Twelve to Murder (A Mac Faraday Mystery) (10 page)

Chapter Ten

“What happened?” David demanded to know when he stepped into the police command center to find Mac and Gnarly sitting in the corner, not unlike two naughty children.

“They got voted out,” Bogie said.

With a groan, Gnarly dropped down to bury his snout under his front paws.

Catching a whiff of a foul odor, David covered his nose. “What—”

“Twiddle-Dee and Twiddle-Dum gave Gnarly a bowl of chili before voting us out,” Mac said.

“And you let them?”

“He’s been eating nonstop for the last four hours and those bunch of drunks, also known as our victims—they’ve been drinking one beer after another along with our suspect.” Mac hitched his chin in the direction of the pub. “This hostage situation and stand-off has turned into a wild party. I’ve never seen anything like it. They voted Gnarly and me out for steak dinners.”

“Actually, you were the only one they voted out,” Sheriff Turow said. “They wanted Gnarly to stay.”

“I think it’s time we put an end to this,” David said.

“I agree.” Sheriff Turow nodded his head.

“No way they’ll agree to that before they get their steak dinners,” Mac predicted.

“Lenny wants us to prove he’s innocent,” David said. “Well, I found proof. He’s got an airtight alibi. He was making a scene and picking a fight in the lounge at the Wisp all last evening.”

“Good,” Sheriff Turow said. “You can tell him that he’s in the clear and can release his hostages. My men and I will eat the steaks.”

Mac held up his hand and turned back to David. “Wait a minute.” Slowly, he rose out of his seat. “Are you sure Lenny’s alibi is airtight?” he asked through gritted teeth.

“The Wisp has a security camera in their lounge,” David said. “He’s on a security tape with a time stamp.”

“Then why did he do all this?” Mac waved his arm while asking. “If he’s got an airtight alibi, then why didn’t he just come in when he found out that we were looking for him and tell us? Why take hostages and cause a police stand-off?”

“Lenny Frost is crazy,” David said. “He’s made a career of acting out without thinking anything through. You can see it in his record. Drug possession. DUI. Bar fights. Assault. If he didn’t have advocacy groups holding him up as the poster boy for laws regulating child actors, he would have spent more than a day in jail.”

“More like five to seven years,” Bogie said in agreement.

“He’s never grown up,” David said.

In his mind, Mac recalled the hours he had spent in the pub with Lenny Frost and had to agree that his thought process was not like most adults.

“After we talk Frost into releasing his hostages,” the sheriff said, “then you can ask him why he didn’t simply come forward with his alibi. Right now, let’s concentrate on getting him to put his gun down and come out.” He turned to Deputy Parker. “Get Frost on the phone.”

Mac asked David, “What did you find out about Sela Wallace or whatever her name is?”

“She overpowered a nurse at the hospital and escaped,” David said. “According to what Archie was able to uncover about her background, Sela Wallace is a stunt woman and a firearms expert. She’s definitely involved. How, I don’t know. She’s not the shooter. She’s got an alibi, too.”

“Maybe it’s just a matter of her being in the wrong place at the wrong time.” Mac took the baggy containing the white powder from his pocket. “We need to have this analyzed. It could be cocaine and she was afraid of getting caught with it. Either way, she wanted out of there.” He handed the bag to the sheriff’s deputy who checked it into evidence.

“Frost…” the sheriff said into the phone.

“Where’s Forsythe?” Lenny asked. “I want to talk to Mickey.”

The sheriff handed the phone to Mac.

“Hey, Lenny,” Mac said in an upbeat tone. “How’s it going in there?”

“The first game has ended,” Lenny said.

“Pirates won!” Mac heard Bernie yell into the phone.

“Hey,” Lenny said, “we forgot to give you our dinner orders before kicking you off the island.”

An uproar of laughter erupted in the background.

“Lenny,” Mac said with gritted teeth, “about the investigation—”

“What investigation?”

“The Stillmans—”

“Oh, yeah,” Lenny said. “That’s right. Have you got them yet?”

“We’re getting closer,” Mac said. “Why didn’t you tell me that you had an alibi for last night?”

“Huh?”

“I asked you about your alibi and you told me that you were in your suite alone last night,” Mac said. “In fact, you were in the Wisp’s lounge picking a fight. We have witnesses and a security recording. You lied to me about your alibi.”

“Oh, yeah,” Lenny said without emotion. “That’s right. I was in the lounge and some—”

“None of this was necessary.” Mac fought to keep the frustration out of his tone.

“They’re still going to find a way of blaming me for it. They’ll say I hired someone to kill the Stillmans for me.”

“Fact is, you were in the Wisp while they were being murdered,” Mac said. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Do you have the person behind this?”

“Not yet, but we’ve got a suspect.”

“When you have her under arrest, then we can talk.” Lenny’s tone was cold. “You have until midnight. Now, Mickey, are you ready to take our dinner orders?”

“You have to pull over.” Mac grasped the door handle in the passenger seat to David’s cruiser. “You have to pull over
now.”

Mac and David were on their way to the police station on the Spencer side of the lake to compare notes and try to make sense of the Stillman murders and Lenny Frost’s role in it all.  However, Mac and David had driven less than two miles before Gnarly started making all-too-familiar noises in the back seat.

Recognizing the sound uttered from deep in Gnarly’s throat, Mac didn’t have to repeat himself before David threw the steering wheel to get the cruiser off the road and hit the brake pedal. Mac jumped out and threw open the back door. Like a cannonball, Gnarly flew out and hit the ground running to go down over the hillside toward the lakeshore where he stopped and threw up an odious mixture of stomach acid, buffalo chicken strips, nachos, pizza, and chili.

The odor drifted back up to the cruiser. Unable to look at or smell it, Mac and David turned their backs, went around to the front of the cruiser, and waited for Gnarly’s stomach to stop churning.

“I guess Gnarly’s weekend is worse than mine,” Mac said.

Chuckling, David checked his phone. “Hmmm.”

“What?” Mac asked.

“Derrick Stillman also has an alibi for the time of the murders,” David said. “He’s been under surveillance by the DEA ,who has been investigating his club for being part of a major drug operation. He took a picture of the woman he was with.” He gave Mac a sidelong glance. “Sela Wallace.”

“Who was in the Blue Whale when Lenny took the place hostage,” Mac said.

“The feds swear she did not leave the apartment during the night,” he said. “So she has an alibi for the time of the murders, too. Now, here is where it gets interesting.”

“As if it’s not already interesting.”

“Derrick passed out,” David said. “He claims he doesn’t drink, but last night…he consented to a blood test.” He handed the phone to Mac. “Results are in. Zero alcohol. However, he was slipped a roofie.”

“A roofie?” The corners of Mac’s lips curled when he read the text. “She slipped him a date rape drug?”

“Here’s what I think happened,” David said. “Roofies remove a person’s inhibitions—making her, or, in this case, him open to suggestions.”

Mac was nodding his head. “Derrick knew the passcode to his parents’ security system. Once he’s properly drugged, she simply asks him for the code. He gives it to her.”

“And then she calls her accomplice here in Deep Creek Lake,” David said.

“Gretchen heard the killer’s phone ringing at seven thirty,” Mac said.

“Derrick’s date started at six,” David said. “Plenty of time for her to drug him and get the code. The phone call was Sela Wallace giving the shooter the passcode.” Seeing the frown in Mac’s face, he asked, “What’s wrong?”

“Why?” Mac asked. “What’s the motive? Nothing was stolen that we could see.”

“Lenny inherits the club,” David said. “His alibi is awfully convenient, if you ask me.”

“If Derrick is involved in drug dealing, his parents could have been killed as some sort of warning to him not to say anything to the feds,” Mac suggested. “Or, he could have drugged himself to look like the innocent victim. How about that whole thing of blabbing to the media about the killer being Lenny Frost? He could have had the shooter write Lenny’s name in his mother’s blood to point the finger away from him to Lenny. That certainly took the spotlight off him.”

David turned to go around the cruiser and climb inside. “We need to apprehend Sela to find out what connection she has in all this.”

Mac went to the edge of the hillside to call down to Gnarly. “Are you through?”

Slowly, Gnarly staggered up the hill to him.

“Have you learned your lesson?” Mac chastised him. “That will teach you to make a pig of yourself.” He opened the rear door.

Looking up at the seat that now appeared too far above him, Gnarly sat down with a sigh.

“Jump in.” Mac gestured for him to hop up into the back seat.

Gnarly looked from the seat to his master and back again.

“Seriously?” Mac asked.

With his ears folded back flat on his head, the sick dog groaned. His big brown eyes pleaded for help.

“The things I do for you,” Mac said with a sigh before squatting down and lifting Gnarly up to place him in the back seat.

Chapter Eleven

Spencer Police Station

Archie did not hesitate to run across the reception area to throw her arms around Mac’s shoulders and hug him when she saw him come through the front door. “Oh, I was so worried,” she breathed into his ear. 

He wrapped his arms around her to hold her close.  “I love you so much.”

Abruptly, she pulled away. Catching sight of something behind him, she uttered a gasp.

“What—” She shot a glare at him. “What did you do to Gnarly?”

On unsteady legs, Gnarly made his way to the sofa and crawled up. With a pain-filled sigh, he plopped down and dropped his head over the edge of the cushion. His usually tall and grand ears drooped.

“How could you let—” Archie sputtered.

“I was busy.” Mac pointed at the sick dog. “He’s got no self-control whatsoever. Lady Tala’s mother dumped him here this morning because he was…and then, at the pub, he proceeded to eat Carl out of house and home—including chili.”

“Chili!” Tonya jumped out of her chair as if she considered making a run for it.

“You let them feed chili to Gnarly?” Archie asked in horror. 

“I was trying to save lives,” Mac argued.

“I think the worst of it is over,” David said.

“How long ago did he eat the chili?” Tonya asked.

“A little over an hour ago,” Mac said.

Shaking her head, the desk sergeant went around to the other side of her chair to place it between her and the dog. “It’s not over yet. The worst is yet to come.”

David pointed up the stairs to his office. “Mac and I are going upstairs to go over the case. We need to compare notes.”

Archie scooped up her laptop. “I’m coming with you. I’ve been digging deeper into Sela Wallace’s background.”

“What about me?” Tonya called to them while eying Gnarly like he was a ticking time bomb.

“We have gas masks in supply,” David said before going into his office and closing the door.

Up in the police chief’s office, Archie set up her laptop on the conference table while David briefed Mac about his interview with Derrick Stillman and the DEA investigation. “The feds are checking with their undercover agent to determine if Derrick knew about his parents disinheriting him.”

“Can you imagine how awful it would be if Derrick was wrongly disinherited because of bad information from the feds?” Archie said with a shake of her head. “And his parents dying thinking that he was a drug dealer when he wasn’t.”

“Derrick could have been playing you,” Mac told David.

“I don’t think so,” David said. “He looked me straight in the eye and was completely frank about his history of addiction.
Besides, it will be easy enough to check out whether he works Fridays and Saturdays, which are big nights for drug dealing.”

“The smart drug dealers make sure they’re not on site when business is going down,” Mac pointed out.

“My instinct tells me that he’s straight up,” David said. “What does yours tell you about Lenny Frost since you were face to face with him?”

“He’s crazy…” Mac said, “and brilliant. That’s a lethal combination that I haven’t run into very often. When you’re lucky, the craziness outweighs the brilliance to trip the killer up. Things go bad when the brilliance outweighs the insanity. Then, bad things happen, but the killer is so smart that only God can stop him.”

“Which is the case with Lenny Frost?” David asked.

“Jury’s still out.”

“He’s got an alibi for the kill window in the Stillman murders,” David said. “If he shoots his hostages just because we don’t have a suspect in custody—how crazy would that be?”

“That tells me there’s something else going on here,” Mac said.

“Oh, yeah, I can confirm that.” David folded his arms across his chest. “Yesterday, he checked into the Wisp with two suitcases. He had his clothes in one. The second suitcase, an oversized bag on wheels, was empty except for heavy-duty garbage bags, duct tape, and disposable gloves. Now, I know I’m assuming something, but I think he was planning to leave with something extra—like a dead body.”

“Can’t be the Stillmans,” Mac said. “Their bodies were left at the scene.”

“Come look at this.” Archie waved for them to join her at David’s conference table. She had brought up the YouTube website on her laptop and had a video queued to play.

Taking the chair next to her, Mac moved in close enough to pick up the rosy scent of her hair. David sat on the other side of her.

Archie explained, “Derrick Stillman said that all we needed to do was go to YouTube for proof that Lenny Frost’s porch light is out. Take a look at this video that was uploaded to YouTube a couple of weeks ago after he went head to head against one of the comics at the club. Her name is Sally Riggleman.” She tapped the “PLAY” button.

To loud applause, a tiny blonde in a tight leather skirt and high heels stepped out onto the stage. With a cloud of platinum curls, she reminded Mac of a 1920s silent film movie actress. Grinning broadly, Sally greeted the audience and announced she was happy to be there.

“It is so much better being up here and working,” she said. “I’m hoping that I do better at this job than my last one, which didn’t go well. I was a narrator for bad mimes.”

Archie giggled. “She’s funny. You should see how she cuts Lenny down to size. It’s embarrassing. She’s got a very quick wit.”

Sally went on to discuss her bad luck. “It all started four years ago when I broke a mirror. I’ve been sentenced to seven years, but my lawyer says he can get me off in five for good behavior.”

Over the laughter of the audience, Lenny yelled, “Do we get any time off from your bad jokes?”

There was stunned silence in the audience.

The camera switched over to where Lenny was standing at the bar. He had a wicked grin across his face as he handed something off to a robust looking woman in a dark suit. When the spotlight swooped over to them, she ducked to avoid the light and hurried away in the direction of the backstage area.

A stunning redhead was at Lenny’s arm.

“Pause the video.” Mac slapped his hand down on the keyboard to halt the video.

“It’s just starting to get good,” Archie said.

In the next sequence, Lenny, enjoying his own joke, turned to the redhead who returned his laughter.

“It’s already good,” Mac said. “That’s her.”

“Her who?” Archie asked.

“Sela Wallace,” David said. “The woman whose background I have you digging into.”

Narrowing her eyes, Archie peered at the woman one step behind, yet next to, Lenny Frost. “I didn’t see her. I was so focused on Lenny that I didn’t—but she’s right there with him.”

Mac noted the date the video was posted. “This was uploaded fifteen days ago.”

“Derrick stated that he had only met Sela Wallace, who had given him another name, a week ago,” David said.

“Lenny acted like he didn’t know her in the Blue Whale.” Mac sat up straight. “He said something…” His voice trailed off while he went deep into thought.

“What did he say?” David asked.

“It hit me as weird at the time…” Mac studied the image of Lenny Frost and Sela Wallace on the computer monitor. “He said ‘when you arrest her.’ Not when you arrest him, but her.  Why would he say her unless he knew the killer was a woman?”

“Murder for hire?” David asked. “She has an alibi, but maybe she contracted the shooter and she was meeting Lenny at the Blue Whale to settle up.”

“They clearly know each other well,” Archie said. “Look at her body language. She’s turned toward him. Her body is open. Usually when a woman is in close proximity with someone, in particular a man she doesn’t know, she’ll have an arm or her purse or something in front of her to block him off. It’s subconscious. But look at her. She doesn’t have her arms crossed. She knows and is open to him. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were intimate.”

“All I care about is that they know each other,” Mac said. “Now I want to know when and how well they know each other. Well enough for her to kill for him?” He grasped Archie’s elbow. “I want to know everything you can find out about Sela Wallace.”

“I’m on it,” she said. “But can I finish watching this video first?”

Mac checked the time on the laptop. It was 4:51 p.m. “You have seven hours and nine minutes before Lenny commits murder.”