The Lady Who Cried Murder (A Mac Faraday Mystery) by Lauren Carr Read Free Book Online Page B

all say no, but they don’t mean no.”
    “You pinned my hands down and you raped me!”
    “You call it rape, I call it playing rough.”
    There was a sound of movement followed by the man yelling, “What the hell is that?”
    “Don’t you recognize it?” the woman’s voice replied with laughter. “It’s called a gun! You come near me again and I’ll shoot your balls off before shooting you dead.”
    “You shoot me and you’ll spend the rest of your life in jail—in a federal prison. Shooting a sheriff is a federal offense.”
    “But you’ll be dead, and this tape will be on the national news!”
    “Damn, bitch! You set me up!”
    “Damn straight!” she said. “And you’re going to live with what you’ve done for the rest of your life because I’m pregnant now and you’re going to pay for it. Oh, and don’t even think about doing anything to me because copies of this tape will be all over—anything happens to me, and the whole world is going to know that Sheriff Harry Palazzi is a low-life, common rapist!”
    “Oh, man,” Mac muttered.
    Ed snapped the tape off. “Oh man is right.”
    “She said copies of that tape were all over. Obviously you had one.” David noticed Mac glaring at the recorder like he wanted to shoot it.
    “It was in a sealed envelope that was only to be opened upon her death,” Ed said. “She gave it to me when she came to me pregnant with Khloe. All these years, Florence has been getting a direct deposit of ten thousand dollars into her account every month. I assumed it was from Khloe’s father, who wanted no emotional part of her.”
    “And here she was, the product of rape,” Chelsea said.
    “Did Khloe know?” David asked.
    “No,” Ed said with certainty. “When I encountered this tape I took it to Ben, and we’ve been trying to decide what to do.”
    “The man is a rapist.” Mac grabbed the recorder and shook it. “He’s a sexual predator who has been raping women for years and getting away with it. Don’t you think it’s time to stop him?”
    “This victim is dead,” Ben said.
    “She’s not the first rape victim that Senator Palazzi got rid of,” Mac said.
    “Mac,” David said gently, “Florence’s death was an accident. Pure and simple. It was investigated. What other victims has Palazzi gotten rid of?”
    Mac felt all of their eyes on him. “It was back when I was working the special victims unit in Washington, before I went to homicide.” He gritted his teeth. “One night, I got called to the hospital where this woman had been dumped at the ER. Her name was Dee Blakeley. She had been beaten up and raped. When I finally got her to speak to me, she told me that she was a lobbyist who had gone to meet with Senator Harry Palazzi to talk about an upcoming bill. He poured Dee a drink. They sat in his office to talk about the bill, and suddenly, he raped her. When she fought him, he beat her up. Then, his assistant and driver arrived to take her home. When she passed out in the back of the limo, they literally dumped her at the ER and drove off.”
    “Why didn’t you arrest him?” Chelsea asked.
    Mac shook his head. “His people circled the wagons. The assistant and driver who knew the truth insisted that she was drunk when she showed up for the meeting and they saw her put the moves on the senator, who swore it was consensual and she was lying about the rape for her own personal gain. They all claimed afterwards, when she was leaving the senator’s office, that she had tripped and fallen and hit her face on the desk. Because she was so drunk, they refused to let her drive. When they discovered that she was bleeding from the fall, they dropped her off at the hospital. The victim told me that her cat disappeared and she had received a visit from an intimidating man saying that the same would happen to her. She wanted to withdraw her complaint and said she wouldn’t testify, but I talked her into doing it. The morning that she was to appear at