Shades of Murder (The Mac Faraday Mysteries) (16 page)

“Basically,
our
satellites would become
their
satellites,” David said.

“Exactly,” Harry said.

“Is it possible that without her twin, Ilysa was never able to accomplish her mission?” Mac asked.

David recalled, “Neal Hathaway told us that Ilysa told him that this was her last painting, and then she was getting out of the business. She was turning this painting over to Gruskonov to sell and then she was retiring. Translation: This was her last big score.”

Mac said, “Gruskonov died before he made the pick-up.”

Bogie said, “But someone picked up that painting.”

Harry said, “Yet, the deal never went down.”

Archie said, “We can’t forget that Ilysa Ramsay was a famous painter, even if she was a thief. The painting could have been stolen because of its artistic value.”

“The codes are probably still with the painting,” Harry said. “Where is it?”

Mac answered, “My place.”

Spencer Inn manager, Jeff Ingles burst into the room. “Mac, there’s been an explosion at your house.”

Chapter Eight

“My boat!” At the sight of his new speed boat, still tethered to the dock next to the boat house, engulfed in flames; Mac held his hands to his head and screamed.

The cause of the inferno was made evident by the white panel van resting directly on top of the boat. They resembled two matchbox toys, one stacked on top of the other. The headlights from the emergency vehicles illuminated the path the van had taken, in reverse, through the floral gardens and down to the dock, where it appeared to have been launched to land on top of the speed boat. The surviving flowers now fell victim to the two fire trucks hosing down the double-decker.

The red, orange, and yellow flames created quite a show. The odd scene had attracted an audience, both on land and the lake.

“They only delivered it five days ago.” Mac shook off David, who attempted to hold him back from the scene. “I only had her out on the water one day. She still had three-quarters of a tank of gas.”

“It’s only a boat.” Joshua grabbed him by the shoulders. “Be thankful that no one was hurt.”

Bogie emerged from the fire fighters down on the dock. “Sorry about your boat, Mac. She looks like she was quite a beaut.”

Mac didn’t like the angry stammer that crept into his tone. “Wh-what happened?”

“They think the guy was drunk or crazy or something,” Bogie said.

David observed the tire tracks through the landscape. “It looks like he drove in reverse through the gardens and across the dock to land right on top of your boat.”

Mac scoffed. “Do you think so?”

Kenny told Harry, “I ain’t never seen nothing like this. Have you?”

“Never,” Harry said. “Now I’ve seen everything.”

Bogie reported, “Witnesses said he peeled down over the hill like he was being chased by Satan.”

“Was he hurt?” Mac finally thought to ask.

“Some boaters fished him out,” the deputy chief reported. “He’s on his way to the ER now. He was babbling about being attacked by a werewolf trying to kill him.”

“Gnarly! I’m going to kill you!” When Mac turned to run up to the house he tripped over an uprooted rose bush and fell face down into a mound of fertilizer.

David helped him to his feet. “Mac, you need to calm down.”

“Don’t tell me to calm down. Your boat didn’t get blown all to hell.”

“I’m sure there’s a good explanation.”

“I’m sure there is, too. Its name is Gnarly.”

As Mac stumbled up to the house, Cameron turned to Joshua. “So this is how the rich and famous live.”

Joshua nodded his head. “Very much so.”

Mac charged up the porch steps and threw open the front door. The rug in the middle of the room was pushed up against the fireplace. Furniture was overturned, except for the loveseat that rested with its back to the door.

Mac found Archie standing guard over Gnarly’s favorite chair. “What did you do now, you—”

Archie met him halfway across the room to stop him with a hand on his chest. “Don’t you touch him.”

“My boat—my house!”

“Bullet hole in the grandfather clock.” She released her hand from his chest to point a pink-tipped finger at the clock that had stopped working the hour before due to the bullet that went through its face.

The fury dissolved. As it did, Mac’s vision cleared. The roar of his anger silenced enough for him to hear the whine from the loveseat behind her.

Gnarly peered over the back of the couch at him. His ears stood tall and erect. His eyes met Mac with a glint that he had seen many a time—usually right before he snatched a sandwich from his plate.

“He was defending our home,” Archie said.

When she turned around, Gnarly’s ears fell back and his eyes grew wide and soft while he uttered a mournful whine.

I don’t believe this! Gnarly’s playing the poor puppy card!

She slipped onto the loveseat next to the dog. “Poor, Gnarly. It must have been quite a fight going up against someone with a gun. What a dog.”

Gnarly wagged his tail so hard that Mac could hear it slap the seat cushion.

“You must have been scared, huh?” She pulled his head against her chest into a tight hug. “I don’t know what I would have done if he had shot you. You poor helpless dear.” Her eyes misted up. “I’m never leaving you home alone ever again.” She ordered, “Mac, tell him he’s not in trouble.”

“I’m not so sure that he’s not. Was all this damage necessary?”

“He was doing his job.”

When Gnarly turned his head from where he was nuzzling her neck, Mac swore he saw the dog wink at him.

“Mac, how can you be so hard-hearted? The burglar shot at Gnarly. What if he’d been hurt or killed?”

Can’t you see he’s a con-dog? He’s got you wrapped around his dew-claw and he knows it.

She gestured at a sliver of free space on the loveseat on the other side of the dog. “Mac, sit down and tell Gnarly that he’s a good dog and how glad you are that he’s okay.”

Gnarly welcomed his touch by nuzzling him in the chest when Mac slipped onto the couch. “Looks like you had quite a party this afternoon while we were gone, huh, Gnarl?”

Archie stroked the dog’s ears. “What happened? Did you chase the bad guy away?”

Gnarly pulled away, stood up on the seat, and dug at the cushions.

Mac told her, “Witnesses said the guy was whacked out. He was probably too drunk or stoned to hit the broad side of a barn.”

Gnarly dug his snout deep down between the cushion and the back of the loveseat.

“He told the rescuers that a werewolf was trying to kill him.”

Gnarly lifted his snout up from between the cushions with a semi-automatic pistol in his mouth.

“So this is what all the fuss has been about all these years?” Kenny asked when they went down to the study to examine Ilysa Ramsay’s last painting.

Bogie handed out evidence gloves to all of them. “Like we really need them now. As much as this thing has probably been handled all these years, any evidence that was on it has already been contaminated.”

Mac disagreed. “Remember it was stolen. Poole could allow only a limited number of people to see it. It isn’t like this thing has been hung up on the wall at the local gallery. If there’s evidence on it of the murder, it could still be on it.”

Cameron and Joshua gazed at the image of the woman on the lounging chair.

Joshua said, “That’s our victim. But is it Ilysa or Fiona?”

Cameron stepped up to examine the red choker. “The red choker is where she was garroted.” She turned to Joshua. “This proves it. Her twin was the Ghost.” She pressed her finger against the face and traced the neck and choker in the painting. “This is almost a duplicate of the pictures they showed on the news.”

“Even the sofa,” Joshua pointed out. “The clover pattern represents the field where the victim’s body was dumped.”

“Ilysa wasn’t predicting her death in this painting,” Mac said, “she was trying to flush out her sister’s killer by depicting her murder.”

“In our last phone conversation, the Ghost told me that she knew who did it,” Cameron said, “and that she’d take care of it.”

Bogie said, “Instead the killer took care of her.”

“The murderer must be in this painting.” Joshua stepped back to get a better view.

Everyone lined up on either side of him to study the party scene.

“The first murder victim was garroted.” Joshua asked Cameron, “Didn’t you say the Ghost asked if the murder weapon could have been a piano wire?”

When Cameron nodded her head, David pointed out that Susan Dulin and Peyton Kaplan were at the piano.

Archie told them, “There’s also a harp in the picture. That uses the same type of wire.”

“Who’s the creepy woman playing it?” Cameron asked.

“Greta,” David said. “She’s been working for the Hathaways since Neal’s son was a little boy.”

Cameron shuddered. “She looks like a female version of Lurch from
The Addams Family
.”

“The Hathaways have both a piano and a harp,” Mac said. “His executive assistant, Susan, plays the harp.”

David pointed out, “But she’s not playing it in this painting. She’s with Peyton Kaplan.”

Grumbling, Harry shook his head. “Artists. Using all this symbolism. If she really wanted her sister’s killer caught, she should have just told us who did it. But she’d gotten herself in so deep being a thief, that he’s still on the loose. Not only that, but if she did steal those access codes for Hathaway’s satellites, a lot of innocent people could very well get killed.”

Cameron asked Harry, “What exactly are we looking for? A code? A disk? A piece of paper?”

“Could be anything.”

While they circled the canvas, Archie bent over to peer at the stretch bars across which the canvas had been stretched. “We’re dealing with satellites. That tells me that we’re talking about computer data and files.”

Mac told them, “Archie is my IT girl.”

“I think we’re looking for a smart disk.” Archie held out her hand. “Mac, can you get me the letter opener from the desk?”

While Mac went to the desk, she dug her fingers down into the corner of the canvas where two bars were stapled together. After he handed the letter opener to her, she dug the point into the opening.

“Careful,” Kenny warned.

With a cry, Archie yanked her hand back and held up a smart chip encased in a plastic cover. It was only about one inch by one inch in size. “It may be small, but I’ll bet it’s filled with lots of secrets.”

Harry snatched it from her hand. “Where can we check it out?”

Archie led them over to the desk where Mac’s laptop rested.

“Very clever,” Kenny told them. “If the painting is X-rayed, a disk that small will be concealed by the staples and nails in the frame.”

Harry said, “Once the painting’s overseas, the disk is removed and handed over to the buyer.”

Archie turned the laptop around for Harry and Kenny to examine the contents of the disk. After examining the list of files on the disk, Harry jabbed Kenny in the ribs. “We got it. Now, I can retire in peace knowing that this information isn’t in the lunatics’ hands.”

Harry popped the disk out of the laptop. “Exactly what we want to protect.” He chuckled as he made a show of dropping the disk into an evidence envelope. “I can’t wait to call Washington about this. A lot of people are going to be very happy.”

Harry let out a gasp when David O’Callaghan caught the disk in midair and tossed it over to Bogie. “This is evidence.” The police chief pointed over to the painting. “So is that. This disk and that painting are both going down to the police station to be locked up in the evidence locker.” He turned to Mac. “Sorry, but I should have taken this into evidence when it first showed up here days ago. I thought so many years after the murder that it wasn’t necessary. But, after what happened tonight—”

“And the direction this case has taken,” Bogie agreed.

“—we can’t take anymore chances.”

Harry argued, “That disk contains information that is extremely important to national security.”

“Which is why I’m having it locked up,” David said.

Bogie added, “We’ll call in additional officers to guard it, along with local, state, and federal officers.”

“The safest place for it right now is the police station,” David assured him. “We’ll protect it.”

“But from who?” Joshua asked, “We still don’t know who was behind this attack tonight. Was it Ilysa Ramsay’s killer or Al Qaeda trying to pick up what they paid for back in 2004.”

Harry said, “Fortunately, whoever stole this canvas must have taken it for the painting itself.”

Mac said, “The theft of the painting could very well be the motive for the second Ilysa Ramsay murder. The buyer came to pick up the painting, only it had already been stolen, along with the chip. They didn’t believe Fiona or Ilsya that she didn’t have it. Al Qaeda thought she was cheating them and killed her.”