Cavanaugh Pride

by Marie Ferrarella

  Other than feeling as if he was being invaded, no, Frank thought, there wasn’t a problem. At least, not yet. And then he replayed his own words in his head before speaking. He was coming across like some kind of grumpy malcontent.

  Leaning back, Frank blew out a breath and then shook his head. “No, I guess I just would have liked a heads-up.”

  “Sorry I couldn’t give you one,” Brian apologized, then added, “I’m sure that the dead women would have liked to have been given a heads-up that they were about to become the serial killer’s next victims.”

  “Point taken,” Frank murmured. Brian was right. Nothing really mattered except clearing this case and getting that damn serial killer off the streets before he killed again. If bringing in some detective from a nearby town accomplished that, so be it. And then, because it was Brian, the man who used to bring him and his siblings toys when they were little, the man who he’d secretly wished was his father when he was growing up, Frank let down his guard and told him what was really bothering him. “I just thought that maybe you thought—”

  “If I didn’t think you were up to the job, Frank, I wouldn’t have let you head up the task force,” Brian informed him. “My marrying your mother has nothing to do with what I think of you as a law-enforcement officer. And if I have something to say about your performance, I won’t resort to charades—or to undermining your authority. You know me better than that,” he emphasized.

  “Yeah, I do,” Frank agreed, feeling just a little foolish for this flash of insecurity. This, too, was new to him. Self-confidence was normally something he took for granted.

  “I hear that White Bear’s good,” Brian continued. “Maybe what she has to contribute might help you to wind up this case.”

  If only, Frank thought. Out loud, he said, “Maybe,” and stood up, turning toward the door. He’d wasted enough of the chief’s time.

  “Frank?” Brian called after him.

  Frank stopped and looked at the man over his shoulder. “Yes, sir?”

  “Go home at a reasonable hour tonight,” Brian instructed. “Get some sleep. You’re no good to me—or anyone else—dead on your feet.”

  Frank turned to face him again. “I’m not dead on my feet,” he protested.

  They both knew he was, but Brian inclined his head, allowing the younger man the benefit of the charade. “Almost dead on your feet.”

  The last thing he wanted was preferential treatment. There’d already been some talk making the rounds about that. Since his mother had married Brian, there’d been rumors sparked by jealousy. He was beginning to have new respect for what the younger Cavanaughs had to put up with, working on the force.

  “Just one thing.” He saw Brian raise a quizzical brow. “Are you speaking as the chief of detectives, or as my new stepfather?”

  Brian was not quick to answer. “Now that you mention it, both,” he finally said, then leaned forward, lowering his voice. “And if you don’t comply, I’ll tell your mother.” He punctuated his threat with a grin.

  “Message received, loud and clear.” For the first time in two days, Frank McIntyre grinned.

  “And if you get a chance,” Brian added just before his stepson went out the door, “Andrew would like to see you at breakfast tomorrow.”

  Everyone knew about Andrew Cavanaugh’s breakfasts. More food moved from the former chief of police’s stove to the table he’d had specially built than the ordinary high-traffic restaurant. The family patriarch welcomed not just his immediate family, but his nieces and nephews and their significant others as well. There was no such thing as too many people at his table and, like the miracle of the loaves and fishes, Andrew never seemed to run out of food no matter how many people turned up at his door.

  “If I get the time,” Frank answered.

  “Make the time,” Brian replied. There was no arguing with his tone.

  “Is that an order, sir?”

  At which point, Brian smiled. “That’s just a friendly suggestion. You really wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of Andrew.”

  It was an empty threat. Even though everyone knew that in his day, Andrew Cavanaugh was a formidable policeman, when it came to matters concerning his family, Andrew always led with his heart. “I’ll keep that in mind, sir,” Frank promised.

  “You do that, Frank. You do that. And don’t forget to tell me what you think of this White Bear—once you give her a chance,” he added knowingly.

  Frank nodded. “Will do.”

  He still wasn’t all that happy as he went back to the cubbyhole that served as the task force’s work area. Becoming integrated into the Cavanaugh family was enough of an adjustment without having some outsider suddenly thrust upon him. It was the last thing he needed.

  At any other time, he thought, pausing in the doorway and quietly observing the newest addition to his task force, he would have welcomed someone who looked like Julianne. The woman was a head-turner, no doubt about that. But he was in charge of the task force and that changed the rules.

  He’d never much liked rules, Frank thought with an inward sigh, but there was no arguing the fact that he was bound by them.

  Squaring his shoulders, he walked into the room.

  Chapter 2

  “So, did Riley get you all caught up?” Frank asked as he came up behind Julianne.

  Five victims were on the board, five women from essentially two different walks of life who, at first glance, didn’t appear to have anything in common. If there was a prayer of solving this case and bringing down the serial killer, each victim would require more than just a glance. More like an examination under a microscope. No way could she have even scratched the surface in the amount of time that he’d been gone.

  Was he testing her?

  “She gave me a thumbnail sketch of each victim,” Julianne answered guardedly, watching his face for an indication of his thoughts. “It’s going to take me a while to actually get caught up.” She pulled a folder out from the bottom of the pile of files she’d been given and placed it on top. “While I’m at it, you might want to go over Millie Klein.”

  The name was unfamiliar to him. “Millie Klein?” he repeated.

  “The woman found in the Dumpster in Mission Ridge,” Julianne elaborated.

  She leaned back in her chair as last Tuesday came rushing back at her. The woman, an estate planning lawyer, had been her first dead body. When she closed her eyes, Julianne could still see the grayish, lifeless body half buried in garbage, her bloodshot eyes open wide and reflecting surprise and horror.

  “It looks like your guy was off on a field trip when he had a sudden, uncontrollable urge to kill another woman,” she speculated.

  “That the way you see it?” Frank asked. Crossing his arms before him, he leaned back and perched on a corner of the desk that Riley had cleared off for the Mission Ridge detective.

  McIntyre studied her more intently than was warranted, Julianne thought.

  Stare all you want, I’m not leaving.

  “Right now, yes,” she said flatly. “There’s no other reason for him to have strayed from his home ground. Plenty of ‘game’ for him right here.” She’d already gotten a list of clients that Millie had seen that week she was murdered, but so far, everyone had checked out. And every one of them lived in Mission Ridge.

  “Maybe it’s not the serial killer.” He studied her face to see if she was open to the idea—and caught himself thinking she had the most magnificent cheekbones he’d ever seen. “People have been found in Dumpsters before this serial killer started his spree.”

  “Not in Mission Ridge,” she informed him. “We don’t have a homicide division in Mission Ridge. Stealing more than one lawn gnome is considered a major crime spree. It’s a very peaceful place,” she concluded.

  Frank’s eyes narrowed. He’d been laboring under a basic misunderstanding. “Then you’re not a homicide detective?”

  “I’m an all-around detective,” she answered succinctly. Then, in case
he had his doubts and was already labeling her a hick on top of what he probably perceived as her other shortcomings, she was quick to assure him, “Don’t worry, I won’t get in your way.”

  It didn’t make any sense. Why would they send over someone with no experience? And why had Brian agreed to this? “If you don’t mind my asking, why were you sent here?”

  That, at least, was an easy enough question to answer. “Because Captain Randolph isn’t the kind of man who sweeps things under the rug, or just lets other people do his work for him. This is kind of personal.”

  Riley walked by just then and without breaking her stride, or saying a word to her brother, dropped off one of the two cans of soda she’d just gotten from the vending machine, placing it on Julianne’s desk. Julianne smiled her thanks as she continued.

  “Millie Klein was the granddaughter of a friend of his, and he wants justice for his friend. That means seeing her killer pay for her murder. You have the superior department,” she informed him without any fanfare. “It just made sense for him to send the case file over here as well as someone with it.”

  Okay, he’d buy that. But he had another question. “Why you?” She’d just admitted to not having experience and from the looks of her, she couldn’t have been a detective that long. They had to have someone over at Mission Ridge with more seniority than this lagoon-blue-eyed woman.

  Julianne studied him for a long moment before she said anything. “Is your problem with me personal or professional?”

  “I don’t know you personally.”

  And he knew better than to think that just because the woman was beautiful she’d gotten ahead on her looks. If he would have so much as hinted at something like that, his sisters—along with all the female members of the Cavanaugh family—would have vivisected him.

  So he was saying that his beef with her was professional? She took just as much offense at that as she would have had he said it was personal.

  “Professionally, I worked my tail off to get to where I am.” Her eyes darkened, turning almost a cobalt blue. “And you don’t need to know me personally not to like me ‘personally.’” She set her jaw hard. “I’ve run into that all my life.”

  Prejudice was something he’d been raised to fight against and despise. “Because you’re Native American,” he assumed.

  “You don’t have to be politically correct,” she told him. “Indian will do fine.” The term had never bothered her, or any of the other people she’d grown up with. She didn’t see it as an insult. “Or Navajo if you want to be more specific.”

  “Navajo,” Frank repeated with a nod. He’d bet his badge that there was more than just Navajo to her. Those blue eyes of hers didn’t just come by special delivery. “And you won’t find that here,” he informed her.

  “Other Navajos?”

  “No, prejudice because you happen to be something someone else isn’t. I don’t care if you’re a Native American—”

  “Indian,” she corrected.

  “Indian,” he repeated. “What I don’t like is not having a say in who works for me.” But even that could be remedied. “But you prove to me that you can pull your weight, and we’ll get along fine.”

  That sounded fair enough. “Consider it pulled,” Julianne told him.

  With that out of the way, he nodded at her desk. “I’ll look at that folder you brought now.”

  Julianne held the folder out to him. It was thin compared to the ones that Riley had given her. There was a folder complied with random notes and information on each victim posted on the board.

  “You know, all that information was input on the computer,” he told her. He indicated the small notebook computer Riley had managed to mysteriously produce for the new detective. It had to have come from one of the other squad rooms, but he wasn’t about to ask which one. This was a case where “Don’t ask, don’t tell” applied particularly nicely. “You can access it easily enough.”

  Rather than draw the notebook to her, she moved the folders closer. “I like the feel of paper,” Julianne told him. “If the electricity goes down, the paper is still here.”

  Frank laughed shortly. He didn’t hear that very often, and never from anyone under thirty. “Old-fashioned?” he guessed.

  She’d never thought of herself in those terms, going out of her way not to have anything to do with the old ways to which grandmother had clung.

  “I prefer to say that I like the tried and true.” With that, she lowered her eyes and got back to her reading.

  Frank knew when to leave well enough alone.

  Julianne was still going through the files and rereading pertinent parts at the end of the day, making notes to herself as she went along.

  She did her best to remain divorced from the victims, from feeling anything as she reviewed descriptions of the crime scenes. She deliberately glossed over the photographs included in each file.

  The photographs posted on the board showed off each victim at what could be described as her best, before the world—or the killer—had gotten to her. The photographs in the files were postmortem shots of the women. Julianne made a point of flipping the photographs over rather than attempting to study them.

  “Pretty gruesome, aren’t they?” Riley commented.

  Julianne looked up, surprised to find Riley standing in front of her desk. She’d gotten absorbed in the last folder, Polly Barker, a single mother who made ends meet by turning tricks. Her three-year-old daughter, Donna, had been taken by social services the day after the woman’s body was discovered. Despite her best efforts, Julianne’s heart ached, not for the mother, but for the child the woman had left behind.

  She closed the folder now. “Yes.”

  “I don’t blame you for not wanting to look at them, but I really think you should.”

  Julianne glanced at Riley, somewhat surprised though she made sure not to show it. She’d sensed that the other woman was watching her, but more out curiosity than a of desire to assess the way she worked.

  “Why? I’ve got all the details right there in the files.” She nodded at the stack.

  “You’re supposed to be the fresh pair of eyes,” Riley reminded her. “Maybe you’ll see something we didn’t.”

  Taking a deep breath, Julianne flipped over the set of photographs she’d just set aside. It wasn’t that she was squeamish, just that there was something so hopeless about the dead women’s faces. She’d fought against hopelessness all of her life and if given the choice, she would have rather avoided the photographs taken at the crime scene.

  But Riley was right. She was supposed to be the fresh set of eyes and although she doubted she would see something the others had missed, stranger things had happened.

  The first thing she saw was a tiny cross carved into the victim’s shoulder.

  Just as there had been on Millie’s.

  In his own twisted mind, was the killer sending his victims off to their maker marked for redemption? Was he some kind of religious zealot, or just messing with the collective mind of the people trying to capture him?

  After a beat, she raised her eyes to Riley’s. “How long?”

  Riley looked at her, confused. “How long what?”

  Julianne moved the photographs away without looking down. “How long before you stopped seeing their lifeless faces in your sleep?”

  Riley nodded. She knew exactly what the woman meant. “I’ll let you know when it happens,” Riley told her. And then she smiled. “The trick is to fill your life up so that there’s no time to think about them that way. And to find the killer,” she added with feeling, “so that they—and you—can rest in peace.” Riley glanced at her watch. It was after five. “Shift’s over. Would you like to go and get a drink?”

  While she appreciated the offer, getting a drink held no allure for her. Her father had been an alcoholic, dead before his time. Her uncle, Mary’s father, while not an alcoholic, was a mean drunk when he did imbibe.

  Julianne shook her head. “I don’t
drink.”

  “Doesn’t have to be alcohol,” Riley told her. “They serve ginger ale there. And coffee.” It was obvious that she wasn’t going to take no for an answer easily. “I just think you need to unwind a little. And it wouldn’t hurt to mingle,” she added. “Might make the rest of this experience tolerable for you.”

  What would make the experience tolerable would be finally finding Mary, but, having kept everything to herself for most of her life, she wasn’t ready to share that just yet. For a moment, Julianne debated her answer. Turning Riley down would make her seem standoffish and she didn’t want to generate any hard feelings beyond the ones Frank seemed to be harboring.

  “All right.” She rose, closing her desk drawer. “I’ll follow you.”

  “Great.” Riley grinned, moving over to her desk to grab her purse. “I’ll drive slow.”

  “No need. I can keep up,” Julianne told her.

  Riley nodded. “I bet you can.”

  Rafferty’s was more a tavern than an actual bar. While it was true that on most nights, members of the Aurora police force went there to unwind and shed some of their more haunting demons before going home to their families, the establishment just as readily welcomed spouses and their children. In many cases it was a home away from home for detectives and patrol officers alike.

  And Rafferty’s was also where, on any given evening, at least several members of the Cavanaugh family could be found.

  This particular evening there were more than a few Cavanaughs in the bar and Riley made a point of introducing Julianne to all of them, as well as her older brother, Zack.

  “Taylor’s probably out on a date,” Riley told her matter-of-factly, carrying a mug of beer and an individual bottle of ginger ale over to the small table she’d staked out for the two of them as soon as they’d walked in.

  Julianne took a seat, accepting the ginger ale. Riley had refused to let her pay. “Taylor?”

  “My sister.” Riley sat down opposite her. “She’s the social butterfly of the family. Like Frank,” she tagged on as an afterthought. “Or he was until he got assigned to this case.”