Cavanaugh's Bodyguard

by Marie Ferrarella

  What it could really stand, though, in Bridget’s opinion, was a complete replacement. Chips, holes and pockmarks seemed to be everywhere on the uninspired, jumbo black-and-white tiles.

  “I’d be depressed just coming home every night,” Josh commented as they made their way over to the elevator.

  Since the elevator appeared to be in use, he pressed the up button and waited. A disgruntled-looking heavyset woman in her late forties came down the staircase to the left of the elevator door.

  “It’s broken,” she told them, visibly disgusted. “Again.”

  Since the woman was apparently a tenant, Bridget took the opportunity to ask her, “Would you happen to know where the superintendent is?”

  A contemptuous expression came over the round face. “Out back, drinking most likely.”

  “I’d definitely be depressed,” Josh affirmed as he led the way out again. Once outside, they circled the perimeter of the building to look for the man who could let them into Diana Kellogg’s apartment.

  * * *

  Fifteen minutes later found them inside the tiny one-bedroom apartment where Diana Kellogg had lived until last night. After getting the exceedingly curious superintendent to back out of the apartment and closing the door on him, Josh slowly looked around the living quarters.

  Kellogg had done her best to make the three rooms into a home, decorating with bright, cheerful colors and inviting, comfortable furnishings, all of which acted to create a tiny haven for the young woman amid the coldness that existed just outside.

  As he took in the apartment, Josh noticed that Bridget was still in the living room. He had expected her to go into the bedroom and begin rummaging through the closet the way she normally did. It was her way of getting more of a feel for the victim, her tastes, lifestyle, and so on.

  But this time, she had gone directly to the laptop that had been set up on what was, beneath the pretty light blue tablecloth, a rickety card table. Turning the laptop on, Bridget waited for the computer to go through its various warming up stages until it was finally up and running. The laptop didn’t appear to be a new model and the process took longer than she would have liked. The operating system was two upgrades behind the current one on the market, which contributed to the machine’s less than lightning speed.

  “Find anything?” Josh asked after giving the rooms a quick once-over and finding nothing noteworthy to catch his attention.

  “Yeah,” Bridget answered with a sigh. “That Diana Kellogg must have been an incredibly patient person. This thing is taking forever to come around,” she complained, waving her hand at the laptop. “It’s an old operating system.”

  Josh came up behind her, as if two sets of eyes watching the screen could somehow make it move more quickly.

  “That’s the problem,” he told Bridget. “I never keep mine around for them to get that way. As soon as something new comes along, I always replace the one I have for whatever’s new and faster.”

  “Are you talking about your computer or your love life?” Bridget deadpanned, never taking her eyes off the painfully slow-moving screen.

  “Very funny,” he responded. Looking closer, he saw that the laptop had finally finished loading and there was now an idyllic rainforest scene on the screen. “Hey, look, you’ve got a desktop,” he congratulated her.

  Victory went down in flames. “Yeah, but it’s password protected,” she observed wearily. The woman lived alone. Who was she protecting her computer from? In all likelihood, it probably only contained recipes and family photos. “We need to have one of the techs take a crack at it.” About to shut the laptop down again, Bridget was surprised when her partner elbowed her out of the way. She moved, but never took her eyes off him. It wasn’t exactly a hardship from her standpoint. “What are you doing?”

  “Giving getting in a shot,” he told her, his fingers flying across the keyboard.

  “Since when did you become a hacker?”

  “I’m not.” The way he saw it, that was a title reserved for people who could pull virtual rabbits out of invisible hats and fish out encrypted messages with the ease that a normal person sent out email. “But this girl I dated once could crack passwords like they were so many tiny walnuts.”

  “Nice to know you’re not wasting time just going out with pretty faces,” Bridget cracked, moving back to allow him better access.

  He gave her a quick, sensual look that would have melted her inner core if she’d bought into it. But she knew that Josh was just practicing his seduction skills on her, skills that he would eventually use on some other lucky young woman.

  “They’ve got more than just pretty faces,” he assured her.

  “Please, spare me the details,” Bridget entreated, rolling her eyes and pretending to be afraid that he was about to begin describing what each of his former girlfriends had going for them.

  Focused on the laptop, Josh hit another combination of keys, then suddenly brightened. “She used the numbers of her street address. I’m in,” he declared, lifting his arms in the air like a triumphant boxing champion who’d just won the world title.

  “I’m sure you say that to all the girls,” Bridget muttered under her breath. “Okay,” she said in a louder voice, “let me take a look at her messages. Maybe we can find out what this guy’s name was.”

  And then she saw it, the last email that the victim had opened and read before apparently leaving her apartment on her ill-fated date.

  “SexyDude,” Bridget read out loud. “Sounds like a bad joke.”

  “Or a disappointment waiting to happen,” Josh commented.

  “Who knows, maybe he wasn’t a disappointment. Maybe he really was a ‘sexy dude,’” she theorized, to which her partner simply shook his head. “Okay, why not?” she asked.

  “If he actually was sexy, he wouldn’t have had to advertise it,” Josh said. “It would just be evident the second she met him.”

  And Josh would be the one to know about that, Bridget caught herself thinking. Annoyed that her thoughts had strayed so far off course, she returned her gaze to the emails that had gone back and forth between the two the last day of Kellogg’s life.

  “They made plans to meet at The Hideaway.” She looked at Josh. “Okay, what is that?”

  He laughed. “Oh, Bridget, you are really sheltered, aren’t you? You need to get out more.”

  “I get out,” she protested heatedly. “Just not to sleazy places.”

  The lopsided smile on her partner’s lips told her that he didn’t buy in to her protest. “The Hideaway’s a club that caters to the young, single and carefree crowd.”

  “Maybe that should be young, single and careless crowd instead,” she commented.

  “Whatever,” he countered with a shrug. And then he suddenly realized… “It’s not too far away from the place where her body was discovered. Question is, how did SexyDude get from point A to point B without anyone noticing him and his ‘extra baggage’?”

  “Maybe someone did,” Bridget said hopefully. She scrolled quickly through the emails that were either sent to or received from “SexyDude,” looking for an attachment. There wasn’t any. “Her friend was right, SexyDude didn’t send her a picture.” She looked up at Josh. “Ten to one SexyDude looks like a troll.”

  “Not taking that bet,” he answered.

  She’d gotten as much as she could from the laptop without some serious advanced technical help. “Okay, let’s drop this laptop off with the tech department and then talk to the bartender at The Hideaway. Maybe someone remembers seeing Diana with her ‘date.’”

  “You really are an optimist, aren’t you?” Josh commented, leading the way out.

  “It’s what keeps me going,” she answered, shutting the door behind her.

  Not only didn’t the bartender remember seeing anyone with the victim, he hadn’t seen the victim, either.

  The bartender, Raul Lopez, shook his head. “I’ve got a great eye for faces and hers wasn’t here last night,” he to
ld them, tapping the photograph that Bridget had placed on the bar.

  “Are you sure?” she pressed.

  Raul looked as if he thought his integrity was being questioned. “I already told you, I’ve got an eye for faces. I don’t forget them.”

  “All right,” Josh said, placing himself so that the bartender was forced to look at him instead of at Bridget. “Let’s run a little test,” he proposed. “Describe my partner.”

  Raul didn’t even hesitate. “Five-foot-seven—probably wearing three-inch heels,” he guessed. “Straight, golden-blond hair, blue eyes, good skin, great smile. Late twenties. I’d put her at a hundred and ten, hundred fifteen pounds, although that bulky gray jacket she’s wearing makes it hard to tell. One thing’s for sure,” he added, his mouth curving in a seductive grin, “she doesn’t look like any police detective I ever knew. You want me to go on?” he asked Josh.

  Josh was tempted to ask what else the man thought he could describe but had a feeling that it was prudent to stop here—for Bridget’s sake.

  “No,” Josh said curtly. “You made your point. You’re good with descriptions. Thanks for your time.”

  “Pleasure’s all mine.” Raul was looking at Bridget as he said it. “Come back anytime,” he told her. “First drink’s on me.”

  “Wonder what else he expects to be on him,” Josh bit off as they walked out.

  Bridget suppressed a grin. If she hadn’t known better, she would have said her partner was being jealous. Most likely, he was just being protective. Like one of her brothers.

  “So,” Bridget concluded, “Kellogg never made it here.” She paused as she looked over her shoulder at the club. “I wonder why.”

  “Maybe ‘SexyDude’ was waiting outside the club and waylaid her,” Josh guessed. Seeing that he had his partner’s attention, he continued. “Don’t forget, he probably knew what she looked like. She used her real name and she had that social networking page with her photograph on it. It wouldn’t have been hard to find it to see what she looked like,” he added. “All the guy had to do was look her up on Google.”

  She kept forgetting it could be that easy. Bridget shook her head as they walked back to the car. “Such a great invention and these jerks have to ruin it by using it to ‘virtually’ stalk people and kill them.”

  There was the optimist again, he couldn’t help thinking. Bridget was always trying to see the good rather than the bad. It was one of the things he liked about her. That and her mind. It also didn’t hurt that she had killer legs.

  Josh tamped down the grin that threatened to rise to his lips.

  “Happens with everything,” he said philosophically. “One of the first uses for the camera was to take what were considered to be pornographic pictures back in Edwardian times.” About to get into the car, Bridget gave him a questioning look. “I read a lot,” he told her. Getting in on the driver’s side, he started to buckle up when he saw her taking out her cell phone. “Who are you calling?”

  “Brenda,” she answered. “I want to see if she managed to trace back the IP address to SexyDude’s home so we can go talk to the creep.”

  Brenda was Brenda Cavanaugh, the wife of one of the chief of detectives’ sons. He’d heard that she was an absolute wizard at what she did, but, as he glanced at his watch, this was pushing it. It had been less than an hour since they’d handed over the laptop.

  “Aren’t you crowding her a little? I mean, she is still human.”

  “Only in a very broad, general sense,” Bridget deadpanned. “I’ve been told she’s very good at her job.” Because the line on the other end was being picked up, Bridget held up her hand, curtailing any further conversation with Josh for the moment.

  “Brenda? Hi, this is Bridget—right, Bridget Cavanaugh.” She deliberately avoided looking at Josh as she confirmed the other woman’s inquiry. “Did you happen to figure out that creep’s name and address yet?” The next moment, a huge smile bloomed on her face. “Terrific. I said you were the best. What is it?”

  This time Bridget did raise her eyes to Josh, silently indicating that she needed something to write with and a surface to do it on. Turning his body, Josh pulled out a pen, then, because he had nothing to give her to write on, he held up his palm for her. Bridget didn’t have the luxury of being choosy, so, bracing his hand with hers, she turned his palm up toward her.

  The next moment, she was writing across it with his pen. “Thanks, I owe you one— What? This Saturday?” She let go of Josh’s hand. “No, I’m not. I’m not busy. I can make it, yes. You’re sure? Really? I didn’t think I had one of those. Should be interesting. Okay, Josh and I will come by the lab later for anything else you can find. Bye.”

  Questions crowded his head by the time she got off the phone. “Didn’t think you had one of what?” Josh wanted to know.

  It took Bridget a second to match his question with something that she’d said previously. “Oh. That. A grandfather,” she explained. Why was he asking her that? “Aren’t you more interested in this creep’s name?”

  “Sure, but that doesn’t mean I can’t ask about this. You looked really surprised—and then kind of pleased—when you were talking to her and it wasn’t about the case. Made me curious what could make you look like that.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe a partner who keeps his mind on his work and hell-bent on catching the bad guy,” she retorted.

  And then Bridget sighed as she leaned back in the seat. Josh would find a way to wheedle this out of her one way or another and if she got it over quickly, then they could focus on what was important. Bringing that bastard to justice.

  “Brenda said that Andrew—Uncle Andrew,” Bridget amended since the man was family, “got a call from his father in Florida. Seems that the patriarch of the family is flying home for the express purpose of meeting this lost branch of the family that has suddenly surfaced and Andrew is spreading the word that he wants everyone to gather together for the old man.”

  “And the lost branch of the family, that would be you?” Josh guessed.

  “Not me specifically,” she protested. “It means my whole family.”

  “Of which you’re a part.” He was stating the obvious and he knew it, Bridget thought. She’d forgotten how irritating he could be at times. “By the way,” Josh continued and she braced herself, “I heard you identify yourself as Bridget Cavanaugh. Does that mean you’ve made your decision about which last name you want to use?”

  It hadn’t really been her decision to make, she thought. It had actually been a foregone conclusion from the get-go.

  “That means,” she told him, “I can’t fight City Hall, and if my father was born a Cavanaugh, I guess that makes me one, too.”

  He found her resigned tone amusing. “It’s not exactly a death sentence. you know.”

  “I know. It just feels weird, that’s all.” She searched for a way to make him see her point. “It’s like all your life, you think of yourself as a duck and suddenly, you find out that you’re actually a goose. It takes some getting used to.”

  He laughed quietly to himself and then told her, “Swan.”

  She didn’t understand. “What?”

  “Don’t think of yourself as a goose,” he told her. “Think of yourself as a swan. It might make the transition easier for you.”

  Just what was he reading into her words? “I’m not vain—” she protested.

  He cut her off before she could get going. “Never said that.”

  “Besides, swans have bad dispositions.” She looked at him pointedly.

  Josh shrugged innocently. “Just trying to help,” he told her.

  “You want to help?” She turned his hand so that he could see his palm with the writing on it. “Drive here,” she instructed and then, belatedly, let go of his hand so that he could use it to drive with.

  Josh grinned. “Your wish is my command.”

  “If only,” she muttered under her breath. But he heard.

  His grin grew wide
r.

  * * *

  “SexyDude” turned out to be the email name used by George Hammond. Hammond, a rather nondescript, stoop-shouldered man with a seriously receding hairline, worked as a tax form preparer for one of the larger tax consultant firms. They found him with a client and extracted him in order to have “a few words” with him.

  Bewildered, Hammond became rather hostile when he realized he was being questioned about the way he’d spent his previous evening. He became even more so when Diana Kellogg’s name was brought up.

  “I’ll tell you how I spent my evening with her,” he said angrily. “I didn’t. She never showed. I went to that expensive club she picked out—they had a damn cover charge,” he complained. “I sat there for two hours, nursing one watered-down drink and watching the door, waiting for her to walk in. But she never showed up.” A little of his anger subsided as he looked from one detective to the other. “Why are you asking me about her? Has she done something?” He seemed almost eager to hear something bad in connection with the woman who had stepped on his ego.

  “No, not intentionally,” Bridget replied solemnly.

  “Then what?” Hammond demanded.

  “Diana Kellogg was murdered last night,” Josh told him. Both he and Bridget watched the man’s face.

  “Murdered?” Hammond echoed incredulously. Then, rather than display any sense of horror or outrage that someone should wantonly snuff out a life like this, Hammond actually seemed to be smiling. “Well, I guess that if she was murdered, she wasn’t really standing me up.”

  For two cents, she would have wrung the jerk’s neck, Bridget thought.

  As if reading her mind, Josh placed his hand on her shoulder, anchoring her to her spot. “No, your reputation as a SexyDude is still intact,” Josh told the man.

  George looked pleased by that.

  Idiot! “We might be in touch,” Bridget told him. “Don’t leave town.”

  “Can’t,” Hammond responded, looking at her as if she was simple-minded. “We’re heading into my busy season.”