Open Season for Murder (A Mac Faraday Mystery Book 10) (14 page)

“I’m going to need all copies of what you shot tonight—unedited.” David O’Callaghan wasted no time in telling Rock Sinclair after tracking him and Jasmine down in their suite.

Rock Sinclair threw back his head and laughed. “Not without a warrant.” His expression and tone was not unlike that of a bully who had stolen the neighborhood geek’s money and was now daring him to go tattle to his mommy. “Do you think I’m going to let you and your neighborhood rent-a-cops take my award winning film to leak all over the media before I get my shot at airing it? Not a chance. No one is seeing it until my network premiere.”

“You are aware that two people are dead, one being one of your stars—”

“We don’t have stars,” Jasmine corrected David. “This is an in-depth investigative report. If anything, Lindsey was a suspect. Maybe she was a witness who knew too much and Ashton’s killer had to silence her.” With a low laugh, she cocked her head. “Just think,” she said with a broad smile. “There’s a murderer right here at the Spencer Inn, right under your noses, and you don’t even know it.”

“Maybe even right here in this room.” David stepped up to her. The accusation in his eyes made her back up a step. “Maybe you weren’t content to investigate a cold case, but you wanted a hot one as well.”

“Anything we’ve recorded involving Lindsey stopped a good hour before she collapsed,” Samuel Nash volunteered from a desk off to the side. Texting away on his phone, he slouched in the chair and one very long leg crossed over the other. He was clad in black slacks and a button down black shirt. David was surprised to discover he had been paying attention. He had seemed more focused on the phone.

David bypassed Rock and Jasmine to stand over Samuel. Ripping the phone from his hand, he said, “As director, you must have been in a keen position to notice Lindsey’s relationship with the other interviewees in this report.”

“In other words you want to know who Lindsey had problems with.”

“Exactly.”

“That’s an easy question to answer.” Samuel snatched the cell phone back and shoved it into his left pants pocket. He looked up to meet David’s eyes. “Everyone. She caused problems with everyone from her hair designer to Jasmine to the server who brought her breakfast to the Inn’s public relations guy.”

“As a matter of fact,” Jasmine said, “I saw her arguing with him when we left the ball after Mac Faraday killed her date.”

“Do you mean the tall man with red hair and freckles?” David asked. “Brian Gallagher?”

While Jasmine said yes, Samuel Nash shook his head and replied a notch louder. “No, this guy was shorter than the Gallagher dude and his tux looked like his tailor was drunk when he fitted it. He tried to take her champagne before she was finished with it and she went ape on him.”

“Like
he’s
going to
kill
her for that.” Jasmine scoffed. “The police chief is looking for suspects.”

“I’m just saying …” Samuel replied. “The chief is asking me who Lindsey had trouble with so I’m telling him. For all we know this guy in the bad suit is a whack job who decides to go on a killing spree because Lindsey reminded him of his demented mother who hugged him too much when he was a baby.”

Rock turned around to say to Samuel, “Tell me you didn’t miss that altercation with the whack job.”

Samuel bit his lip, causing his goatee to twitch. “Our communications went down temporarily and I had to go check on the system.”

“But the cameras would record everything to their smart cards, wouldn’t they?” David asked.

Jasmine and Rock waited for Samuel’s response. “If the camera operators weren’t on break at the time. They had been working all evening. When our server went down—it wasn’t able to sync everything they were recording, so I told them to take thirty minutes while I fixed it. Now Van Dyke is writing the pay checks for his people, so they most likely kept on recording.”

“Is the server working now?” The annoyance in Rock’s tone was evident.

“What happened to the server?” Jasmine asked before Samuel could answer.

“Our wi-fi went down,” Samuel said in a snarky tone. “I rebooted and it’s working now.” He turned his attention back to the police chief. “Lindsey York has been nothing but trouble during this whole production.”

“Now that she’s dead,” David said, “things should run more smoothly for you.”

The three of them exchanged telling glances while David smirked at them.

Samuel extracted his cell phone from his pocket. “Like I said, Chief, Lindsey York had problems with everyone.”

Mac found Brian Gallagher directing the bartender to continue providing drinks on the house to the guests in the lockdown until the police released them. With two people dead in separate incidents, the Inn’s guests were becoming more anxious as time passed.

“Mr. Ingles told me that we would have an open bar until the police released them,” he told Mac to assure him that he had not made the decision to offer thousands of dollars of free booze on his own.

With other thoughts on his mind, Mac brushed past the excuse. “Where is the control room for Vincent Van Dyke’s show?”

“They booked the Lake Room Suite.” Brian explained. “Vincent Van Dyke threw a fit when he found out that it was only the second largest suite on the top floor and Rock Sinclair had already booked the biggest one with the view of the lake. Van Dyke got the view of the valley.”

“Walk with me,” Mac ordered.

Brian fell into step with him to leave the lounge. “Is it always so adventurous here?”

“Do you mean do high society girls take high dives off of stair landings onto grand pianos just after international drug lords get shot down in the main ballroom? No.”

The intern paused to hold open the cut glass door for Mac to step through into the Inn’s lobby. Mac spied the bright lights of the media’s cameras jostling outside to catch a glimpse of the action inside.

Brian led him across the lobby to the penthouse elevators.

“I assume you’ve had time to make your phone call,” Mac said while allowing Brian to press the button for the floor. “Was it to your lawyer?”

“No,” Brian said, “it was … a friend.” He went on to explained, “He knew Lindsey. I didn’t want him to find out on the news.”

“Was he a close friend?” Mac asked. “A suspect?”

Brian shot Mac a sidelong glance. “No … to both questions. He was close, but not terribly close and he had no reason to want Lindsey hurt. He’s not even in town.”

“But you are,” Mac said. “And you’re his friend. Maybe you decided to do him a favor—”

“I would never hurt Lindsey.”

The elevator doors opened, but neither man stepped off.

“I noticed that you were directly behind her when she went over the railing,” Mac said casually.

“The camera man was there,” Brian said. “He’ll tell you. I never touched her.”

Mac glanced Brian up and down before stepping off the elevator into the corridor. When the intern did not immediately follow, Mac paused to wait for him. The doors were about to close when Brian hurried off and fell into step beside Mac.

“Did you notice anything about Lindsey’s behavior before she went over the banister?”

Brian quickly shook his head. “Only that she was higher than a kite. A guest came to get me at the front desk because the cameraman was in the ladies room. I went in—”

Holding up his hand, Mac stopped. “Wait a minute. The camera
man
was in the
ladies
restroom?” He recalled Gopher specifically saying that he did not follow Lindsey into the bathroom, which was how he did not know if she was taking recreational drugs.

“Yes,” Brian nodded his head. “I went in to shoo him out.”

“Did you see him in the restroom?”

“Yes, I did,” Brian said. “Both he and Lindsey were in the bathroom stall.”

Mac stopped and turned to face him. “The cameraman was recording her
in
the bathroom stall?”

“No, the camera was on the counter,” Brian said.

“If he wasn’t recording—” With a firm shake of his head, Mac asked, “Did either of them throw something into the garbage can after they came out?”

“If you’re asking if they were shooting up, yes, I think that’s what they were doing.”

“Did you touch the garbage can?” Mac took out his cell phone to send a text to David.

“No, I wanted no part of that,” Brian replied. “I just wanted them out of the restroom so that the rest of our guests wouldn’t see that going on here at the Spencer Inn. It’s not good for our five-star image, you know.”

“I know.” Mac imagined Jeff Ingles’ reaction to learning that guests were shooting up in their bathrooms.

“They weren’t wearing gloves,” Brian said, “so you should be able to get fingerprints or DNA or whatever off it. The camera man was the one who got rid of the syringe and stuff. Lindsey came out of the stall looking like hell. She shoved me out of the way and almost fell through the glass doors on her way out. I followed her to make sure she was all right, but before I could stop her, she went flying over the railing.” When Mac turned to continue down the hall, Brian stopped him. “Was it a heroin overdose?”

“Why do you mention heroin? Why not LSD or crack cocaine?”

“Lindsey was in rehab a few years ago for heroin addiction.”

“How do you know that?” Mac asked. “I notice that you call her Lindsey, not Ms. York. Brian, did you know Lindsey York before you came to Spencer?”

“My friend told me about the rehab, which is not exactly a state secret considering her public life.” Brian threw open the double doors to a conference room.

The suite looked like another world—the world of motion pictures.

A short man in jeans and a short sleeved shirt, with tattoos all over his arms, rose to block their entrance. “You’re not allowed in here!”

“Oh, yes, I am.” Mac rose his voice for them all to hear. “Who’s in charge here?”

A tall, rail thin man with bright, white hair under a baseball cap, and small round glasses, was yelling into a wireless mike. “What do you mean you don’t know where she went? It’s your job to follow her.” He scanned the bank of monitors. “We’re getting award winning stuff happening right on camera—one of our stars died on camera during the debut episode—and you’ve lost one of our main attractions!”

“Excuse me!” Mac interjected while coming up behind him. “Are you in charge?”

The yelling man whirled around. “Who are you?”

“Mac Faraday, the Inn’s owner. Are you the ring leader of this circus?” He saw what he had first taken to be a smudge of dirt on his chin was, in fact, a small, black goatee.

“That would be me.” He glanced back at the monitors. “Henry Dolan.”

“You’re the director?” Mac asked.

“Assistant director and writer.”

Mac played dumb. “Writer? I thought this was a reality show.”

“Even reality needs a little help sometimes to keep the audience interested,” Henry said.

Mac brushed past him to study the panel of monitors. He was correct. They were recording David and the police in action.

One of the monitors caught his attention when he saw Kassandra Van Dyke’s face. Tears filled her eyes while she gestured angrily at the camera. He peered to see that the background was not the banquet room, but rather what appeared to be a hotel suite.

“Where is this being recorded?” He laid his fingertip on the monitor’s screen.

“The room next door,” Henry answered with an impatient sigh. “That is where the girls go to tell the audience their impressions about the show.”

“Is this happening live?”

“Yep,” the director said. “We wanted to get as much on the scene response to Lindsey’s dive as possible while it was still fresh and raw.”

“Certainly looks raw to me,” Mac commented on Kassandra’s tears. “Turn up the volume.”

Henry pushed a lever up on the control panel.

“What kind of animals are you?” Kassandra yelled in the direction of the camera. “A woman has died. She’s dead and you want to know what I think? You want to know how I feel? I’ll show you how I feel!”

The camera shot dodged when she took a swing at the operator.

“Don’t you even care? She’s a human being, damn it.” Kassandra broke down into sobs. “And all you care about is getting some great action on camera!”

While Mac’s heart ached for the sobbing woman in the room next door, he heard Brian’s voice behind him mutter, “She’s right.”

Henry was chuckling with glee. “Oh, this is great stuff. There won’t be a dry eye in the room when we air this.”

“I’ve seen enough.” Mac spoke into the mike. “This is Mac Faraday, owner of the Spencer Inn. I want all camera operators to cease and desist recording now! Anyone who does not turn off their camera will be evicted from my premises immediately. Have I made myself clear?”

Instantly, the bank of monitors turned royal blue with the shutdown of the cameras.

Henry objected, “You can’t do that!”

“I just did. Two of my guests are dead and I want to know why. Considering how you, Van Dyke, and your director have jumped onto the sensationalism bandwagon, you’re beginning to look like suspects to me. Now, if you can’t change my opinion, you may find your butts in Spencer’s jail.”

Henry threw up his hands. “Wait a minute! This is reality television! Stuff you don’t expect to happen happens all the time. If you stop recording as soon as it gets unpleasant—”

“A woman bringing a known drug dealer, armed and dangerous, to a public event and then getting killed herself is more than unpleasant! Lindsey York put innocent people, many of whom I love, in danger. I personally know that server who York’s date took hostage—her and her family! Now,” Mac poked Henry in the chest, “if I find out that you put her up to bringing him here to my Inn in order to make your reality show a little more interesting for the audience, I will hold you personally responsible.”

Henry’s face turned white. “She messed herself up and fell over the banister,” he said. “Too bad for us, too. Lindsey was supposed to be the live wire that kept all the action flowing on this show.”

“I thought Van Dyke and his daughter were supposed to be the live wire.”

“Not since Van Dyke sold the show to Sinclair,” Henry said. “He gave us orders to make Lindsey York the star.”

“What happens now that your live wire is dead?”

Henry gazed at Mac with no answer.

“I guess Lindsey’s death opens the door to several possibilities,” Mac said. “Who supplied the drugs she was taking tonight?”

Henry said, “Lindsey did all that on her own. She’s got big and powerful friends, as you saw for yourself in the date she brought tonight.”

Brian said, “The cameraman was shooting her up with something in the restroom minutes before she went over the banister.”

“Most likely it was her shooting Gopher up,” Henry said. “Since her father cut her off, Lindsey has been forced to go into business on her own. She’s not just a consumer, but a supplier.” He rubbed his finger over his goatee. “But then, Lindsey isn’t very good with needles. She was pretty unstable the last hour or so of the shoot. She may have asked Gopher to help her out.”

“In which case Gopher would be criminally liable for homicide,” Mac said.

Henry’s hands went up in a signal of surrender. “I’m only guessing based on what you guys told me. I
saw
nothing. I
know
nothing.”

“The police are going to want copies of everything you recorded, including after Lindsey’s death.”

Henry shook his head. “Van Dyke already put out the word, no one gets anything. He’s aiming for the big time with this.”

“And what are you aiming for?” Mac asked. “Jail time for obstruction of justice?”

Without waiting for his answer, Mac left the suite and rushed downstairs in time to see Archie making her way across the lobby toward him. Along the way, she crossed to where Vincent Van Dyke’s camera crew was talking together while waiting for Police Chief David O’Callaghan to release them.

After catching Mac’s eye, Archie spied Gopher among the group.

Snatching a glass of wine from a waiter, she elbowed her way through the group. “Hey, Jeff—” Tripping, she fell into Gopher in what appeared to be a full body slam. “Oh, excuse me!” she shrieked while attempting to wipe away the spilt wine from his jacket. “I hope I didn’t hurt you.”

Saying that he was okay, Gopher brushed away the drink.

“I am so clumsy. I hope they let us go soon,” she said. “I mean if I have any more free drinks I won’t be able to go home. I hope I didn’t break anything.”

With a slight nod of her head in David’s direction, she made her way through the crowd. While she exited the group on one side, David and Bogie made their way to Gopher from the other.

“Justin Smith, you’re under arrest for suspicion of homicide.” David slapped the cuffs on Gopher’s wrists before he had time to react.

“What the—”

While the camera operator sputtered, David stuck his hand into his jacket pocket and extracted the memory card that Archie had dropped inside. “What’s this?”

Bogie held out an evidence bag. “Looks like evidence to me.”

“Where did that come from?” Gopher asked. “My boss has been looking for that. Hey, Vince!”

“He can see it at your trial,” David said while leading the camera operator through the crowd and out the door.

“That was slick,” Mac whispered into Archie’s ear.

“I learned from the best.”

“I take it you were able to copy it?”

“Copy plus a backup.”

“Good,” Mac said. “While Ben gets to work on the warrants to make the original footage admissible as evidence, we can get to work solving the case using our bootleg copy.”