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

killed them.”
    “She what?”
    “In one of her books.” Ira studied the titles on a small bookcase until he found a hard back. “It came out a couple of years ago. Rub Down at Four, Rub Out by Eight .” He handed the book to Mac before plopping down in a recliner. “She blew them sky high.” He asked, “Have you read that one?”
    “I found out that she was my mother less than two months ago. So far, I’m up to her sixth book.” Mac studied the thick black volume in his hands. The cover was of a bare back on a gurney with a pair of strong hands on the shoulders. “Couldn’t they have sued her for that?”
    “Only if they knew,” Ira said. “Robin changed their characters enough so that only those who knew them and their shenanigans would recognize them. Besides, I doubt if the Hardwicks would lower themselves to read a whodunit. They haven’t made any friends around here who would care to tell them.”
    “How many of our neighbors have they actually taken to court?” Mac handed the book back to his host.
    Ira squinted thoughtfully. “The only one they actually managed to get into court was Katrina Singleton. They slapped her with a paternity suit over Gnarly knocking up their poodle. The judge laughed it out of court.” He chuckled. “Meanwhile, the Hardwicks had to pay their lawyer and they didn’t get a dime from the Singletons. Then they ended up with a bunch of puppies that they refused to bring home from the vet. They would have died if it weren’t for your mother. Robin loved animals. She paid the vet’s bill and brought them home. She and Archie bottle fed them and got them all homes. Robin’s fans were more than glad to take home one of her puppies. When Hardwick found out, he tried to sue Robin for theft. The vet told the police that Hardwick had not only abandoned them, but didn’t pay his vet bill. The county prosecutor laughed Hardwick’s lawyer out of his office.”
    “They sound like a real couple of characters.” Mac smiled.
    “Which I guess is why Robin put them in one of her books.” Ira sat up in his recliner and leaned forward to make his point. “Gordy wasn’t here two weeks when he came over here and screamed at me, like he was just doing to you, about what a horrible neighbor I was because Eustace had peed in their yard.” He offered a plate of sugar cookies to his guest.
    “Is Eustace your dog?” Mac gestured with the cookie he had accepted at the terrier engaged in a staring contest with Gnarly.
    “No, my grandson. He was two at the time. Hardwick declared it a hate crime because he was Jewish. What the hell! My grandfather was Jewish. That’s who I was named after. Idiot!” Ira uttered a hearty laugh. “That was three years ago.” He glanced out the window at the house on the other side of his privacy fence. “He yelled at me again about it last week.”
    “Did Eustace do it again?” Mac asked, mindful that the child would now be five years old.
    “No, Gordy was still mad about it from three years ago.”
    “I’m glad they aren’t living right next door to me.”
    “Don’t feel so safe. From what I’ve heard, they’ve targeted the Spencer Inn. They caused so much trouble that they got themselves kicked out.” Ira bit into his cookie and spoke around it. “Now that you’ve come into the picture, they probably envision a big windfall.”
    “Kicked out of the Inn?”
    “Your hotel offers private club membership. For an annual fee, members get to use the exercise club, golf course—you know—all of the amenities that the hotel guests get.”
    “I wasn’t aware of that.” Mac asked, “Why did Jeff kick them out?”
    “The Inn doesn’t kick anyone out as long as they can pay their dues. But that pair picked fights with everyone. Jeff got his fill of it, gave them a full refund, and told them not to come back.” Spying a white SUV with black and gold trim crossing the bridge to the Point, Ira crossed the sunroom to watch the cruiser slow