Internal Affair

by Marie Ferrarella

  Maggi sighed, trying to regain some ground. “All I’m saying is that the congressman was a great deal more cooperative when you weren’t glaring at him.”

  He started up the car and got back on the road. “That’s what you’re here for, right? To win him over with your sunny disposition.”

  “Attila the Hun’s disposition could be called sunny compared to yours.”

  To her surprise, she heard Patrick laugh softly to himself. “Looks like our first day isn’t going very well, is it?”

  She trod warily, afraid of being set up. “Could be better,” she allowed. Maggi caught his grin out of the side of her eye.

  “It’ll get worse.”

  “If you’re trying to get me to bail out, you’re wasting your time.”

  “And why is that? Why are you so determined to work with me?” he wanted to know.

  “You mean other than your sparkling personality, charm and wit?” She saw his expression darken another shade. The man could have posed for some kind of gothic novel, the kind given to sensuality. He’d be damn good-looking if he wasn’t into scaring people off. Upbraiding herself, she curtailed her own impulse toward sarcasm. “I was assigned to you, Cavanaugh, and I don’t back away from my assignments, no matter how much of a pain in the butt they might be.”

  Maggi watched his eyes in the rearview mirror. Instead of becoming incensed, he looked as if he was considering her words. “Fair enough.”

  She knew she should let it go, but she couldn’t. A door had opened, and she didn’t know when it could be opened again. She needed to move as much as she could through it.

  “No, what’s fair is if you give me a chance here,” she told him tersely. “I’ve shown you that I don’t fall apart in tense situations and that I’m a dead shot and all in under eight hours. If you were anyone else, that would definitely tip the scales way in my favor.”

  The woman could get impassioned when she wanted to. That was a minus. He’d always found that emotion got in the way of things. “I’m not anyone else.”

  She sank into her seat. “So I’ve been told.”

  Something in her tone worked its way under his skin, made half thoughts begin to form. It took a little effort on his part to ignore them. He had no idea why. “Make the best of it, Mary Margaret. What you see is what you get.”

  Not hardly. If that were the case, then there would be no need for her to go undercover to investigate the allegations Halliday had received from an anonymous source. The allegations that made Cavanaugh out to be a dirty cop on the take.

  Even if she wasn’t on the job, just one look would have told her that what you saw was definitely not what you got when it came to Patrick Cavanaugh.

  Their next stop was the offices of Babcock and Anderson, which organized and handled the arrangements for fund-raisers of all types. The professional firm was run by Leticia Babcock, president and sole owner. There was no Anderson.

  “I thought it sounded more aesthetically pleasing to have two names on the card,” Leticia Babcock, a tall, slim woman in her mid-thirties informed them when they asked after the whereabouts of her partner. “Makes it sound as if the company has been around for ages.” Because they’d requested to see the guest list, she scrolled through her records as she spoke to them. “Ah, here it is.” She beamed. Stopping, she tapped the screen with a curved, flame-red nail. “We raised more than was originally hoped for. The gala was an amazingly rousing success. The congressman was very pleased.”

  Maggi could all but see the dollar signs in the other woman’s eyes. “Congressman Wiley?”

  “Yes.” The dark-haired woman sat back in her chair, sizing up her visitors. “He was the one who came to me to organize it. Very generous man. Not bad-looking, either.” Momentarily ignoring the tall, somber man standing beside her, she winked broadly at Maggi. “Too bad he’s married.” With a careful movement orchestrated to avoid chipping a nail, Leticia hit the Print key. The printer to the left of the highly polished teak desk came to life and began printing the list.

  “That doesn’t stop some men,” Patrick indicated.

  Leticia laughed. The sound carried no mirth. “Didn’t stop my third husband, that was for sure. But I hear the congressman’s a straight arrow.” She sighed again and shook her head, as if lamenting the missed opportunity. She held out the pages to them. “Believe me, I left him enough of an opening.”

  Patrick glanced at down at the list the woman had provided for them. The names went on for several pages. And everyone was going to have to be checked out. He debated giving that assignment to McKenna, let her run solo with it.

  “Five hundred guests,” Maggi told him. “Don’t bother counting them.”

  She was quick with numbers, he thought. Handy trait to have around. He looked at Leticia as he tapped the list. “He said his staff was there.”

  A small, slightly superior smile twisted her lips. “Yes, they were.”

  He watched the woman’s eyes, looking for some tell-tale flicker. “Is that normal, to invite your reelection staff?”

  “Not really, but like I said, the congressman’s a very generous man.” She ran down the benefits of attending. “There was a great deal of good food to eat. Some of those staff members probably ate better than they ever have in their lives. Not to mention networking.”

  “Networking?” Maggi asked before Patrick had a chance to.

  “Yes, there are a lot of important, influential people attending these things. Everyone likes to be seen ‘caring’ about a popular cause. Doesn’t hurt to be around them. You never know where your next big break is coming from.” She looked from Maggi to Patrick, her manner terminating the session. “If there’s anything else I can do for you, let me know.”

  He wasn’t ready to leave just yet. Patrick took out the photograph of the dead woman and held it up to the organizer’s face. “Did you see this woman at the party last night?”

  Leticia shivered, making no move to take the photograph in her own hand.

  “Not that I remember.”

  The very air had climbed up inside their lungs as they waited for her to go on.

  “Is she…dead?”

  “Very,” he replied grimly, tucking the photograph away again.

  “Thanks for your help,” Maggi told the woman as they walked out. Patrick made an inaudible sound that could have passed for “Goodbye.”

  Outside the window, Maggi could see that the mist was getting heavier. She hoped it would hold off until she got home for the night.

  She glanced at the papers he was holding. “Looks a little daunting.”

  “Looks can be deceiving.”

  Part of her wanted to ask if Patrick was on to something, but she knew he was just pulling her chain or maybe giving her some kind of encoded message. She wanted no part of either. As he pressed for the elevator, she looked at the list over his shoulder. “So, where do you want to start?”

  He folded the list in half twice before lodging it beside the photograph. He never even looked at her. “At her apartment.”

  When she wasn’t busy working or partying, Joanne Styles had spent her time in a tiny, cluttered studio apartment about two-thirds the size of the one Maggi had lived in when she was in San Francisco.

  Standing in it now made Maggi entertain a very odd sense of déjà vu coupled with the thought “there but for the grace of God…”

  Except that she would have never let her guard down enough to have someone do to her what had been done to Joanne.

  Maggi supposed that was her inbred leeriness. It came from being raised in an atmosphere of law enforcement agents. Looking back, she knew that it was her leeriness that had gotten in her way with Tyler, urging her on to keep a part of herself in reserve, not allowing him to see all of her.

  Lucky thing, too, considering the way that had turned out, she mused.

  Patrick noticed the expression on his partner’s face as she stood looking around. She seemed a million miles away. He ignored her for a mom
ent, then heard himself asking, “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” Maggi took a moment to rouse herself before turning to squarely face him. “Just trying to put myself in her shoes, that’s all.”

  He supposed there was nothing wrong in getting a female’s perspective on all this. “Can’t hurt.”

  She raised her eyes to his, humor playing along her lips. “Mellowing?”

  She wore some kind of gloss, he realized, something that caught the overhead light and made her lips shimmer.

  He was noticing the wrong things, Patrick told himself.

  Not bothering to answer her, he nodded toward the laptop that stood open on the small, pressboard desk. There was every indication within the room that Joanne would have been returning to her apartment.

  “She had a computer. Maybe there’s some interesting e-mail that might tell us something. We can take it up to the lab,” he said.

  Maggi closed the lid and unplugged the computer. She spotted a carrying case haphazardly thrown under the desk and tucked the laptop into it. “Why the lab?”

  “To read it.” When she looked at him quizzically, he added, “There’s probably a password they’ll need to get by.”

  “I can get you through that,” she said.

  Patrick stopped rifling through the victim’s closet. “You’re a hacker?”

  She shrugged carelessly. “I’ve been known to get into some systems.”

  He hadn’t thought to catch McKenna in a contradiction so soon. “I thought you believed in the straight and narrow.”

  “I do.” With the laptop safely put away, she began to go through the shallow center drawer. “I was also younger once.”

  Squatting, he looked from the victim’s collection of shoes. Twelve pair. Shoes were obviously a weakness. Nothing unusual about that. “Guess not everyone starts out as a plaster saint.”

  “Guess not.”

  Maggi closed the center drawer. The desk wobbled dangerously and continued to do so with every move she made as she went through the other two drawers. It was the kind of desk that started out as pieces packed into a cardboard box along with simplistic photographs that were meant to be directions. It couldn’t have been any cheaper if it had been constructed out of orange crates. “Looks like being a congressman’s staff assistant doesn’t pay all that much,” she commented.

  “Maybe she was in it for the fringe benefits.”

  Having found an album tucked into the rear corner of the closet, Patrick flipped through the plastic-covered pages until he found something worth looking at. He held up a page with a photograph mounted in the center. It displayed several young people, all smiling broadly and obviously celebrating. In the midst was the congressman. He had his arm draped around two staff members, one a male, the other was Joanne. A banner in the background proclaimed Wiley Is Your Congressman.

  Maggi moved forward to look at it. Joanne seemed so happy. If this was the last election, that meant it was taken only a few weeks ago. “And maybe he’s just a nice boss.”

  “Maybe.”

  From his tone, she knew he didn’t believe it.

  By the time they returned to the station, they had one more piece of information beyond the address book that Maggi had found in Joanne’s desk and her laptop. Ochoa had called from the coroner’s office to tell them that their victim had also been seven weeks pregnant.

  Maggi watched as the rain teased the dormant wind-shield wipers of his car. They had just pulled into the precinct parking lot when he had gotten the call.

  A baby. The killer had gotten two for the price of one. Her own charade in the bank came back to her. You’ll be killing two if you kill me.

  She sighed. “Puts a whole new spin on this, doesn’t it?” she commented as Patrick put away his cell phone.

  He opened the door. A whoosh of cold air and the smell of rain came in with them. “That it does, Mary Margaret, that it does.”

  She started to tell him again how much she hated to be called that, but then let it go. Some things in life remained the same. The more she voiced her dislike, the more he’d use the names. She was better off just putting up with it. With any luck, she’d find what she needed and terminate this charade Internal Affairs had assigned her before she gave in to the urge to strangle Cavanaugh.

  A sense of urgency hovered over her as she hurried up the stairs into the building.

  Patrick walked into his apartment, pushing the door shut. It slammed behind him, shuddering in the jamb. He stood in the dark for a moment, absorbing the solitude. And the quiet.

  Especially the quiet.

  Any way he looked at it, the week had been very long. He and McKenna had canvassed most of the people on the fund-raiser list as well as all those in the victim’s address book.

  Fortunately, that list had turned out to be a great deal shorter.

  Unfortunately, although some of her girlfriends knew she was involved with someone, no one had a name for the mystery man. For all her perky, former cheerleader appearance, Joanne Styles chose to be rather closemouthed when it came to her love affair.

  All he and McKenna could gather was that the mystery man had been relatively new in the young woman’s life. So new she was afraid to talk about him because of the fear she might jinx it.

  At least, that was what she’d told her friends. His money was still on the congressman. In that case, Styles might have been afraid to name him because Wiley had threatened to end the affair if anyone found out about the two of them. After all, he was the family values poster boy.

  There was something about the man’s wide smile that just rubbed him the wrong way.

  He was letting his personal prejudice color his thinking, Patrick upbraided himself. But maybe it wasn’t prejudice. Maybe it was a gut feeling. Like the gut feeling that he’d be a whole lot better off without McKenna as his partner.

  As his thoughts shifted to her, he turned the light on. It just seemed wrong to have thoughts about her in the dark. McKenna was still working with Styles’s computer, but so far, all the e-mail she’d managed to pull up was unenlightening. If Styles had communicated with her lover/possible killer, it wasn’t from her own laptop. The mail there represented communications from and to former college friends and her family, all of whom lived back East somewhere.

  He and McKenna had met with the member of the family who had flown out to claim the body. He had to admit that McKenna was better at talking to the distraught older sister than he was. It wasn’t the dead that made him uncomfortable; it was the living.

  The body had been released earlier today. There was no more information coming from the coroner’s office. They’d learned as much as they could there. Besides the victim’s own DNA, there was no one with whom to match the fetus’s DNA. They had possible motive, but so far, no suspect they could remotely pin down. Everyone, according to her friends and co-workers, liked Joanne.

  Except for one person, he thought grimly, making his way out of his tie and into the kitchen. The father of Styles’s baby. The man who had terminated them both.

  Tossing the tie onto the back of a chair, Patrick opened his refrigerator. There was nothing except beer in it, but that was all right. Beer was all he wanted. Beer and some peace and quiet.

  Going back into the living room, he sat down in front of the television set and left it off. He was vaguely aware of the sounds of cars beyond his window, tires passing through puddles as they made their way somewhere. Concentrating, he could block out the sound.

  He couldn’t block out the phone.

  When he heard it ring, he stiffened. Taking another long gulp from the bottle, he debated letting the phone ring. Most of his work-related calls came through his cell phone. The telephone might mean telemarketers. Lately they had no shame, calling from early until late and invading the weekends. He told himself he needed to get caller ID.

  But the telephone was also reserved for family or if there was some kind of an emergency. He stared at it, willing it to stop.

/>   When the ringing went to the count of four, he yanked up the receiver. If it was a telemarketer, he promised himself one hell of a venting session. He could use someone to chew out after holding in his temper this entire week. His new partner had certainly tested him.

  “Hello!”

  “Patrick, you’re barking.” His sister’s soft voice filled his ear, the very sound of it soothing him. “Anything wrong?”

  He sighed and then relaxed as he sank back into the cushions of the sofa. “Just a homicide case that refuses to cooperate.”

  “I haven’t heard from you all week.” Patience didn’t add that she worried when she didn’t hear from him. Patrick wasn’t the type to weather guilt trips and she wasn’t the type to bestow them. “How are you?”

  “Busy. Tired.”

  They worked him too hard, she thought, and he never let anyone help him. She loved her brother dearly, but he made her crazy. She wished he was a little more like her cousins.

  “Right, the homicide case. You work much too hard, Patrick. When are they going to give you a partner?”

  At the mention of the word partner, he frowned. This was his haven and he didn’t want to think about her when he was at home. “They did.”

  “Oh?”

  He heard curiosity filling her voice. Good old Patience, as nosy as ever.

  “Yeah, maybe that’s why I need help,” he muttered more into his beer than into the receiver.

  They both knew what he was like. A hard man to please. That, unfortunately, he got from their father. Patience knew better than to say that to him. But she could say something.

  “Give this one a chance, Patrick. Eduardo worked out after you stopped riding him.”

  “No way in hell this one’s going to work out. She’s a damn pain in the butt.”