8 A Wedding and a Killing Read online

  “Don’t listen to them!” Carmine yelled to be heard over everyone. “They’re all lying to protect me. I’m the cold-blooded assassin who’s a risk to anyone and everyone. You can’t trust me out on the streets.” He took his cell phone from the pouch on his belt. “Do you want to know how many puppies I kicked just last week?”

  Doubtful, Bogie folded his arms across his chest. “How many?”

  “I’m sorry. Could you please excuse me for just a moment?” Carmine held up his finger in an order for Bogie to wait while he read a text. “Sorry, kids, we got to go. Soup kitchen is running low on sweet tea and Edna has run out of humane mouse traps for the church. All she’s got left are nasty things that break those poor little critters’ necks.”

  “Oh, I hate those things,” Natalie said with a shudder.

  “Me, too,” Carmine said. “Good thing I picked up a nice big case on special at the discount club last week.” He ushered her to the door. “Don’t you fret, honey. I’ll take care of you and your mother.”

  “They didn’t even listen to my confession,” she whined.

  “I’ll listen to your confession, Natalie.” After shooting a glare in Bogie’s direction, Chase fell in next to her.

  They were in such a hurry to leave that Carmine collided with David, who was coming through the open door at the same time that they were exiting.

  “Oh, I am so very sorry, Chief O’Callaghan.” Once he was assured David was fine, Carmine took Natalie by the arm. “Watch your step, my dear.”

  Noting their displeased expressions, David waited for them to leave before stepping into the police station. “I take it our band of merry killers are unhappy about not getting locked up.”

  “Not happy at all.” Bogie stuck his thumbs inside his utility belt. “I thought you went to arrest Ruth Buchannan.”

  “Reverend Hess is offering her safe haven in the church sanctuary.” David noted the upward turn of Bogie’s mustache at that news. “Mac has hired Willingham to defend her.”

  Bogie laughed.

  “You don’t think she did it.”

  “I know she didn’t kill anyone,” Bogie said. “Ruth is the gentlest of gentle women.”

  “Maybe she is now,” David said, “but the fact is that there’s a warrant out for her arrest and if we don’t arrest her—”

  Gnarly’s bark sounded like a lion rudely awakened in the break room.

  Both of them carrying a handful of dog biscuits, Officers Brewster and Fletcher ran down the hallway. Nipping at their heels, Gnarly was right behind them. Once they got into the squad room, Gnarly slid to a stop and continued to bark at both officers who held him at bay with chairs placed between them.

  “What got into Gnarly?” Fletcher asked with biscuit crumbs spilling from his mouth.

  “You’re eating his dog biscuits,” Tonya said.

  “No!” Officer Brewster climbed up onto his desk when Gnarly charged toward him. Seeing that the German shepherd was coming after the biscuit he was clutching, the officer threw it at Gnarly, who jumped to catch it in mid-air. “It’s Fletcher’s doing!” He pointed at his partner. “He said they were for us.”

  “They looked like cookies,” Officer Fletcher claimed when Gnarly turned to cross back to the other officer. “Tasted like them, too.”

  With a huff, Gnarly sat in front of Officer Fletcher. His unblinking gaze was trained on the officer.

  “I never would have touched them if I knew they were yours.”

  Gnarly’s snout twisted.

  “All gone.” Fletcher held up his hands to show they were empty.

  The dog’s lips curled to show his fangs.

  “I don’t think he believes you,” David said.

  “Are you sure you gave them all back?” Tonya asked Officer Fletcher.

  “Okay, here! Take them all.” Officer Fletcher reached into his pants pocket and tossed two more cookies onto the floor in front of Gnarly.

  Satisfied, Gnarly snatched up both cookies into his mouth and, without chewing them, trotted back to the break room to save them for later.

  “No respect,” Fletcher called after him before telling David, “The county’s K-9 doesn’t act like that.”

  “The county’s K-9 doesn’t get homemade cookies baked special for him,” Tonya said.

  Brewster grumbled. “Last time I’ll take a cookie from the break-room without asking first.” He started to return to the room for his lunch before deciding to go into town.

  Since they were leaving, David gave them orders to go to Spencer Church to keep tabs on Ruth Buchanan.

  “What do you want us to do if she leaves?” Officer Fletcher asked. “Arrest her or follow her until the New York guys get here?”

  “She’s not going to try to leave,” David said. “Mac got Ed Willingham to defend her. He’ll be flying in today to meet with her. Just keep tabs on her.”

  “Why the special treatment?” Officer Brewster asked. “Because she’s Mac’s friend or Willingham’s client?”

  “Both,” David said. “Mac wouldn’t be doing this if he didn’t have good reason to. Not only that, but I know Ed Willingham. He plays fair. Once he gets here, he’ll advise her to turn herself in. Let’s give her the chance to do that.”

  “And when she does, we’ll treat her with respect,” Bogie ordered.

  The deputy chief waited until they had left before thanking David for ordering them to hold off on arresting Ruth. “You’ll see. She had nothing to do with what happened to Eugene.”

  “Unless Eugene found out she was wanted for murder,” David said. “Ruth is an employee of the church. Eugene handled their administrative affairs. He could have uncovered the outstanding warrant.”

  “As the church’s business manager, Eugene could have run into problems with a lot of different people,” Bogie said. “Like Alan Bennett. Eugene was forced to fire him from the counter’s schedule because he had to keep borrowing money because of his drinking and gambling.”

  “Alan Bennett’s wife committed him Saturday night,” Tonya said, “after he went on a giant binge. She had him picked up by ambulance and taken to Pennsylvania. He was in detox at the time of the murder.”

  “That’s why he wasn’t in church on Sunday,” Bogie said.

  “Sounds like he’s got an airtight alibi,” David said.

  She sighed, “I did find another possible suspect a little while ago while checking into Eugene’s finances.”

  “Who’s that?” Bogie asked.

  “His wife,” Tonya said. “While David was out, Marilyn Newton booked a ten-day Hawaiian cruise—mini-suite with balcony and double occupancy—for next month.”

  “Her husband’s body isn’t even cold yet…” David turned to Bogie. “Bring the grieving widow in. I want to know who she’s running off to Hawaii with.”

  “Jason and I had been married thirteen years,” Ruth began. “We had been dating a few weeks when he hit me the first time. I should have known better, but he was so apologetic afterwards. He insisted it was a fluke and …” Clinging to Deborah and Edna, she sobbed. “He was so handsome and classy and rich. I was completely blinded by all this glitz that I realize now was just a façade that hid the real man—the one I saw very soon after we were married.”

  “Things only continued to get worse,” Mac said.

  “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard women say that,” Deborah said.

  “I thought I could put up with it,” Ruth said, “live with it and pray that Jason would die first and leave me a rich widow … until he broke Natalie’s arm. She was only eight years old. A child. And the doctor reported it and Jason was arrested. Then, the doctor recanted his statement and the prosecutor said they didn’t have enough for a case, even though Natalie was going to testify against her father—oh, how she hated Jason. She’s closer to Carmine than she has eve
r been to any man.”

  Thinking about Carmine’s confession, Mac asked, “I guess Carmine is nothing like her father.”

  “Not at all.” A soft smile came to her lips. “He is such a gentle and loving man. He always brings me flowers … just because they reminded him of me.”

  “Really?”

  “For years,” Ruth said. “Even in three feet of snow, he manages to get through in his catering van to come to the house to check on Natalie and me. He’ll always have an armload of flowers for both of us—”

  “And food,” Edna interjected.

  “Something homemade from a secret family recipe.” Ruth giggled. “Oh, yeah, Carmine Romano is no Jason Fairbanks.”

  While the three women grinned at each other, Mac wondered if he should tell them about Carmine, Chase, and Natalie being down at the police station, each of them confessing to Eugene Newton’s murder. Opting to get the details of the murder that Ruth was accused of, he decided to hold off on divulging that information.

  “After charges against Jason were dismissed for breaking Natalie’s arm,” Ruth said, “we left. While Jason was at work, I packed a bag, went to the school and picked up Natalie, and we ran. Three months later, my father-in-law’s private investigator caught up with us in Montana and I was arrested.” With a hollow laugh, she shook her head. “Those charges stuck. My lawyer, who was under Reese’s thumb, rolled over and played dead, and I was facing jail time for child abduction. The prosecutor, this pig by the name of Winston Hawkins, made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. Withdraw my petition for divorce, which I had filed while Jason was facing charges for child abuse, and move back into his home to be his wife, and they would withdraw their charges against me for abduction. If I didn’t, I would go to jail and Jason would end up with Natalie anyway. I thought as long as I wasn’t in jail, I could defend her … as best I could.” She looked down at her hands in her lap. “I had no choice.”

  “Your father-in-law had that much power?” Mac asked.

  “Believe it or not.”

  “I believe it,” he said. “I’ve come up against people like that before.” He paused. “So you went back to your husband.”

  “It was terrible,” Ruth said. “Worse than before. Jason was so pleased with himself. He was actually cocky—believed there was nothing that he couldn’t get away with. He told me that he could kill me and no one would ever do a thing—they would never find my body—and he wouldn’t spend a day in jail for it. Natalie would forget about me. I went from wife to his possession and slave as far as he was concerned.” She paused to bite her bottom lip. “Then, about a month after I made that deal with the devil, the doorbell rang, and that was when God answered my prayers.”

  “How?” Edna asked.

  “Jason was at work,” Ruth said. “Natalie was at school. When I answered the door, there was a big, thick, brown padded envelope on the welcome mat. It was addressed to me and marked personal. After I took it in and looked inside … I couldn’t believe what I found.”

  “What did you find?” Deborah asked in a breathless voice.

  “A Maryland driver’s license, with my picture, in the name of Ruth Buchanan. The address was here in Maryland. It was for an apartment in Oakland. Two social security cards. One in the name of Ruth Buchanan, the other in the name of Natalie Buchanan. A check book and debit card for a bank account with a balance of fifty thousand dollars.”

  Mac felt his mouth drop open. He saw an identical reaction from the church reverend. Her eyes grew wide until she blinked.

  “How much?” Willingham’s voice reminded them that he was listening on the cell phone.

  “Fifty thousand dollars,” Ruth said. “There was also a flip cell phone, one of those—I guess you call them burner phones, with a note taped to it that said, ‘Call Me.’ I opened it up and there was one contact on it. The name listed was Madame X. So I hit the call button and she answered.”

  “I take it her name was not really Madame X,” Mac said.

  Ruth shook her head. “I didn’t want to know her real name. If the Fairbanks ever found out that she was helping me—there’s no telling what would happen to her.”

  “Why was she helping you?” Edna asked. “Did she tell you how she found out about you and where she got all that money?”

  “She simply told me that she knew about my situation. The money was to help me and Natalie start over with our new lives and to get on our feet. She said if I needed more than that, to call her on the burner phone and she would make a deposit to the account. Her exact words were ‘whatever it takes.’”

  Pulling away, Deborah sat up straight. “That’s awfully generous.”

  “Very,” Mac said.

  “I know,” Ruth said. “But it was the miracle that Natalie and I needed. Over the next week, I worked out with her exactly how to make our escape without leaving a paper trail. She had suggestions on what to do. She became my lifeline. For the first time, there was someone I really felt like I could trust and talk to about what was happening and she completely understood.” She sucked in a shuddering breath. “I think she was an abused wife, too. I had a feeling. She so understood exactly what I was going through.” She added, “Madame X could not have come at a better time.”

  Mac returned to the day of Jason Fairbanks’ murder. “What happened on the day you left?”

  “The week before, Jason accused me of talking to his mistress, which I hadn’t,” Ruth said. “I had never even spoken to her. She had broken it off with him and somehow it was my fault. I thought he was going to break my neck. I had bruises around my throat for a week. The day after I told Madame X about it, a gun was delivered to the house by Fed-Ex. She had a note inside to keep it with me and not to be afraid to use it if Jason ever laid another hand on me. On D-day, as Madame X and I had come to call it, Natalie went off to school like usual. Jason was at work. He was supposed to be there until five, but on that day he came home early—at three-thirty. When we saw him coming into the driveway, I sent Natalie out the back door and around to the car to wait for me. Jason was drunk, as always when he came in. He was furious and accused me of talking to Portia again. When I denied it, he grabbed me by the throat and was choking me. Then he hit me. When I caught my balance, I realized I had the gun in my hand. He saw it and laughed at me. He didn’t think I would have the guts to pull the trigger but I did.”

  “You shot him?” Mac asked, though it was more of a statement.

  “I had never fired a gun before,” Ruth said. “I was surprised I even hit him. I shot him in the shoulder. He was surprised, too. Then, he was mad. So he came running at me. I said a prayer and pulled the trigger again. This time, I didn’t even try to aim. I just wanted to stop him. That shot hit him in the leg and he went down. Then he was cussing a blue streak. I grabbed my purse and ran. I peeled the car out of the driveway. Natalie called Madame X. She told me to keep on going. Don’t look back. She would take care of everything. So I did. I drove straight here to Deep Creek Lake. Madame X had given me Deborah’s name as a contact.” She added, “But I never told Deborah about shooting Jason. She never even knew my real name.”

  Mac turned his attention to the pastor. “But you knew Ruth was running away from an abusive situation.”

  Deborah’s eyes met his.

  “Was this all part of the underground railroad?” Mac asked.

  Deborah’s expression softened.

  “I was a detective in Washington, D.C., for twenty years,” he said. “I had a colleague who had helped abused spouses and children escape horrible situations. The only way I knew about it was because I ended up catching a case in which he had helped a woman fake her death in order to escape her husband.”

  “Then you know that the best way to protect these women and children is for the left hand to not know what the right hand is doing,” Deborah said. “That way, if the left hand gets caught in the cookie
jar, it can’t give away the right hand. That’s why Ruth was instructed to never tell anyone here her real name. As far as anyone was concerned, Scarlett Fairbanks was no more.”

  “Then you have no idea who Madame X is?” Mac asked her. “How did Ruth end up with your contact information here?”

  Deborah answered, “I was contacted by someone who knew that the church was in need of a custodian. The job included a caretaker’s cottage. He asked if we would be willing to take a mother and child. I said yes, if the woman and her child were Christians who would be willing to become members of our congregation.” She offered a soft smile. “It wouldn’t exactly look good to have someone taking care of our building who was a Satan worshipper having wild parties. Everything worked out lovely. We all became best friends.”

  “Is it customary to set up these women with fifty thousand dollars to start out?” Willingham asked. “Where would that money come from? It had to come from somewhere.”

  Deborah shook her head. “I have no idea. This is the first I’ve heard of this.” She turned to Ruth. “The whole underground railroad is made up of volunteers. After years of standing by wringing our hands, a bunch of us from across the country banded together and decided that it was time for us to do something—on our own. Believe it or not, we have been more effective than any government agency could be. Some of our volunteers work for the government. Some in law enforcement, some doctors and nurses, and even some lawyers. You would not believe the number of women, children, and even abused men we have helped to set up new, and safe, lives.” She added with a shake of her head. “But giving a woman and child fifty thousand dollars? I’ve never heard of that. We’re all volunteers who make things happen with what we have. If a woman or child or children need money, we usually will give it out of our own pockets. I’ve paid for hotels and security deposits for rundown apartments in out of the way places, but …” She looked at Ruth again. “Fifty thousand is a lot of money.”

  “Call me cynical,” Mac said, “but I have found that people aren’t usually that generous with so much money unless they have a personal stake in the situation.”