Candidate for Murder Page 28

  “What’s an executive officer who answers to the director of operations doing debriefing a field agent?” Murphy asked.

  “Very good question,” she said. “We know that the snitch who outed Tawkeel is someone from inside the agency who had contact with the very people Tawkeel was trying to identify.”

  “Which would mean that whoever outed Tawkeel already knew their identities,” Murphy said. “Not only knew them but also was in contact with them.”

  “I have two questions,” she said. “Did Wallace go to question Tawkeel because he knows that there’s a double agent inside the agency and is trying to identify him or her, and was he there to cover his tracks because he’s the double agent?”

  “If he were simply the executive officer for the director of ops,” Murphy said, “he wouldn’t have gone to a hospital to visit a lowly field agent who might or might not have blown his cover. He’d have sent security, which is what he told Tawkeel he was. He was there because he needed to know firsthand what Tawkeel knows—because he has a personal stake in it.”

  “In his position, he has access to the information that got leaked in Tawkeel’s case.”

  “Nigel,” Murphy said as if the AI were in another room. “Check Newt Wallace’s personnel file in the Office of Personnel Management. Was he in any way connected to Bruce Hardy’s assignment four years ago in Iraq?”

  “We’ll also need to check his financials to determine if there’s a money trail to whomever he’s selling this information to,” she said.

  “If he’s selling information to the terrorist network, there’s no telling how many people died because of him,” Murphy said.

  “Four years ago,” Nigel said, “Newt Wallace was the division chief stationed in Langley and was working over Bruce Hardy. At the time, Wallace’s supervisor was the director of covert operations, Camille Jurvetson.”

  “I can tell you right now,” CO said, “that without hard proof that Wallace has been selling human sources, Camille Jurvetson will never turn on him. I’ve heard more than one source say that they are very close.”

  “Lovers?”

  “Most likely. At the very least, he is protected.”

  “What do you want me to do?” Murphy asked.

  “You’re a Phantom,” she said. “Do what any good Phantom would do.”

  After Detective Roxie Greyson had arrested and handcuffed her, Cassandra Clark was ushered out of the maze, into the Spencer Inn, and through the lobby, which was filled with guests who were still gathering for her husband’s town-hall meeting.

  Dozens upon dozens of news journalists got pictures of the mayoral candidate’s wife being arrested—though they still didn’t know what for. In no time, they speculated that she had possibly murdered Nancy Braxton, her husband’s opponent, to better his chances of winning the election.

  By the time Cassandra Clark was escorted out of the front door to where the sheriff’s police cruiser was waiting, Bill Clark was running into the lobby. When the news journalists saw him, a sea of microphones and recorders was stuck in his face. “Tell us how you feel about your wife being arrested. Has the sheriff been in contact with you about the investigation?”

  Bill Clark searched the faces surrounding him until he caught sight of David O’Callaghan coming out of the penthouse elevator with Mac. Enraged, he shoved his way through the throng of people to reach the police chief. “What the hell, O’Callaghan! What kind of trumped-up charges—”

  Before Clark could reach David, Mac jumped in between them. “You’re talking to the wrong man, Clark! Sheriff Turow is in charge of this case.”

  “What case?” Bill’s eyes grew big. “Not Braxton’s murder!”

  Aware of the recorders and microphones aimed at them, Mac said, “The county sheriff has had the lead in Nancy Braxton’s murder from the get-go, and you know it!” He looked around at the crowd of journalists. “Any questions about what just happened or about the Braxton murder are to be directed to the Garrett County sheriff’s department.”

  Cocking his head to make eye contact with David, Bill Clark narrowed his eyes. “Sheriff Turow may have the official lead in this case, but I know who’s pulling the strings behind the scenes.” He pointed two fingers first at his own eyes and then at David’s. “I’m watching you, O’Callaghan. You’re going to slip up in this conspiracy of yours—”

  “Your wife just did a perp walk through a hotel lobby, Clark!” Mac said. “Don’t you think you should get down to the sheriff’s office to find out what she did?”

  Clark’s campaign manager, Simon Spears, whispered something to Bill Clark that reminded him of the journalists surrounding him and of the many cameras catching the moment. With effort, he contorted his face into a practiced expression of concern for his wife and hurried away.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  At the sheriff’s department, Mac and David slipped in through a rear door to avoid running into Bill Clark or any members of his entourage. They assumed that Simon Spears was already hard at work doing damage control and spinning the event to make it the police department’s fault—and to aim most of the blame at Gnarly—even though the candidate wasn’t even in the vicinity.

  They found Sheriff Turow in his office going over the details of the arrest for his police report. He had already started a case file. Sheriff Turow was comparing the statements that Cassandra Clark had made during her recorded conversation with Nathan Braxton to the evidence that they had collected on Nancy Braxton’s murder.

  “That was a good suggestion you made, Mac—having Nathan ask her about drowning Nancy Braxton,” the sheriff said. “We didn’t release the official cause of death—not even to the family. The media reported that she had been found in the lake. It would be natural for someone not involved in the murder to assume she drowned.”

  “The killer will know that Nancy Braxton had first been struck in the back of the head,” David said.

  “So,” Mac said, “since Cassandra didn’t correct Nathan and even went into detail about how she’d drowned, we can assume that the gold digger was lying. She took credit for arranging the murder in order to coerce Braxton into setting up and paying for the murder of her husband.”

  “Could she have done it?” Sheriff Turow asked. “Maybe she didn’t get the details of how the hit man did it and made that part up when Nathan asked for the details.”

  “If she was going to hire a hit man to kill someone, why not have him kill her intended target?” David asked.

  “Because she’s a nut,” the sheriff said.

  “And an opportunist,” Mac said. “I’m willing to bet that she and Nathan Braxton did have that conversation. Maybe the shared misery of being married to self-absorbed narcissists brought them together. Then, when Nancy Braxton ended up dead—”

  “Cassandra assumed Nathan had done it and decided to take advantage of it,” David said.

  “And to blackmail him into arranging the murder of her husband,” Sheriff Turow said.

  “The point is,” Mac said, “you can’t hang a murder charge on her.”

  “But if Nathan Braxton ends up being behind his wife’s murder, you can use Cassandra as a witness, since she can testify that he did talk about wanting to kill his wife,” David said.

  “Do you think he did arrange his wife’s murder?” Sheriff Turow asked.

  “I wouldn’t rule anything out right now,” Mac said.

  “At least we do have Cassandra Clark on extortion and conspiracy to commit murder,” Sheriff Turow said. “That’s enough to hold her awhile. The fact that his own wife wanted him dead is not going to bode well for Bill Clark in the election.”

  “Oh, I’m sure he’ll be able to spin things around in his favor,” David said. “They’re both going to be screaming ‘entrapment’ so loudly that everyone will forget that Clark’s wife only married him for his money, thinks he’s terr
ible in bed, and she hates him so much that she wants him dead.”

  Sitting back in his seat, Mac pressed his fingertips together and concentrated on the many angles of the case. “I can’t help but think that the meds Nancy Braxton was supposed to be on figure into the motive for her murder.”

  “You’re still thinking she was on antipsychotic drugs,” Sheriff Turow said while reaching for the phone ringing on his desk. “Based completely on her nasty and arrogant behavior during the last few weeks of the election. Has it ever occurred to you two that she behaved that way because she was an ugly human being?” He answered the phone. When a smile crossed his face, they sensed it was good news. After taking down several notes and taking time to ask for the spelling of some words, he hung up and turned back to them.

  “It pays to have friends,” Sheriff Turow said. “Doc Washington ordered a more comprehensive tox screen on Nancy Braxton’s hair and put a rush on it.”

  “Hair analysis?” David asked.

  “Hair analyses are more comprehensive than blood analyses,” Mac said. “Blood will only show a recent drug history, whereas your hair can show what chemicals have entered your body and even give a general timeline of when you took them and when you stopped taking them.”

  “And it looks like Dallas was right.” Sheriff Turow was nodding his head. “According to the hair analysis, Nancy Braxton had a long history of taking both a neurotransmitter and antidepressants. But she stopped taking both about six weeks ago.”

  Squinting, David did a mental calculation. “The primary was six weeks ago. Someone took Nancy Braxton off her meds when she became her party’s nominee for mayor”

  “Which points toward a motive,” Mac said. “Someone wanted her to have a breakdown before the election.”

  “But why kill her?” Sheriff Turow asked. “She was losing to Gnarly.”

  “Maybe her breakdown wasn’t happening fast enough,” David said. “I didn’t recognize the symptoms.”

  “Okay, let’s work this one step at a time,” Mac said. “We’ll start with who had access to Braxton’s meds and could’ve tampered with them. Whoever it was swapped the real meds for sugar pills. Who is that?”

  “Let’s start with the husband.” Sheriff Turow stood up from behind his desk. “He’s right down the hall in the interrogation room.”

  Mac, David, and Sheriff Turow filed into the conference room. Sitting next to his lawyer, Nathan Braxton looked up from where he was reading over the witness statement that they had put together to bring charges against Cassandra Clark.

  “We’re just about through here.” The lawyer placed his finger on the paper to mark their place.

  “Good.” Feeling weak in the legs after the full day of activity and still suffering from pneumonia, Mac took a seat across the table from them. “We don’t think Cassandra had your wife killed.”

  “You don’t believe her story about my doing it,” Nathan said. “You recorded her saying it. She said that if I didn’t help her—”

  Mac waved his hand to silence him. “We think she just took advantage of the situation.”

  “Who do you think did have something to do with it?” the lawyer asked with a tone of warning in his voice.

  Ignoring the lawyer, Mac asked, “Was your wife taking any medications?”

  Nathan shrugged. “Someone already asked me that. I don’t know.”

  “She was your wife,” Mac said. “How could you not know?”

  “Because”—Nathan sucked in a deep breath—“our marriage, in the traditional sense, died years ago. I was only with her—and I’m not talking sexually, I’m talking about being in the same room with her—when I had to be. I couldn’t stand her, and she didn’t really care that I couldn’t stand her.”

  “If you couldn’t stand her, why didn’t you divorce her?”

  “I couldn’t divorce her, because she would have stripped me of everything she could’ve,” Nathan said. “She had a whole file of women I’d been with. Then on her end, she couldn’t divorce me, because she had Braxton Charities. She couldn’t exactly be the face of Braxton Charities, which I started, without being my wife, and it was through Braxton Charities that she made all of the contacts who propped her up in politics.” He rolled his eyes. “Now that she’s dead, maybe I can get away from those bloodsuckers she called friends, take a shower, and never have anything to do with any of them ever again.”

  His lawyer shushed him.

  After catching his attorney’s eye, Nathan said, “Not that I’m glad she’s dead.” He glanced at the time on his cell phone. “Are we going to be much longer? Eleanor is waiting for me.”

  “Eleanor?” Mac turned to David, who was leaning against the wall.

  “His longtime mistress,” David said. “She’s got a suite at the Spencer Inn.”

  “She’s his alibi for the time of the murder,” the sheriff added.

  Resting his head in his hands, Mac let out a deep breath. “That’s right. You told me that already.” Lifting his head, he said, “Okay. You two were married only in name. We need to find someone who Nancy Braxton was close to—someone who would know what meds she was taking and for what.”

  “The person Nancy was closest to is Hugh,” Nathan said. “I think he was the only person Nancy considered a friend.”

  “Would he have access to her medication?” David asked.

  “You mean like picking up her prescriptions?” Nathan chuckled. “Like lowly servant-type stuff. Nah! That would’ve been Erin Devereux. Nancy was too important to keep track of her own calendar or to do the shopping and menial tasks like that.”

  “The same Erin Devereux who George Ward has selected to take your wife’s place on the ballot for mayor,” Mac said with a sly grin.

  “The same Erin Devereux who has been sleeping with the party’s state leader for some time now,” Nathan said.

  “You know that for a fact?” Mac asked.

  “Eleanor and I have run into them at the out-of-the-way cheaters’ paradises that we go to.”

  Mac stood up. “Then I think we need to have a word with Erin Devereux.”

  Her wounds still fresh from the mountain lion’s attack, Storm was too skittish to go outside. Rather than risk another attack, she had messed twice in the house. Recalling how Storm had shrieked when the large cat had jumped her and dug her claws into her flesh, Dallas was afraid to take her outside after the sun went down.

  Clutching the handgun she had placed in her pocket, Dallas led Storm outside after she had her dinner. While the dog took cautious steps off of the walkway leading to the dock to which David had his boat tethered, Dallas scanned the dark trees and the surrounding area for any sign of a predator.

  That time, she was ready to drop him where he stood.

  In the stillness of the night, Dallas thought over the Sandy Burr murder. It really can’t be that complicated.

  A journalist went to a hotel to meet with a confidential source for his investigative report. He met with a man who Dallas assumed was his confidential informant during the day—a source who was never identified. Later, the journalist had dinner with a fellow hotel guest who was traveling alone. Then he had drinks with the woman in charge of the charity he was investigating. They argued. The fat man was watching them from the bar. He was never identified either.

  The investigative journalist went to his room, and not even two hours later, he was dead.

  Who was the source he was seen talking to earlier in the day? Could the fat man have been that source? Why hasn’t either of them been identified? Maybe because there was no actual source. Maybe Nancy Braxton set Sandy Burr up—lured him to Deep Creek Lake so that she could have him killed.

  Feeling like she was on the brink of something, Dallas stood up tall.

  The ring of her phone made Dallas jump and take aim in the direction of the noise.

 
Equally startled, Storm jumped up onto the walkway and galloped as fast as she could inside. Her attitude told Dallas that she was done for the day.

  The caller ID on her cell phone said that the call was from Archie. Dallas grinned. The prospect of becoming friends with Archie made her feel closer to David. She answered the call. “How’d it go?”

  There was a smile in Archie’s voice. “He’s shaken up. I don’t know what you told him, but it was enough to get his imagination working overtime. I followed him close enough that he could see that he was being followed. With the tinted windows in the rental, he couldn’t see me. Then when he got home, I sat in front of his house until just a bit ago.”

  “Are you sure he saw you?”

  “I’ve done this before,” Archie said, annoyance slipping into her tone. “I know what I’m doing.”

  “I wasn’t saying that you don’t.” Dallas would have elaborated on how much she respected Archie, but her attention went to Storm, who was curled up on the sofa and had lifted her head. The shepherd’s ear stood up tall, and she directed her attention to the door.

  The doorbell rang.

  Storm barked.

  “Wait a minute, Archie. There’s someone at the door.”

  Dallas went over to peer out onto the front deck, which wrapped around the round house. She caught sight of a pair of taillights heading back down the cove.

  “Dallas?” Archie said. “Who is it?”

  “I don’t know.” Dallas opened the front door to look out across the front yard and the driveway, where there were two pickup trucks, hers and David’s. After searching the area but not seeing anyone, she looked down at her feet and found one addition to the scene: a dusty old boot box resting on the welcome matt.