

Mac was digesting the introduction to a side of Archie that he had never known existed when she turned around to where the German shepherd was sitting on the bed. “Come on, Gnarly. We’re going for a walk.”

It wasn’t until she had left the room before Bogie came out of the bathroom to ask, “Did she say she was going for a walk?”

“I guess we’re all going for a walk.” Mac and Bogie ran after her.

Chapter Four

The US Marshal’s field office in Cumberland was small and non-descript. Located on the second floor of a professional building, it consisted of only a few offices in which field agents would come in to get their assignments before leaving to work out in the field. The only ones who kept office hours were Wilson Terrance, the chief of the field office; and his administrative assistant.

When Randi led David off the elevator and down the hallway to the office, he noticed that the reception area and the administrative assistant’s desk were empty. Randi waited a moment and looked around before calling out to ask if anyone was in.

“Back here,” Wilson called out from his corner office. “Ginger had to go run a quick errand.” He stepped into the doorway and waved them in.

As they stepped into the chief’s small office, David was struck by how he and Randi, a tall woman, towered over her boss. He thought Randi was joking when she had commented that Wilson Terrance knew J. Edgar Hoover. She wasn’t. Her boss had a picture of the two of them hanging up on the wall next to his display of certificates and awards. The elderly man’s small build, stooped posture, and slow demeanor reminded David of Yoda from the Star Wars films. The young police chief wondered why the ancient federal agent hadn’t retired ages ago.

Wilson may have been old and small, but he made up for it in spunk. “So, you’re the police chief who let a couple of mob assassins steal his police cruiser?” He chuckled.

“I didn’t let anyone steal anything,” David said. “Maybe they wouldn’t have been stolen if one of your people didn’t leak where you’ve stashed your witness in my jurisdiction.”

“Now don’t go jumping to conclusions—”

“Why didn’t you notify us that Cruze was out of jail?”

“The minute Ms. Douglas showed up at the police station after witnessing him committing murder, she was a woman with a target on her back,” Wilson said. “Douglas was on his hit list the whole time he was in prison.”

“Douglas?” David glanced over at Randi.

“Before she went into the program,” she explained, “Archie Monday’s name was Kendra Douglas. We had to change her complete identity. New name, social security number, and a new background. She went even further to conceal her identity by getting cosmetic surgery to change her appearance. We weren’t crazy about her accepting a position working for such a public figure as Robin Spencer; but, considering the additional lengths she went to, we thought she would be safe.”

“Archie is the only person I know who doesn’t have a Facebook page,” David said. “But in spite of all that, Cruze found her, which tells me that someone leaked her new identity to his people. If Archie and my people had known Cruze was out—”

“I guarantee it wouldn’t have made any difference,” Wilson said, “I didn’t know about it until I checked into his status after Finnegan here called me about the attempted hit.”

“I disagree,” David said. “Being forewarned is the difference between being on alert and getting ambushed like Archie was this morning.  She was damn lucky. It could have turned out a whole lot worse.”

“It’s crucial to Cruze that he make an example of Archie,” Randi Finnegan said. “Now that he’s out and he’s aiming to regain his position as top dog, it doesn’t look good to his people for the little girl who put him behind bars to be running around free. It’s a matter of saving face. So he had to step up the game. That meant he had to put extra effort into locating her.”

“By getting to people on the inside who would tell him where to find her,” David said. “Who had access to that information?”

“Only me, Finnegan, and my assistant,” Wilson said, “had access to Douglas’s new identity and location.”

“Where did the news of Cruze’s release stop?” David asked.

“What?” Wilson asked.

“Who knew about it and didn’t pass it on?” David looked over at Randi, who had turned to glance down the hallway.

“When did Ginger leave?” she asked Wilson.

“A couple of hours ago.” He sat up in his chair. “Right after I told her to call Washington to find out why they never notified us about Cruze’s release.”

David pointed toward the empty desk in the reception area. “If your office works like mine, everything coming in goes through one person—the administrative assistant. If she held onto that information and never passed it on to you, would you be any the wiser?”

Wilson’s wrinkled lips set into a tight line.

“Ginger had access to Archie’s whereabouts.” Randi turned to Wilson. “Do you have Ginger’s cell phone number?”

The old man was already leafing through his address book.

David went out to the reception desk. “Do you have the password to get onto her computer? Maybe we can find to whom she gave Archie’s information.”

Wilson called after him, “Ginger wouldn’t be so stupid as to send it in an e-mail that could be traced by security.” He slammed down the phone. “She’s not answering her cell phone.”

“Did she say where she was going when she left?” Randi asked.

“No.” Wilson shook her head. “She told me that she had to run a quick errand. She does that…fairly regularly. Now I’m wondering what type of errand.”

“If she left after you told her to find out about Cruze getting out, then she had to know the jig is up,” David said.

“She’s running,” Randi said.

“Let’s go check her house,” David said.

Wilson handed them a slip of paper. “Here’s her home address. Call me when you find her.”

“How long have you known this Ginger?” David asked on their way to Ginger Altman’s home, a split-level in an older subdivision outside of Cumberland, Maryland.

“Long enough to know that I never did like her,” Randi said. “Big blonde hair and boobs and high heels. She played Wilson from the first time she sashayed into the office. She hated me because I could see her for what she was.”

“A traitor?”

“A player,” Randi said. “If she’s the leak, it isn’t because of any loyalty to anyone but herself. I’d bet money on it.” Holding out her hand, she rubbed her fingers together. “She did it for cold, hard cash.”

When they pulled into the driveway of the suburban home, David noticed the expensive red convertible in the driveway.  “’You had her nailed. Does her salary pay enough to buy a forty thousand dollar sports car?”

“Nope.”

He also noticed the black van parked on the street in front of the house. “Who does the black van belong to?”

“Maybe her friends.”

Keeping their hands on their guns, they got out of the car and crossed onto the walkway leading to the front door.

David saw the muzzle of the gun poke through the curtains of the front window. “Gun!” He tackled Randi Finnegan to the ground.

The shots took out the front window. Keeping low, David picked up Randi with one arm while firing his gun. They scrambled across the lawn and dove behind a thick oak tree.

“Ginger’s friends don’t want us joining their party,” he told her.

“Never did like that bitch.” Randi checked for the bullet in the chamber of her gun. “Now I know why.”

“If that van belongs to whoever is shooting at us, we’re between them and their way out.”

“And we’re blocking in her car,” she said, “So why are we the ones pinned down behind a tree?”

David peered around the tree to the house. Through the bullet-shredded curtains, he could make out the muzzle of the gun and the top of the shooter’s head.

“How many are there?” she asked.

“I can only see one.” He judged the distance from the tree to the cover around the corner of the house. It was a good twenty feet. “I’ll draw his fire. When he gets up to shoot at me, you take him out.”

“Why do you get to draw his fire?” Randi asked.

“Because I’m wearing a bullet proof vest under my shirt and you aren’t.”

“How do you—” Remembering him grabbing her when he tackled her, she stopped.  “You draw his fire.”

David drew in a deep breath. “Count of three.”

“Who’s counting?”

“I’m counting.”

“Why do you get to count?”

“Are you serious?” David asked. “We’re pinned down by a maniac wanting to kill us, and you’re going to argue with me about who gets to count to three? If it’s that important to you, you count.”

“Well,” she said, “if you’re going to be that way, you count.”

“No, you count.”

“I can be just as big of a man as you are.”

David’s chuckle held a naughty tone. “I don’t think so.”

A shot from inside the window broke off a branch of the tree, and it landed next to them.

“Let’s both count,” he said.

“Good idea.”

“To three.”

They counted in unison. On three, David ran for the corner of the house. As he had predicted, the shooter had to rise up to fire at the running officer. From behind the tree, Randi fired off five shots toward the broken-out window. David dove for the corner of the house.

The shooting stopped.

The gun dropped out of the window when the shooter collapsed.

Silence fell over the house.

Randi and David practically tiptoed up to the front door. Inside, they found the living room riddled with bullet holes. Both of them put on evidence gloves while observing the gun man sprawled across the back of the sofa where he had been perched. His brains and blood soaked the top of the sofa and spilled down the front onto the seat cushions.

“I’m assuming this isn’t Ginger,” David said.

Shaking her head, Randi searched the bottom floors, dining room, and kitchen and looked out to the back porch, which extended out to a small backyard.

When she went upstairs, David followed. The top floor contained three bedrooms and a bathroom. The master bedroom door was open. Two suitcases rested on the floor in front of a walk-in closet. Both lay open with clothes waiting to be folded.

Her clothing ripped open, the missing administrative assistant was stretched sideways across the bed. After the assailant had his fun, he finished the job by gutting her. Her blood was splattered all over the walls and ceiling. It soaked through the mattress and bedding.

“This is what I was talking about when I said you don’t know what Cruze’s people are capable of,”’ Randi said.

David squatted down next to the suitcases. “She was running.”

“These people don’t believe in leaving loose ends.”

Seeing a cell phone on the bed stand, David said, “They wouldn’t have known she was a loose end unless someone told them. Like her. If she was stupid enough to be a leak, then she must have been stupid enough to call them for help when she had to go on the lam.”

Randi picked up the phone and hit the button to bring up the call log. She took out her phone, turned on the speaker, and dialed the last called number. The phone rang two times before a male voice answered, “Alan Richardson here.”

Randi hit the button to disconnect. Her dark eyes narrowed to slits.

“Who’s Alan Richardson?” David asked.

“Tommy Cruze’s lawyer.”