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“Right back here. ” He opened the office door as his wife stood by worriedly. “Maria just made fresh coffee. Would you like some?”
“No thank you. ” She felt like slime as she took the seat he offered her and waited as he closed the door and moved behind his desk.
Then he was staring back at her with too-perceptive blue eyes and a concerned expression. “You’re sure making a mess of my boys. ” He sighed. “I heard Dawg and Natches almost came to blows at the diner yesterday. And Natches is fit to be tied right now. ”
Chaya nodded. “I know. It couldn’t be helped. ”
Ray Mackay was what Chaya had always thought a father should be. At fifty-nine, he was trim, his hair black and silver, his face weathered. And kind. He had a kind face, and that just made her feel worse.
She pulled the recording device from her briefcase hesitantly.
“I need to record this,” she told him.
He nodded in agreement.
She turned the machine on, stated the date and time, and looked up at him. “Your name is Raymond Douglas Mackay. You were Johnny Grace’s uncle. Brother to his mother as well as to Chandler Mackay. ”
“I am. ” He nodded.
She swallowed tightly. “Were you at any time aware of Johnny Grace’s illegal activities here in Somerset or outside the county?” She watched his eyes, and he didn’t turn from her, didn’t flinch.
“No, ma’am, I didn’t know Johnny was capable of such activities. ”
She nodded to that.
“Mr. Mackay, as stated by Johnny Grace, he’s the half brother to his cousin James Mackay. A product of the incestuous relationship between his mother and her brother Chandler Mackay. Did you know this?”
“I suspected a time or two,” he said softly. “My brothers and sister weren’t my concern after I left my mother’s home, Agent Dane. I lived my life, and I stayed out of theirs. ”
She nodded again.
“Would his mother be capable of aiding him in those illegal activities?” she asked him.
“His mother would have aided the devil himself if it meant destroying Dawg. If it meant destroying any of those boys outside there. She hated them. Even more than Dawg’s and Natches’s fathers hated them. ”
“Was she also sleeping with her brother Dayle Mackay? Would he have aided her and/or her son in those activities?”
Ray stared back at her silently for long moments. “I’d like to say no,” he finally said.
“But?”
“But I learned with Johnny that nothing is impossible. Honestly, I wouldn’t know, Agent Dane. Dayle’s ex-Marine, always seemed damned patriotic to me. He preaches about it, argues politics, and votes in every election. Hates foreigners, and my first thought would be he’d never betray his country. But after Johnny . . . ” He shook his head. “What the hell do I know?”
“There’s a million dollars in cash missing, and connections Johnny or Jim Bedsford couldn’t have had aided in the near sale of those missiles, Mr. Mackay. Who would have helped him?”
Ray scratched his cheek as he thought, then finally shook his head. “I just don’t know. Things like this don’t happen around here, Agent Dane. Somerset is a quiet little town, and this whole thing . . . ” He shook his head again. “It’s spooked a lot of folks. Hell, I think it spooked me. ”
“Wenden Frakes, Ralph Grace’s half brother, says Johnny spent a lot of time on the lake last summer. Did he use any of the boats off your marina?”
“Not one of my mine. ” He shook his head firmly. “I didn’t let Johnny Grace rent out my boats for no reason. He had a tendency to tear them up. Those boats are hard to replace. Besides, Dayle had a boat he kept out at his cabin farther up the lake. Johnny used it some, I think. ”
She nodded again and flipped off the recorder. She had what she needed here.
“Thank you, Mr. Mackay,” she said when he stared back at her in surprise. “I know the questions weren’t comfortable, and I apologize for that. They weren’t questions I chose; I want you to know that. ”
Ray leaned back in his chair then and watched her with the narrow-eyed intent of a man who knew people and, sometimes, knew them too well.
“Dawg says you’re cold,” he stated then, surprising her. “That you’re just using Natches for whatever DHS has going on here. Is that true?”
