Meet Mac Faraday: A Character Guest Post by Lauren Carr

Today I’m happy to welcome Mac Faraday to my blog. Mac is the detective in Lauren Carr’s new book, A Wedding and a Killing.

Meet Mac Faraday

by Lauren Carr

Archie told me that I had to write this article for some blog (What’s a blog anyway?) for a friend who loves mysteries. So, where do I start?

I guess I should start at the beginning.

It all started a few years ago. Truthfully, it started much before that, but for me, it started a few years ago.

One day, I came home from working eighteen hours on a case as a homicide detective in Washington, DC, to find that my wife of more than twenty years had thrown my stuff out in the yard. That was when I found out that she was leaving me for her lover, District Attorney Stephen Maguire. The next thing I know, I’m living in a third-floor walk-up apartment while Christine is living in the three-bedroom, two-bath home that we had built together. Through Maguire’s influence, on the day of the divorce, she got it all.

That is why I hate lawyers.

But life is ironic.

Here it is the last divorce hearing. The judge, a good buddy of Maguire, pounds the gavel to end our twenty year marriage. I’m trying to not strangle my divorce lawyer who chose then to wake up to hand me his bill, when this little silver-haired man in a ten-thousand-dollar suit comes through the crowd to grab my arm.

“Mr. Faraday? Mac Faraday? I need to talk to you.”

Seeing yet another lawyer, who had to be another friend of that skunk Maguire, I replied, “No habla English,” and ran in the other direction.

Would you believe he chased me for three blocks? I think he would have continued chasing me if I didn’t start feeling sorry for him and stopped to ask him what he wanted.  I braced for the subpoena notifying me that I was being sued for whatever.

He slipped a business card into my hand and introduced himself as Ben Willingham, the senior partner of Willingham and Associates, only the biggest law firm in DC.

This is not going to be good, I thought.

Wiping the sweat from his brow, Ben caught his breath before reaching into his briefcase. “Do you know Robin Spencer?”

“No,” I answered before remembering the name. “Famous writer. She writes murder mysteries. We met a few years ago when she interviewed me for research for a book she was writing. She was creating a new detective.”

He took a folder and a book out of his briefcase. “Do you know that she died six weeks ago?”

Sorrow overtook my anger. I had only spent one day with this woman. I had seen all of the movies based on her detective, Mickey Forsythe, a rich man whose hobby was going around solving murder mysteries in his fancy sports car. I expected to meet a glamorous woman dripping in jewels and furs. Instead, she was dressed in slacks, cracked bawdy jokes, and reminded me of one of my favorite nuns at the Catholic school I had attended when I was as a child.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I told him. “I liked her. She was a very nice lady.”

“I’m glad to hear you say that.” Ben smiled at me. “Because you’re her heir.”

Do you know when people say that they can’t believe their ears? Well, at that moment I could not believe what I heard. I really thought that I was hearing things. This little man in a sweaty ten-thousand dollar suit was telling me something other than what I was hearing because it could not be real. It just didn’t make sense. He had to tell me four times before I believed what I was hearing.

Still, it did not make sense.

“Robin Spencer has left you her entire estate,” he explained. “Roughly, it is valued at two-hundred-and-seventy million dollars.”

“Why me?” I found my voice to ask. “I barely knew her.”

“You were adopted … as a baby.”

I nodded. As numb as I felt, even that was so far in the past I barely remembered that I had been adopted. As a child, it had been a big deal. My adoptive parents wanted to me know that they had chosen me. I was wanted. Otherwise, my childhood was so normal, as normal as it can be for the son of an engineer who chucked engineering in favor of being an underpaid homicide detective.

“You are Robin Spencer’s son,” Ben Willingham announced. “She was only seventeen years old when she had you. Her parents, your grandparents, being socially prominent and wealthy, kept your birth a secret and had you put up for adoption. Robin never forgot you. She hunted you down, got a sample of your DNA while interviewing you a few years ago, confirmed that you were her son, and made you her beneficiary. She left you everything.”

He handed me the folder and book, which it turned out to be Robin Spencer’s journal. “Congratulations, Mac Faraday, you are now a very rich man.” He leaned in to whisper to me, “And your EX-wife has no right to any of it. I saw to that.” 

Ben then uttered the same evil chuckle that I think they teach lawyers in law school. Don’t get me wrong. I like Ben. I think it’s because he now works for me.

So, that is how it all began.

Robin, my mother, explained the circumstances of my birth in her journal, even giving me the name of my birth father, who was now deceased.

Patrick O’Callaghan and Robin were teenaged lovers. He had graduated from high school and went off to the police academy when she got pregnant. They wanted to get married, but her parents refused to permit it and sent my mother away to have me in secret.

Years later, after she had become a best-selling mystery author, Robin returned to Spencer where my father was now the chief of police, and married to another woman. He also had another son, David, my half-brother.

Yep, I have a brother. He’s working in law enforcement, too. Now that I know it runs in the blood, I don’t feel so weird. I always wanted a brother and now I had one. I also had a mansion on the shore of Deep Creek Lake in Spencer, Maryland, named after my ancestors.

So, with my newfound wealth, I retired from the police force, packed up my few belongings, and headed out to my new home on Deep Creek Lake.

That was where I met Archie Monday. Who’s Archie Monday? She was my mother’s research assistant and editor. She came with the house. It’s complicated, but not anymore. We’re getting married.

I also met Gnarly, another part of my inheritance. My mother’s German shepherd seems to think that the estate is his and he’s only letting me live here. That’s complicated, too. Even after all these years, it’s still complicated.

How was I to know that my move into the life of the rich and famous went launch a roller coaster ride of murder and mayhem? But you know what … I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

About A Wedding and a Killing

When Mac Faraday decides to do something, there’s no stopping him … even murder!

Not wanting to wait until their big day to start their life of wedded bliss, Mac Faraday and his lady love, Archie Monday, decide to elope to the little church where his ancestors had all married—along the tranquil shore of Deep Creek Lake. However, before they can say, “I do,” the sanctuary erupts into chaos when Gnarly finds a dead body in the church office.

As they dive into the investigation, Mac and his team discover more questions than answers. What kind of person walks into a church and shoots a man for no apparent reason? How do you solve the murder of a man who has no enemies in the world? Which of the seemingly kind-hearted church members is really a cold-blooded killer?

Then, there is the all-important question, how long do Mac Faraday and his lady love have to wait to get married?

Come back later today to see my review.