The Lady Who Cried Murder (A Mac Faraday Mystery) Read online

  “You said no to the governor?” Bogie shook his head. “You’re either the bravest man I know, or the stupidest.”

  Seeing the arch in Bogie’s eyebrow, Mac added, “I also told him that I would present to him a weekend getaway at the Spencer Inn for his birthday if he kept Bevis away from this case—on account of him being a suspect. That was when he said okay.”

  “Which proves it pays to have friends in high places.” After giving Mac a high five, Bogie slipped into a chair at the table.

  Sitting across from him, Mac said, “You seem to know a lot about Khloe’s show. Have you ever watched it?”

  “Only one episode out of curiosity,” he confessed. “It was everything I thought it would be.”

  David set a bottle down in front of the deputy chief. “What was it you imagined?”

  “Stupid,” Bogie said. “It was a stupid show about stupid women who couldn’t stop acting stupid with each other and everyone in their lives. Reality? Bah! I can’t believe real people could be that stupid.”

  “I really want a beer,” David muttered.

  “When you’re off duty.” Mac hit the play button.

  The show opened with the sun rising on a sprawling home in the Hollywood hills. The first several minutes had the four roommates making cutting remarks to each other while fixing their breakfasts and checking their emails and texts. Bogie paused and introduced each of the three women who lived with Khloe.

  “That’s Rain Drop,” Bogie said when a leggy redhead came into the kitchen. “She and Khloe hated each other.”

  “She was the woman Khloe was fighting with on the show when I found her body,” David said.

  “Rain Drop is a singer, and a good one,” Bogie said. “She’s the only one out of the four to make anything of herself. Probably because she’s the only one who had any talent for anything besides back-stabbing. Khloe was so jealous of her that she couldn’t see straight. Rain Drop saw Khloe for what she was, and she would call her on it.”

  The show progressed, and Khloe and Rain Drop bickered during the course of the day about a singer in Rain Drop’s band being interested in Khloe. The fighting escalated into a knock down drag out fight in which the two women brawled until their two roommates had to pull them apart.

  David recalled that was the scene he heard when he had come into the bedroom to find Khloe’s body. The show went on to end with later in the evening with Khloe tearfully drinking a glass of wine with a young man, Nick. In a sidebar, she told the audience that Nick was her best friend. A homosexual, he seemed to really understand her, and to love her unconditionally.

  “He’s got a hundred times more talent than Rain Drop,” she told the camera. “I met him while he was singing at a club that my friends and I went to for my twenty-first birthday.”

  Mac sat up. “Didn’t Khloe turn twenty-one the month before her so-called abduction?”

  “Yes,” David said. “Five weeks before she disappeared.”

  “Do you recall interviewing that guy?” Mac pointed to the television screen where Khloe was dissolving into tears. Her friend was an extremely slender young man. His face was so gaunt looking that his high cheekbones and sunken eyes made him resemble a skeleton.

  “Nope,” David answered.

  “No one could possibly understand,” Khloe sobbed on the show. “They don’t care about what I’ve been through. No one believes me—the police in Maryland are trying to have me arrested.”

  “For what?” Nick asked.

  “For getting kidnapped,” Khloe said. “They know I lied after I had escaped, but they don’t understand. Even if they did, they wouldn’t care. No one cares.” She reached for his hand. “You’re the only one who cares about what happens to me, Nick.”

  “Tell me what happened.” Nick patted her hand. “I’ll believe you.”

  Almost knocking his chair over backwards, Mac went to David’s desk to retrieve the case file for Khloe’s murder. He tossed it onto the table and opened it.

  “I was kidnapped,” Khloe said. “I really was. I had been talking to this guy on the beach at the lake and he wanted me to spend the night with him, but it was getting late and I was tired. I was going to my car, and suddenly he grabbed me and threw me into the trunk of his car. Then, for the next four days—” She wailed. “We were in a motel. That part was true. But he had made me his sex slave for four days.”

  “You poor girl,” Nick said. “Then what happened? How did you escape?”

  “I crawled out through the bathroom window,” she said. “I thought he was going to kill me. I was afraid that if I told the truth that he would come after me and kill me, or worse, my mother.” She sucked in a shuddering breath. “I was only trying to protect my mother, but instead of being grateful, she turned on me like everyone else.”

  “That’s bull!” David said when Mac paused the disc. The frame froze with Nick’s image on the screen. “She wasn’t raped.”

  “She’s not a good actress,” Bogie agreed. “No wonder her career in Hollywood went nowhere.”

  Mac went up to the television screen and held up the sketch drawing next to the Nick’s image. “Gentlemen, does this face look familiar to you?”

  David and Bogie leaned forward in their seats to compare the image of Nick, Khloe’s homosexual best friend and confidante, to the drawing of the man Khloe had been seen speaking to on the lake before her disappearance. While the image of the man on the beach had a hairless face and long hair, Nick had shorter hair and a goatee. But the facial features, including the pointy nose, high cheekbones, and sunken eyes, were a match.

  “Khloe said that the guy she was talking to on the beach abducted her and made her his sex slave,” David said. “But, according to that sketch, that’s the same guy she’s telling this story to.”

  “We need to have a talk with Nick,” Mac said. “Even if he didn’t kill Khloe, he obviously knows something about that faked kidnapping.”

  “It was a publicity stunt,” Bogie said.

  “We all know that,” Mac said.

  “Khloe wouldn’t have known the truth if it had bit her in the butt,” David said. “She was a pathological liar.”

  “Which is why we need to talk to those close to her to find out what was really going on,” Mac said. “This…” He waved the picture in front of the image on the television screen while trying to recall his name, “Nick was seen with her the night she’d disappeared. Khloe claimed she spent four days in a motel having sex with a boy.”

  “You’re thinking that boy,” David said.

  “Whoever it was, he was in on the fake kidnapping, and we have yet to find him,” Mac said. “This guy matches the sketch. Do the math. The kidnapping was three years ago. This was shot almost two years ago. They’d been together for over a year at the time this was filmed—that makes it more than just a fling in a motel.”

  “Does that mean he’s not Khloe’s gay best friend?” Bogie said.

  “It’s not really reality,” Mac replied in a loud whisper.

  Bogie’s mocking frown pushed his mustache up into his nostrils. “I’ll call the show’s producers and get the scoop on Nick, the fake gay guy.”

  Mac realized he was being optimistic in hoping that Lily Carter, Khloe’s ex-best friend, would be of any help in identifying the murderer in their case. After the charade in which Khloe pretended to have been abducted, Lily immediately ended their friendship. While Khloe went off to Hollywood, Lily attended two more years of graduate school at West Virginia University. After receiving her master’s in business administration, she went to work at the Spencer Inn. In a year, she had worked up to assistant manager in the resort’s event planning department. It was her job to coordinate between guests and clients for special events, like wedding receptions and conferences, which took place at the Spencer Inn resort.

  Lily was coming out of a staff meeting with the inn’s manager when Mac nabbed her before she had a chance to go back to her office with a stack of folders. She loo
ked as simply pretty as she had three years before. When she saw Mac, her face beamed. “Hello, Mr. Faraday.”

  Upon hearing Mac’s name, Jeff Ingles, the inn’s manager, rushed out. He tried to be nonchalant about looking toward the floor for any sign of Gnarly, the bane of his existence at the resort. When Mac directed his attention toward Lily, the rest of the hotel management team moved on to their respective jobs.

  “Do you have a couple of minutes?” Mac invited her to join him in the lounge for a drink.

  “What’s this about?” Her expression was one of confusion.

  “Khloe Everest.”

  Lily stood rooted in her tracks. “Khloe and I aren’t friends anymore.”

  “Considering how she was murdered, I don’t think it’s a friend we’re looking for.”

  Lily’s mouth dropped open.

  Seeing that this was not hotel business, Jeff Ingles turned and went in the opposite direction toward his office.

  “Would you like me to buy you a drink?” Mac offered.

  “Depends,” she replied.

  “On what?”

  “Are you going to arrest me?” she asked.

  “Depends,” he replied.

  “On what?”

  “Did you kill her?” Mac asked her.

  “Would you believe me if I told you no?”

  “You haven’t lied to me yet.”

  He led the way to the inn’s lounge where Lily ordered a root beer float after Mac had told her to order anything she wanted. He ordered a Brandy Manhattan. After some small talk in the corner booth, Mac eased his way into his interview with her. “When was the last time you saw Khloe?”

  She seemed to think for a short time before answering. “Last week. She and her friends had been coming in fairly regularly since she came back. I knew her mother had disinherited her. I stayed tight with Florence after what Khloe had pulled. I was surprised by how furious she was, but do you blame her?”

  “No, not at all,” Mac said. “Thinking someone is hurting your child is the worst thing that a parent can go through. To find out that it’s a joke…” His voice trailed off when he saw a flicker of something in Lily’s eyes. I wonder if she’s talking about something else.

  “You mentioned her friends,” Mac said.

  “Khloe was coming in with a guy,” Lily said. “She had introduced him to me. His name was Nick, but I don’t know anything about him. I’ll admit, she and I had words after she started showing up here.”

  “What about?”

  “She was putting her stuff on her mom’s account,” she said. “She expected Florence’s estate to pay for it. So, I told Jeff. Next time she came in, Jeff went to her table and told her that they had to pay cash or put it on a credit card—no hotel credit. Well, without any hesitation, the guy she was with pulled out a credit card. Only the name on it was some woman—Sheila. Now he didn’t look like any Sheila. So Jeff told me to check into it. Sure enough, the card was legit and not reported stolen. So we let them use it—and man! They did. They were doing the spa, happy hour, dinner—everything.”

  “Did you get the last name on that card?” Mac asked.

  “I have it written down in my office,” she said. “But anyway, after Jeff cut them off, Khloe came to my office and called me all types of names. She said I was jealous because she didn’t take me to Hollywood and make me a star. ‘Really? Is that all you’ve got?’ I told her. ‘You’re a joke,’ I said. ‘You’re a pathetic pathological liar and a joke.’ Then I had security remove her from my office.”

  After a pause filled with pride for what she considered a winning moment, she added, “But I didn’t kill her.” The ice cream in her float was gone. From across the booth, she leaned toward him. “I forgot to ask. How did she die? I mean, how was she killed?”

  “She was stabbed to death.”

  Lily shuddered. “You know, knowing Khloe the way I did, being friends from back when we were kids, I knew she wouldn’t live to an old age. She lived too fast and hung out with—” She shook her head. “Like that guy that I saw her talking to that night at the lake. I never did get a clear look at him, and it was dark, but I had a bad feeling about him—like he would only lead her into trouble. But then, she wasn’t kidnapped.” She cocked her head at Mac. “I wonder who he was.”

  Mac wanted so much for her to confirm that the Nick that Khloe had come into the inn with was the same man she had seen her talking to the night that she faked her disappearance. “Have you ever seen that man since that night?” he asked while studying her face for a reaction.

  Lily stared into her float for a long moment. “To tell you the truth, since it all ended up being a lie, I never looked for him. I mean, he didn’t end up being a killer or anything. Why?”

  “Well,” he replied, “she did end up spending four days in a motel with him.” He shot her a grin. “They must have been friends. Maybe you’ve seen him around—hanging out with her and her crowd.”

  “You know that was so long ago and it was dark when I saw him…”

  They finished their respective drinks. His brandy drained, Mac asked, “Did Khloe come in with anyone else besides this Nick?”

  “Bevis Palazzi.”

  Mac sighed. “Really? I thought he was your friend.”

  “Are you kidding?” she replied. “I never did like him. He had latched onto Khloe, or rather Khloe’s theater friends.” She shook her finger when a thought came to her mind. “That guy could have been one of her theater friends—playing the role of a crazed kidnapper and all.”

  “Maybe.” Mac tucked her suggestion away in his mind. After all, Nick was playing Khloe’s gay best friend on her show. It was a good suggestion, the more he thought about it. “Tell me more about Bevis and Khloe.”

  She sighed. “Bevis was a theater groupie.”

  “Are you kidding? Bevis was a groupie?”

  Lily nodded her head. “He would do volunteer stuff for the local theater groups. You do remember that Khloe was big on the local theater in Morgantown and other groups around here? I worked backstage as stage manager and assistant director. Bevis played the big shot by throwing money around to help support the groups. So they would let him hang around no matter how big of a jerk he was.”

  “Was he a closet wannabe star?” Mac couldn’t envision Bevis being a thespian.

  She shook her head. “He never performed on stage. It was backstage stuff that he would do in order to hang out with the theater crowd. Khloe may have been a lousy actress, but she did have this star quality that attracted guys—even some gay guys would hang around her all starry eyed. Sort of like she was Liza Minnelli or something. Bevis had it bad. I mean, he was ten years older than us and was a spoiled jerk. But he had money and was generous with it, as long as Khloe and her entourage let him hang with them.” She added, “Florence couldn’t stand the air he breathed.”

  Realizing why, Mac nodded his head. “I can imagine.”

  “Bevis and Khloe stayed tight,” she said. “When she went to Hollywood, he made regular trips out there to see her and rub elbows with celebrities to drum up support for when he ran for national office. As a matter of fact, I hadn’t seen him in years when he came in with her—and he was in here with her more than once.”

  “Did they seem to get along?” Mac asked.

  “It’s hard to tell with Bevis Palazzi,” she said. “He’s never happy with anyone except himself.”

  Mac was taking the garbage out with Gnarly close behind him to scoop up anything good that might fall out of the container when David drove his cruiser between the two stone pillars that marked the entrance into Spencer Manor. Spying Molly peering out at him from the rear passenger window, Gnarly forgot about the garbage and raced after the cruiser to greet her. The two dogs ran off to frolic in the gardens.

  After releasing Molly, David opened up the back of the SUV to reveal bags of groceries and boxes of new dishes and cookware.

  “Someone has been shopping,” Mac said.

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sp; “Spoken like an ace detective,” David said. “Grab a box and put it in the garage.”

  “I tossed out my old dishes and cookware when I moved out here,” Chelsea explained. “They were over thirty years old—used to belong to Mom. So I splurged with my first paycheck from my job and bought new.” She showed Mac the picture on the box. “They’re square. How do you like them?”

  “They look familiar.” Mac peered at the image of square white dinner dishes. “Who do we know that has dishes like these?” he asked David.

  “The lounge at the Spencer Inn,” David said.

  “Yeah, that’s where I know them.”

  “I am not copying the Spencer Inn.” Seeing their doubtful expressions, she turned around. “I’ll go show Archie. She’ll tell you.”

  “Spencer Inn,” David mouthed.

  With a laugh, Mac checked the contents of the grocery bags while David put the cookware in the garage. “Do you want my help in moving Chelsea into the condo after they’re done remodeling it?”

  “It isn’t like she has that much to move,” David said. “The new furniture will be delivered there. All she has is her clothes and towels and linens and household stuff.” Seeing Mac examining the steaks, enough for two, he snapped the bag shut and yanked it out of his hands. “Why? Do you and Archie have plans for something else you’d rather do?”

  “No,” Mac said, “but if you’d like for us to disappear, I can arrange that. Chelsea’s first night alone in her own place…with you. After spending the whole day doing heavy lifting for her, maybe she’ll want to give you a massage to relax your tired muscles…” His voice trailed off into a chuckle.

  “In my dreams,” David said. “Now you’re beginning to sound like Archie.”

  “You know what they say about couples,” Mac said. “You hang around each other long enough, and you start to think and act alike.” Seeing David’s lack of humor, he asked, “You two are coming along, aren’t you?” He pointed at the boxes in the garage. “You’re shopping together.”

  “Because I drove her.” David picked up the rest of the grocery bags. “Frankly, this is getting old. I’ve been sucking up to her for weeks, and…” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “She won’t even let me kiss her. Everyone tells me not to give up, but I’m getting close to the point that I’m about ready to. What happened in the past is ancient history. I cheated. I broke her heart. I told her I was sorry and I meant it.” Gesturing for Mac to get out of his way, David slammed the back of the SUV shut.