5 The Murders at Astaire Castle Page 6

  The beast released Gnarly and fell aside. Mac dove in to throw himself on top of Gnarly to shield him from another attack.

  As quickly as the beast fell, he was back up and charging at David, who blocked his attack with the baton. Hector ran up behind the beast to deliver a shot from his Taser to the neck to drop him down to the floor. The animal did not go down gently. With the shock, he whirled around to whack the side of Hector’s head, which knocked the security manager against the kitchen counter. While the beast’s attention was directed at Hector, David struck a blow with his baton across its back. When the beast turned his attention back to David, Mac kicked him in the back of the knee, which dropped him down to all fours. By then, Hector recovered to shoot him with the Taser gun once again.

  It was only after it was unconscious that they all saw what it was.

  His head, face, and chest were covered in thick long blond hair, which gave him the appearance of an animal. The growling and snarling added to his animalistic nature. But resting motionless at their feet, they could see beneath the thick hair of his head, face, and chest that made a direct path down his stomach to his naked lower body and exposed genitals.

  “Is that …” Mac cradled Gnarly in his lap. The big dog was still trembling from the attack.

  “I believe it is,” Hector said.

  “Don’t say he’s Bigfoot,” Mac said.

  “No, not Bigfoot.” David moved in closer. “It’s a man.”

  Chapter Six

  Archie sped her royal blue Escalade SUV through the gateway into Astaire Castle, climbed out, and slammed the door shut. “Mac Faraday, what did you do to Gnarly?”

  Her stern voice tore Mac’s attention from where he was stroking Gnarly, who was curled up in the back seat of David’s cruiser. “I did nothing to him.”

  “Oh, yeah?” She ran past the line of cruisers, EMT trucks, ambulance, and medical examiner’s van to get a look at the injured German shepherd. “I couldn’t come with you because you were afraid something bad would happen to me, but Gnarly—it was anything goes for him.” She squeezed by him to check on the dog.

  Seeing his mistress, Gnarly’s ears fell to the side of his head and he let loose with a loud mournful cry while pawing at her coat.

  “Oh, Gnarly!” She wrapped her arms around him in a hug. “What happened to you?”

  “He was bitten,” Mac answered for the dog. “The teeth broke the skin and drew blood. The EMT suggested that we take him to the vet to get him a shot of antibiotics.”

  Archie tried to stand up, but Gnarly’s cry brought her back to take him into her arms. “What bit him?”

  “A werewolf,” Hector called out to her. He had strolled over from where David was supervising the EMTs’ examination of the man they had taken down in the castle’s kitchen.

  “Werewolf!” Archie jumped up and out of the back of the cruiser. Her glare fell on Mac. “You let a werewolf attack Gnarly? What’s going to happen to him? Do you know what happens to dogs that get bitten by werewolves?”

  “They turn into men,” Mac answered with a straight face. Seeing Hector and Archie’s puzzled expressions, he said, “If a man is bitten by a werewolf, he turns into a wolf. So, it seems only logical—”

  “That’s crazy,” Archie said. “I never heard of a dog turning into a man after being bitten by a werewolf.”

  “Then you tell us,” Mac said. “What does happen to dogs after they’re bitten by werewolves?”

  Archie had to pause to think before answering slowly, “Men turn into wolves. Dogs would turn into …” She shook her head.

  “Men,” Hector said. “Gnarly’s going to turn into a man.” He gave into a hearty laugh. “Watch him turn into a cat burglar!”

  Mac joined in his laughter while Archie fought the grin fighting its way to her lips. “This isn’t funny. Gnarly’s been injured.”

  A slow grin crossed Mac’s face. He folded his arms across his chest. This was one area where, if there were such an expert, he was. Archie Monday was not a fan of horror movies or books. She would only tolerate the horror films Mac and Gnarly would watch together and half of the time she hid her face and covered her ears. “Calm down,” Mac said, “Gnarly was not bitten by a werewolf.”

  “Then what do you call him?” Hector pointed up the sidewalk to where the EMTs were wheeling out the unconscious, hair-covered man on a gurney. The EMTs had to sedate him in order to strap him down for transport to the hospital in Oakland. David was following close behind. “He was growling and snarling and he bit Gnarly.”

  In the back seat of the cruiser, Gnarly sat up and howled loud enough to draw everyone’s attention. When finished with one howl, he let loose with another and another until the gurney had been loaded into the back of the ambulance and the doors shut.

  Archie’s eyes grew wide with both curiosity and fright. “Has that creature or man or whatever he is had his shots? Maybe he’s got rabies.”

  “Gnarly’s had his rabies shots,” Mac assured her before turning to answer Hector’s question. “I would call him a wolf man.”

  “What’s the difference?” Hector and Archie asked in unison.

  “A werewolf is a man who changes completely into a wolf,” Mac said. “A wolf man is a man who takes on the characteristics of a wolf without actually changing into one.” He pointed at the man in the back of the ambulance. “He’s not a wolf. He was only acting like one.”

  Mac didn’t miss the remorse on David’s face while watching the ambulance turn around to go out through the heavy wooden gates.

  “Well,” Archie said, “I’m taking Gnarly to the vet. There’s no telling what that guy had that he passed on to him.” She called to Gnarly to climb out of the back of the cruiser. “Come along. We’re going to see Dr. Lee.” She paused to give Mac a quick kiss on the lips. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

  He grabbed her by the waist to pull her back when she attempted to turn away. “Forgiven?”

  “No.” With a naughty grin, she whispered in his ear, “I’ll be expecting make-up sex later.”

  Mac watched her saunter back to her SUV with Gnarly. He noticed that Gnarly’s tail was tucked down against his butt. The attack had served to take the wind out of his cocky canine sails.

  “Bogie and Doc Washington are examining the body up in the turret,” Hector reminded Mac after Archie turned her SUV around to head back down the mountain. “Want to go see what they’ve uncovered?”

  “After I talk to David,” Mac said. “Did either of you get a name from the wolf man?”

  Hector shook his head. “Only barks and growls and snarls. He was really acting like a wolf. Extremely weird. The guy’s a real wacko.”

  Overhearing Hector, David said, “He’s sick,” as he came up to them.

  “Is he—” Mac dared to ask.

  “Riley Adams,” David said. “I recognized him under all that hair after we brought him down.

  “I’m sorry,” Hector said. “I didn’t realize.”

  “It’s not your fault,” David said. “Riley was always different. Most people avoided him. When we were teenagers, he became even stranger. It got to the point that I was his only friend and even I was ashamed of him at times.” He looked down at his feet.

  “I’m sorry,” Mac said.

  “Our people are searching the castle and grounds,” David said. “They found where he’s been living on the ground floor of the castle. Old blankets filled with fleas, mites, and human waste where he’s been sleeping. Garbage stolen out of what had to be trash bins that he’s been feeding on for Lord knows how long. He’s been living like an—”

  “Animal,” Mac said. “That’s what he’d turned into.”

  After a long silence, David looked up at the castle. “I should have realized what had happened.”

  “How could you?�
� Mac asked.

  “Riley became fascinated with werewolves,” David said. “He must have seen The Howling I don’t know how many times. That night that he came to the party, he was acting weird.”

  “That’s what a lot of the witnesses said,” Hector recalled.

  “But it was how he was acting weird,” David said. “He wouldn’t talk to people. I thought, he was in character for his costume. He was acting like a dog—like a wolf.” He shook his head. “I didn’t put it together until now—until we came out of that pantry and I saw that he had Gnarly down—wolf—man—Riley had run away to be a wolf. … If I had put it together sooner—”

  “How could you?” Mac asked. “I’ve been a detective for more than twenty-five years and I’ve never heard of someone running away to live like a wild animal—thinking he was a wild animal. Don’t beat up on yourself. There’s no way you could have figured that out.”

  “I should have,” David argued.

  “Let me ask you a question,” Mac said. “Suppose Riley had cancer?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean,” Mac said, “suppose instead of Riley running off to live in the woods like a wild animal, he had cancer and had spent all these years in the hospital getting chemo. Would you blame yourself then?”

  “No,” David said, “but it’s not the same thing.”

  “It is the same thing,” Mac said. “If your friend had cancer, he’d be ill. He’d be sick. You’d feel sympathy for him, but you wouldn’t be beating yourself up like you are now. Riley is mentally ill—ill, just like he had cancer. Only in this case he’s sick in his head. I’m not a shrink, but it doesn’t take one to see that there’s something wrong with him and he needs help.” He concluded, “It’s not your fault.”

  “Unless you were the wolf man that bit him and turned him into one,” Hector said.

  “Exactly,” Mac agreed.

  Hector said, “The important thing is that Riley has been found. Now he can get the help he needs.”

  “You stopped me from shooting him,” Mac said. “If you hadn’t have hit my arm, Riley would be dead now. You saved his life.”

  “Gnarly’s okay,” Hector said, “So Mac here won’t have to sleep in the guest room for the rest of his life.”

  “If everything turned out so good,” David asked, “why don’t I feel better about this whole thing?”

  “Because it’s your job to figure out who buried an ax in Damian Wagner’s head, before or after killing his daughter and editor,” Mac said. “Believe me, once that news gets out, you’re going to have a lot of eyes watching this case.

  “Well, this proves Robin was right.” Chuckling, Deputy Chief Art Bogart, known as Bogie, stood up tall, stuck his thumbs in his belt while scrutinizing the corpse with the ax stuck in the back of his skull. The silver-haired deputy chief possessed the solid build of a wrestler. It was not uncommon rookies to underestimate the older deputy based on his silver hair and bushy gray mustache. Some had even goaded him into a challenge in the gym, only for them to be eating the mat in less than thirty seconds.

  “She was outright fixated on that second ax that was missing from the display downstairs,” Bogie said. “She claimed it proved that Damian Wagner wasn’t a killer, but a victim; and swore that we would eventually discover his body along with that ax.” He shook his head. “I can see her and Ol’ Pat up at the Pearly Gates laughing at me right now.”

  The abandoned turret was now brightly lit with portable lights and sealed off with crime scene tape.

  Bogie stood over the body while the medical examiner, Dr. Dora Washington, a stunning woman with long blue black hair worn in a ponytail spilling down her back, examined the skeleton. Dr. Washington was searching the corpse’s pockets for further evidence.

  “I expected to have Damian Wagner show up in a country that didn’t have extradition,” Bogie said. “I have to admit, this is an odd twist.”

  “Who swung this ax to kill him?” Mac asked.

  “Maybe your wolf man,” Dr. Washington said.

  “It wasn’t him,” David said.

  “This is where he disappeared before the Wagner’s murders,” she said. “It’s also where he was found. Maybe he considered this his territory and objected to them trying to evict him.”

  “I’ll be the first to accept that Riley has a problem with the elevator going all the way to the top,” David said, “but he’s not a killer.”

  “From what I hear, he tried to kill Gnarly,” Bogie said. “He bit a dog—a big dog—a big strong dog.”

  “Bit,” Mac said. “Riley thinks he’s a wolf. Wolves don’t attack people with murder weapons like axes.”

  “If you try to pin this on Riley, I’m going to fight you,” David told Bogie.

  “Settle down, Chief,” Bogie said. “There’s more to this case than a sick boy thinking he’s a wolf. It’s plain to see that this was a much more sophisticated murder. Most likely, whoever did this is the same perp who wiped out Wagner’s account of seventy thousand dollars on the same day he was killed.”

  In response to Mac and David’s stunned expressions, Bogie said, “That’s a piece of information your father and I kept under our hats. On October 31, Damian Wagner’s bank account was emptied out, and the funds transferred to an off-shore account. After that, it disappeared entirely. The housekeeper told us that Wagner had been arguing with his literary agent because he was having trouble finishing the book. That money was all that was left of his advance. If he didn’t have a completed manuscript by December 31, he would have had to give everything, including the agent’s portion, back to the publisher.”

  “When he disappeared and you had no body, you assumed he killed his daughter and editor in a rage, took the money, and ran,” Mac said.

  “Made sense until now,” Bogie said.

  “That’s why whoever killed them hid Wagner’s body,” David said. “They wanted you to assume that.”

  “Did the agent have access to Wagner’s account in order to transfer the funds out?” Mac asked.

  “Wait a minute.” From where she was kneeling next to the decomposed body, Dr. Washington held up her hand. “Let’s get a positive ID on this body first, and then you can start looking for suspects.”

  “How long will that take?” Mac asked her.

  “We have Damian Wagner’s dental records on file,” she said. “All we need is a comparison to this corpse.”

  David’s silence during the drive down the mountain and across the lake to the hospital in Oakland to check on Riley’s condition proved that Mac’s attempt to alleviate his guilt had been futile. He wondered if he would have been able to shake the guilt if it had been him. Survivor’s guilt. Not unlike surviving a shootout while the cop next to me got gunned down. David said they had been friends all through school. What’s the saying? There, but for the grace of God, go I. Mac cleared his throat.

  “What?” David asked without taking his eyes from the road.

  “Does Riley’s family still live in the area?”

  David gave only one shake of his head. “His father died when he was real young. His mother passed away less than a year after Riley disappeared. She hadn’t been sick a day in her life, but after he was gone … She died of congestive heart failure.”

  “Broken heart.” Mac glanced out the passenger side window at the passing countryside.

  “Riley had a sister a couple of years behind us,” David said. “Last I heard, she was in law school. I’ll have Tonya look her up. We’ll need to contact her.”

  As they drove south on Garrett Highway, the countryside gave way from farms to rural homes to shopping plazas until they were in Oakland, Maryland. David made a right turn at a traffic light to take them into the hospital parking lot. In comparison to the metropolitan hospitals that Mac had been accustomed to in t
he city, Garrett County Memorial Hospital appeared to be more of a medical center. It certainly wasn’t equipped to deal with men who thought they were wolves.

  “I doubt if they’re going to be able to keep Riley here for long,” David said. “As bad off as he is, they’ll be shipping him off to a psychiatric hospital as soon as possible.”

  “They can do a lot with meds.” Mac unclipped his seat belt. “Don’t assume the worst. With treatment and medication, he may be able to get to the point where he can function like a normal person.”

  David cocked his head at him. “Mac, the guy thinks he’s a wolf.”

  “And Gnarly thinks he’s a cat burglar.”

  A police chief’s gold shield can get a lot of action and information that those without can’t get. As far as the hospital staff was concerned, David was looking for information about a murder suspect, not a long lost friend. While he wasn’t allowed to speak to Riley, who was in no condition to talk to anyone who wasn’t of the canine species, he was able to ask the chief nurse practitioner about his condition.

  She was as bewildered by Riley Adams as everyone else. “He’s under heavy sedation,” she told David. “He became violent when we tried to bring him out from under it after he was brought in. We had to strap him down to sedate him again. Before that, the only talking he did was in the form of growling and barking. Do you know if he has a history of drug use?”

  “No,” David said with certainty.

  She went on. “We’re doing a full medical workup on him. We’ll be able to give you more information later, but as far as his physical medical condition—he’s malnourished. We can see signs of nerve damage on some of his fingers and toes—possibly brought on by frost bite. Healed over bite wounds—” She stopped to look from David to Mac and then back to the police chief. “The EMTs said he’s been living in the wilderness with no human contact. Is that true?”