Shades of Murder (The Mac Faraday Mysteries) (20 page)

“He’s wanted in three states. The police in Massachusetts, New York, and Virginia are fighting over him for charges of breaking and entering, and burglary.”

That was enough to make Mac stick his head out the van’s window. “What was he doing here in Spencer?”

“Someone hired him. But like I said, he’s a pro. He’s already lawyered up.” David grinned. “He’s a real character. He talks about himself in third person. ‘Felix the Cat is the best, and you never would have caught Felix the Cat if it hadn’t been for that werewolf.’”

“I always said Gnarly was a beast.”

The German Shepherd ran back up onto the bank via the boat launch to shake the water out of his fur. David stepped back to once again avoid the spraying water.

“Do you have your cell phone?” Mac asked.

“Where’s yours?”

“I left it in my car. I’ll give it back.”

David removed his phone from his utility belt.

Mac took a burnt up smart phone from an evidence bag. “I found this under the front seat of the van.” He removed the cover to reveal the smart chip inside, which he slipped into David’s cell phone. “See if you can bring up his call log to see who Felix the Cat has been talking to.”

After pressing a few buttons, David brought the phone to his ear and smiled when he made a connection. “Hey, I got your merchandise.…The dog gave me some issues, but I took care of him.”

When Gnarly barked as if to protest the police chief’s lie, David turned his head away while Mac shushed him.

“Do you have my money?” David went on to set up the appointment before hanging up. “Good work, Faraday. The drop is one o’clock this afternoon at a lakeside café in McHenry.” He removed the chip and placed it into the evidence bag along with the phone. “Now get out of that van before you get hurt and sue the department.”

“Did you recognize the voice of the perp?” Mac asked while steadying himself as he climbed onto the dock.

“Can’t tell.”

With the clear summer day, there were a number of jet skis out racing about on the lake not far from shore. David sat down on the bench at the end of the dock. Gnarly trotted up to rest his wet head in his lap. In silence, he stroked the dog’s head without noticing that his wet fur was leaving a water mark on his pant leg that would make it appear as if he had peed his pants.

“I’ve been thinking about Hathaway,” David said.

“Hathaway? What about him?”

“You weren’t there when Bogie and I arrived at the scene of Ilysa’s murder,” David said. “Detective Gates doesn’t believe that a man can’t tell that his wife was replaced with a duplicate, but this man really loved her. It was heartbreaking to see. When he finds out that his wife had used him to steal the access codes for his satellites to sell to terrorists—I can’t bear the thought.”

“I can’t see how we can’t tell him.”

Staring out at the water, David was silent. Finally, he said in a soft voice, “I want to be the one to do it.” He looked over at Mac. “But first, I want to find out who killed her and why.” He continued staring out at the water while stroking Gnarly’s head. “That will make it easier for him if he has more answers.”

Mac clasped his shoulder. “We’ll catch this guy.”

David stopped petting Gnarly. “I know.”

“You’re staring,” David told Mac, who was gazing straight ahead from the driver’s seat of his SUV.

“It’s a stake out. I’m supposed to stare.”

“But the perp is meeting my officer down there.” David pointed at the lakeside café down the hill from where they had parked on John Young Parkway. “You’re so spaced out that our guy could walk right in front of us with the painting and you wouldn’t notice.”

After learning that Felix’s client didn’t know what he looked like, one of Spencer’s slightly built officers posed as him at the café in McHenry. While Spencer’s police officers waited on one side of the restaurant, Joshua and Cameron had parked on the far side, in case the drop happened there.

“You’re too far away,” David argued when Mac parked at the end of the lot reserved for patrons of the lakeside diners and water sports vendors. A dirt path led down to the water where the exchange was scheduled to take place.

“If we park along the road the perp will see us,” Mac said.

“If he rabbits, we’ll be useless in catching him.”

“I’ve done this before,” Mac said. “Wait and learn.” But, instead of watching for their suspect, he was thinking about Archie and her nightly escapes from his bed. “How do you know if you snore?”

“Someone tells you…the announcement is usually preceded by a sharp jab to the ribs.”

“Christine would have told me if I snored,” Mac said more to himself than David. “She wouldn’t have been nice about it either.”

One of David’s eyebrows arched, while a corner of his mouth curled. “Is something going on between you and Archie?”

“Something has been going on between me and Archie since the day I came to Spencer.” He added, “No, we haven’t been sleeping together that long. As a matter of fact, we haven’t been sleeping together at all.”

David turned around to face him. “Do you mean—”

“I mean—Sure, we’ve been together,” Mac told him. “We both wanted it to be special. I took her to Paris for Valentine’s Day.”

David said, “I know. I house and dog sat for you. While you were gone Gnarly bellied into the Schweitzer house and stole Katherine’s blue marquis diamond from where she had left it on her dresser. We turned Spencer upside down for five days before you told me to look under your bed.”

“I still think you should have cuffed Gnarly, instead of having Bogie slip it into her purse while you were interviewing her,” said Mac. “I never would have figured you to be one to take part in a police cover up.”

“How do you explain to the media that the great jewel thief that everyone has been looking for, that stole a half-a-million dollar diamond, was really a klepto German Shepherd?” David raised a shoulder. “Katherine had no problem believing that she’d misplaced it. No harm, no foul.”

“Until Gnarly’s next caper.”

“That’s not my problem. He’s your dog,” David reminded him. “Tell me about you and Archie.”

“Things are great.” Mac rubbed away a smudge on the windshield.

“Then why the staring?”

Mac turned to him. “She won’t sleep with me.” He hated the wounded sound that had crept into his tone.

The police chief laughed. “That’s something else that’s not my problem.”

Frustrated, Mac said, “No, I mean we have a great relationship. We’re very compatible in that way.”

David was still laughing.

“I mean,” he said forcibly, “she won’t spend the night with me in my bed. As soon as I’m asleep, she goes back to the cottage. She says it’s because she can only sleep in her bed. But last night, at the Inn, she went to the other bedroom as soon as I was asleep.”

Even though he had stopped laughing, David was still smiling when he said, “Maybe you snore.”

“My ex-wife would have told me.” Mac turned his attention back to the café. “At some point, over the matter of twenty years, she would have certainly told me if I snored.”

Keeping an eye on the drop site, David suggested, “Maybe you thrash around. I used to date a woman who was all over that bed during the night—kicking and hitting—and she was asleep the whole time. Sleeping with her was like wrestling an octopus.”

“And you ended it,” Mac noted.

David’s face softened. “You’re right. If you snored, or punched and kicked during the night, after being married for so long, you’d know it by now.”

“Then why does Archie keep running off?”

“This is new.” David was chuckling again. “A woman running off as soon as sex is over, and the man wanting her to stay and cuddle.”

Mac punched the steering wheel and grumbled. “Forget I said anything. You’re right. I’m being silly. I don’t know why. I didn’t used to be that way. But, since I met Archie, I’ve turned into some adolescent—”

David reached across the front of the car to grasp his wrist. Compassion seeped in to replace his amusement. “Let me explain something about us.”

“Us?”

“I mean the rich.”

“You’re not rich,” Mac reminded him. “You’re an underpaid police chief in a rich town.”

“But I’ve spent my whole life among the rich,” David said. “And Archie may have been Robin’s assistant, but she’s spent over the last ten years living among them. I know you like to think we’re no different, but in some ways we are.”

Mac shook his head. “David, I’ve investigated more than one murder involving rich people.”

“You’ve seen them in the midst of scandal and controversy,” David pointed out. “Growing up in Spencer, going to school with their kids, playing ball with them, dating their daughters; I’ve seen them day by day. It’s not what people see on reality TV, or on the news when one of them kills the other. I know what these people are really like.”

Mac was getting impatient. “What does this have to do with Archie and me?”

“It’s not unusual for couples who are intimate with each other, who have great relationship, and enjoy each other’s company, to sleep in separate bedrooms,” David said. “It doesn’t mean they don’t love each other. Among the rich, many couples, each partner has their own room or suite—even though they may have roof shattering sex with each other—and they don’t cheat on each other. They just have their own space. Why? Because they can.”

“I grew up where couples were together,” Mac said. “They sleep together in the same bed.”

“Here’s something else to consider,” David told him, “Archie is in her middle thirties. She’s never been married. She’s never had a long-term relationship—at least, as long as I’ve known her. She loves you, but she’s used to having her own space. Man! What more do you want?”

The thought struck Mac like a bolt of lightning. “Did you ever date Archie?”

The corner of David’s lip curled. “Timing never worked out.”

“But you tried.”

“She wasn’t ready for a serious relationship,” David explained. “Dad got sick and was sick a long time before he died. So, I was in no shape for a relationship. By the time things settled …” He laughed. “Dating Archie would be like dating my sister. That’s what makes her the perfect woman for my brother.” He turned to him. “Give her time. Things will sort themselves out. They always do.”

“Never thought of that.” Mac was impressed with the police chief’s ability to see things as they really were.

David was perceptive beyond his years. It came from growing up in Spencer among the rich, without being one of them. It must have been like being next to the forest, while not being in it. Therefore, he was able to see the trees in the forest.

Mac said, “I hate sleeping alone.”

“Which I believe is the root to why it’s bothering you.” David patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. You two will work it out.” With a smirk, he said, “Geek at eleven o’clock.”

Directing his attention back at the café, Mac picked out the patron, who had caught the police chief’s attention. Two tables away from the officer in plain clothes, he was hard for them not to notice.

In the middle of the day, during the height of the summer season, most of the patrons were donning casual summer wear. In contrast, the man sipping hot tea and eating a scone stood out in white slacks and a bright pink shirt buttoned up to the collar and sealed with a dark pink tie. A duffel bag rested in an empty chair across from him. His appearance was made even more outlandish by his bi-color hair with dark around the sides and back, and white spikes on top. He sported a black goatee.

He took a sip of his tea before spitting it out into the cup. After letting out a gagging noise, he snapped his fingers high above his head to get the server’s attention. “Excuse me,” he called out in broken English with a thick European accent, “but … this tea has been … ruined.”

“Ruined? How?” The server glanced around for help. Ruined tea was a new complaint.

“Tea should never … be allowed to seep for more … than five minutes.” The patron stuck his pointy nose high up in the air in order to look down his snout at her. “Any longer than that and it’s not…” While waving his hand in the air, he paused to search for the word. “How do you say?…Edible.”

Apologizing, the server took the cup and tea pot to return them to the kitchen.

The tea man was on the move. After picking up the duffle bag, he moved to the undercover officer’s table in the center of the café.

“Anything looking good today?” He gave the officer the code.

The officer said his line, “The margaritas.”

Eying the tube envelope next to the officer’s hand, the tea man inched his fingertips toward it. “Did you have any…How do you say? … Problems?”

“The dog.”

A worried note came to his voice. “Did you to hurt him?”

“Felix the Cat is a professional.” The officer repeated the thief’s assertion in third person as he had done in the hospital.

The tea man reached for the tube, which the officer slid out of his reach. “After I get my money.”

The tea man dropped the bag to the ground, and pushed it with his foot over to the other seat. Looking around as if to ensure that they were not being watched, the officer picked up the bag and looked inside.