Free It's Murder, My Son (A Mac Faraday Mystery) by Lauren Carr

sob.
    “Good.” Mac stood up.
    Gasping, Gordon Hardwick rose slowly to his knees.
    “Come on, Gnarly.” Mac saw that the two dogs had been watching the show from the chaise on the front porch.
    At the end of the driveway, Mac discovered that up and down the Point, his neighbors, some in running togs and others in bathrobes, had stopped what they were doing to watch the scene. Now that the incident had ended, a few of them clapped to show their approval of Mac’s handling of it.
    Hearing the applause, Gordon’s face reddened. “I was attacked,” he called out, “for no reason whatsoever!” Putting on the mask of a victim, he rose to his feet, limped inside his home, and slammed the door.
    Mac picked up the end of Gnarly’s leash with the intention of going to his estate on the Point and not leaving in the near future. He wondered if Howard Hughes had become a recluse after too many interactions with a Gordon Hardwick.
    “I’ll bet you fifty bucks that right now Hardwick’s calling the police to file an assault charge against you.”
    Mac turned around.
    The old man who lived in the home next to the Hardwicks stuck out his hand. “You must be Robin’s boy. You take after her.” Mac guessed him to be in his sixties, if not older. Thick wire-rimmed eyeglasses covered his smiling blue eyes. He wore a hearing aid in both ears.
    Mac wiped his sweaty hand on his pants and grasped his neighbor’s palm. “You have me at a disadvantage. You know who I am, but—”
    “Ira Taylor. We retired and moved here eleven years ago. We were friends with your mother. My wife Francine is her number one fan. She went running out an hour ago to treat Archie to brunch in exchange for the low down on you and that head Gnarly brought home the other day.” He cocked a thumb toward his house. “Want some coffee and the scoop on the ambulance chaser?”
    “Figures. Archie is eating brunch and I’m being threatened.” While Mac led Gnarly across the Taylor’s driveway, he gestured in the direction of the Hardwick home. “Why the applause? Are the Hardwicks that unpopular?”
    “The word shyster was made up for Gordy Hardwick.” Ira opened the screen door and scooped up a pint-sized terrier in one action. “Your dog is nothing more than an excuse to call the police to create a paper trail against you. Granted, Gordy hates the dog. They’ve had it out for every dog owner whose pooch sets foot on their property ever since they moved in.”
    “But they have one.” Seeing the terrier, Mac took a tighter hold on Gnarly’s leash before stepping inside Ira’s home.
    “They also hate rabbits, bears, and seagull poop. If Gordy could get a hold of Mother Nature’s lawyer, she’d be in court. They also hate jet skis.” He chuckled. “Robin bought a couple of jet skis to get the Hardwicks’ goat after they filed a complaint with the police against some neighbors who got jet skis for their kids. Then she spent a whole summer doing donuts behind their house for hours on end. Gordy had a cow and Robin had a blast.”
    Ira led the way to a sunroom which provided a three-way view: the corner of the floral garden in front, the woods to the side, and the cove in the back. Along the way, Mac saw that fishing played a big role in Ira Taylor’s life. A cap filled with hooks and lures hung from a coat tree next to rods and reels in the front foyer. Fishing trophies hung on the wall in the sun room. A nine-foot-long swordfish filled the wall above the fireplace mantle. The plaque beneath the fish read that Ira Taylor had caught it seven years earlier off the shores of Nag’s Head, North Carolina. The rest of the décor in the home included prints and statues of deer, geese, bears, and other woodland creatures.
    Ira poured their coffee into sturdy mugs. “While everyone else here on the Point hates the Hardwicks, they must have intrigued Robin because you wouldn’t believe what she did.” He chuckled when he handed the mug to Mac. “She