Chapter 25
Doreen stared at him and shook her head. “I don’t believe you.”
He rounded on her. “I don’t care if you believe me or not,” he roared. “This has nothing to do with you. You need to go right back to whatever corner you crawled out from.”
Mugs gave a bark and stepped closer to Doreen.
“It’s okay, Mugs.” She even smiled at Daniel. “I think Nancy killed Butch.”
Daniel paled but shook his head. “She had nothing to do with this.”
“You’ll really take a murder rap for Nancy? Two murder raps, seeing as you’re an accomplice?”
He blinked several times.
Doreen explained, “I’m pretty sure that Nancy came with you, and she killed the man in the servants’ quarters, Butch Weldon.
I don’t know whether he was supposed to be there or not, but the murder happened while he was in bed, sound asleep.
So, whether it was a fit of temper on her part or something else, I don’t know,” she shared.
“But the real question is, if that’s what happened, did you know about it, Daniel?
” When he started to shake and quiver in front of her, she sighed. “All for the love of a woman.”
“What do you know about love?” he cried out. “You were married to that miserable man, and you got all that money to leave him alone.”
“I didn’t get any money when he told me to leave,” she corrected him, staring him down.
“And, if he had signed the divorce papers, this would be a whole different story, but he didn’t.
He was being his usual controlling self about everything, refusing to share any money at all with me while he was alive,” she muttered, staring at him.
“Did you really come here with Nancy looking for treasure?” Mack asked. “The neighbors can probably ID you two.”
He slowly nodded. “Nancy was so sure. She told me how there were bags, bags full of money.”
“There absolutely was a lot of cash on these premises,” Mack confirmed, “but not anymore.”
Daniel slumped in place. “Really, there were bags?”
Mack nodded. “Sure, but the bags of money were secured in hidden safes.”
“In the safes, where cash is supposed to be,” Doreen pointed out.
“Mathew was arrogant and not a nice man, but he wasn’t stupid, nor the type to leave his money lying around for you wannabe thieves to come steal.
And I get that, for you, this probably isn’t important, but the fact of the matter is that Mathew’s money wasn’t yours, and it wasn’t Nancy’s either. ”
“It was owed to her,” he repeated desperately.
“No, it wasn’t,” she stated. “The probate attorney confirmed that she was paid in full for the hours of work she did here. I get that you listened to her, that you believed her excuses or whatever, and that you followed through in a way that’ll have incredible consequences for you,” she muttered.
“But Nancy wasn’t entitled to anything, and somewhere along the line Butch was killed.
Why would you bring a weapon to a burglary anyway? ”
“I didn’t,” he wailed. “She found it here.”
“Where?”
“In the house. She found it, thought it was a joke, and carried it around. I told her to put it back, to not touch it, but she’d never had a gun before, and she liked it.” He shrugged. “I was more concerned about trying to get her the money she had coming to her.”
“Right, that all-important money,” Doreen noted, with a sneer. “You all were so fixated on money, money that wasn’t yours. Certainly money that was not owed to Nancy. I presume at some point you split up with Nancy.”
“Yes, we did,” he muttered.
“Why? Because Mathew’s gun she found is probably the same one she used to kill Butch Weldon in bed in the servants’ quarters? Is that what split you up?”
“No, no, no,” he muttered. Yet he stared at her and his shoulders started to shake a little more, and then they slumped. “Please no.”
“Yes,” she repeated, “and you probably knew it too.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“You would have recognized him when the body was brought out,” Mack pointed out.
Daniel stared at Mack desperately and shook his head. “Not really, no.”
“And did you know Butch was her friend?”
“No.” And then he broke down and changed his story again. “Yes, I did, but she didn’t do it.”
“You mean you don’t want her to have done it because it would have been at the same time that you were involved in a burglary,” Mack explained, staring at him in understanding. “And, if she did that—murdered somebody while you were here with her—that murder is on you too.”
He shook his head, breathing faster now.
Doreen added, “And that’s also why she took the drugs that she overdosed on, isn’t it?
Maybe she called you, discussing this. So you came over to check on her, supposedly missing her at her apartment,” Doreen theorized.
“Nancy wanted to take her life because she realized what she’d done and what it would mean.
Right, Daniel?” He stared at her with tears in his eyes, and she nodded.
“But we still have a couple holes in this story. What about the original murder?”
“That was on him, Butch Weldon, the dead guy squatting in the servants’ quarters,” he cried out, “and the victim was Nancy’s brother. When she found out, I think she just … lost it.”
“You knew about it?”
“Not beforehand, I didn’t. I hadn’t talked to her about it.
I didn’t ask her, and that’s what I went there to talk to her about, once I realized who both of the dead guys were on your property.
But I don’t know what happened, not really.
Pete and Butch were always fighting, got caught doing stupid stuff, landed in prison.
They were friends but got into it all the time.
I think maybe the second guy killed the first guy, after Pete told Butch about the bags of money, but I don’t know for sure,” he muttered, raising both hands. “I didn’t kill anybody.”
Mack looked at him and raised his eyebrows. “You know it won’t matter, don’t you? You are still an accessory to both murders.”
He stared at him, and such sadness filled his expression. “I loved her.”
“That’s nice,” Doreen muttered, “but that won’t make things any easier because I don’t think she loved you. She loved Sam.”
He started to cry silently.
Detective Davis decided to uncuff him, even giving him a handkerchief.
In a last-ditch effort, Daniel bolted out the front door and raced down the driveway.
Just as he went to take another step, something crossed paths with him, tripping him up, sending him flying.
He wound up flat on the pavement, with a thoroughly pleased Mugs sitting on top of him, preventing him from going anywhere.
Thaddeus, realizing that he had missed out on a very important part of a game that he absolutely loved, burst from Doreen’s hair, flying as hard and as fast as he could flap his wings, screaming, “Thaddeus is here. Thaddeus is here.”
He came to a complete halt on Daniel’s head.
And, with that, he struck the same pose that Doreen had commissioned to be painted for Nan, with one leg atop the victim’s head, and the other in the commanding stance of a triumphant ruler.
Even Goliath showed up, parading around, swishing his tail with his nose in the air, demonstrating the appropriate amount of distain for their prisoner.
As they all gathered around, Mack and Nick started to snicker, while Detective Davis was stunned into silence.
He looked over at her and muttered, “Those animals are …”
Mack nodded when the detective couldn’t come up with any words. “Yes, they absolutely are. You’ve got to understand they have gotten Doreen out of any number of really dangerous situations,” he murmured.
“The animals?” Davis asked, looking at him.
Mack nodded. “Yes, these animals. They defend her at all times and have never ever let her down.”
“And they won’t,” Doreen declared, standing beside him. “Because they look after me with love, and that is so very important.”
“Not half as important as you looking after yourself,” Mack added. “I keep hoping that one day we won’t get into situations that require their special protective skills.”
Beside him, Nick snorted and replied, “I don’t see that day coming anytime soon, bro. I’ve never seen her in action quite like this, but I’ve got to tell you. She would make one heck of a prosecutor.”
“She would at that, if she could ever get her evidence lined up first,” Mack noted, with a sigh. “In the meantime, she’s got those animals primed, and they don’t let anybody get away with anything.”
“And that’s a good thing,” she said, “because look at this, Detective Davis. We solved your two murder cases. I’m really sorry that Daniel was involved though.”
“Not him technically,” Nick clarified, beside her.
“No, but he’s likely to get charged the same regardless.”
At that comment, Detective Davis nodded. “For any murder that occurs during the commission of a crime,” he recited, “that’s automatic. He will most likely be charged with murder in the first degree or at the least manslaughter. Detective Daniel, care to tell us where we can find Sam?”
Daniel shook his head. “He may have been staying with Nancy, at her place.”
Doreen sighed. “And Daniel did all this because he fell in love.”
“I understand the sentiment,” Mack admitted.
She looked over at him, one eyebrow raised. “I kind of like hearing that. Yet I prefer to think you’re a whole lot smarter than Daniel was.”
“Well,” he began, a big grin on his face, “at least I fell in love with a woman who solves crimes instead of committing them.” And, with that, he tucked her up close and chuckled at the look on her face.
She patted him on the chest and noted, “Seems you made the right choice.”
She looked back over at the two detectives, as one pulled the other to his feet and snapped on the handcuffs once more.
“Can we finally go home now?” she asked Detective Davis.