Irish Creme Killer: Book 1 in The INNcredibly Sweet Series Page 5

  “That’s what the court documents say, yes. Why?” Kel was puzzled.

  “What’s a wealthy, educated young woman like Muffy Fairchild doing at a bar and grill?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “Well, I actually found out a bit about that as well,” the artist smiled a secret smile. He had a gift for being able to establish a trusting relationship with strangers, particularly women, in a matter of moments, and that gift had served him well yesterday.

  “After researching the court records on Amanda and Muffy and all of that, I figured I’d go have a cocktail and try to puzzle out who might have done what and why,” he began.

  “You’ve been reading Summer Prescott books again, haven’t you?” Echo asked dryly, making fun of the artist’s penchant for cozy mysteries.

  “It’s a guilty pleasure in which I highly recommend that you indulge,” he grinned. “But, at any rate… I saw a gracefully aged woman who looked as though she might have the pulse on the social scene in this part of the world, and I couldn’t have been more correct. We talked at length about people, places and parties­—we knew some of the same families­—and somehow, the subject of Muffy and Amanda came up. As it turns out, Muffy has a preference for, shall we say, walking on the wild side,” Kel waggled his eyebrows.

  “Do tell,” Echo sat forward, resting her chin on her hands.

  “There’s not much to tell, really. She just apparently delights in finding love on the ‘other side of the tracks,’” he shrugged. “She’s been seen lately with an ex-race car driver.”

  “And is connected to a judge who died in a charity exhibition of cars… there has to be a tie-in there somewhere,” Missy remarked.

  “My thoughts exactly, and I’m having tea with my new friend, the widow Cornwall, to see if she might have any further insight which we’ll find useful,” Kel nodded.

  “You cad, leading on that poor, unsuspecting woman,” Echo grinned.

  “I’m merely a sacrificial lamb,” he chuckled, gazing fondly at his fiancée.

  A thought suddenly occurred to Missy. “Hey… has anyone seen Spencer?”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Chas Beckett was alone in the study of his opulent cottage, deep in thought, pondering who might have a motive to break in to his family’s estate, who would have reason to murder Judge Ian Gordon, and if the two crimes might possibly be related. He saw pools of red and blue light flashing by his window, and heard sirens. Missy ran into the study.

  “Chas, did you see that? It looks like at least three police cars and an ambulance just drove by. You should see what’s happening… maybe you could help,” she urged him, kissing his cheek.

  “I’ll go see what’s happening,” the detective nodded, wondering what could have possibly happened now, in one of the most security-conscious places on earth.

  Climbing into the golf cart, thankful that it had a zip-on wind cover now that the sun had set and the air had a cold bite to it, Chas followed the direction taken by the emergency vehicles. The glow from their still-revolving lights made an easy beacon to follow in the fading twilight. A uniformed officer was blocking the road that led to the cottage where the police cars and ambulance had come to a halt.

  The young officer held up a hand to halt the progress of Chas’s golf cart.

  “I’m sorry, sir, but I can’t let you through.”

  “I’m here to see if I can help,” the detective replied, flashing his badge.

  “That ID isn’t going to even get you close to this scene, Beckett,” Detective Wallace Charlton drawled, stepping out of the shadows behind the officer. “In fact, it’s awfully interesting that you just happened to show up.”

  “You’ve been reading too many crime novels, Charlton. Everyone in the county saw the lights and heard the sirens headed for this scene. With the way that cases get bogged down around here, I thought maybe a seasoned professional should step in,” Chas shot back, more than irritated at the smug manner of the detective.

  “You can leave the scene now, or be arrested for obstruction of justice and hindering an investigation, Beckett. Your choice,” Wallace ground out, red-faced, as the young officer watched the exchange. “But don’t even try to leave the resort. You’ve got some explaining to do.”

  The detective stalked back toward the cottage, and Chas addressed the uniformed cop.

  “So much for a cooperative effort,” he joked wryly.

  “Sorry about that, sir. Jurisdictional issues,” the officer shrugged.

  “What happened anyway?” Chas asked, sounding conversational.

  “I’m sorry, I’m really not at liberty…” the young man began, stopping when the detective raised his hand.

  “I know, I know, I get it. You can’t say anything,” he nodded with understanding as a new pair of headlights swept onto the road behind him.

  Both men were silent as the coroner’s car slid slowly past, a somber indicator of what had happened in the luxurious cottage ahead of them.

  “Well, that clears up a bit of the mystery,” Chas commented to no one in particular.

  “Yes, sir,” the officer nodded, his eyes following the vehicle.

  “Stay warm,” the detective raised a hand in farewell and turned the golf cart around, heading back toward his cottage.

  **

  When Spencer Bengal had finally, gracefully extricated himself from the company of Muffy Fairchild, he followed the lovely young socialite, instinctively knowing that not all was as it seemed with the young woman. She was staying in a suite at the main lodge, and he waited in a discreet corner of the foyer for her to come down, warding off potential conversations by pretending to read a book.

  To her credit, the naturally pretty redhead took scarcely more than an hour and a half to shower and prepare for dinner after her vigorous set of tennis with Spencer. Surprisingly, instead of heading toward the dining hall, Muffy, dressed casually in designer jeans and a three-thousand dollar plain black sweater, headed for the road that led to the cottages. However, when the young woman reached the tree line, instead of taking the road, she took a furtive look around and slipped into the woods, as if she were making sure that no one watched.

  Spencer followed the young woman easily through the woods, slipping through the trees without making a sound, curious as to where she might be going. She crisscrossed through the trails as though on a mission, and the Marine hung back a bit when she approached one of the cottages. As he crouched low behind a stand of vegetation, Spencer watched as a younger man opened a back door to let Muffy in, glancing nervously about. Spencer stayed settled for about an hour until suddenly, just after darkness fell, he saw the young redhead come bursting out the back door, running like her heels were on fire.

  “Want me to track her?” Janssen said in a low voice, appearing out of nowhere.

  “Yup, do it,” Spencer replied, heading down the trail toward Chas and Missy’s cottage.

  **

  By the time the Marine made it back to the cottage, Chas was just returning home.

  “What happened?” Missy asked, wide-eyed with worry, when her husband came in the door.

  “I couldn’t get past the perimeter that had been established, but I did see the coroner’s car go by,” the detective sighed.

  Spencer came into the kitchen, where Missy was busy making tea, only slightly out of breath after his over two-mile run.

  “I think Muffy Fairchild may have just committed murder,” he announced calmly.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Detective Wallace Charlton was no rookie, and he knew a suspicious situation when he saw one. The trembling young man in front of him had nearly encountered a cold-blooded killer, and was having a tough time recovering from it. He’d clearly cared about his employer, who now lay in a puddle of blood in the middle of the kitchen floor.

  “I’m sorry to put you through this, Mr. Vance,” the detective said to the thin, greasy-haired young man who sat in front of him. “Can you take me through your afternoon ag
ain, please?”

  “I was tinkering under the hood of Mr. Chapman’s car for most of the afternoon. He wanted me to give her a good going-over after the judge’s car was tampered with, and then I went for a walk in the woods to just get some fresh air after being underneath the car all day. When I came back… I…” the young man gulped, unable to continue for a moment.

  “Where did you enter the residence?” Wallace prompted.

  “I came in the front door,” Adam Vance answered weakly.

  “What happened next?”

  “I heard the back door slam, and I thought that it must be the boss coming in, so I walked back to the kitchen,” the young man explained, taking shuddering breaths.

  “And that’s when you found Mr. Chapman on the floor?”

  Adam nodded. “The blood, there was so much blood…”

  “Then what happened?”

  “I saw the knob starting to turn, and I thought that whoever did this might have come back, so I ran to the door and held the knob in place while I locked it. Then I locked myself in the bathroom and called you guys. I feel like such a coward.”

  “Don’t beat yourself up, you did the right thing. Too many folks have died or been seriously hurt because they tried to be a hero,” Detective Charlton assured the pale young man who stared at the floor, his knees shaking.

  “What’s the nature of your relationship with Mr. Chapman?”

  “He’s my boss. I take care of his cars and drive for him in races and exhibitions, things like that.”

  “How long have you been working for him?”

  “Just a few months. I was a semi-pro race car driver, but I lost my sponsor, so I had to find something else.”

  “Do you know of anyone who might have a grudge against Mr. Chapman? Or who might want him dead?”

  Adam Vance shook his head and touched his shadow of a mustache with one hand. “No idea. It’s pretty weird though, that the owners of two of the last three of those cars ended up dead,” he shrugged, looking uncomfortable.

  “Was Mr. Chapman acquainted with Judge Gordon, to your knowledge?”

  “No, not that I know of,” Adam shook his head.

  “What about the third owner? Was Mr. Chapman acquainted with Charles Beckett?”

  “Not really. I think he might have tried to buy the identical car from him, but I’m not sure.”

  “I see,” Wallace nodded, closing his notebook. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Vance, that’s all for now. Will you be on the resort for a while, in case I have more questions?”

  “I… uh… I don’t think I can… you know… sleep here after this. So, I’ll probably go to a hotel or something,” the young man swallowed hard, clearly upset.

  “Not a problem,” Charlton held a business card out to him. “Give me a call once you get settled in somewhere. If I don’t answer, just leave a message as to where you are.”

  “Yes, sir,” Adam nodded, standing up and moving, as though in a daze, to the door.

  Wallace Charlton turned to a uniformed officer standing nearby. “Williams, go to cottage 1968 and pick up Chas Beckett. Don’t arrest him, just bring him in for questioning, and if he gives you any hassle, call me,” he ordered grimly.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The world seemed to be moving in a most unpleasant manner when Muffy Fairchild woke up, shivering, nauseated, and unable to see because of a heavy cloth that was tied over her eyes. She tried to sit up, but was restrained by an unseen hand.

  “Not so fast, darlin’,” a low, gravelly voice drawled. “There’s nowhere to go and no way to get there, so you might as well relax and answer my questions.”

  “Who are you? What’s going on?” the redhead demanded, frightened but reverting back to her typically imperious nature.

  “I guess you didn’t hear me the first time, but it’s gonna be me askin’ the questions, not you, sweetheart, so you might as well quit squirmin’ and cooperate,” Janssen advised, patiently prepared to keep her in the rowboat in the middle of the lake all night if he had to.

  “Why does the ground keep moving? Who are you?” the socialite began to panic, realizing that her hands and feet were bound.

  “You ain’t exactly a fast learner, are ya?” the veteran sighed, thinking that it was going to be a long night.

  “Are you going to kill me?” Muffy asked quietly.

  “Well now, that’s an ironic question, considering your recent activities, ain’t it?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she retorted weakly.

  “Oh, you don’t? Well, let’s see if I can break it down for you. You come running out of one of them lake houses, clothes all bloody, weapon in your hand dripping with blood, and pretty soon there’s lights and sirens all over the place. Ringin’ any bells, princess?” Janssen drawled, flicking a used toothpick into the frigid lake water.

  Muffy Fairchild was not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but she knew when she’d been busted, and remained silent.

  “You know how to swim, darlin’?”

  “Oh please, I was winning swim meets when I was five,” she replied snottily.

  “That’s good, cuz if you don’t start talkin’, I’m gonna toss you out in the middle of this lake and it’s a heckuva long way back to shore,” the Marine mused, cleaning his fingernails with a long hunting blade.

  “I have nothing to say to you, whoever you are,” the redhead declared haughtily.

  “Really? That’s a shame. I’d hate to have to persuade you,” he said, re-sheathing his knife so it made a distinctive metallic rasp.

  “What do you want from me?” Muffy whispered, after hearing the sound.

  “You can start by tellin’ me who you killed and why.”

  “I didn’t kill anyone,” she insisted, her voice trembling.

  “Then why were you running through the woods with a bloody knife, covered in blood?” Janssen asked, his voice skeptical.

  Muffy sighed. “It’s a long story.”

  “I’ve got all night, princess.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “This kind of behavior is going to cause an indelible mark on your service record, Charlton,” Chas observed mildly, after being transported to the police station in the back of a patrol car.

  “Don’t threaten me, Beckett,” the detective sneered from across the interrogation table. “For once, you’re not in charge. You’re the bad guy here, not the knight in shining armor that you’ve managed to convince everyone in this county that you are. I don’t care who your daddy was, or what cases you may have solved in the past, you’re going down in flames this time, buddy, and I’m going to sit back and roast marshmallows,” Wallace violated Chas’s personal space, his face an inch from the impassive detective, chin jutted forward in an ugly grimace.

  “It’s unfortunate that with every ridiculous sentence that you utter, you’re showing yourself to be a gutless and petty man, rather than doing your job and acting like a detective,” Beckett replied with a rueful sigh.

  “Gutless and petty, huh? You must be looking in the mirror when you say that, because, by the way, it wasn’t me who murdered a judge and a prominent business man for his own gain,” Wallace taunted.

  “Really? I have no way of knowing whether or not that’s true, actually,” Chas raised an eyebrow. “Okay, Charlton, enough of this. Time’s a-wasting, and there’s a murderer on the loose out there somewhere, so let’s get to the bottom of this, shall we?”

  “Yeah, let’s get to the bottom of it,” Wallace snarled, sitting back, much to Chas’s relief. He couldn’t help but notice that the man was in dire need of a breath mint.

  “Judge Gordon offered to buy your daddy’s car collection, and Mr. Chapman offered to buy just your Champagne Elite car, isn’t that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you told both of them no, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And then you killed them both because your car would be worth more if the other two didn’t
exist, isn’t that correct?”

  “That’s preposterous,” Chas fought hard to resist the urge to roll his eyes. “As you’ve seen fit to remind me again and again, I have no need to increase my assets. I have more money than I can possibly use in a lifetime. Why would I go to such lengths to raise the value of one of my cars? It’s a museum piece already, there’s no need to increase its value.”

  Just then, the door to the interrogation room burst open. Wallace turned, angry at the interruption until he saw who had blazed into the room.

  “Charlton,” the chief of police thundered. “What’s the meaning of this? When I told you to lay off of Chas Beckett, I meant it.”

  Wallace Charlton ran a finger under the collar of his shirt, his bluster and cocksure certainty gone.

  “I… there’s been a turn of events… and I…” he began.

  “I’ve read the report, and you’ve inconvenienced Detective Beckett for long enough. Get out,” he ordered.

  When Charlton had huffed from the room, the chief took a seat across from Chas.

  “Wallace is a buffoon,” he rasped, without preamble.

  “So it would seem,” Chas raised an eyebrow.

  “What do you think is going on here, Beckett? I could use your expertise on this one.”

  “Well, the only tie-in that we know of between the two victims, is the Champagne Elite car. I would think that the question that we should be asking is… who would have a deadly interest in the cars?” the detective shrugged.

  The chief opened his mouth to answer and shut it again when a uniformed officer poked his head into the interrogation room.

  “I’m sorry to interrupt, Chief, Detective,” he nodded to acknowledge the men. “But there’s someone in the lobby that you both need to see.” The cop exited the room with the chief and Chas at his heels.

  When they came around the corner, they were astounded to see Spencer, leading a young woman covered in blood and holding a large knife toward another interrogation room. Chas and Spencer exchanged a glance, and the detective gave the Marine a slight nod.