In Bed with the Badge

by Marie Ferrarella

  “Eventually, you know, you’re going to have to fly solo,” she told him as the doors opened again. They got off and walked toward the front of the building. “Spend the morning and the evening with her without a go-between getting into the mix somewhere.”

  “I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it,” he replied vaguely. Reaching the front door, he opened it for her, then checked the address on the paper that Barker had given him. “Same part of town as the other two, except this one’s a little closer to the center than the last one.”

  “Maybe the invaders are getting more democratic in their choice of victims,” she cracked. Assuming that he would want to drive, she headed toward where he usually parked his vehicle.

  “Sure would be nice to find that they had something more in common than just geography,” Sam commented. He automatically slipped his hand into his pocket, feeling around for his car keys.

  “We will,” she promised.

  Sam unlocked the door on her side. All the locks released at the same time. “I’m not as optimistic as you are,” he told her, rounding the trunk and coming around to his side.

  She got into the car. “I noticed. But we’ll find it. Maybe even this time around,” she added.

  So far they’d established that the two couples didn’t know each other and had nothing in common except for living in a house valued in the millions. Beyond that, there seemed to be no common denominator.

  Early that morning, Riley had run down the list of information they’d compiled for what seemed like the umpteenth time. The first victims, Edith and Joel Marston, attended church services every Sunday, the Wilsons didn’t. The Marstons had two children under the age of eighteen who went to private schools, the Wilsons were childless. The Marstons took three vacations a year. Mr. Wilson was a workaholic and he and his wife hadn’t been away in close to three years. Mrs. Wilson went to the gym at least four times a week. The Marstons didn’t have a gym membership.

  And so it went. The two couples’ paths didn’t cross—except that they had to, she thought as they drove to the home of the third victims. Someway, somehow, the paths had to cross.

  The third home invasion victim was John Cahil, a divorced college professor and the father of two teenaged sons, neither of whom were with him at the time the invasion went down. His girlfriend of ten months wasn’t as fortunate. After dining at their favorite restaurant, John Cahil and his girlfriend, Rhonda Williams, came back to his home, made love while inebriated and fell asleep in his California King-sized bed.

  That was where they were, sound asleep in his bedroom, when the two black-clad robbers struck.

  According to the information gathered by the first officer on the scene, the MO was identical to the other two robberies. With one slight difference. This time, one of the robbers, the smaller of the two, had lingered over Rhonda, who became hysterical. Despite being tied up, John had voiced his protest, calling the robber several unflattering names. He’d succeeded in diverting the threat away from Rhonda because the robber had beaten him for his stab at chivalry. His accomplice had been forced to pull him off the professor and angrily told him to remember what they had come for.

  Other than that, everything went according to the old plan. The victims had been tied up, their mouths and limbs duct-taped and just before the ordeal was over, they were chloroformed.

  When Riley and Wyatt arrived, the professor and his girlfriend were twelve hours into their ordeal. Other than the hours that she’d been unconscious, Rhonda looked as if she’d been crying for most of that time.

  After introducing himself and Riley, and extending his sympathy and condolences for what they had been through, Sam asked them to please recount the events that occurred after the robbers had woken them up in the bedroom.

  Outraged, the professor flatly refused to talk about it “again.” “I’ve already told that officer everything that happened. You want to know, talk to him,” Cahil snapped. Putting his arms around Rhonda, he tried to console her. She continued sobbing into the handkerchief he’d given her. By now, it was crumpled and soggy.

  “Professor, we’re hoping that you might remember something if you tell it again, something you forgot the first time around,” Riley said, hoping to appeal to his softer side. “Even the smallest thing might help us finally get these people.”

  His gray eyes seemed to flash as he looked up at them. “I know the statistics for success in these things and they’re dishearteningly low,” he snapped at them. “I teach criminology, for God’s sake.” The statement was accompanied by self-depreciative laughter.

  Riley exchanged looks with her partner. Had the experience of actually being the victim of a robbery made the professor go off the deep end?

  “There’s irony for you,” Cahil announced bitterly, still holding Rhonda. “The professor of criminology is a victim of a crime.”

  Sniffling, Rhonda gazed up at him. It was obvious that she was desperately trying to pull herself together—and move forward in a positive manner.

  “John, calm down,” Rhonda pleaded. She tried to soothe him by placing her hand on his arm, but he shook her off. Suddenly, their roles were reversed and it was she who was trying to comfort the professor.

  From where Riley stood, the effort was doomed to failure.

  “I don’t want to calm down,” he retorted with passion. “I want those two bastards dead and these two out of my house.” The professor waved his hand at Riley and her partner, then glanced toward the bedroom. Commotion still came from within the room. “Along with all their unnecessary cronies.”

  “Those ‘cronies’ are very necessary, Professor,” Wyatt assured him patiently. “I think you know that. And we’ll be gone as soon as you give us your statement,” he promised.

  Tall, with gaunt features, the professor drew himself up and gave the impression of an annoyed creature of the night. “I was robbed, end of story.”

  “Oh, I think there’s a little more to the story than that,” Riley speculated, doing her best to sound sympathetic. She looked directly at the bruises on his face. “You did something to make at least one of them mad at you. What did you do?”

  “Nothing.” The single word effectively withdrew him completely from the people who were in the room. Riley had a feeling the man was one hard-nosed educator. No curves when it came to grades in his class, she mused.

  It was Rhonda who gave them their answer. “He stood up for me.”

  “Rhonda.” There was a warning note in the professor’s voice.

  Well, at least he wasn’t a man who liked to be in the center of things and draw attention to himself, Riley thought.

  “Well, you did.” Rhonda shifted and eyed the two detectives. “His own hands were tied up and everything, but Johnny still tried to get that awful creep to take his hands away from me.”

  “Very brave of you, Professor.” Riley’d almost called him “Johnny” as well, but stopped herself just in time.

  He shrugged off the compliment. “Yes, well, didn’t get me very far, did it?” the professor grumbled.

  Riley turned toward Wyatt. “May I see you for a second?” she asked.

  Impatient, Wyatt excused himself from the two victims and stepped out of the room with Riley.

  “What’s up?” he asked. It wasn’t customary to back away before an interview was over and as far as he was concerned, it wasn’t over.

  “Why don’t you take the professor aside and question him by yourself? Without me or his girlfriend around,” she suggested, keeping her voice low. “He might open up to another man.” And then she smiled at him. “You know how fragile the male ego is.”

  “Not personally,” he replied. “But that’s not a bad idea, McIntyre,” he said, nodding his head. “It’s worth a try. Without him around, his girlfriend might feel more comfortable about telling you exactly what happened.”

  “Might,” Riley agreed.

  “Let’s give it a shot,” Sam said just before he crossed back into the living
room.

  New plan in place, they proceeded to divide and, with any luck, conquer.

  Bringing the two victims together again, Riley and Sam were on the verge of wrapping up the interview when Rhonda commented to Cahil that Anna and Ellen would be in for a surprise tomorrow.

  “Anna and Ellen?” Wyatt repeated. “Who are they and why are they going to be surprised?”

  “Anna’s my maid,” Cahil answered. “Ellen’s her daughter. They come in twice a week to clean my house. I don’t see how that has anything to do with this.” A private man, he resented having his life dissected this way. And then his eyes widened as he followed the train of thought he was sure was going through the detectives’ minds. “It wasn’t them,” he said with feeling. “Weren’t you listening? I said that those were men here last night, not women.”

  Sam made no comment on the professor’s defense. Instead, he asked, “Do either Anna or Ellen have the key to your house?”

  “Of course they have a key,” was the exasperated answer. “How else are they going to get in here when I’m at the university? Through the chimney?”

  “Works for Santa Claus,” Riley quipped. It earned her a dark look from the professor.

  Fear obviously trumped loyalty in Rhonda’s eyes. Growing excited, she asked, “Do you think that was it? They gave the key to someone?”

  “It’s a possibility,” Riley allowed. “We have to check it out. Until then,” she continued as she looked at Cahil to emphasize her point, “they’re innocent until proven otherwise. We’ll need to get in contact with them.”

  Cahil grudgingly gave them Anna’s phone number.

  It was time to go. “Thank you, Professor Cahil, Ms. Williams,” Sam said, calling an end to the interview. “We’ll be getting back to you in the next few days,” he promised.

  With that, he placed his hand on the small of Riley’s back, ushering her out of the room and toward the front door.

  Behind them, they heard Professor Cahil snort. “I won’t hold my breath.”

  There were days, Riley thought as she crossed the threshold, when protecting and serving turned out to be harder than others.

  Chapter 10

  Riley quickly discovered that, as in almost every department of the police force, man power in the robbery division was limited. She and Wyatt, along with the other detectives in Robbery, didn’t lack for cases to work on. But due to the publicity that the home invasion cases had garnered and the fact that there were now three of them, they had gone to the top of the priority list.

  Day in, day out, despite the fact that they sacrificed their lunchtimes and pored over the same evidence until they could re-create the reports from memory, the cases seemed to taunt them. They were still missing something.

  Riley had a feeling that the solution was hiding in plain sight. She just couldn’t grab onto it. Yet. It was only a matter of time before that one crucial piece of evidence would hit them. She just had to be patient.

  “I must’ve been over all the details a hundred times,” Sam complained, tossing down the folder he’d been looking through. With a deep, impatient sigh, he rocked back in his chair, staring at the bulletin board. Looking to find what he’d missed before.

  Almost everything in the folders he’d put together matched, in some fashion, the abbreviated notes on the board they’d put up next to their desks.

  But so far, there’d been no breakthroughs. The professor’s cleaning ladies turned out to be just that: cleaning ladies. A background check on both women connected them to only one unsavory character. Anna’s nephew, Jorge. But Jorge was currently doing time for almost beating someone to death who’d had the misfortune of looking at his wife. That ruled him out. In addition, a quick review of Jorge’s history showed that he didn’t have the kind of pull to get others to work for him and he definitely didn’t have the smarts needed to run that kind of operation from his jail cell.

  The other two families didn’t employ any sort of cleaning service.

  “You say something?” Riley asked, hearing Wyatt mutter something inaudible under his breath.

  He glanced up at her. “Yeah. This running around in circles is getting to me.”

  That made two of them, she thought. “We need to unwind,” she agreed. “Both of us,” she emphasized with a sigh.

  “Good luck with that.” He looked accusingly at the piles on his desk, but he was too brain weary for the moment to pick up another folder.

  It was Friday and it was late. He should be going home. But even that didn’t mean he could unwind. Ever since Lisa had come into his life, he didn’t even stop at Malone’s. Alcohol might make his brain fuzzy just when he had to be sharp.

  He closed his eyes for a moment. This parenting business weighed heavily on his shoulders.

  “I’m surprised the lieutenant doesn’t have us working overtime,” he said. Whatever extra time he and McIntyre devoted to this was off the books and on their own time. “Barker did say that the mayor was really pressing to get these invasions cleared and off the books.”

  Riley didn’t want to hear about official overtime. That meant having to put in a mandatory number of hours and this was already nagging her brain. “A tired mind doesn’t operate at maximum efficiency,” she pointed out.

  He laughed shortly. “You thinking of having that embroidered on your towels, or just your T-shirt?” Wyatt asked.

  “Just stating the obvious.” Riley paused for a moment, looking at him, debating whether or not to say what had been buzzing around in her head for the last half hour.

  The pensive expression on her face was not lost on him. Lately, he noted, especially when he was tired, he caught himself watching her more often than he should. Watching her and having thoughts that went beyond the realm of their professional partnership. Right now, he wished Evans was back—or that McIntyre wasn’t so damn attractive.

  “Something on your mind, McIntyre?” he asked.

  Rather than say yes, she asked him a question of her own. “You like barbecued food?”

  He stared at her. That wasn’t what he’d expected her to ask. Actually, he wasn’t really certain what he expected her to say. He’d just vaguely thought it would have to do with one of the cases. There were times when his partner’s mind seemed to slip into an alternate universe.

  “Well, do you?” she pressed when he didn’t say anything.

  “Yeah, I’ve been known to like barbecued food.” Why was she asking him what he liked to eat? “McIntyre, are you asking me out on a date?” He splayed his hand against his chest, feigning surprise. “This is so sudden.”

  “It’s not sudden, it’s nonexistent,” she informed him. “I’m just debating inviting you over to Andrew Cavanaugh’s place tomorrow. You and Lisa,” she added, realizing that she’d omitted that important piece of information. “By the way, Lisa’s the only reason I’m even thinking about this invitation.”

  He thought of baiting her but was too tired to follow it through. “What’s tomorrow?”

  “Saturday,” she answered glibly.

  “I know it’s Saturday.” He tried not to sound exasperated. It wasn’t Riley’s fault he wasn’t sleeping much at night, lying there listening for the sound of Lisa crying again. So far, except for that first night, the little girl hadn’t. But that didn’t mean she wouldn’t again. If she did, he didn’t want her to go uncomforted. “I mean why’s the chief having a barbecue?”

  “Because he can,” she answered glibly, adding, “Because he likes to cook and because he really likes having family around to eat what he cooks. Technically, there’s no occasion, but it’s been so hot lately that he decided to take advantage of the weather.”

  He’d stopped listening at the end of the second sentence. “Only one problem with that. I’m not family,” Sam pointed out in response to the eyebrow she lifted quizzically.

  “You’re a cop, that makes you family in the Chief’s eyes. His mantra, not mine,” she added in case Wyatt wanted to demur. “C’mon,
what d’you say, Wyatt? There’ll be great food, great conversation. Lisa can play with the gaggle of kids who’ll be there and you’ll get a chance to unwind.”

  He had to admit he was sorely tempted. Socializing had died by the wayside ever since he’d taken on the mantle of fatherhood. After hours, McIntyre was the only one he socialized with and both of them focused on Lisa.

  “I’ve heard about these parties the Chief throws,” he confessed. The food, he’d heard, was out of this world.

  She laughed softly. “You’d have to live in another state in order not to hear about them. His hospitality—and culinary abilities—are famous.” She looked at her partner. “So, how about it?”

  He was already won over, but because it was Riley, he played it out a little longer. “I don’t know. What time does it start?”

  Riley grinned triumphantly. She knew she could wear him down. She wasn’t about to explore why she felt this little thrill in the pit of her stomach.

  “Starts at noon, goes on forever. Or at least until everyone’s too tired to talk.”

  A whimsical smile played on his lips. “That include you?”

  For a while there, because of what had happened to Sanchez, she hadn’t been herself. But now Riley felt as if she was coming around again. Coming back from a dark mind-set she wouldn’t have wished on anyone. The relief she experienced was incredible.

  “Sometimes,” she allowed.

  “All right,” he agreed, then qualified his reason for going. “I think you’re right. Lisa might get a kick out of it.”

  “Of course I’m right,” she said glibly. “I can swing by tomorrow, pick you up.”

  “Or you can just give me the address now.”

  Riley made no effort to reach for a piece of paper to write the address down. “That won’t assure me that you’ll come,” she told Wyatt bluntly.

  “Scout’s honor carry any weight with you?” he asked archly.