Open Season for Murder (A Mac Faraday Mystery Book 10) (8 page)

Chapter Eight

Death and decomposition can render a once lovely young woman unrecognizable—which is why dental and DNA records were needed to confirm that the body found wrapped in a blue tarp in a shallow grave was indeed Ashton Piedmont.

The day after Gnarly had found the missing young woman’s skeletal remains, Mac met David at the morgue. Mentally, he prepared himself for the medical examiner’s report by pushing the thought from his mind of how Ashton, at the time of her disappearance, had been the same age that his own daughter now was.

“Both dental records and DNA confirm it,” Dr. Dora Washington told Mac and David when they stepped through the door into her lab. “It’s Ashton Piedmont. Such a pity.” Swinging around in her chair at her desk, the graceful, statuesque woman rose to cross to the drawers where Ashton’s remains were being stored and refrigerated. “I knew her grandfather. Brilliant man. I wrote a letter of recommendation for her to medical school—not that she needed it. Her grandfather was head of the medical school in Maryland until he died. Then she disappeared the summer before she was to start.” With a shake of her head she yanked open the drawer and pulled back the sheet to reveal the human skeleton.

“Any chance on determining cause of death?” Mac asked.

Doc picked up the skull to show them several breaks along the side of what would have been her head. “These weren’t done after she had been buried,” she said. “Someone bashed her head in.” She held up the skull to illustrate the blows. “Above the ear, toward the front. If the killer was in front of her, that would make him or her left handed.”

“That narrows it down a little,” David said. “Can you tell what was used to do that much damage?”

Narrowing her eyes, Doc peered at the cracks across the side of the skull. “The pattern is rough and we found dirt embedded in the breaks.” She pressed her finger tips along the bone. “The tarp actually protected the body from the dirt and roots where it was buried. In my professional opinion, the murder weapon was a rock.”

“That would mean a lot of force was used.” Mac took the skull from her to study the breaks in the bone.

“No less than three blows,” Doc said.

“A lot of rage,” Mac said.

“Did you find anything else?” David asked her.

“Am I correct that the body was too badly decomposed to determine any sexual activity?” Mac asked.

“You’re correct there,” she replied to Mac. “But we are not exactly dead in the water.” She lifted the skeletal arm to show them what had once been Ashton Piedmont’s hand. “We have fingernails. Do you know how long it takes fingernails to decompose?”

David guessed. “A long time?”

Doc Washington flashed a smile from one of them to the other. “Thousands of years. Like I said, that tarp actually worked to preserve evidence. While her body did decompose, which degraded evidence—like semen if she had been sexually assaulted, if she managed to scratch her attacker, we may have his or her skin and DNA under her fingernails.”

“How long will it take to get a DNA profile back if there is any?” David asked her.

“At least a week,” she replied. “That’s if it hasn’t been degraded over the last five years.”

“If,”
Mac repeated.

“If,”
David said with a sigh.

Spencer Inn

“Flowers?” In spite of her obviously intoxicated state, Lindsey York was coordinated enough to toss her reddish blonde hair over her bare shoulder while throwing the bouquet of flowers Mac had brought for her over onto the table. “They’re pretty while they last, but they always end up dead in the end.” She sashayed across the suite she had rented at the Inn and plopped down in the chaise out on the patio.

Mac followed her. “I just thought I’d bring you a welcome gift from the Spencer Inn. What do you like?”

“Something that isn’t going to die. A nice bottle of wine is always nice.”

“That just ends up getting peed out in a couple hours,” Mac quipped.

She removed the cigarette she was in the process of lighting out of her mouth to let out a laugh. “Touché!” She eyed him. “I like you, Mr. Forsythe. You’re not a tight ass like your old lady.”

“It’s Faraday,” Mac replied.

“Whatever,” she scoffed with a shrug.

With a slight shake of his head, Mac chose to ignore the insult. He had encountered more than his share of women like Lindsey York back in his day when he had been a detective. They believed their wealth and beauty gave them a license to get away with anything—from rudeness to murder. The rules applied to everyone except them. Sometimes, they went so far as to believe they were permitted to make up the rules to suit themselves as they went along.

One rule they never seemed to learn was that you pay for a life of total indulgence. They never seemed to notice that they paid with the very thing that they thought had given them the license of privilege—their beauty. In some cases—if life was kind—it would fade with the passage of time. It would creep up with lines on their face or a thickening in the waistline.

In other cases, which it seemed to be with Lindsey, it looked as if it had appeared overnight—in the form of bags and dark circles under her eyes, which she fought to keep focused during their conversation. There was none of that youthful glow on her face. In contrast, her face was as colorless as an old hag.

Lindsey had greeted Mac in a black swim suit with gold trim that did little to conceal her body from him. Mac was sure that, in her mind, she visualized her figure as sensuously slender. In reality, he could see that the drugs she indulged in had eaten away at her body to leave her with nothing more than skin and bones on her frame.

Reminding himself that David had commented on Carlisle Green making Lindsay look like a nun, Mac marveled at the transformation that the change in the young woman’s lifestyle had done. He imagined what such a change would do to Lindsay, who was not unattractive.

“Call me curious,” Mac drawled while sitting in the chair across from her chaise. “If you didn’t like my mother, why are you coming to the Diablo Ball?”

“Money,” she snorted before covering her red and puffy eyes with a pair of big sunglasses. She laid her head back to catch a ray of sun. “I never turn down the chance to make money.”

“How?” Considering that guests were expected to make large donations to the Humane Society for attending the ball, Mac found it impossible to connect the dots for her to make money by flying to Spencer to attend the formal affair.

“Rock Sinclair, the producer, persuaded me to accept the invitation.” She grinned with pride. “He’s paying me a lot of money to let them interview me for Jasmine’s in-depth investigative report.”

“You are aware that they’re looking for a killer?”

Lindsay lifted her sunglasses from her bloodshot eyes. “It’s all publicity. Everyone knows Ashton drowned. No one will watch the show if they say that. So they’re selling it as an unsolved murder.”

Mac slowly shook his head. “We found Ashton’s body. She didn’t drown. Someone killed her.”

“How was she killed then?”

“I can’t say,” he replied with a shake of his head. “Her body was found far away from the water. Someone killed her and buried her to make everyone think she was at the bottom of the lake. Now, who do you think would want to do that to Ashton Piedmont?”

Lindsay replied by laughing loudly. A note of insanity crept into her cackle. “It wasn’t me.”

“If not you—”

“I barely knew the bitch,” she interjected. “Stick up her butt thinking she was too good for me because her family was doctors and her parents died putting band-aids on skinny runts from third-world countries—” She sprang upright. “I bet she died a virgin. Can they find that out in an autopsy?”

Mac ignored the question. “If you knew her well enough to know you didn’t like her, then maybe you knew her well enough to want to kill her. When was the last time you saw her alive?”

A sly grin crossed her face. She looked like the big bad cat who just ate her master’s favorite canary. “When she walked in on me hooking up with her boyfriend.”

“A.J. Wagner?”

Lindsey smiled broadly.

“What was Ashton’s reaction to that?”

Slipping her fingers underneath the top of her suit, she eased it down to expose her breast. “What would your old lady do if she walked in on you doing the horizontal boogie woogy with me?”

Staying on topic, Mac adverted his eyes and asked, “When did this alleged connection happen?”

“The afternoon before Ashton disappeared,” she said. “We got together at his folks’ summer place. It used to be next to my daddy’s place. He sold it after Ashton disappeared. Corey Haim was there, too.” She giggled. “We had a threesome. It was a blast … until Ashton showed up and threw a hissy fit.” With a shake of her head, she added, “I wouldn’t bother asking them to confirm it. They’ll deny it ever happened.”

With a smug grin, Mac asked, “Why aren’t you staying at your daddy’s summer place now?” He already knew the truth to the answer, but was curious about her response.

Her eyes clouded over. She dropped the sun glasses down to cover her eyes. “He’s a bigger tight-ass than your mother ever was.”

Seeing her lounging on the chaise, smoking her cigarette, with her puffy eyes hidden behind a pair of dark sunglasses, he could see her life was quite a tragedy. She had looks and money and all the resources necessary for a good education. But somehow, she had ended up being a pathetic figure. Maybe because she had too much of all that.

He reminded himself about the Diablo Ball and the mysterious invitations that seemed to have gone out. “About your invitation to the Diablo Ball—”

“What about it?”

“When did you get it?”

She shrugged. “I don’t remember. I was going to toss it out, but Rock called and asked if I had gotten one. Then he said he and Jasmine was going and if I was going, too, then it would be great to revolve the investigation of Ashton’s disappearance around the ball.”

“Do you have the invitation with you?”

“I don’t know.” She made no move to look for it.

“Are you friends with Jasmine Simpson now?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You threw a table at her at the Diablo Ball,” Mac reminded her. “That’s why you got banned.”

“Obviously not since I got an invitation.”

“So you are friends now.”

She lifted her glasses. “I have no friends.”

“That’s pretty sad,” Mac said.

“Who needs friends?”

“Everyone.”

“I have money to buy my toys.” She dropped the glasses back onto her face. “Live fast. Die young and leave a good-looking corpse. I don’t need friends for any of that.”

“Did you know the other guests at the table you turned over before the ball?”

“We all knew each other from summers here at the lake.” Annoyed by his questions, Lindsey sat up and whipped off her sunglasses. “Anything else?”

“Yes.”

“What?”

Mac looked at her. “What started the fight? What was it about?”

“That I do remember,” she replied in an even tone.

“Tell me.”

“Someone threatened me and no one threatens me.”

“How?”

“They left a note on my plate. It was all fancy in an envelope. I opened it. It said that they knew my secret and I wasn’t going to get away with it because they had proof that I was a fraud.” She glared at him. “No one calls me a fraud.”

“Have you ever found out who sent it?”

“No. No one had the guts to own up to it.” She scoffed. “Wouldn’t if they know what’s good for them. Me? Secrets? I don’t have any secrets. I learned a long time ago, don’t keep secrets. When you have secrets, people try to use them against you. That’s why my life is an open book. Ask anyone. What you see is what you get.”

Mac sighed. “I can see that.”

Chapter Nine

With the sun beaming on Deep Creek Lake, Mac was speeding around the lakeshore with the top down on his Dodge Viper when he heard the mechanical British voice in his Bluetooth announce that David was calling him.

“Accept call,” Mac instructed the device in his ear. “Hey, David, what’s up?” he asked when the police chief came on the line.

“Did you get your fill of Lindsey York?”

“She’s a piece of work.”

“Told you,” David said. “Hey, I thought you might like to know, we got a call from the security company protecting the Piedmont place. Their system reported a break-in. Specifically, someone entered the place using an old security access code. I’ve sent Fletcher and Brewster over to check it out. Considering that Ashton’s body was just found—”

“I’m on my way.” After ensuring no one was behind him, Mac made an illegal U-turn to head to the other end of the lake.

Two Spencer cruisers were already in the long driveway outside the Piedmont mansion when Mac pulled in to park on the grass behind them. Seated in his cruiser, Officer Brewster was reporting into the station on his radio. When he had finished, he told Mac from over his shoulder. “Whoever it is took off out of the rear basement door as soon as we pulled in. He went down the path into the woods.”

“Did you get a look at him?” Mac asked.

“Moving too fast,” Brewster said with a shake of his head that shook the tight salt and pepper curls on his head. “Couldn’t even say if it was a man or woman.” He nodded toward Officer Fletcher who came around from the corner of the house to confirm his report. “Whoever it was, they had to have a key.”

“No sign that they forced their way in.” Officer Fletcher flashed a wicked grin. “Maybe it was the ghost of Ashton Piedmont. Gnarly raised her spirit by finding her body and she decided to go home to make a sandwich.”

They turned around to note David pulling into the driveway in his cruiser.

“She would be hungry after five years,” Brewster said in agreement.

David heard their chuckling when he stepped up to them. “What have we got?”

“The ghost of Ashton Piedmont using an old pass code to go inside to make a sandwich,” Mac summarized before adding, “Guy or girl got away out the back while they went in the front.”

“Was anything taken from inside?” David asked.

Fletcher reported, “Nothing looks like it was disturbed—probably just some curious kids.”

“Curious kids would not have access to an old security pass code.” After instructing his officers to search the grounds for the culprit, David gestured with a wave of his hand and a toss of his head for Mac to check the inside of the vacant home with him.

When he saw the dimly lit and dusty interior of the empty home, its furniture covered with once white, now gray sheets, Mac said, “It feels to me like they were looking for something.”

“Something that is or not connected to Ashton Piedmont’s murder,” David asked.

“Carlisle Green said Ashton and A.J. were pretty secretive shortly before Ashton disappeared,” Mac said while randomly lifting up sheets to peer at the furniture underneath. “The note Lindsey intercepted at the Diablo Ball claimed to know a secret.”

“Are you thinking Ashton Piedmont’s murder is about a secret?” David asked while opening a closet door to find no sign that anything inside had been disturbed.

“Considering that someone broke in here,” Mac said, “I think it’s a good possibility that after all these years, someone is still looking for whatever it was that got Ashton killed.”

“But we don’t know if Ashton was keeping a secret or had uncovered someone else’s,” David said.

Mac laughed, “Must everything be handed to you?”

After searching the main floor of the mansion and finding no sign of a disturbance, Mac took the stairs down to the lower level while David went upstairs to the bedrooms.

The ground floor contained a spacious game room with all the toys that a wealthy man and his family could want. A pool table took center stage. A bar ran along one side of the room. Everything was covered with a layer of undisturbed dust. Mac checked the patio through the sliding glass doors. The doors were locked from the inside. A huge hot tub rested in the corner of the patio. The cover was caked with a layer of encrusted dirt. Through the window, Mac could see that the spa was unplugged. The cord was slung across one corner of the tub with the plug hanging limp.

Nope, no skinny dippers here.

Mac made his way down a dark and musty hallway to what he guessed to be Dr. Piedmont’s home office, which resembled a laboratory more than a wealthy man’s study. One wall of the room had built in bookcases filled with thick books and notebooks. One side of the room consisted of a long counter with a built-in sink, portable burners, and microscopes of various types and sizes, including a computerized model. The door leading to the side yard and the path around to the other side of the cove was on the opposite end of the room.

Many of the doors to the bottom cabinets of the counter were open to reveal boxes of computer floppy discs scattered on the floor. Mac knelt down to read the labels on the disks. The shaky handwriting was in pen.

“Upstairs hasn’t been touched,” David called out in the hallway before entering to discover Mac examining the old boxes of disks. “What did you find?”

Mac held up one of the boxes. “Would bored kids be interested in files about liver cancer in pigs?” He restacked the disks and placed them back in the cupboard. “Whoever broke in had an access code, even if it was old. Ashton was dating A.J. Archie told me that he just got into town last night and is staying with the Breckenridges—right here on Millionaire’s Cove. My vote is to stop in to see him next.”

“Are you thinking he used that old code to drop in for old time’s sake?”

“Even if he didn’t, he knew both Ashton and her grandfather,” Mac said. “He’d probably know what our housebreaker was looking for. They didn’t touch the spa, but it looks like he or she went through these disks. Most computers nowadays don’t even have drives that can read these types of disks.”

“Didn’t Carlisle tell us yesterday that Rachel Breckenridge’s mother was Dr. Piedmont’s protégé?” David asked while lifting the lid off a large plastic box that resembled an odd looking aquarium. Instead of water or dirt for a terrarium, it contained tiny plastic beads.

“Which means she could have had the old pass code and or possibly know what someone was looking for in here.” Mac rose to his feet.

“What’s this?” David peered down inside the aquarium.

“I have no idea.” Mac noticed an electrical cord hanging out of the back of it. “Whatever it is, it looks expensive. So don’t touch it.”

“If it’s expensive, then why is it here?”

“Because your police department is good at what you do.” Mac urged him toward the door. “Let’s go play bad cop good cop with A.J. Wagner.”

“Dibs on being the bad cop.”

“Are you kidding?” Mac said, “I’m the natural bad cop. Look at you.”

David looked down at his gold badge. “This badge can be pretty intimidating.”

“A.J. Wagner is only a few years younger than you,” Mac said. “You’ll be like his big brother.” He grinned, “Whereas I can come across like the big bad old man.”

“Seriously?” David said, “Lately, you’ve been as intimidating as a fat and comfortable house cat.”