Free Old Loves Die Hard (A Mac Faraday Mystery) by Lauren Carr

“A simple check of your cell record would have told the police that we were already here.”
    “Can you give us names of witnesses to confirm you were at the Carmel Cove Inn?” Mac asked.
    Garrison said, “The owner saw us when we came back from dinner and went up to our room at around ten o’clock Saturday night.”
     “Okay, we answered your stupid and insulting questions and it’s apparent that you don’t intend to willingly turn over my husband’s things, so I guess we’ll be going on our way.” Natasha stood up.
    When Gnarly mirrored her move, she uttered a growl from deep in her throat.
    “Just one more thing,” Mac asked before she had time to follow Judge Sutherland into the foyer. “Do you have any idea what business Stephen may have had here in Spencer?”
    Tearing her attention from the dog escorting her out, she turned back to him. “Business?”
    “He paid for his suite with a federal government credit card,” Mac explained. “That tells me it was a business trip.”
    “That doesn’t mean he was here on business,” Natasha laughed. “Stephen never paid for anything with his own money unless he had to. That’s one of the reasons I kicked him out. Most likely his visit was enjoyment.”
    “He was seen out here with a woman,” Garrison said.
    “And Christine tried to punch her lights out. She also announced to everyone within hearing distance that she was going to kill him dead hours before he got his,” Natasha reminded them. “I did hear about Stephen having a new woman. I never saw her. Personally, I didn’t care to see her. I couldn’t care less about what he was up to.”
    “Unless he pawned your father’s watch,” Mac said.
    *   *   *   *
    Until Mac was officially cleared of suspicion, David wouldn’t let him in on any details in his murder investigation. Unable to stand not knowing what the police had uncovered, Mac met his only source into the goings on: Hector Langford, the Spencer Inn’s chief of security.
    A lean, gray-haired Australian, Hector had been with the Inn for over twenty-five years, which was longer than Jeff Ingle had worked there. Hector knew the resort inside and out. When they’d first met, he took great delight in informing Mac that Robin Spencer had often asked for his help in planning her murders for her books.
    With it being mid-week, the Inn’s restaurant was quiet for their nine o’clock meeting. Mac wondered if the murders could be the reason for the solitude. Jeff had been predicting guest registrations would plummet as a result of the press about the owner’s ex-wife and her lover getting slaughtered in his private suite. So far though, there’d been no cancellations.
    After placing their breakfast order, Mac asked Hector, “What can you tell me?”
    “The maid did it.”
    “Which maid?” Mac turned to scrutinize a woman in the cleaning staff uniform washing the windows.
    Every Spencer Inn employee wore a uniform. Office and desk clerks were distinguished by their black suits with white shirts. The restaurant staff wore white long-sleeved shirts over black slacks with a black apron that hung down to their knees. A similar uniform with black smock or apron was reserved for the cleaning staff.
    No matter what type of uniform the employee wore, it displayed the resort’s insignia, which consisted of the Spencer family crest, stenciled on the blazer’s breast pocket or on the top portion of the apron.
    “The maid did it?” Mac asked Hector to elaborate on what sounded like something out of a B-movie. It sounded as bad as saying that the butler did it.
     Both men sat back and fell silent while the server returned to the table with the bread basket and fresh coffee.
    “The name she gave was Nita,” Hector told him in a low voice.
    “The name she gave?” Mac repeated. “Don’t you know? If she’s an employee—”
    “That’s the problem,” the security chief said. “No one knows her except for a few service people who