It's Murder, My Son (A Mac Faraday Mystery) (42 page)

“Betsy finally saw you for what you really were,” Mac said. “She called your agent and demanded to see him. She then packed up her sealed copy of
Murder in the City
to show him as proof that she was the real mystery writer. Perplexed by her insistence, your agent called you and you realized that the goose that laid the golden eggs was flying away. When your charm failed to work anymore, you cut your losses and killed her. What little you knew about murder, you knew that cold slows down decomposition. So, you put Betsy’s body in your walk-in fridge, getting fish blood on her clothes. Lividity caused the blood to settle in her back while you met with your woman friend to set up an alibi.” Mac continued, “I suspect by the volume of notepads around her cottage that Betsy was a writing machine. In order to keep your career going with her dead, you had to collect as many of her unpublished manuscripts as possible from her laptop and file cabinet, which she kept locked. So you had to haul the whole thing out to break in. Then, you went to pick up your wife at the airport. That night, after Sophia went to bed, you dumped Betsy’s body by the pool for her to find.”

Travis laughed, “Your story is nothing more than that. For one thing, I was in Hollywood when Pay Back murdered Katrina. Sophia and I flew out the day before. Betsy was here. She confessed to killing Katrina.”

“I checked with your pilot,” Mac said. “He had filed a flight plan that had you and Sophia flying from McHenry to Los Angeles the day before the blizzard. Only the pilot is less than positive about you being on that plane.”

David said, “Somehow, you manipulated Betsy into taking your place on that flight while you stayed behind to kill Katrina. That’s premeditation.”

Travis shouted, “You can’t prove that!”

“I believe we can,” David said. “We were looking for evidence that the killer had left after the murder. But when we looked in the opposite direction, we found that Betsy had taken a commercial flight from Los Angeles to Dulles the Monday after the murder. How did she get from here to Los Angeles, Travis?”

“Meanwhile,” Mac said, “you were on a private chartered flight to Houston in your Pay Back costume under the name of Cooper. We found the pilot who flew you from Houston to Los Angeles. That’s the downside of fame. People have a tendency to remember you. You even autographed a copy of one of your books for him.”

David said, “You were so careful to cover your tracks out of Deep Creek, but not to California. You had everything so well planned. All so you could kill Katrina.”

“That vicious dog of hers attacked whoever killed her.” Travis held out his arms to show them his smooth skin. “Look. Do you see any dog bites?”

“The pilot who flew you to California also remembers that you were wearing a heavy cap over your head, scarf, dark glasses, and gloves, even when you got to California where the temps were in the seventies,” Mac said. “You then spent the next eight weeks in Los Angeles.”

“Negotiating a multi-movie deal with one of Hollywood’s top producers,” Travis said. “It’s going to make me millions.”

“Would you still make those millions if Betsy went public about writing your books in exchange for regular rolls in the hay?” Archie asked. “Sounds to me like a motive for murder.”

“During those two months, you’d been making regular visits to a top cosmetic surgeon,” Mac said. “I’ve been talking to him. He couldn’t violate doctor-patient privilege, but he did tell me that, hypothetically, if he had a dog bite victim for a patient, after three months he would be sufficiently healed to the point that makeup—like the kind his supermodel wife wears to cover up her flaws, would conceal his scars.” He took a linen handkerchief from his pocket. After dipping it into a pitcher of water, he held the wet cloth out to Travis. “Care to prove to us that you haven’t recently been bitten by a German shepherd?”

Travis backed away from the cloth. “I refuse to dignify this crap.”

“You don’t need to dignify it,” Mac said. “Your DNA will.”

“I’m not giving you my DNA, either.”

“We already got your DNA,” David told him.

Travis spun around to glare at him.

Mac said, “You just ate dinner here in my home, off my utensils, which are all on their way to the lab. Once they get your DNA profile, they’ll compare it to the killer’s DNA that forensics had taken off Gnarly. That will be all the evidence we need to prove that you killed Katrina.”

Yvonne asked him, “Why did you kill her? What did she do?”

Travis grabbed his suit coat and slipped it on.

Travis’s handsome face hardened while David told him, “You’ve been fixated on having her since the beginning. All those years ago, when you were supposed to pair up with her on the double date and it didn’t happen, you acted like it was nothing. But really, that wasn’t the way it was. You were obsessed with her and have been for a very long time.”

“Get real.”

“You even had Antonio Deloise paint her for you,” David said.

Travis laughed loudly.

David insisted, “As soon as I laid my eyes on that portrait I could see that it was Katrina.”

“That painting is of Sophia,” Travis said. “I admit Sophia bears a resemblance to Katrina.”

“Katrina had green eyes!” David yelled over his objection.

Travis fell silent.

Mac said, “Sophia’s eyes are dark brown.”

David picked up a book from the center of the desk and flipped it open to show a page to Travis. “Our high school year book. I recognized that picture immediately. The green drape she wore. Katrina searched high and low to find the perfect color for her senior picture. She wanted it to match her eyes. Sophia didn’t pose for Deloise. You had sent him this picture of Katrina.” He tapped the picture he held out to him. “You had him paint Katrina, the woman you could never have.”

“You stole her from me.” Travis removed his hand from his suit coat to show a small handgun.

“No, Travis, I didn’t steal her.” David closed the book. “She chose me over you.”

“Then, last summer, you took her from me again!”

He aimed the gun at David’s chest.

“Drop it, Travis!” Mac drew his gun from where he’d had it concealed behind his back before getting up from behind the desk.

Travis yelled, “I’ve had the most beautiful women in the world begging for me to make love to them! But Katrina—even when I threatened to blow the whistle on her for killing her husband, she spit in my face—because of you!”

“It’s over, Travis!” Mac shouted.

“It’s your fault I killed her!” Travis pulled the trigger.

David ducked behind Robin’s desk.

The shot hit Uncle Eugene in the chest. The doll went flying out of the chair.

With David out of range, Travis aimed his gun at Mac, who grabbed his arm to send the shot up to the ceiling. Mac tackled him in the mid-section and they fell back into the bookshelves. Both men dropped their guns when they crashed to the floor.

Behind the desk, David grabbed the pistol he had concealed in an ankle holster.

After ducking behind the sofa, Archie and Yvonne tried to make their way out of the study to safety.

“Yvonne! Archie! Get out of here!” Mac pulled Travis back to keep him out of reach of his gun.

“What do you think we’re trying to do?” Archie yelled.

Travis rolled over onto his back and kicked Mac in the stomach. When he doubled over, the killer snatched up his gun. Spotting a hostage, Travis grabbed Yvonne by the hair. He pressed the muzzle of his gun against her temple. “I’m going to shoot her! I mean it!”

“Hold your fire!” David yelled at Mac who had retrieved his gun.

Travis grinned at Mac. “You knew it was me all along. What gave me away?”

Mac glared silently at him.

“You’ve been taunting me ever since you got here,” Travis said. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed you staring at my house, willing me to give myself away.”

“I haven’t been staring at your house,” Mac said.

“Yeah, right! And you haven’t been taunting me with Dorcas’s wallet. I throw it away and you drop it on the seat in my car. I bury it. You dig it up and leave it on my doormat with the newspaper. You’ve been slapping me in the face with it for weeks.”

“I haven’t—” Mac muttered before he realized what had happened to the wallet he found behind the sofa. “Gnarly,” he breathed.

Keeping his pistol aimed at him, David ordered, “Give it up, Travis.”

“You’ll have to catch me first.” Twisting Yvonne’s arm up behind her back, Travis backed his way out of the study using his hostage for a shield.

With the phone pressed to her ear after dialing emergency, Archie took the stairs two at a time to let Gnarly out. The German shepherd was nothing more than a golden brown blur when he shot out the door.

“We can’t let you go, Travis.” David followed him and his hostage into the living room.

“One more dead body on my hands isn’t going to make any difference.”

Mac had darted out onto the deck to come up behind Travis to block his escape. He threw open the dining room’s deck doors. “Don’t do it, Travis!” He aimed his gun at him.

“You’re not leaving me any choice.” Travis pressed the gun against Yvonne’s head.

Gnarly’s growl filled the room. Before anyone could discern where the noise had come from, the dog flew over the railing of the upstairs landing. Seeing a hundred pounds of fur and teeth descending down on her, Yvonne dove in David’s direction. Gnarly struck Travis in the chest and took him down to the floor.

Mac stood over the groaning killer with his gun aimed at his head. “It’s over, Travis.”

“It’s not over until I say so.” Abruptly, he rolled over and fired a shot at David.

Mac pulled his trigger, but nothing happened. His gun had jammed. During his entire career, his gun had never jammed.

Meanwhile, Travis shot out the door into the darkness.

Gnarly scrambled to his feet to give chase.

Yvonne sobbed while holding David in her arms.

“Paramedics are on their way,” Archie told them.

Mac knelt next to him to examine the hole in his shoulder.

“It’s not bad,” David grimaced.

“I’ve never seen a good gun shot,” Mac tried to joke.

“Don’t worry about me. Get him. He killed Katrina.” David thrust his pistol into Mac’s hand. “Here. It’s Dad’s gun.”

Mac caught the glimmer of a knowing look in David’s eyes. He wanted to know if David was trying to tell him what he thought he was, but there wasn’t time. Travis was getting away and Gnarly was on his trail.

Outside, Mac could hear Gnarly’s call on the other side of the stone wall. He found the German shepherd digging at the secret door in the corner of the neighboring house.

“Quiet, Gnarly,” he ordered before hitting the button to open the secret door into the passageway.

The dog slipped through the opening.

Sucking in his breath, Mac followed with the pistol ready to fire. In the dark confines of the narrow room, with no obstacles to hide behind, he listened for the jingle jangle of Gnarly’s tags. With a human partner, they would have a system worked out between them to keep from shooting each other by mistake. He couldn’t predict his partner’s actions with Gnarly.

Mac listened while waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. Had he and David found all the secret ins and outs in the house?