Blast from the Past (A Mac Faraday Mystery) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Blast from the Past

  Blast from the Past (Book Information)

  Dedication

  Cast of Characters

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Epilogue

  The Murders at Astaire Castle--Book Excerpt

  About the Author

  Other Lauren Carr Mysteries!

  Blast from the Past

  A Mac Faraday Mystery

  By

  Lauren Carr

  Blast from the Past (Book Information)

  All Rights Reserved © 2012 by Lauren Carr

  Published by Acorn Book Services for E-Publication

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author.

  For information call: 304-285-8205

  or Email: [email protected]

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Designed by Acorn Book Services

  Publication Managed by Acorn Book Services

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  [email protected]

  304-285-8205

  ASIN: B00AWA0XDC

  Cover designed by Todd Aune

  Cover Image: gunskill 2 © morrbyte/fotoli.com

  Spokane, Washington

  www.projetoonline.com

  Published in the United States of America

  Dedication

  To Our Men and Woman of Law Enforcement

  On the Front Lines—You’ve Always Got Our Backs

  Cast of Characters

  (in order of appearance)

  Tommy Cruze: Head of a major East Coast crime syndicate. Spent ten years in prison for murder.

  Archie Monday: Personal assistant, editor, research assistant to world-famous mystery author Robin Spencer, who passed away two years ago. Lives in the guest cottage at Spencer Manor.

  Mac Faraday: Retired homicide detective. His wife had left him and took everything. On the day his divorce became final, he inherited $270 million and an estate on Deep Creek Lake from his birth mother, Robin Spencer.

  Gnarly: Mac Faraday’s German shepherd. Another part of his inheritance from Robin Spencer. Gnarly used to belong to the United States Army, who refuses to talk about him.

  David O’Callaghan: Spencer police chief. Son of the late police chief, Patrick O’Callaghan. Mac Faraday’s best friend and half-brother.

  Deputy Chief Arthur Bogart (Bogie): Spencer’s Deputy Police Chief. David’s godfather. Don’t let his gray hair and weathered face fool you.

  Robin Spencer: Mac Faraday’s late birth mother and world famous mystery author. She gave birth to Mac as an unwed teenager and gave him up for adoption. After becoming America’s queen of mystery, she found him and made him her heir. Ancestors founded Spencer, Maryland, located on the shore of Deep Creek Lake, a resort area on Western Maryland.

  Police Chief Patrick O’Callaghan: David’s late father. Spencer’s legendary police chief. The love of Robin Spencer’s life and Mac Faraday’s birth father.

  Randi Finnegan: United States Marshal assigned to protect Archie Monday.

  Violet O’Callaghan: David’s elderly mother. She suffers from dementia.

  Butch: Randi Finnegan’s ex-husband.

  Wilson Terrance: Chief of the United States Marshal’s field office in Cumberland, Maryland. He had been friends with J. Edgar Hoover.

  Ginger Altman: Administrative Assistant, United States Marshal’s field office in Cumberland, Maryland.

  Hector Langford: Spencer Inn’s chief of security. The lean, gray-haired Australian has been with the Spencer Inn for twenty-five years.

  Leah Juliano: Italian immigrant. Owner of Dockside Cafe, a gourmet coffee shop located on Deep Creek Lake.

  Sari: Leah’s six-year-old daughter. She doesn’t talk.

  Special Agent Sid Delaney: Special agent with the FBI’s organized crime bureau.

  Special Agent Tony Bennett: Special agent with the FBI’s organized crime bureau. No relation to the singer by the same name.

  Alan Richardson: Tommy Cruze’s high-priced lawyer.

  Ariel Richardson: Alan Richardson’s wife and law partner.

  Tonya: Spencer Police Department’s desk sergeant.

  Dr. Dora Washington: Garrett County Medical Examiner.

  Russell Skeltner: Half-owner of the Skeltner Cove Bed and Breakfast, surviving spouse of Mary Catherine Skeltner.

  Mary Catherine Skeltner: Half-owner of the Skeltner Cove Bed and Breakfast, located on the shore of Deep Creek Lake. Dies from a fall down the stairs. Or was she pushed?

  Nora Crump: Tourist from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Wife of Gordon Crump. Witness, suspect, or supposed victim to what happened in the Dockside Cafe.

  Gordon Crump: Tourist from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Husband of Nora Crump. Witness, suspect, or supposed victim to what happened in the Dockside Cafe.

  Epigraph

  Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.

  — Oscar Wilde

  Prologue

  Campus Library, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland—Twelve Years Ago

  Kendra Douglas could have sworn that she heard someone walking up in the library stacks. While her head told her that the footsteps she had heard were only her imagination, the pounding in her heart insisted that someone was hiding up there, and that he likely had a knife—a big, sharp knife.

  She blew her blonde bangs out of her emerald green eyes, did a toss of her head to flip her hair back over her shoulder, and squinted up at the bookshelves in the loft above the librarian’s desk.

  If I stare hard enough, I can see him.

  No one materialized. With a perfect combination of fear, imagination, and bravado; she stood up from her chair, squared her shoulders, and stuck out her small bosom.

  Guess I need to go up and check—the same way I have to every night when I close up the library. She slumped. And, just like always, I’ll find no one up there.

  Kendra sucked up every nerve she had and ascended the stairs to the loft.

  What’s that?

  She whirled around to search the shadows down on the main floor.

  She listened.

  Silence.

  Will you stop scaring yourself, Kendra? You’ve got to stop reading all
those Robin Spencer books late at night. It’s gotten worse since you took her class.

  At the top of the stairs, she forced herself to stride bravely across the length of the floor while checking every aisle for stragglers—or, better yet, for killers to confirm that her sense of danger was not always her active imagination.

  No one. See? Now grow some guts, lock up, and go home to bed. Maybe you should skip Mickey Forsythe tonight … but maybe not.

  Excited about the prospect of finishing Robin Spencer’s latest book, a signed advance review copy that the author had given her as a gift, Kendra hurried to check every corner of the library without fear. She was in too big of a rush to be scared.

  You are one weird girl, Kendra. How many graduate students fall in love with a fictional character? You do know Mickey Forsythe isn’t real, don’t you? At this rate, as long as you’re looking for a man like Mickey Forsythe, you can give up on ever getting married. He ain’t real.

  After tossing her book bag over her shoulder, she stopped at the front door, turned to do one last visual sweep of the main floor, switched on the security system, and stepped outside into the cold night air.

  Kendra pulled up the hood on her winter coat to block out the bitter February wind. A jog to her car in the student parking lot would pump her blood and stop the chill that made her teeth chatter. For further protection against the cold, she ducked behind the hedges that lined the sidewalk to block out the wind.

  “No! Please!” a man’s pleading voice wailed from the parking lot. The cry was followed by a scream of terror.

  Kendra stopped. She held her breath. She could hear men’s voices in the parking lot only a few yards away.

  “You’re making a mistake!” A man was sobbing.

  “No, you’ve made the mistake.” The other man’s voice was as cold as the wind biting her cheeks.

  “Aahhh!” the other man cried out.

  This is like something out of a Mickey Forsythe book. No, Kendra! This isn’t a Mickey Forsythe mystery. This is real. That man is really being hurt. What would Mickey do? Hide!

  Ducking back into the shadows of the hedges, she made her way to the end of the sidewalk.

  The man screamed in agony. He sounded weaker, as if he didn’t have much strength left.

  Kneeling down to keep low, she clutched her bag and reached inside for her pepper spray. Slowly, holding her breath, she peered around the edge of the hedge. She swallowed to keep down the shock that shot up from her gut and through her chest in an attempt to escape in the form of a shriek at the sight she saw.

  They were under a lamp that illuminated the parking lot. Across the parking lot, a white sedan was parked in one of the professor’s parking spaces. A long silver limousine had the sedan blocked in its space. A black van was parked on the other side of the professor’s sedan.

  Kendra realized that the sedan belonged to Dr. Bert Reynolds. She couldn’t miss him. He had a reputation with the ladies. Two men held the professor by the arms while a third man beat him again and again about his head and body with a ball bat.

  No longer was his handsome face so attractive.

  “Listen, all you have to do is confess,” the man holding the bloody ball bat said. “If you would admit to bonking my wife, then we’d all have more respect for you.”

  The parking lot light bathed his bald head so it shone like a white ball on a billiard table. He had the squat, muscular build of a gorilla. With his long camel-hair coat he looked like a dressed up ape.

  Two other men dressed in black clothes stood off to the side watching the beating like a couple of spectators. Occasionally, one would make a comment to the other and they would both laugh.

  Seeing that he was unable to fight anymore, the two men dropped Dr. Reynolds to the ground.

  “Are you going to admit it?” Gorilla Man asked.

  Kendra heard something, but she couldn’t understand what the professor said. Whatever it was, it displeased Gorilla Man because he slammed the bat against the knocked downed man two more times.

  “Confess!”

  Professor Reynolds rolled over and covered his face with his arm. Sobbing, he cried out indecipherable mumbled words.

  “Excuse me, what did you say?” Gorilla Man bent over him.

  Professor Reynolds gestured as he spoke again.

  A smile stretched across Gorilla Man’s round face. “That’s what I wanted to hear. The truth.” He stood up. “Now, we can all respect you.” He went over to one of the goons. “You know what else, Dr. Reynolds? They say confession is good for the soul.”

  The goon handed Gorilla Man a long silver pistol. It shone under the street lamp.

  Seeing the gun, Dr. Reynolds wailed, “Please! I did what you asked! I have a wife and two kids.”

  “Right now, your soul needs all the help it can get.” Gorilla Man emptied the gun into Professor Reynolds. He shot until it clicked to signal that there were no more bullets. After handing the gun back to the man who had given it to him, he turned to the two men who had been watching from the side. “Clean this up.”

  Chapter One

  Spencer, Maryland – Deep Creek Lake – Present Day

  “Gnarly, it’s time to go for your appointment.”

  Lovely in her soft grey Chanel suit, rose-colored blouse, and stylish pumps, Archie Monday, assistant to the late Robin Spencer, hurried up the stairs to the second floor of Spencer Manor and down the hallway to the master suite. The rose leather clutch bag under her arm was a perfect match for the fedora she wore over her pixie-styled blonde hair.

  “Gnarly, are you in here?” She threw open the double doors to find the German shepherd sitting in the suite’s bathroom doorway. “There you are. It’s time to go.” She gestured for the dog to come to her.

  Instead of obeying his favorite human, Gnarly whined and turned his attention back to the happenings inside the other room.

  “Go where?” Mac Faraday called out to her from the bathroom.

  She crossed the width of the suite to peer in at him. The sight that greeted her wasn’t what she had expected from the son of Robin Spencer, whose roots were as blue-blood as they come.

  The clichéd appearance of a wealthy man calls for him to be tall, dark, and handsome—maybe ruggedly handsome—and at the very least, well-groomed. A man of wealth is best able to achieve this requirement by hiring others—like plumbers—to do the dirty work.

  Two years after his inheritance allowed him to retire from his career as a homicide detective, Mac Faraday had chosen to ignore that rule.

  His middle-class upbringing had a different rule: If you can do it yourself—no matter how dirty the job—it’s a waste of money to hire someone else to do it for you.

  Determination had drawn Mac’s handsome face into a scowl. His blue eyes were narrowed into slits focused on the toilet in which he was plunging away. Water splashed upwards to spill over the sides and drenched the lower half of his sweatpants down to his bare feet.

  Even in this less than glamorous setting, Archie did find his arm and chest muscles, bulging from the workout, appealing. When Mac yanked the plunger up from out of the toilet, in the process splattering the water across his firm stomach and down the front of his pants, she reconsidered that assessment. Maybe not that appealing after all. She asked, “What are you doing?”

  “What does it look like?”

  “Why?”

  “It’s stopped up.” He shook the dripping plunger in Gnarly’s direction. “And I have a feeling I know who did it.”

  Uttering a whine, Gnarly moved to hide behind Archie’s legs.

  She jumped to the shepherd’s defense. “Why are you blaming Gnarly? He doesn’t use the toilet. You’re the only one who uses this toilet.”

  “You’ve used it.” Mac reminded her of her frequent nights spen
t with him in the master suite. “Maybe I should blame you.”

  She folded her arms across her bosom. “I wouldn’t go there if I were you.”

  “That’s why I’m blaming Gnarly.” He again pointed the plunger at the dog. “Look at him. Do you see that guilty expression on his face? He’s done something, and I suspect it has to do with this toilet.”

  “Even if he did drop something into it, how did he flush it?” She giggled. “Mac, he’s a dog.”

  The phone on the bed stand rang before Mac could come up with a response. “Answer that, will you?” He returned to his plunging.

  “I need to take Gnarly to the groomer,” she called in to him while trotting to the king-sized bed that they had been sharing.

  Mac Faraday had inherited the mansion from Robin Spencer, who, as an unwed teenager, had given him up at birth. However, his late mother had stipulated that her research assistant and editor, Archie Monday, was permitted to live in the stone guest cottage tucked away in the rose garden for as long as she wanted.

  The beautiful green-eyed blonde had come with the house, and Mac Faraday was in no hurry for her to move out … nor was she in any hurry to leave.

  Spencer’s police chief David O’Callaghan didn’t sound his usual jovial self when Archie answered the phone. After a quick hello, he asked for Mac.

  “David, you sound terrible,” she observed.

  “My weekend’s been shot,” he replied. “One of my cruisers was stolen last night.”

  “Are you serious?”

  Mac came into the bathroom doorway. “What’s wrong?”

  She told him, “One of David’s police cruisers got stolen.”