Cavanaugh or Death

by Marie Ferrarella

  After five minutes had passed, Davis looked at her. “She’s taking a long time. Maybe she can’t get to it yet,” he suggested.

  Moira was having a hard time not fidgeting. “She’ll get to it. I know Val. She’ll get to it.” She jumped as her phone rang.

  “Yes?” she cried rather than give the official greeting she normally said when she answered the phone.

  “I’m sending you the corresponding DMV photo linked to that social security number,” Valri told her. Then, not waiting for a response, Valri declared, “I’ve gotta go,” and quickly hung up.

  “We’ve got it,” Moira announced. She held up her cell phone for Davis to see a DMV facsimile of a Sylvia Elliot, a woman, Moira thought, who was one of Aurora’s less than brilliant robbery accomplices. It was also the name of the woman who worked at Ames & Son Funeral Home, the second funeral parlor they’d visited.

  Moira had a strong feeling that both Jane Andrews and Barbara Allen, the names of the other two makeup artists, would also respond to being called Sylvia.

  “Okay, let’s see if we can find which funeral home Sylvia—or whatever her real name is—is operating in today,” she said.

  Two phone calls later—after asking if the “lady who makes the dearly departed look so lifelike” was there—Moira smiled triumphantly as she ended her call.

  “She’s working at Ames & Son Funeral Home.” Glancing at her watch, she added, “We’d better hurry. It’s getting late and ‘Sylvia’ just might decide to knock it off for the day—or forever if she’s gotten what she was after.”

  “What are you thinking?” Davis asked as they hurried down the stairwell and out of the building to his car. “That she was part of the robbery and hid the money in the coffins of the people she was making look lifelike?”

  “That’s the general idea,” she told him, pulling open the passenger door. It was beginning to feel as if she lived in his car.

  “But in that robbery you talked about, according to the archives I just Googled, there were only two robbers. The one who was killed and the one who was sent to prison to do time.” Buckling up, Davis started his vehicle.

  “Maybe she wasn’t there in person,” Moira conceded, “but that doesn’t mean she wasn’t a wife or a girlfriend or maybe a cousin to one of the robbers. She could have been persuaded to hide the money until the heat was off.”

  “Or she could have driven the getaway car,” Davis suggested as they pulled out of the lot.

  Moira grinned as she nodded. “There’s that, too. Lots of ways to tie an accomplice in—but first we have to make sure she is an accomplice and that I’m not just grasping at straws.”

  “Three aliases with the same social security number,” Davis said, reiterating the point that she had initially raised. “I don’t think that’s a straw. That, Detective Cavanaugh, is the smoking gun.”

  “Amen to that,” Moira said, crossing her fingers.

  Chapter 19

  Anticipation undulated through Moira as she came through the front door of Ames & Son Funeral Home. She had a gut feeling they were finally on the right track to getting the answers to this puzzle that had bedeviled her from the beginning.

  No longer standing on ceremony, Moira dispensed with any preliminary chitchat as she flashed her badge at the funeral home director—just in case it had slipped the man’s mind that she and Davis represented the police department.

  “Is your makeup artist still here, Mr. Ames?” she asked.

  Jon Ames, the grandson of the original Ames whose name was on the sign outside the building, was a somber-looking man who appeared as if he had stepped out of central casting expressly for the role of mortician. He seemed somewhat taken aback by her abrupt question.

  “You’re the one who just called a few minutes ago,” he realized, making the connection.

  “And now we’re here,” Davis said pointedly. “The detective asked you a question, Mr. Ames. It’s impolite not to answer.”

  “She’s in the preparation room, but she’s about to go home,” Ames told them, flustered. “What is this all about?”

  “My guess is about ten to twenty,” Moira answered flatly. “Which way to the preparation room?”

  Still apprehensive, the funeral director pointed down the hall.

  “Jordan can show you the way,” he volunteered, indicating the janitor.

  The man was over in a corner, moving a carpet sweeper back and forth across roughly the same spot on the rug. Moira realized she hadn’t even noticed the nondescript man as she had walked in. He seemed to just blend into the background.

  “Jordan?” the director called, raising his voice. “Would you show the detectives where the preparation room is?”

  The thin, bald man leaned the carpet sweeper against the wall and came forward. “Sure thing,” he murmured. Moving ahead of them, he said, “Follow me.”

  The janitor had a limp. Moira felt badly about putting the man out like this.

  “Just tell us which room it is. I don’t want to take you away from your work,” she told him.

  The janitor laughed shortly. “You’re doing me a favor,” he assured her. Reaching the room, he opened the door and stood back to allow them to enter. “Someone here to see you, Ms. Elliot.”

  The small, dark-haired woman getting her purse out of the small, narrow closet looked startled as she abruptly turned around. Her eyes swept over the janitor first then shifted to the two people who had entered the room ahead of him.

  “Can this wait?” she asked, slipping the strap of her purse onto her shoulder. She seemed to clutch it for strength. “I’m in kind of a hurry.”

  “Got a plane to catch?” Moira asked amicably. The smile on her lips did not reach her eyes.

  The woman she was addressing seemed exceedingly agitated and uncomfortable. “What?” The next moment her confusion seemed to lift and she answered. “No. Actually I—”

  “Actually,” Moira interjected, commandeering the word the makeup artist had started with. “You need to come with us.”

  The woman referred to as Sylvia looked from one detective to the other, her head almost swiveling as she did so.

  “Where?” she asked defensively.

  “Down to the precinct. We have a few questions for you,” Davis told her.

  “Can’t you ask them here?” Sylvia asked, her tone growing more and more agitated with each passing second.

  “I’m afraid not,” Moira told her. She debated taking handcuffs out then decided against it—as long as the woman came along peacefully. “It’ll be easier for everyone all around if you just come with us now. With any luck, we can have this all cleared up in a couple of hours, Sylvia.” She paused for a moment before asking the woman, “Or would you rather I call you Jane...or maybe Barbara?”

  Fear entered the woman’s hazel eyes. “There’s been some mistake,” she protested weakly.

  Moira nodded, granting her the point. “And it was yours.”

  “No, it was yours.”

  The last words came from directly behind her. Swinging around, Moira saw that the janitor hadn’t left the room. Instead he had pulled out a small handgun and was pointing the muzzle directly at her.

  For a huge, pulsating moment, everything seemed to suddenly stop.

  Sound became amplified.

  She both heard and saw the man cock the gun’s trigger.

  Just like that, things were propelled forward, moving at a stomach-crunching, dizzyingly fast speed.

  She heard Davis shout, “No! Not again! Not this time!” at the same time she felt his hand grab her arm as he yanked her away and pushed her behind him.

  He was using his body to shield hers.

  And then she saw him go down right in front of her. Blood was spurting everywhere.

 
Horrified, in shock, Moira shrieked, “No!” at the same time her training took over.

  She didn’t remember pulling out her own weapon; didn’t remember firing it until the noise resounded in her ears. She saw the man who had shot Davis crumple to the floor, cursing at her.

  Still clutching his weapon, the janitor tried to fire it at her, but Moira discharged her gun a split second before him.

  The gun fell from his hand, useless, as shock and fury etched themselves into his pockmarked face—and remained there.

  At the same time, Moira saw the woman begin to flee and she fired directly in front of her, stopping her dead in her tracks.

  “Don’t even think about it!” she ordered, keeping her weapon trained on Sylvia even as she sank to her knees beside Davis.

  “Talk to me!” she begged him frantically. “Davis, talk to me!”

  His eyes fluttered slightly as he struggled to open them. “Just...like a...woman,” he whispered weakly. “Always...wanting to...talk at the...wrong...time.”

  The funeral director came scurrying in just then, apparently drawn by the gunfire. His eyes almost bugged out of his head as he looked around the room, clearly in shock.

  “What happened?” he cried, stunned.

  “Call 9-1-1,” Moira ordered.

  “But you’re the police,” Ames pointed out, bewildered.

  “We need more police,” she retorted. Pulling handcuffs out of her back pocket, she tossed them at the director. “Handcuff her!”

  He’d barely caught the handcuffs and was staring at them as if they represented the mysteries of the universe. “I don’t know—”

  “Handcuff her!” Moira shouted again. “And call 9-1-1. Tell them we need an ambulance like five minutes ago!”

  Finally snapping to life, Ames quickly complied with both orders.

  The makeup artist cursed a blue streak at both her and the funeral director as the cuffs were closed around her wrists.

  Moira was barely aware of what the man was doing. Every ounce of her being was focused on Davis. Completely focused on keeping him alive.

  She was attempting to staunch the flow of blood coming from his chest wound; she only had her hands to use. Moira was furiously blinking back angry, frightened tears.

  “Damn it, Davis, what the hell did you think you were doing?” Pale, he lay on the floor, unresponsive. Her breath solidified in her throat. “Davis? Davis!”

  “Couldn’t...lose...another...partner” was all he was able to say before he passed out.

  * * *

  The ambulance and backup from the precinct arrived at the same time.

  Moira grabbed the handcuffed woman and pushed her toward the first officer to walk through the door, struggling to curb her temper.

  “Take her to the precinct and book her,” she instructed tersely.

  “What are the charges?” the police officer, Jim Daily, asked.

  “Call the Chief of Ds,” Moira told him. “Tell him we just solved our graveyard cold case. I’ll call him with an update when I can.” She had no more time to waste on the woman.

  The paramedics had strapped Davis to the gurney and were transporting him out of the funeral home. “I’ve got to go,” she told the officer. With that, she hurried after the gurney.

  She stood to the side as the paramedics loaded Davis into the back of the ambulance, but the moment the gurney was in, she climbed inside.

  “Detective,” the paramedic riding in the back protested, “there’s no room.”

  Moira wasn’t about to leave Davis’s side. She made it clear that the only way the paramedics were getting her off the ambulance was to push her out.

  “I’m small. I won’t breathe. I’ll fit,” she told him, leaving no room for argument.

  The paramedic, whose badge read Eric, regarded her for a moment. “Cavanaugh?” he asked.

  Moira unconsciously squared her shoulders, bracing herself for a confrontation. “Yes.”

  He sighed, nodding. “It figures. They warned me about you people.” Craning his neck so that his voice carried to the front of the ambulance, Eric called out to his partner. “She’s coming with us, Jeff. Let’s go.”

  Moira took hold of Davis’s hand. It felt almost clammy to the touch. What did that mean? She was afraid to think, afraid to live beyond the moment. Because the next moment might not have Davis in it.

  “You hang in there, you hear me?” she said sharply, bending closer to his ear. “I’m not having this go down on my record. You’re going to live, Gilroy. Understand? Like it or not, you’re my partner and there’s no escaping that. You’re going to live! I’m not giving you permission to die.”

  She wasn’t certain, but she thought she felt just the lightest squeeze from his hand. Maybe it was just her imagination, but she clung to that, and to him, the entire ride to the hospital.

  Eight minutes felt like an eternity.

  Moira only let go of her partner’s hand after the ambulance had come to a stop and the paramedics had to take the gurney out of the ambulance. The minute the gurney’s legs were snapped into place, she jumped out of the vehicle and took his hand in hers again.

  She held it as they went through the inner electronic doors, down the corridor and to a private exam room within the ER.

  A powerful-looking veteran nurse seemed to materialize out of nowhere. She put herself between Moira and the door leading into the exam room.

  “You’re not allowed in there,” she insisted. “That’s a restricted area and it’s for hospital personnel only.”

  Frustrated beyond words, Moira glared at the woman. “Then either give me a job or get out of my way!” she ordered.

  The next moment, since the nurse was too stunned to answer her, Moira pushed her way past the speechless woman and went into the small, antiseptic room where a team of doctors and nurses, utilizing noisy monitors and the latest technology, were frantically working over Davis.

  Grabbing a surgical mask on her way in, Moira covered her nose and mouth and positioned herself outside the circle of surgical personnel.

  Moira struggled to keep the tears from falling.

  “You don’t belong in here,” one doctor said when he noticed her, tossing the words over his shoulder as he worked on Davis. The statement was said between the orders he issued to the staff as he tried to stop the bleeding.

  “I belong here just as much as you,” she countered stubbornly in a small, emotional voice then promised, “I’ll keep out of your way,” as she bit back a sob.

  Numb, Moira stood in a corner of the room, making herself as small as possible as she intently watched not the medical personnel working frantically over him, but Davis’s chest as it rose and fell.

  She willed it to keep on moving like that.

  She didn’t know just how long she had been standing there, watching and praying, willing Davis to live, before she felt someone from behind taking her by the elbow.

  Thinking it was the nurse who’d tried to bar her from entering earlier, Moira swung around, ready for a confrontation.

  Spoiling for a fight.

  Anything to drain this tense, helpless feeling that had taken her over.

  “I’m not leaving,” she declared stubbornly.

  But instead of the heavyset nurse with the frown that was set in granite, Moira looked up into the sympathetic eyes of the Chief of Detectives.

  “I know how you feel, Moira, but you can’t be in here,” he told her gently, his voice low. “Let the doctors here do their work. They’ve patched up more than half the force over the last couple of decades. They know what they’re doing.”

  Suddenly, Moira had to struggle to keep from collapsing against her uncle, as if every bone in her body had turned to pudding.

  “The nurse sent for you?” sh
e heard herself asking. Her head was spinning as fear kept a stranglehold on her heart.

  “No. Officer Daily called me about your collar,” he told her, referring to one of the officers on the scene at the funeral parlor. “He filled me in as best he could about the shooting. I figure you’ll give me the details when you can.”

  At the sound of her uncle’s calm, rational voice, something she had been trying so hard to hold together just broke open inside Moira.

  “That should have been me in there,” she cried. The tears just kept coming and she couldn’t stop them. “Davis pushed me out of the way and took the bullet meant for me.” She raised her eyes to Brian’s. “Why didn’t I realize it?” she asked, angry with herself. “I should have realized it.”

  She was babbling now, but Brian acted as if she were making perfect sense, allowing her release as he slowly tried to piece what she was saying together. “Realized what?” he asked her gently.

  “The janitor limped.” She saw that her words meant nothing to her uncle. Why should they? They had meant nothing to her at first.

  “That first morning, those two figures dressed in black running out of the cemetery collided with me. One of them must’ve gotten hurt worse than the other one because I remember seeing him limp as he ran off.

  “The janitor took us to a room at the funeral home and he was limping. He was one of the two people at the cemetery, digging up that grave.” She covered her mouth to keep the sob from escaping. “Why didn’t I realize it?” she cried again.

  “Being able to see all angles of everything isn’t always possible,” Brian told her. “The best we can do is just try to survive from one day to the next.” Brian squeezed her shoulder, as if to offer her his strength. “Davis is strong, he’ll survive,” he told her firmly.

  She knew he couldn’t make a promise like that, but she didn’t care.

  She clung to it anyway.

  * * *

  Word spread quickly. Within the half hour, the hall was thick with law-enforcement agents, police officers and detectives alike. The medical staff, especially the nurses, at Aurora Memorial had learned to deal with the influx. A few of the newer ones, filled with commitment to their oath, attempted to herd the law-enforcement agents into rooms designated for the purpose of housing those who waited for news. The more experienced personnel knew it was easier threading the proverbial camel through the equally proverbial eye of a needle than it was to get police brethren and relatives to gather in some semblance of order.