Cavanaugh Strong

by Marie Ferrarella

  “I thought you said you were too tired to chew,” he reminded her with a laugh.

  “I’m not chewing,” she pointed out tantalizingly, teasingly, brushing her lips against his.

  “No,” he agreed just before his lips covered hers again possessively, “you’re not.”

  If he had any other plans for the evening, they obligingly, immediately went up in smoke.

  * * *

  “I’m going to have to stop by my place and change before I start to smell gamey,” he told Noelle after he’d taken a quick shower in her bathroom the following morning.

  Mindful of her daughter waking up at any moment, Noelle had already showered and was dressed, ready to face any scrutiny that might come up from the six-year-old.

  Unable to force herself to look away, she watched as Duncan quickly pulled his clothes on. Each time she saw his body like that, it was even better than the last time. An impossibility by all accounts—except that it was true.

  “Your clothes smell fine,” she finally said, then reminded him, “You weren’t in them when you were at your most active. But someone’s bound to notice that you haven’t changed them in three days so maybe you’d better get some fresh ones.”

  “The squad’s filled with guys. They wouldn’t notice if I came in wearing a toga. Valri, however, would,” he said, “and I really don’t want to go through that.” He paused to give Noelle a quick kiss before he headed for the door.

  He opened it just as Lucy was about to use her key. Far from appearing startled, Noelle’s grandmother gave him a once-over as if she was expecting to find him just where he was. “You might want to think about leaving a change of clothes here,” she suggested, breezing into the living room.

  Duncan mumbled something unintelligible under his breath about women and their powers of observation as he left.

  “I didn’t scare him away, did I?” Lucy asked as she passed her granddaughter and made her way into the kitchen. Once there, she deposited her oversize purse on the island in the middle of the room.

  “You didn’t scare anyone away, Lucy. Cavanaugh comes and goes on his own terms,” Noelle murmured, only half listening.

  She’d taken out her phone to check how much battery she had left—she’d failed to charge it the night before. The first thing to pop up was the photograph she’d been looking at last night—the sketch that had been created from Johnson’s description of the woman who’d had such an overwhelming effect on his neighbor.

  There was still something oddly familiar about the sketch, and yet she couldn’t put her finger on it. Probably because it reminded her of dozens of other sketches she’d seen before, Noelle told herself. With a sigh, she put down her cell and got back to the business of getting ready to leave.

  “I heard Melinda stirring. She’s probably almost ready, Lucy. I’m running a little behind today. Would you mind getting her breakfast for her before you take her to school?”

  Lucy flashed a wide smile. “No problem. I love being needed,” she said. “Without Henry to visit at the home, I’ll have more time to spend with Melinda—and maybe even see you once in a while,” she concluded with a deliberate bright smile.

  “Very funny.” Noelle crossed to the hall closet and took down the lockbox. Unlocking it, she removed her weapons and armed herself. “What’s this I hear about you and Shamus Cavanaugh?”

  “A lady never kisses and tells,” Lucy maintained with a toss of her head.

  Noelle hurried back to the kitchen, her eyes wide with surprise. “You’ve been kissing Shamus?”

  Lucy gave her an utterly innocent look. “What part of ‘never kisses and tells’ don’t you understand?”

  Lucy was pulling her leg—or maybe not. With her grandmother, it was hard to tell if she was serious or just having fun teasing her. Resigning herself to knowing the truth of the matter when Lucy was good and ready to tell her, Noelle just shook her head as she left the room.

  When she returned five minutes later with a mostly sleepy-eyed Melinda, Lucy had a rather perplexed expression on her face. “What’s up?” Noelle asked her.

  Her grandmother held up the cell phone that she had left on the island and asked, “What are you doing with a likeness of that awful woman on your phone?” Lucy’s frown deepened as she regarded the sketch again.

  “Awful woman?” Noelle repeated, confused for exactly ten seconds before she realized who Lucy was referring to. “Sit down, Melinda, Lucy’s getting your breakfast ready.” Noelle turned to her grandmother and asked in a stunned voice, “You know her?”

  “Of course I know her. And you met her,” she said in a voice that was just a shade away from being accusatory. “She was at the funeral. Amanda. I told you about her. She was that horrible woman who volunteered at Henry’s assisted living facility. She tried to make me go away that last morning I came to visit him. The woman had the gall to tell me to leave because Henry was sleeping and didn’t like being disturbed.” Lucy snorted. “Like that hussy knew him and I didn’t.”

  Noelle’s heartbeat went up a notch. Even so, she told herself not to get excited. Not yet.

  “You’re sure that it’s her?” she asked, taking the cell phone and turning it around so that Lucy was forced to take a closer look at the likeness.

  “Of course I am,” she said emphatically, pushing the phone away. “You saw her,” Lucy repeated. “She was the only other woman who showed up at Henry’s funeral.” Even the very memory had Lucy scowling.

  That was why the woman in the sketch had looked so naggingly familiar to her. She realized that she’d been too caught up in her grandmother’s distress to focus on the other woman at the time, only noticing the stranger peripherally.

  “You still haven’t told me why you’re carrying around that sketch of her. Is she launching a campaign to become your new best friend, like she tried to do with Henry?” Lucy asked sarcastically.

  “No, Lucy,” Noelle said. Could it really be this simple? Had the answer been staring her in the face all along? It didn’t really seem possible. “This is the sketch our artist came up with when a witness described the woman who had talked his friend into getting a life insurance policy.” She looked at her grandmother as she emphasized, “His dead friend.”

  “I knew it,” Lucy cried in a voice so loud, Melinda stopped trying to drown the little circles in her cereal bowl and looked alert for the first time. Lucy stepped away, lowering her voice as she continued. “I knew she had something to do with all this. Well, what are you waiting for?” she asked. “Go and arrest the hussy.”

  “Momma, what’s a hussy?” Melinda piped up.

  “A lady Lucy doesn’t like, sweetie. Finish your cereal, you’ve got to get going,” Noelle told her daughter. Turning her attention back to her grandmother, she motioned Lucy away from the table, turned her back to her daughter and lowered her voice as she told Lucy. “First we’ll have to bring this Amanda in for questioning.”

  “So go, question,” Lucy ordered, waving her granddaughter to the front door. “She’s probably at the seniors’ home, waiting to kill someone else for their policy.”

  “What’s her last name?” Noelle asked. Although, given that each of the other two people she’d talked to had referred to the woman involved by a different first name, she doubted if the surname was going to be her real last name—but there was always that chance.

  “She said it was Wright. W-R-I-G-H-T. Amanda Wright,” Lucy told her.

  “Did she ever go by Susan or Virginia?” Noelle asked her grandmother.

  Suspicion instantly clouded Lucy’s face. “Why? Are those her aliases?”

  “Well, it’s certainly beginning to look that way,” Noelle replied. Doubling back to the kitchen, she kissed Melinda on the forehead. Both her little girl and her grandmother were her anchors. They were why she could do the job in t
he first place.

  “Have a good day, pumpkin,” she murmured to her daughter. “You, too, Lucy,” she added for good measure before she quickly made her way out the door and down to her driveway.

  Noelle waited until after she had started the car and pulled away from her house before taking out her cell and calling her partner. With each ring on the other end of the cell, her agitation mounted.

  “Pick up, pick up!” she urged. “You have me go to voice mail and you’re going to regret it, Cavanaugh,” she threatened.

  Duncan came on the line just in time to hear her issue the warning.

  “What are you going to do, O’Banyon? Spank me? Or is your idea of punishment to send me to bed by myself?” he asked, amused.

  She was not going to rise to that bait, Noelle swore silently. Out loud she informed him, “I think we just caught a break.”

  “Is that personally or professionally?”

  Now what was that supposed to mean? Noelle couldn’t help wondering. “I’m talking about the case, Cavanaugh, the case.”

  “I’m listening,” he said, his voice serious.

  “Lucy recognized the woman in that sketch we had drawn. It’s the same woman who turned up at Henry’s funeral. I think you caught a glimpse of her.”

  “Can’t be the same one,” he told her.

  “Okay, I’m listening,” she said, flying through a yellow light. “Why can’t it be the same one?”

  “Because according to Johnson, the woman had a huge chest. The woman at the funeral was average at best.”

  “You checked her out?” Noelle cried.

  “I noticed the total person. It’s my job to be observant,” he explained.

  “Yeah, right.” He was all male. But then, she already knew that and his excuse did have validity to it. “Well, her measurements could have easily been enhanced in order to ‘mesmerize’ her prey. I still think this is worth checking out.”

  “No argument,” he agreed.

  “According to Lucy, this woman was very possessive of Henry. Most likely, she talked Henry into getting that life insurance policy.”

  “Does Lucy know her name?” Duncan asked.

  “Yes, but it’s probably an alias, like the others. So far, if she’s our suspect, she’s gone by three different names.”

  “Three,” he repeated. “And who knows how many we haven’t gotten wind of yet,” Duncan wondered out loud. “This could be bigger than we thought—than you thought,” he said, giving her credit for stumbling across the plot in the first place.

  “I want to bring her in for questioning,” she told Duncan. “According to Lucy, the woman volunteers at the Happy Senior Retirement Home. With any luck, we can pick her up over there.”

  “We can check it out,” Duncan agreed skeptically. “But what do you want to bet that our volunteer saint has suddenly realized that there might be others who need her services more than the good folks at the seniors’ home and she’s gone hightailing it to somewhere where she’ll hold up until the heat’s off.”

  “I’ll pass on that, thanks,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “Because I never bet against a sure thing,” she replied, frustrated because she knew that Duncan was right. More than likely, Amanda-Susan-Virginia had cleared out.

  Nonetheless, within five minutes of her arrival at the precinct, she and Duncan were on their way to the seniors’ home—just in case.

  Chapter 18

  “Amanda?” Jenny Matthews, the director of the seniors’ retirement home where Lucy’s friend had resided looked genuinely unhappy at the mention of the volunteer’s name. “Wonderful woman,” the tall, slightly over-made-up woman said mournfully. “So good with the residents. I’m afraid we’ve lost her.”

  Noelle exchanged glances with her partner. “As in dead?” she asked the director.

  “Dead?” Jenny echoed, stunned. “Oh, no, no, as in she told us that she regrettably wouldn’t be volunteering here any longer. It happened right after Henry passed on. My guess is that the mortality rate here finally got to her.” The woman paused to sign a requisition order an administrative assistant brought to her. “It is difficult,” the director continued, “building relationships with the guests and then suddenly, just like that, they’re not there anymore.”

  “Especially if she helps them along on their way,” Noelle murmured under her breath.

  The director turned toward her, a slightly puzzled expression on her face. “I’m sorry, I’m afraid I didn’t catch that.”

  “I said it must be difficult seeing them go that way,” Noelle told her, quick to cover her unconscious slip. “Would you happen to know if she accepted another position?”

  Jenny shook her head. “Sorry, I have no way of knowing that. We didn’t pay her here, so it’s not like she left for a better paying job.” The director paused to think for a moment. “She might be volunteering somewhere else in a different type of facility,” Jenny suggested. “I did once hear her mention that she was really interested in helping the homeless. You might try looking for her at one of the local shelters,” the woman suggested. And then curiosity got the better of her. “If you don’t mind my asking, why are you looking for Amanda?”

  Noelle fell back on an old standard excuse rather than tell the woman that they weren’t at liberty to say. The latter always sent up red flags and if the director was possibly still in touch with the woman they were looking for, she might warn her.

  “We think she might have been a witness to a car accident so we’d like to ask her a few questions about it,” Noelle told the other woman.

  “Would you happen to have her address on file?” Duncan asked. He didn’t hold out much hope of a positive answer, given the director’s laid-back attitude, but it certainly wouldn’t hurt to ask.

  “As a matter of fact, I do.” She opened a large bottom drawer and began going through a haphazard pile of files. “I have everyone—employees and volunteers—fill out their pertinent information, especially where they can be reached in case of an emergency.” Discarded files were carelessly dropped on the floor. “You never know when that can come in handy. Ah, here she is,” Jenny declared, plucking a single eight-by-ten sheet of paper and holding it aloft. “Let me just make a copy of that for you,” she said, turning her chair to the side where a combination scanner, printer and fax machine resided. “You police certainly are thorough, following up on car accidents like this.”

  “Protect and serve, that’s us, ma’am,” Duncan said. He accepted the copy that the director handed him and rose from his seat. “Thank you for your time.”

  If the director had beamed any harder, her face might have cracked. “My pleasure, Detective.”

  “I think she just purred,” Noelle observed under her breath as they walked out of the woman’s office. The front door was only a few feet away. “You do have a power over women.”

  “Strictly your imagination,” he responded.

  It wasn’t until they’d left the building and were at his car that he took time to look at the page in his hand. When he did, he frowned.

  Alarms instantly went off in Noelle’s head. “What is it?”

  “Well, unless Amanda-Susan-Virginia is part dolphin, she can’t live here,” Duncan told her.

  “What d’you mean?”

  He crumpled up the sheet the director had given him. More likely than not, everything else on the page was a lie, as well. “The address puts her smack in the middle of the San Francisco Bay.”

  Noelle squelched the impulse to take the paper from him and look for herself. She knew he’d take it as an insult. She would have in his place. Still, she had to ask him, “You’re sure?”

  Duncan got into his car, far from happy. “Geography isn’t my specialty, but yeah, I’m sure.”

  N
oelle got in on her side and reached for her seat belt. “Now what?”

  He had only one option at the moment. “We go back to the precinct and hope that Valri’s found something we can work with.”

  * * *

  Valri was seated where she had been placed the day before, diligently working when they came into the squad room. She must have been so absorbed in what she was doing that she didn’t even notice them approaching until Duncan and Noelle were practically on top of her.

  Valri glanced up at Duncan, a smug smile curving her lips. “Tell me I’m your favorite sister,” she told him.

  “You’re my favorite sister,” he parroted, then asked, “Okay, what’s my prize?”

  But Valri shook her head. She was still typing, verifying something. “Not finished yet.” She continued laying down her terms. “And if you feel the need to criticize me or any of the guys I go out with—you’ll keep your mouth shut.”

  A slight edge of impatience entered his voice. “It’ll be hard, but okay.”

  “And—”

  That was when he cut his sister short. “I’m not a genie granting three wishes here, Val. Now, what did you find?” he asked.

  “Each one of the four charity foundations turned out to be bogus,” she announced with finality.

  “What about the holding companies? You said you found that there were holding companies involved,” Noelle protested.

  “Turns out that they were just empty shells,” Valri replied. “I went round and round, following every trail, every lead.” She laughed shortly. “The holding companies turn out to be just holding each other. I finally managed to track each foundation down to a post office box. The same post office box,” she underscored significantly, looking from her brother to Noelle. She picked up the piece of paper where she’d jotted down the number of the PO box as well as the address where it could be located. “This is it.”

  Taking the paper from her, Duncan memorized the address, then gave Valri a quick, heartfelt squeeze and declared, “You’re the best, Valri.”

  “We’ve already established that,” Valri replied happily. “And she’s my witness,” she added, nodding at Noelle.