Deadly Desperados (18 page)

“So this isn’t the first time he’s done something like this?” Ally prodded.

“Oh, no,” Nadine replied. “It won’t be his last either. Quite frankly, I’m over it. I don’t care what he does or with whom. As long as he doesn’t knock anyone up, he can do whatever he wants.”

“What happens if he gets someone pregnant?”

“Then he loses everything,” Nadine said, lifting her glass so one of the spa technicians could see she was empty. “I almost wish he would screw up and do it one day. It would make my life so much easier.”

“How so?”

“Then I could drink in peace while he’s homeless,” Nadine replied, quickly losing interest in the conversation. “I need another glass of wine!”

Mandy and Ally were done. They had no more questions and Nadine was fresh out of answers. Instead of leaving, though, they stayed with her a little bit longer. Once they realized Nadine was too drunk to even register their presence, they left her to pass out in her chair alone.

It was a sad life, but Nadine didn’t seem inclined to try for anything different. There was nothing they could do to help her.

“It was depressing,” Mandy said, drying her hair with a towel and staring at James from the bathroom doorway. “I’ve never seen anyone so resigned to being unhappy.”

“Life wears people down sometimes, baby,” James replied, his eyes trained on is laptop.

After dinner with Ben and Mary, the three couples split apart for the night. The light was already out in Ally and Jake’s cabin, and James had no doubt what they were doing. He hoped to be doing it himself in a few minutes. He just needed to see what Steven came up with first.

“I don’t want life to ever wear me down that way.”

James forced his eyes from the email he was trying to read. “Are you worried about that?”

“Nadine said that Mark wined and dined her and made her believe he loved her,” Mandy replied. “She thinks he started cheating on her while they were on their honeymoon, though. I just … I can’t imagine thinking so little of myself that misery would be considered acceptable company.”

James patted his lap. “Come here, wife.”

Mandy shuffled across the room and settled on his lap, sighing as he pulled her close and kissed her forehead. “I’m not trying to get you to buck me up,” she said. “I’m just … it was so sad.”

“Baby, you’re not Nadine,” James said, choosing his words carefully. “Your husband loves you. Heck, your husband adores you and can’t live without you. That’s never going to change. You know that, right?”

“I do.”

“What has happened to Nadine is sad,” James said. “It’s not your burden to bear, though.”

“I know you’re right,” Mandy said, kissing his chin. “I just need to shake myself out of this. What are you reading?”

“Steven replied to my email,” James said, turning back to his laptop but not releasing Mandy from his lap. “He says the government does have a plan for this property, although they have two alternate locations in the state if it comes to it.”

“What’s the plan?”

“They want to build an oil refinery.”

Mandy furrowed her brow. “Like for making gas?”

“Yeah,” James said. “Despite how much gas we use in this country, there is actually a shortage of refineries. That’s why, when there’s a problem at one of the refineries, gas prices go up. This would be an attempt to ease some of that burden.”

“How much would the contract be worth?”

“Upwards of two hundred million. Not quite the billion that Fern was going on about, but it’s still a nice chunk of change.”

“Wow,” Mandy breathed, her eyes widening. “I guess someone would think that’s enough money to kill for.”

“Sadly, I think that’s the case here,” James said, snapping the lid down on his laptop and turning his full attention to his wife. “I guess we’ll find out tomorrow.”

“Are you guys going over to Nixon’s place after breakfast?”

“Yeah. If all goes as planned, we might be able to put this one to bed tomorrow. We’ll see, though. Just because we confront Nixon with what we know, that doesn’t mean he’ll roll over and admit he’s a murderer.”

“You know that no matter what I’m going to have to go home the day after tomorrow, right?” Mandy said, bringing up the elephant in the room that no one wanted to talk about. “I have to return to work Monday.”

“I know,” James said, rubbing his cheek against Mandy’s collarbone. “I’ll be going with you.”

“What if this case isn’t solved by then?”

“Then Jake and Ally will have to handle it on their own.”

“But … you said you would help,” Mandy pressed. “You wouldn’t feel right leaving Jake here to finish up without you. I know you too well for that.”

“I wouldn’t feel right about sending you home without me either,” James argued. “I promised you we wouldn’t be apart again after my California trip if I could help it. I can help this. You’re not going home alone.”

“You know what?” Mandy asked, shifting on James’ lap so she could straddle him. “I don’t think I ever have to worry about you losing interest in me.”

“You’ve finally seen the light, huh?” James cupped Mandy’s butt and gave it a suggestive squeeze.

“I have,” Mandy said. “You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“No, baby. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“I don’t suppose you’d be willing to show me, would you?” Mandy asked, her eyes sparkling.

“What? I thought we would get to fight and
then
make up. Where’s the fight?”

“I’d rather just make up.”

“Sold,” James said, snapping Mandy’s body flush against his chest. “Get ready for me to show you exactly how much I love you. It’s going to be a long night, baby. You’d better prepare yourself.”

“I’ll race you to the bed.”

“WHAT
are you doing here?” Mark Nixon seemed surprised to see Jake and James on his doorstep the following morning. He was partially dressed, his trousers and white shirt on, but he didn’t appear to be going anywhere.

“We have some things we want to discuss with you,” James said.

“Is this about the farm?”

“It is.”

Mark pushed the motel room door open and ushered the two men inside. “Please excuse the horrible room, but this is the only motel in town.”

“It’s not so bad,” James said, sitting in one of the chairs next to the table by the window. Jake took the other, leaving Mark in the unorthodox position of having to sit on his bed to carry on the discussion. James wasted no time and immediately got to the point. “We know who you are.”

Mark stilled, surprised. “What?”

“We know you’re Mark Foley,” James said. “We ran a background check on you.”

Before approaching Nixon, James and Jake had a long talk about how they were going to handle the interrogation. They both agreed to let James do most of the talking. Since he was the owner of Hardy Brothers Security it seemed far more likely that Mark would see him as an equal.

“You ran a background check on me?” Mark was flabbergasted. “May I ask what right you had to do that?”

“We don’t need permission to run a background check,” James explained. “We do it all the time.”

“You’re not construction workers, are you?”

“I own a security company in the Detroit area,” James replied. “We didn’t want you to know that because we didn’t want to put you on the defensive.” He was putting all of his cards on the table, and it felt good. “We wanted an opportunity to watch you when you were uncomfortable, but we didn’t want you to spend all of your time watching us.”

“Are you even Ben’s nephew?” Mark turned on Jake. “I have to hand it to the old man, he was smart to play up the family angle. I never thought to question it.”

“I am Ben’s nephew,” Jake replied. “I just happen to work for a security company, too.”

Mark rolled his eyes. “And the women? Are they paid actresses?”

“No,” James replied. “They’re my wife and my sister. We didn’t lie about our relationships, just what we do for a living.”

“Is that supposed to make this better?”

“I don’t really care if it makes things better,” James said. “I care about the truth.”

“I think you should leave,” Mark announced, getting up from the bed. “I want you out of my room right now!”

“Sit down,” James ordered.

Mark was taken aback. “Excuse me? Are you really telling me what to do in my motel room?”

“I’m telling you to sit down because we’re nowhere near being done with this conversation,” James replied, his tone firm.

Mark reluctantly did as instructed. “I don’t have to put up with this,” he muttered.

James ignored the mini-tantrum. “I’m going to tell you what we know and then we’re going to talk about what I think I know. Do you understand?”

Mark didn’t answer.

“I know that your name used to be Mark Foley and you grew up on a Nebraska farm,” James said. “You never had much love for farm life and you walked away when you were eighteen and never looked back.

“You spent the next few years doing odd sales jobs and then, when you were forty, you met and married Nadine,” he continued. “She was a socialite with a lot of money and you somehow snowed her into marrying you. Once you had money to back up your aspirations you started dabbling in real estate.

“You made a name for yourself on an apartment complex in New York and you were pretty good at what you did,” James said. “You decided to branch out and try to steal land before the government moved in so you could make huge buckets of money. That backfired and a man ended up dead.”

“Now you wait just a second,” Mark started.

James shook his head. “I’m not done so shut up,” he snapped. “You changed your name and went underground for a year and then reemerged as Mark Nixon. You spent a few years putting your new name on the map and then you came here and decided to try the government contract game again.”

“How can you possibly know that?”

“Because I’m a man who knows people, too,” James replied. “I know about the refinery. I also know how much money you think you’re going to get from the deal. I’m here to tell you that it’s not going to happen.”

“You don’t know that,” Mark said. “I can offer Ben Harrison a lot of money. A man his age might opt to take it and retire rather than toiling at a thankless job.”

“He won’t,” Jake interjected. “He loves that farm and he likes the work.”

“We’re here to make sure that Ben doesn’t have an accident,” James said. “He’s not going to end up like Dawkins and Garvey. We’re here to put you on notice.”

“I don’t think I like what you’re suggesting,” Mark spat. “I am a businessman. I am not a murderer.”

“I think it’s a little coincidental that two men you were trying to do business with – two men who didn’t want to sell – both ended up dead in the exact same fashion,” James challenged. “I’m not ready to talk about that yet, though. There are a few other things we need to discuss first.”

“Oh, yeah? Like what?”

“We know about Jessica,” Jake said. “We know you met her in Vegas and the two of you hatched a plan to head off some of the problems you thought you might face when you got to town.”

“What?” Mark’s face drained of color.

“We know you sent Jessica ahead to seduce Charlie,” James said. It was a bluff, but since they knew everything else about Mark, he was hoping the man would fall for it. “Her car conveniently broke down in the middle of a heat wave. Charlie helped her and it was love at first sight.

“When you came to town you pretended not to know her,” he continued. “Jessica got Charlie to propose, but she didn’t have access to the land. Not yet, at least, so killing him when you did doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

“I did not kill him!”

James ignored the outburst. “We checked and Jessica gets nothing in Charlie’s will,” he said. “He had an appointment to change his will two days after he was killed. You missed out there. That didn’t stop Jessica and you from meeting at the diner the other night and putting on a show for everyone in town.”

Mark swallowed hard. “I … she was in mourning. I was trying to comfort her.”

“Don’t bother,” James said. “Your wandering eye is already notorious around town and we saw it first hand when you were hanging around our women. By the way, you’re lucky you kept your hands to yourself because if you’d have touched either one of them you’d be dead.”

“We would’ve tossed your body in the field where Charlie died,” Jake added.

“Your wife is well aware of your extracurricular activities, too,” James said. “She’s been telling everyone at the bar all about your proclivities every night. I’m guessing she has time on her hands because you’ve been entertaining Jessica.

“We also know that if you happen to get any of your conquests knocked up that you get absolutely no money in a divorce,” he continued. “Nadine was happy to talk about that with Mandy and Ally at the spa yesterday.”

“Nadine never knew when to shut her hole,” Mark grumbled.

“See, what we can’t understand is why Nadine would put up with you given everything we know about you,” Jake said. “You’re an asshat who cheats on his wife and makes her miserable. She controls the money, though. How did you force her to hang around given all that you’ve done?”

“You guys think you’re so smart, don’t you?”

“We have our moments,” James replied, unruffled. “What I want to know is how you thought you were going to get away with this a second time. I mean, once you got a free pass for killing Garvey, how could you possibly be stupid enough to kill Dawkins?”

“How many times do I have to tell you guys that I haven’t killed anyone?” Mark asked, hopping to his feet and pacing. “I have to hand it to you guys, though. You did your homework – on most of it at least.” He turned to face Jake and James. “You’ve got me. Everything you said about the land deals and my sexual … desires … is true. None of that is illegal, though. I am not a killer.”

“You can’t honestly expect us to believe that Garvey and Dawkins were both murdered by someone else when you were in the same town,” Jake scoffed. “No one is going to believe that.”