Twelve to Murder (A Mac Faraday Mystery) (13 page)

Chapter Fourteen

On his hands and knees, David was still shaking the stars flashing inside his head when he felt her boot make contact with his side. The wind knocked out of him, he felt like he had been stabbed simultaneously with two knives.

“What’s the matter? Your mommy always told you it wasn’t polite to hit girls?”

No way! He sensed rather than saw her throw her leg back to kick him in the gut where he was lying on his side.

Mentally, he pushed past the pain to see the foot coming at him. He tightened his midsection to take the impact and grabbed the foot with both hands. With a twist, he knocked her down onto her back. She hit the ground with a grunt. 

Before she could recover, he sprung up and pinned her down with his arm across her throat.

Only then was he aware of the blood in his mouth from where the butt of the rifle had made contact. While trying to concentrate on her, he quickly glanced around to locate the gun he had dropped and the rifle she had used to slug him. “You’re under arrest,” he told her in a low voice.

“I don’t think so,” she gasped out.

David’s weight was shifted to the side to hold her down and his right forearm was against her throat—he was off balance. Throwing her weight to the side, she rolled to land him on his back so she could straddle him.

On the rocky shoreline, David let out a cry when he felt the sharp edge of a cold hard rock tear through the back of his shirt and stab him between his shoulder blades. While his bulletproof vest protected him from bullets, it couldn’t protect him from the pain of landing on top of sharp rocks. Gasping deep breaths, he pushed through the pain.

“This is going to be more fun than I thought.” She flashed him a wide, toothy grin while reaching for his throat with both hands.

“Not tonight.” David threw his arms around her and tucked her into his chest before kicking up both legs and doing a back roll. Once more, he landed on top of her.

As soon as they stopped rolling, David spotted the dark familiar shape of his gun resting next to a rock. But he couldn’t let down his guard long enough to release her in order to grab it.

Cursing, she rose even as he straddled her. At the same time, David landed a punch to her face. Her head snapped back and she fell limp under him.

He grabbed his weapon and sat up to aim it at her head. “Fun’s over. You’re under arrest, Wallace.” He waited for her reaction—for her to fight him, argue, curse him. Instead, there was nothing.

She lay motionless under him.

“Wallace?”

When he heard the crash of feet running toward him, David twisted his aching body around with his finger on the trigger. The stabbing pain in his side told him that she had broken a couple of his ribs.

The beam of the flashlight blinded him. “Chief! You okay?”

Shading his eyes against the glare, David recognized Officer Brewster’s voice. “Where have you two been?”

“We took a wrong turn on the path coming down,” Officer Fletcher confessed, while they explored the scene with their flashlights, “but then heard a fight—oh, wow, Chief! What happened?”

David followed the flashlight beam to where Officer Fletcher was illuminating the woman on the ground between his legs. Only then was David able to see what had taken the fight out of his suspect.

In death, Sela Wallace’s hardened face was pale, which made her red hair stand out like fire in the glare of the flashlight beam. Behind her, the bright red took on a dark glow that flowed like a river across the rock that crushed the back of her head after David’s punch had ended their fight.

Deputy Chief Arthur Bogart may have been the oldest police officer on Deep Creek Lake, but that didn’t make him the least by any means. As soon as Mac hit the floor, Bogie charged through the broken door without pausing to open it and ran out onto the deck and patio. He caught sight of the inside light of a car on the hill that rested behind the rear of the pub. From the far corner of the parking lot next door, the shooter had been able to get an angle shot into the Blue Whale Pub toward the stage where Lenny Frost had been passed out.

Shooter has to know what he’s doing.

Hearing the start of the car engine, Bogie took off running around the outside of the Blue Whale Pub to the road.

The shooter would have to race his car from one end of the parking lot up above him and around the ritzy restaurant next door to turn out onto the access road, get to the traffic light at the intersection, and make his getaway.

Bogie could hear the deputies behind him racing to catch the shooter speeding away, but he didn’t have time to stop to explain any strategy.

He shot Ol’ Pat’s boy! No way am I letting him get away.

Bogie hurtled a police barricade and ran out into the road at the same time the car was turning onto the access road. In the driver’s seat, a young man with shaggy dark hair flashed Bogie a cocky grin and an obscene gesture with one hand while turning the steering wheel with the other.

You’re not getting away on my watch!

Bogie threw up his arm and fired three shots at the driver’s side and rear window of the car. The shooter gunned the engine. The car weaved from the left side of the road to the right.

“Is that him?” Sheriff Turow gasped out when he caught up with Bogie. “Are you sure that’s our shooter?”

The spinning wheels on the passenger side of the car hit the ditch. The speeding car went air born. It ended its flight top-side down in the middle of the intersection and spun like a turtle on its back. The sparks from the metal hitting pavement ignited the gasoline leaking from its tank and ended the chase with a grand explosion.

“Bogie, tell me that’s our shooter and your killer,” Sheriff Turow said in a pleading tone.

Turning to the sheriff, Bogie’s expression was filled with offense at the suggestion. He answered in a matter of fact tone, “I wouldn’t have shot him if he wasn’t.”

Chapter Fifteen

“Stay with me, Mac,” Bogie’s voice sounded like it was coming from the end of a tunnel. “Wake up. Don’t you give up. No son of Pat’s is a quitter.”

Forcing his eyes open, Mac’s head exploded in pain from the bright lights over him and the wail of the ambulance’s sirens. He felt Bogie squeezing his shoulder. When Mac tried to ask what had happened, his jaw felt like it was locked in place.

Something was pressed against the side of his head. His head feeling too heavy to move, Mac rotated his eyes to the side and saw bright red on a white gauze bandage that the EMT removed from his forehead.

“Bleeding…head…” was all Mac could make out of the jumbled words floating above him.

Mac turned his head back to Bogie whose lips were moving, but he couldn’t make out the words he was saying.

“Archie…” Mac tried to force her name out of his mouth to communicate to Bogie. “I need Archie.”

“What happened?” Archie pushed Bogie away when he tried to take her in his arms to comfort the frightened woman. In pulling away, she collided with Tonya, who had driven her to the hospital after dispatch had called to say that Mac was down.

All Archie could see was the blood on Bogie’s hands—the blood of the man she loved. “Why wasn’t Mac wearing a vest when he went inside?”

“He was,” Bogie said.

“Then what happened?” Archie’s voice went up several octaves. “Why was he brought here in an ambulance and unconscious…and bleeding?”

“He was shot in the back…” Seeing the hysteria coming to Archie’s face, Bogie grabbed her by the shoulders and explained. “The vest protected him, but the impact from the shot knocked him down and he hit his head on the stage. He got a cut on his forehead—” He showed her his bloody hands. “That’s where the blood came from. The doctors believe he has a hairline fracture and a concussion. They’re running an MRI on him now.”

“He’s going to be all right?” Tonya asked.

“They think so,” Bogie said. “They’re doing the MRI to make sure he doesn’t have any bleeding from the brain inside his skull. He was conscious by the time we got here to the hospital, but he was out for quite a while.”

Tonya hugged Archie, who let out the breath she had been holding since the call at the station.

“What happened to you?” Bogie blurted out to startle the two women.

They turned around to see David, his face battered and his torn uniform covered in dirt and blood. Clutching his ribs with one arm and pressing an ice pack to his swollen eye with the other, he eased into the first chair he came to. “I got beaten up.”

“By who?” Tonya asked.

“Sela Wallace,” he said. “Turns out she actually knew martial arts and can do stunts.” With a groan, he shifted in his seat and checked the ice pack, which had blood on it from a cut underneath his left eye. “I think she broke some of my ribs. Brewster drove me in to get x-rays. Fletcher is still at the scene dealing with the state police.”

“Did she get away?” Archie asked.

“No, she’s dead.” David said in a quiet tone. “I killed her…I guess that means I won.” He sat up and looked around at the patients and family in the waiting area. “Where’s Mac?”

“He’s getting an MRI,” Bogie said. “You didn’t hear?”

“No,” David said. “I thought you came because dispatch called about Wallace, and me coming here. What happened to Mac?”

“Someone shot up the pub,” Bogie said. “The car was registered to Zachery Harris. Mac caught a bullet in the back.” He held up his hand to ease David’s fears. “He was wearing his vest. He fell and cracked his head.”

“Did Harris escape?”

“Not likely,” Bogie said. “His car crashed and burned. They’ll need dental records for ID of the driver, but I believe it was Harris.”

“Why do we have so much trouble taking our suspects alive?” Tonya asked with a laugh in her voice.

“If they’d stop trying to kill us then we could.” David rose out of his seat so abruptly that he startled Tonya and Archie when he brushed past them and went down the hall.

Watching the police chief rush down the corridor, Tonya asked Bogie, “Was it something I said?”

“No,” Bogie replied before going down the hallway after him.

The deputy chief heard David before he saw him. From down the hall, he could hear the sound of an open palm repeatedly pounding a vending machine in the break room.

“Piece of junk!” David cursed the candy machine before slamming his fist against the door.

“Didn’t your papa used to tell you that you get more bees with honey than vinegar?” There was an extra down-home tone to Bogie’s drawl while he leaned in the doorway. He tucked his thumbs inside his utility belt.

“Forget it.” David gave the machine one last kick before turning away and going over to the window to look out into the darkened parking lot. “’I’m not really hungry anyway.”

“Did you eat dinner?” Bogie sauntered over to the machine to see that a chocolate candy bar had come off its coiled container but had gotten caught against the inside of the door.  

“No, but that’s all right.”

“You always did get cranky when your blood sugar dropped after not eating.” Bogie rested one hand against the side of the machine while pressing the other against the door. “Your dad used to tell me over and over again about how, in most situations, use of force only makes things worse.”

David turned around to see Bogie pressing against the vending machine’s door while gently rubbing his hand across the glass that rested between him and the candy bar.

“Took me thirty years to figure out what he meant.” Bogie stepped back and turned to David. “Most times, things are more likely to go your way when you simply use some gentle persuasion.” Like a donkey, Bogie delivered a back kick registering only a single notch above a tap. The candy bar dropped down. He took out the snack and went over to the window to hand it to David. “No excessive force necessary.”

David refused the offer. “You take it.”

With a shrug of his huge shoulders, Bogie tore off one end of the candy wrapper.

“And I did not use excessive force.” David pointed to his swollen face. “She started it. I ended it.”

“Who are you trying to convince?” Bogie took a bite of the candy bar.

Saying nothing, David turned back to the window. Bogie joined him in staring out the window. He was halfway through the candy bar before David broke the silence.

“Do you know how many people I’ve killed during my career…both here and overseas with the marines?” 

“Between the places you were stationed and situations that you’ve been in, both over there and here,” Bogie answered, “I can only imagine.”

“Each time, every single time…” David blinked his eyes and turned his head.

Bogie could sense rather than see the tears that came to his eyes.

“It never gets any easier,” David said in a tone that was barely above a whisper. “Every time I have taken a life, it was a kill or be killed situation. These animals are trying to kill me. They are the enemy, against my country or me or law and order in my town, but still, every single time that I have ended up having to kill them, I feel …” He sucked in a deep breath and hung his head. “It never gets any easier.”

“That’s good,” Bogie said.

David turned to him.

Bogie directed his attention to unwrapping the paper around his candy bar. “It’s good that you feel bad, because you’re one of the good guys. Good guys don’t want to kill anyone. But, for the sake of our society and way of life, we need guys like you, and me, and Mac. Good guys who are able to step up to the plate and do what has to be done, even when we don’t want to do it, to protect everyone else. If you didn’t feel remorse for the life that you’ve taken, then that would make you no better than those bad guys that you’ve killed. Feeling bad about killing a bad guy proves that you’re one of the good guys.” He pointed a finger at David. “And if you weren’t, I’d probably end up having to take you out, which would make me feel real bad.” Bogie popped the last of his candy bar into his mouth and chewed. He asked around the candy bar, “Understand?”

Slowly digesting the information, David nodded his head while shrugging his shoulders. The nod of his head turned into a shake. “Are you saying that if I didn’t feel bad you’d have to kill me?”

“Yep.”

“You’re not very good at giving pep talks.”

“No, I’m not.” Bogie slipped his arm across David’s shoulders. “Point is, you did what you had to do to protect everyone in that pub. She, just like every other bad guy that you’ve ever had to take out, left you no choice. It’s not your fault.”

“I know,” David said. “But even though I know that, it doesn’t make me feel any better.”

Looking into David’s blue eyes, which were filled with sadness, Bogie grinned. “Your dad was the same way. He said I was lousy at giving pep talks, too.”

Reminded of his father, whose death still left an aching wound in his chest, David shook off an additional dosage of remorse that he felt coming over him. “We need to get back to find out how Mac is.”

Agreeing, Bogie turned away to toss the candy wrapper in the trash container.

In a fleeting instant, David recalled the dozens of times that Bogie had been there for him while he was growing up. Bogie took his role as godfather extremely seriously. He was the man that David could go to when he felt too intimidated to go to his father. He was more than a friend and godfather. He was a confidante.

Struck with a thought, David grasped the elder man’s arm by the elbow. “Hey, Bogie.”

“Yeah, son.” Bogie turned to him.

“About Dad…” David said and then stopped.

“What about him?”

The two men stared into each other’s eyes.

“It’s about Mac…” David stopped to swallow.

The ends of Bogie’s mustache twitched as the corners of his lips curled. “I know, David.”

“You mean…” David asked, “I mean…Robin Spencer had Mac back when she was a teenager. Mac’s father was… Robin’s first love—”

“Your father was her one true love,” Bogie said.

“You know then?” David asked in a whisper. “Dad…Mac is…Dad was his…birth father. That makes him…”

“David,” Bogie asked with a grin, “do I look stupid to you?”

“You are far from stupid.”

Bogie chuckled. “I’ve known about Mac longer than you’ve been alive. Ol’ Pat and I had no secrets from each other.” His eyes misted up. “Every time I see the two of you working together, bonding like brothers, I can feel your father smiling down on you both.” He sucked in a shuddering breath. “You’ve both made him very proud.”

“Thank you, Bogie,” David said in a husky voice.

One corner of Bogie’s mustache kicked up when he tapped the blood stains on David’s white shirt. “Until you went and got yourself beaten up by a girl.”

David slumped while Bogie left the break room.

“For a small town police force, you Spencer cops certainly know how to kick butt.”

David returned to the waiting area to find Ben Fleming, Garrett County’s prosecuting attorney, chuckling along with Tonya and Archie. Bogie arrived directly ahead of him.

The laughter halted when Chelsea Adams, Ben’s paralegal, got a look at the police chief. “What happened to you?” She dropped her service dog’s leash and rushed over to him to examine his swollen eye and torn uniform.

Chelsea’s platinum blonde hair framed her face in wispy waves. Her ivory skin gave her an almost albino appearance, which was accentuated by her jade colored pantsuit that brought out her light blue eyes. Her slight build, combined with her fair features, gave her a fragile appearance not unlike a china doll that would crumble under the force of a strong bear hug.

Chelsea’s hair was almost as white as her service dog, Molly, a German shepherd, who was dressed for work in her gray vest with “Service Dog” stenciled in red block letters on the sides. Suffering from epilepsy since a serious car accident years before, Chelsea had enlisted the aid of Molly, who was trained to pick up early signs of seizures, which allowed her mistress time to take medication to stop it.

Since Chelsea’s arrival in Deep Creek Lake six months earlier, Molly and Gnarly had become fast friends.

“I’m okay.” David accepted Chelsea’s assistance to help him into the waiting room. “What are you two doing here?”

“My phone won’t stop ringing with calls from the media asking about the Frost situation,” Ben said. “When the sheriff told me about the Spencer police killing two suspects, I decided to come find out for myself what was happening. When I heard you and Mac were both here at the hospital, I offered to bring Chelsea to give you some TLC.”

After sniffing David’s clothes, Molly sat down and peered up at him.

“Who did this?” Chelsea asked.

“Sela Wallace.” David eased down into a chair. “One of our suspects in the Stillman murders.”

“Sela?” Taking a seat in the chair next to his, Chelsea peered closely at the bruises on David’s face and his torn, bloody uniform.

Bogie leaned over to whisper to her. “Yes, he got his butt handed to him by a
girl.”

“A
girl
hyped up on
steroids,”
David said. “At least I’m still standing.”

“Yeah, but it looks like she tagged you pretty good,” Bogie said with a laugh.

“Even so, after tonight, Spencer police will have the reputation of being the last small town cops that you would want to mess with,” Ben said. “Two suspects, and both of them are dead. Do you have any others?”

“Lenny Frost did take everyone in that pub hostage,” David said. “That makes him look really good to me, especially since he already had an airtight alibi for the Stillman murders.”

“Maybe he forgot he had an alibi,” Archie said.

A doubt-filled expression crossed David’s face. With a smirk, he cocked his head at her.

“Seriously,” she replied. “Lenny Frost is a card-carrying alcoholic and drug addict. He could have had a blackout and honestly not remember he had an alibi for the time of the murders. He may have even wondered if he did commit them.”

“You know, she’s right.” Bogie slowly nodded his head. “It’s not believable, but it can happen.” He tapped David on the shoulder. “Kind of reminds me of a case your dad and Robin worked on years ago. You were just a little tyke then. The killer was out with a couple of buddies. They had been
driving and drinking all day. The driver of the car was in the midst of a really nasty divorce. So, drunk out of his gourd, he swung by her house and beat her to death with the tire iron from his car. Then, he got back in the car with his buddies and they resumed bar hopping. His two buddies had no memory whatsoever of their friend going by the house. They alibied him. But, when confronted with the bloody tire iron that was in the trunk of the car with the victim’s blood, it was clear what had happened. They were both passed out drunk during the murder and had no memory of any of it.”

“Maybe,” David relented. “But I can’t get over Lenny and Sela Wallace being together in that video. Plus, they were both in the same rehab center at the same time. They have to know each other.”

“Just because they know each other doesn’t prove they were conspiring to commit murder together,” Chelsea said.

“Too bad both of your key suspects are dead,” Ben said. “They could have straightened this out.”

“Well, Ben,” David said with a pained sigh while clutching his ribs, “it was a case of kill or be killed.”

“Look on the bright side, Ben,” Bogie said. “We saved you a bunch of work and the state money from having to prosecute them.”

“On the dark side,” Ben said, “There’s going to be speculation from here to eternity about what happened.”

“I know,” David said. “This case isn’t over yet.”

“Well, I suggest you close it fast,” Ben said. “Lenny Frost and his hostages are all drying out. Frost’s lawyer has already swooped in and cornered me saying that we don’t have much of a case for holding him.”

“Wait a minute!” Bogie said. “He had a gun on all of them and said he was going to kill them at midnight. We have it on tape.”

“Unfortunately,” Ben said, “the blood-alcohol level and fun-loving attitude of the hostages makes them unreliable witnesses for the prosecution.”

“What about Mac?” Bogie asked. “He was the hostage negotiator. He was sober. He can tell what happened.”

“And he got that family released,” David said.

“Are you talking about the family that had to carry their child kicking and screaming out of the bar because he didn’t want to leave?” Ben asked.

“You’re not going to prosecute Frost, are you?” David asked.

“If you were on the jury for this case, would you convict?” the prosecutor replied. “Now, Lenny’s lawyer has agreed to have his client stay in the psych ward for three days to dry out and be observed, but after that…” He shrugged his shoulders.

“He’ll be gone,” Tonya said, “and telling every news journalist about how it was all a big misunderstanding.”

“Playing the role of the victim,” Archie agreed. “You have to admit he’s good at it. He won an Academy Award for playing the victim.”

“Translation,” Ben said, “if you want to tie Lenny Frost to these murders, you have three days to do it.