Silent Witness

by Lindsay McKenna

  “Yes, sir.” Jim halted, his blunt-cut fingernails biting into the legal pad he held at his side. Well, so much for thinking Captain Allison wanted him. He wanted a man and woman on this investigation so it looked gender neutral.

  Jim turned on his heel and went back to his office. Tanner glanced up at him as if he were a rabid dog foaming at the mouth. Wasn’t he?

  Tossing the legal pad on the desk, he felt his stomach twist into a knot. Rubbing the region unconsciously, he picked up his garrison hat. He settled it on his head, turned and went across the office to grab his battered, black cowhide briefcase. Maybe the briefcase mirrored him: beat up and worn with age and hard work. He’d been the only one in his family ever to attend college. His ma had asked her brother, his uncle Hiram, to make it for him as a going-away gift. The durable briefcase had seen lots of use when he’d attended the law program at Ohio State University, too.

  Gripping the handle, he glared at Tanner. “You might as well come along and get your civilian feet wet on this investigation.”

  “What kind is it?” Ellen eagerly stood. If possible, Cochrane looked even more upset than before. What was that phone call all about? She felt off balance because she didn’t know the story, and had to be careful not to assume anything with him. This relationship had to work, because she couldn’t face going back to Washington, D.C. That part of her life was over….

  “A possible homicide. Seems the female pilot who taught at Top Gun was found dead in her condo this morning. It’s a potential media hot potato for the Navy.” He grimaced. “I hate to think what spin reporters for television and newspapers will put on it. Let’s saddle up.”

  Cochrane didn’t wait for Ellen as he strode down the passageway. He was all legs, his rolling gait covering the ground. She finally caught up with him, slightly winded.

  “You’re having a bad day,” Ellen murmured sympathetically. “First me, and now an unexpected case being thrown at you…us….”

  “Reckon you’re the mistress of understatement.” Jim moved down the stairs two at a time.

  Panting as she hurried down the stairs, Ellen caught up with him again. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  He shot her an acidic look. Ellen Tanner was attractive. Her eyes were large and well-spaced in her triangular face. And all that hair…It was as if she’d put her finger in a light socket and got zapped good, Jim thought. “I know you’re a shrink, but I’m not your patient. So put the therapy couch away, will you, Agent Tanner?” Oh, yeah, he wanted to talk to her! Well, maybe not talk, just be near her. What would it be like to reach out and touch her? Would she feel as warm and soft as he thought?

  Where was his silly heart going? Jim didn’t have time for this crazy reaction to her, and yet he couldn’t seem to shake it.

  Bridling internally, Ellen scowled. “Don’t mistake genuine concern for therapy, Lieutenant. Obviously, you’ve never experienced therapy or you’d be able to tell the difference.”

  He held the door open as she walked past him, and answered at the same time. “Score one point for your side, Agent Tanner. Our relationship is professional, not personal,” he said succinctly. “Got that?” He allowed the door to slam behind them and started down the concrete steps to the parking lot. And he wanted to be very personal with her. Wrong time. Wrong place. That was his luck.

  Ellen caught up with him once more. “Oh, I’ve got it, Mr. Cochrane. Why don’t we just put our guns away and start working as a team?”

  He was startled by the gritty tone of her voice, and looked over at her. “Us? A team?” He saw the determination in her narrowed eyes. The breeze tossed her red curls slightly, and he felt a crazy itch to tunnel his fingers into that vibrant mass. Life without a woman for two years had been the worst kind of imprisonment as far as Jim was concerned. Ellen Tanner was reminding him of just how much he’d lost and how much he needed the warmth of a good woman in his life.

  “This partnership we’ve been given can work either for us or against us, Lieutenant. I know you don’t like me because I’m a civilian. And possibly, because I’m a woman.”

  “You won’t hang gender discrimination on me, Agent Tanner. All civilians are fair game in my book, regardless of gender. I’m hill folk. We consider everyone to be outsiders. So it don’t matter if you’re man or woman.”

  “Oh yes, I forgot. You wear your hillbilly status not only with pride, but with obvious prejudice. I’m trying to communicate with you, Lieutenant! You’re angry and upset, and you’re using me as a convenient scapegoat for whatever series of crises you’re experiencing. That’s not right.” Her soft voice had an underpinning of steel. “Do I look like a turkey? I didn’t come out here to be a moving target for you to shoot at.”

  “I won’t answer the first question you posed on the grounds it may incriminate me. Your second statement—well, I reckon there’s a lot in life that isn’t fair, Agent Tanner. Maybe I’m having a bad day, but it just got worse. So do me a favor? Just stay out from underfoot. I know you don’t have the first clue about a crime scene investigation. Hang back and be my shadow and watch.” His conscience ate at him. Ellen really didn’t deserve his tirade. She was blameless. But somehow he had to scare her off, because he was frightened by what he might do if she was even minutely interested in him. Doubtful, since he had done nothing in the least to make her like him.

  What a galling day. Cochrane tossed his briefcase in the back seat of the gray Navy vehicle and slid in. The car engine sounded like he felt: ragged and unsteady. When was this emotional roller coaster going to end? It had started two years ago when Jodi had demanded a divorce after seven years of marriage. And now he had the worst possible choice in partner on this case.

  Ordinarily, a criminal investigation was his favorite assignment. Jim knew he was good at it, like a bluetick hound on the scent of a coon. This was his bread and butter. Homicides were like hunting, and the good Lord knew he’d been raised to hunt, ever since he was old enough to walk at his pa’s side with a 30.06 rifle in his hands. Trying to suppress all the emotional surprises of the day, Cochrane concentrated on driving. He couldn’t help but be highly conscious of the red-haired woman sitting next to him. It wouldn’t be so bad if she wore a wedding ring on her hand, but she didn’t. And why couldn’t she have been board ugly? On any other day, Jim would find her interesting, someone he’d want to get to know better. But not today…

  “I DIDN’T REALIZE San Diego was so built up,” Ellen said, trying to break the icy tension in the station wagon. Cochrane’s intensity was consuming as far as she was concerned.

  About her age—early thirties—he was conservative and allbusiness—a typical Navy officer. She wondered if he had a sense of humor under that blatant, ongoing sarcasm he called communication. But he was a lawyer, so what did she expect? They got paid for having smart mouths and steel-trap minds.

  The JAG officer was pale-skinned, she noted again, not at all what she’d thought someone who lived in California would look like. His summer white uniform was pressed to perfection, his black patent leather corfams—shoes he’d said he hated wearing—were spotless and shiny. Presentation was something she’d noted a long time ago in military types. Some of that was good, and some of it wasn’t.

  Cochrane’s light gray eyes kept drawing her attention. He was rangy and lean, and that Missouri drawl infused every word he spoke. Ellen noticed his large knuckles and long, strong-looking fingers. They had calluses on them. Why? She wanted to ask but didn’t.

  Pursing her lips, she gazed out the window of the car.

  Cochrane reminded her of a greyhound—very lean and in top physical condition. His face was long, his jaw narrow but pronounced. Maybe it was his mouth, which she could imagine stretching with an easy, almost lazy smile, that gave Ellen hope this tentative partnership could work. Not that Cochrane had smiled. He seemed to have a permanent frown branded on his broad forehead, his lips tight and drawn inward with unhappiness.

  A part of Ellen felt bad about ma
king his day worse. But she couldn’t flail herself alive on that one. It wasn’t her fault, and as an analyst, she clearly understood that she might be a catalyst in Cochrane’s life, but wasn’t the problem. Whatever Cochrane’s projections were, they were his and she wasn’t about to take them on or beat herself up because of them.

  Lieutenant Cochrane was trying to make her think he was slow and backward—the usual prejudice outsiders had against hill people. But Ellen knew different. One look into those gray, deep-set eyes, and she could see what he was all about. He was clever as a fox, and very appealing to her as a man. Ellen decided to wave a white flag of surrender and start all over again. “In my business, I deal with the less visible, the unseen,” she murmured.

  Cochrane slid her a quizzical glance. “You practice psychobabble at OIG?”

  “Actually,” she said, relieved that his tone was less acidic and hard, “I worked for the FBI for four years before taking the job at the DOD about a year ago. My specialty as a Jungian analyst was to help them rework criminal profiles, mainly of bank robbers. When my husband, Mark, died unexpectedly of a heart attack at age forty, I quit the Bureau. We had met there, and I just couldn’t deal with the memories. And to tell you the truth, I’d had it with criminal profiles.”

  “I see,” Cochrane murmured. He glanced out of the corner of his eye at her.

  Heartened by his mild expression of interest, Ellen dived in. “I had met June Catter, a senior investigator with the DOD. She was the one who suggested the analyst position with the OIG. It turned out to be a good fit. I had written my Ph.D. dissertation on the impact of job stress on military families. The service is a pretty terrorizing place for women and children. Especially those that have never been exposed to such a rigid way of living.”

  “Isn’t that the truth?” His hands tightened on the steering wheel.

  Ellen waited, but realized he wasn’t going to add anything. Cochrane’s generous mouth was thinned again, the corners pulled in as if he was experiencing some kind of secret pain. His voice had an undercurrent of emotion. She almost asked what he was feeling, as was her custom as a psychologist, but her intuition warned her against it. He would take her interest as intrusion into his space.

  Plunging ahead, Ellen said, “After graduating with a masters in psychotherapy, and while working for the FBI, I’ve continued following about seventy military families and their lives for the last five years. I’ve done extensive, ongoing interviews with them. Right now, I’m in the process of writing a book. I hope to get a Jungian-oriented publisher to print my findings.”

  “What’s ‘Jungian,’ anyway? I’ve heard of a lot of other breeds of shrinks, but not this particular variety of polecat.”

  Ellen rolled her eyes and laughed lightly. He was teasing her, and hope blossomed in her heart. Maybe he would soften a little. “Carl Jung was a Swiss psychiatric pioneer. He worked with Freud, but went on to see the world a lot differently. In our training, we put great stock in dreams, intuition, symbols, myths and archetypes.” She paused for a moment. “I can tell you don’t have much respect for therapists as a whole, Jungian or not.”

  He eyed her critically. “My experiences with shrinks leave me a little jaded, Agent Tanner. I’ve seen these professionals act as ‘expert witnesses,’ pumping out whatever the defense or prosecution wants a jury to hear. These so-called ‘degreed’ people who eagerly testify are nothing more than trained hound dogs, in my book.” He shook his head. “I don’t like psych types. I think they’re in the business to straighten out their own screwed up heads and lives, if you ask me.”

  Ellen resisted feeling angry at his critical comments. Her brain told her to stay objective. Her heart, however, was pounding. She felt assaulted by his nasty view of her profession. She steeled herself. “I see. Does that same analogy apply to your world, too?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Ellen shrugged delicately. “Did you became a lawyer to understand right from wrong? To ensure justice to the limits of the law?”

  “My view on shrinks is just that, Agent Tanner. I don’t like them. They deal in fluff as far as I’m concerned. I deal with facts. It’s that simple, so don’t read anything more into it.”

  “You still haven’t answered my question, Lieutenant.” Ellen met his slitted gray gaze. She wasn’t about to let this testy officer pigeonhole her with his concept of a psychologist.

  “What? About becoming a legal eagle to learn about justice?” His derisive chuckle filled the car. “Where I come from, right and wrong are black-and-white. There are no gray areas, no maybes. If a score can’t be settled with talking, then a shotgun settles it.”

  “I was merely taking your earlier generalization and applying it to lawyers. You’ve indicated that anyone entering my profession is basically crazy, that we’ve chosen a psychology career to learn how to become sane.”

  “Reckon you’re smarter than I gave you credit for, Agent Tanner. Score two points for your side.”

  “I don’t like being stereotyped, Lieutenant Cochrane. My work is very different from other forms of therapy within the psychiatric field.” Damn but he was stubborn and opinionated!

  “Well, we may get the chance to see whose stereotype is correct.”

  Ellen sat there, barely holding on to her rising temper. She realized again how Cochrane was projecting his anger and job stresses on her. “I know that we have different perspectives, Lieutenant, but with time I hope we can see the positive qualities we each bring to our team.”

  Cochrane slowed down and took the Spring Street off-ramp that would take them into downtown La Mesa, a sleepy community northwest of San Diego. “Different perspectives, Agent Tanner? Try different worlds. Different realities.” He jabbed his finger toward the car window. “Right now I have a possible homicide on my hands. That’s a reality, not a perspective. I’m not poking fun at you, your work or your degrees, but we have absolutely nothing in common. It’s like trying to hitch a racehorse with a plow horse.”

  Ellen heard the rest of his diatribe: that whatever her experience or knowledge, she could not help him in this investigation. Grimly, she retorted, “I learn fast, Lieutenant. And I don’t intend to be a millstone around your neck on this homicide.”

  “Possible homicide.”

  “Okay, possible.” He wasn’t going to give her an inch. Still, Ellen could swear she felt his interest in her, man to woman. It was a fleeting thing, but she’d sensed it a couple of times. There was a complex dance going on here and she felt swept up in it. She couldn’t sort it out yet. Time with Cochrane would help. Ellen had to be patient, and remain open to him, even if he was constantly attacking her.

  Cochrane braked the car and turned onto a quiet street off the main thoroughfare. “La Mesa is a small bedroom community. There are some wealthy people and a lot of middle class. There’s also a Navy housing project for enlisted people within the city limits.” He pointed ahead. “This condominium complex is where our possible homicide lived. See how new and upscale it is? Looks like our Lieutenant Susan Kane was very good at managing her money to afford these kinds of digs on a naval salary. Or maybe she has a rich pa.”

  Ellen glanced around at the Santa Fe–style architecture. The two-story stucco buildings were painted a pale pink and dressed up with red, Spanish tile roofs. “How can you say that? You don’t know anything about her yet.”

  Cochrane pulled into the street in front of the condo. As he did so, he saw two La Mesa police cruisers. Farther down the street, there was an ambulance with San Diego Medical Examiner printed on its side. “I know what lieutenants make, and judging by this ritzy place, Kane was either into something illegal, or came by the place through her rich family connections.”

  Ellen stared at him. “How about she had a sugar daddy who kept her in the style she was accustomed to?”

  Cochrane shut off the engine and released his seat belt. His mouth quirked. “Not bad, Agent Tanner. You surprise me. Maybe you aren’t all fluff, after all. Tha
t’s another possibility.”

  Frowning, Ellen shook her head. “Why don’t you consider the possibility she saved her money so she could afford something like this?”

  “I reckon there’s a slim chance of that. Since we have to work together for God knows how long, you might as well learn how I go about investigating. It’s obvious you know nothing about death scenes. So today starts your OJT—on the job training,” he said, leaning over the seat to grab his briefcase.

  “It’s a step in the right direction.” At least Cochrane wasn’t going to cut her out altogether and ignore her. “This is a two-way street, Lieutenant. I may not know about homicides or investigative techniques, but I have a fair amount of expertise in how people behave.”

  “At a crime scene, that isn’t going to be of much help,” he said, opening the door and climbing out. “The dead aren’t talking.”

  Ellen followed. The bright, warm June sunshine was blinding as they took the pale pink steps up to the front door. Breathlessly, she hitched her knapsack strap on her shoulder as they approached the police officer guarding the entrance. “Who has authority on this case?” she asked him.

  “The L.M.P.D. I’m supposed to work with our civilian counterpart.”

  Ellen hesitated, her voice becoming suddenly taut. “Is—is the body still in there?” Oh, God! A body? No…not again! Not another one! She couldn’t handle it. She just couldn’t. In that moment, Ellen felt her whole world coming apart, leaving her cold and stricken.

  “I reckon it is. You okay, Agent Tanner? You’re looking kinda peaked to me.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  June 22

  DISTRACTED BY ELLEN’S sudden paleness, Cochrane showed his ID to the La Mesa cop, who went inside to tell Detective Jerry Gardella that they’d arrived. Ellen stood next to Jim, looking like the bleached bones of a dead seal he’d once seen on the beach—white and colorless. His hands itched to wrap around her shoulders and give her a squeeze of support. He wanted to tell her everything would be okay. But he knew it wouldn’t be.