It's Murder, My Son (A Mac Faraday Mystery) (11 page)

“He saved our lives,” she argued.

As if to confirm her assessment, Gnarly let off a round of barks while pawing at the ground.

“What a good boy you are!” Archie patted him on top of the head.

“What was all that screaming about?” They heard called from the other side of the trees at the lake’s edge.

“Gnarly found a snake.” Archie made her way down the path to join Ira Taylor.

The old man had set up a minicamp with folding chairs, two coolers, and an assortment of fishing poles and tackle boxes. “Better than another head.”

Hearing his laughter, Mac felt foolish. “How are the fish biting today?” he asked while breaking through the trees to join them.

“Pretty good.” Ira flipped open a cooler to show that it contained several fish. “Where were you two heading?”

Archie told him, “I was taking Mac up to Abigail’s Rock.”

“Ah, that’s a beautiful spot,” Ira said. “Most magnificent view on this mountain. Too bad that nutcase ruined it all.”

“Lee Dorcas had an alibi for Niles Holt’s murder,” Mac told him.

“That wasn’t the nut I was talking about,” the elderly man replied with a shake of his head.

“What nut were you referring to?” Archie asked.

Ira said, “No one followed them up that mountain. I know. I was sitting right in this very spot fishing when they went past to go up on the trail. I didn’t move. The only way to get to either trail up to Abigail’s is there across the road. If anyone had been following them, he would have had to go past me. No one did. I was still here when she came running down screaming about someone killing her husband.”

“Maybe he didn’t use the trail. If they looked back they would have seen him,” Mac pointed out. “Maybe he went through the woods to get to the other trail.”

“I doubt it. I always said there was something fishy about Katrina’s story about how Holt died. I wasn’t the only one, either. Robin agreed with me.”

Mac asked Ira, “Did you tell the police about what you saw, or rather, didn’t see?”

Ira snorted. “Yeah. A patrolman came and took my statement. Then Chief Phillips came out to see me. He said he would question Katrina about it. That was the last I saw or heard anything about it.” He chuckled. “His murder case went cold faster than hers.”

*   *   *   *

“Hungry?”

Curious about what Mac had been doing since they talked to Ira, Archie took a lunch break from editing the latest thriller of a hot new writer to prepare two ham and cheese sandwiches. Carrying the sandwiches and glasses of milk on a serving tray, she crossed the deck to where she found Mac stretched out on a chaise with Robin’s thick, leather-bound journal open in his lap.

Stretched out next to his master’s chaise, Gnarly started out of a deep sleep as if in answer to her question. He sat up at attention with his eyes aimed at the food on the tray.

“Did you call David about Ira?” Archie set their lunch on the table.

“He doesn’t recall seeing any statement from Ira. He’s going to check the case file again.” Mac held up the journal for her to see. “I’m looking up Robin’s take on Holt’s murder. Ira said Robin agreed with him about there being something weird in her statement. Katrina said Dorcas did it. Dorcas had an airtight alibi. Ira was fishing right there at the start of the trail.”

Archie handed him a sandwich and sat on the chaise next to his. “Katrina claimed to have been blindsided. She could have assumed it was Dorcas because he had threatened her.”

“Why didn’t Robin pursue the case?” Mac bit the corner off his sandwich and sat up.

“We both had tight deadlines.”

“Are you sure that’s it? I can’t believe my mother, whose blood courses through my veins, wasn’t intrigued enough to find out what went on up at Abigail’s Rock.”

Archie confessed, “It wasn’t like Robin to turn her back on murder, but she did. I don’t know why. What did she say in her journal?”

Mac turned a page. “I haven’t found her explanation yet.”

Gnarly let out a long whine. He stared at the plates as if he could will the food to come to him.

Mac continued eating his sandwich. “Gnarly stole my hot dog right off the plate last night. I took it out of the microwave and turned around to get the catsup. He jumped up, grabbed the dog, and ran outside with it.”

“Serves you right for turning your back on him.”

Mac accepted Archie’s offer of the glass of milk, took a gulp, and set it on the side table next to his chaise. “Have you seen my flip-flops?”

“Not since you took them off and left them here on the deck to dry after jet skiing.”

Mac gestured at the empty spot beside the French doors. “I paid twelve bucks for them. Now, they’re gone.” He looked at Gnarly, who was staring at the ham sandwich in his hand. “There’s a lot of thievery here on the Point,” he said. “My Blackberry is missing, too. It cost me over seven hundred dollars and I only had it a month. I left it on the table out here on the deck last night and remembered it after I went to bed. I came down to get it and it was gone. From twelve-dollar flip-flops to Blackberries. I’m beginning to think one of our neighbors is a kleptomaniac.”

Archie nodded her head. “Robin thought the same thing. I’ve lost my car keys, every beach blanket I hang out to dry, and a pair of pink pumps with stiletto heels. Anything left on decks or docks gets stolen. It started right after Pay Back showed up. But if Pay Back is dead, then it can’t be him.”

“Who said Pay Back was dead? Lee Dorcas is dead, but the evidence says he wasn’t Pay Back.”

Gnarly inched closer to Mac as he neared the last bite of the sandwich.

Archie said, “I had an interesting conversation with Francine Taylor yesterday.”

“Ira’s wife?”

“They’re year-round residents like us. They’re both nice,” she added, “unlike the other ones down the road. Francine said the Hardwicks went off about Gnarly on a regular basis.”

“I’ve already gotten closer and more personal with the Hardwicks than I care to get again.”

Recalling his account about when he first met Gordon Hardwick, Archie smiled. “Don’t you agree that they have a tendency to overreact?”

“Yes.”

“Francine says they used to get into some real screamfests with Katrina, which leads me to think that they were probably dancing on the Point when she died.”

Amused, Mac asked, “Are you suggesting the Hardwicks killed Katrina over a dog?”

“A few years ago a man poisoned his neighbor because he simply didn’t like her and her family.”

“We’re talking about an ambulance chaser,” he argued. “The Hardwicks are looking for grounds to file lawsuits so that they can live off of the court settlements. Katrina’s death got them nothing.” He turned the sandwich around to begin eating it from the opposite corner.

Gnarly stood up in preparation to pounce on it.

“Want to answer all of your questions about Katrina’s murder once and for all?” Archie asked with a naughty grin.

“How?”

“Visit the crime scene? See it live and in person?”

Mac answered, “I’d love to, except that the house is locked up tight.”

“Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”

Gnarly nabbed the last of the sandwich from his hand.

“Gnarly! I’m going to kill you!” Mac yelled, but the dog was already making his getaway off the deck.

*   *   *   *

Spencer’s police station didn’t look like a small-town police department. The three-story log building blended in with the woods that surrounded it. With its stone fireplace in the reception area, four speed boats for patrol docked in the back, and fleet of ATVs and dirt bikes parked in and around the garage, it resembled a sports club. The cruisers were four-wheel drive SUVs able to maneuver over the dirt trails that went deep into the woods and up the mountain.

Spencer only had a dozen officers, but the town’s founding family and well-heeled residents were willing to invest in the police department responsible for protecting their families and valuables.

Ever since Mac’s phone call, David’s mind was preoccupied with what Ira Taylor had not seen the morning Niles Holt went off Abigail’s Rock. If it had been any other witness he would have questioned the validity of his statement. He would have assumed Niles Holt’s killer had managed to slip past Ira without being seen to follow the Holts up the mountain. Not so with Ira Taylor. A retired naval officer devoted to detail, he would have seen the killer.

As soon as he had finished his morning patrol, David hurried to the file room in the basement of the police department. He studied the labels on the file cabinet’s drawers until he found one indicating the letters
Hn-Hz
. After sliding out the drawer, he ran his fingers over the tabs until he found the folder labeled
Holt, Niles
.

He scanned Katrina’s statement while carrying the folder to the table where he could study its contents in detail.

Tucked under the case and evidence reports, David found Ira Taylor’s statement written up on a single sheet of paper. Ira had signed and dated it. The narrative read almost word for word as the same statement that Mac had relayed to him that morning.

Ira Taylor was fishing off the shore on Spencer Point at Deep Creek Lake when he saw Katrina and Niles Holt. Since it was not yet sunrise, Katrina carried a flashlight. The couple wore hiking shoes and sweaters. Ira and the Holts greeted each other. The victims went onto the mountain trail and disappeared into the woods. Ninety minutes later, after the sun rose, Ira heard Katrina screaming for help. He met her when she ran out of the woods onto the road. Her sweater was torn. Her hair was messed and she was bleeding from a wound on her cheek. She told him that a man who had been stalking her had followed them up to Abigail’s Rock, hit her in the head with a thick stick, and shoved Niles Holt off the rock and down the mountain. She thought he was going to kill her, too. She told Ira that her attacker said he killed Niles Holt because “Payback is hell.” He then disappeared down the mountain.

Ira reported that when he asked Katrina if she knew where her husband was, she answered that he had fallen off the cliff to the rocks below. When Ira asked if he was still alive, she didn’t answer. The witness ran to his home and called the police.

David read the signature of the officer who had taken Ira’s statement: Officer Arthur Bogart.

“What’ve you got there that’s so interesting?” a deep voice asked from behind him.

Startled to realize he was not alone, David turned around. Officer Art Bogart, who worked as the department’s desk sergeant, towered over him. The policeman peered around David to see what case file he had.

Art, called Bogie by his colleagues, had the worn, haggard face and gray hair of a seasoned officer of the law, but the frame of a bodybuilder. Due to his advanced years, many a rookie dared to take him on in a hand-to-hand match, and ended up face down on a mat in a matter of seconds.

One of Pat O’Callaghan’s most trusted patrolmen, Bogie had become David’s confidante since the police chief’s death.

Stepping aside, David showed him the folder. “Niles Holt’s case file.”

Bogie put on his reading glasses and bent over to see that he had been reading Ira Taylor’s statement. “Why are you suddenly interested in the Holt case?” He frowned.

David responded, “Almost two years ago, you took a statement from a witness who said that he was fishing at the entrance of the trail leading up to Abigail’s Rock the morning Niles Holt died. He saw no one else go up on that trail. If no one was following them, then that means the killer had to have been waiting up at the rock for them. Why didn’t you pursue it?”