Читать книгу Cavanaugh's Missing Person - Marie Ferrarella - Страница 18

Chief Sean Cavanaugh, head of the crime scene investigation day crew, surveyed the very large area that had been cordoned off. Sporadic piles of dirt and mud pocked the entire terrain at this end of the park. Three investigators were moving around, documenting everything that could even remotely pass for evidence.

“The park officials are not going to be happy about this,” Sean commented.

Vacation season had just begun and there were tourists to think of, not to mention regular residents who normally enjoyed utilizing the park’s many attributes and were now prevented from doing so.

It looked as if there were miles of yellow tape designating the entire area off-limits. It was the police department’s attempt to keep the public from accidentally trampling over any possible clues that hadn’t surfaced yet.

Hunter nodded in agreement. This was his first professional interaction with the chief. “I’m not overly thrilled with this either, but I’m willing to bet it’s most likely for a completely different reason,” the cold case detective said.

Kenzie was standing close by and she looked at Brannigan in surprise. “I would have thought you’d be thrilled to death with this turn of events, Brannigan,” she retorted.

“Thrilled?” Hunter echoed, puzzled. “Why?” he asked. “I’m not a ghoul—or bloodthirsty.”

Hunter stopped himself before he could say anything further. He wasn’t about to get into a possible shouting match with Kenzie in front of the chief. Instead, he turned toward Rayburn.

The medical examiner had arrived shortly after the chief and his team had. Rayburn was looking at the various piles of bones—torsos and arms and legs for the most part—and he was shaking his head.

“How many different people do you think Jupiter dug up today, Doc?” Hunter asked the man.

Dr. Rayburn frowned. “Hard to say before I get all these—these pieces to the morgue and see if I can match the right limbs to the right torsos,” the medical examiner answered honestly. “Are you sure that the dog didn’t accidentally stumble across some old, forgotten burial ground?” he asked. It was hard to miss the hopeful note in his voice.

“Way ahead of you, Doc,” Kenzie told the medical examiner. “I already called Valri,” she said, mentioning the name of the Aurora police department’s most gifted computer tech, “and had her dig up the town’s records for this area dating back almost a hundred and fifty years. There is no record of there being any cemetery or burial grounds in the vicinity.”

Rayburn nodded. “I should have known.” He glanced toward the chief, who was now busy instructing one of his investigators. “You people are nothing if not thorough. As for how many former citizens we have here,” the medical examiner said, returning to Hunter’s question, “I’ll know more after I’ve had some time to examine all these different dismembered torsos and limbs.” He looked thoughtful at the various pallets filled with headless bodies and unattached arms and legs that were being prepared to be taken into the two waiting vans. “This is going to be one for the books.”

“Hopefully a solved one for the books,” Brannigan murmured. It was almost numbing to look at all these body parts and realize that they represented lost lives and victims.

Kenzie looked at Hunter, mildly surprised to hear him express his thoughts. “Why, Detective Brannigan, is that doubt I hear in your voice?”

“There’s always doubt,” Hunter told her, refusing to rise to her bait. But then he allowed himself a smile. “Detective work is only as good as your weakest detective,” he said, his gaze deliberately lingering over her for an extra beat.

Kenzie squared her shoulders. “Nobody asked you to be here, Brannigan,” she informed him. Her implication was that he was free to go at any time. In fact, she would have preferred it that way.

“I always finish anything I start, Detective,” Hunter told her.

Sean moved away from the investigator he was talking to and looked from Kenzie to Hunter. “Is there a problem here?” he asked.

“No, no problem, Chief,” Hunter replied cheerfully. “As a matter of fact, I’m looking forward to working on this case. I cut my teeth on jigsaw puzzles when I was a kid,” he told Sean.

A tall man, like the rest of his clan, Sean nodded and smiled at the detective. “Then you should be in seventh heaven here.” Sean paused, his gaze sweeping over Kenzie, Hunter and O’Reilly. “There’s not much more for any of you to do out here. Why don’t you go back to the precinct and I’ll let you know what we find once we finish processing the area.”

Sean’s smile deepened as he looked over toward Jupiter. Now that the dog had made his discoveries, the German shepherd seemed satisfied to just lie at his handler’s feet, watching as Sean’s team did their work. “Looks like Jupiter doesn’t even have a clue as to the kind of far-reaching dust storm he just managed to kick up.”

Kenzie couldn’t resist glancing over in Hunter’s direction.

“There’s a lot of that going around,” she commented. And then she asked her uncle, “Are you sure you don’t need me to stay?”

“I’m sure,” Sean answered. Seeing the skeptical look on her face, he added, “You know what they say about there being too many cooks, Kenzie.” He could see that she was still undecided about leaving the scene. “My advice to the two of you is for you to save your strength for as long as you can. Something tells me that you’re both going to be knocking on a lot of doors, asking a lot of questions before long.”

Kenzie nodded, surrendering. In her experience, the chief was usually right. “Call me when you get back,” she requested.

“Count on it,” Sean told her. And then he looked at Hunter. “I’d stand back if I were you,” he said, lowering his voice. “She has a tendency of steamrolling over people.”

“Duly noted, Chief,” Hunter told the older man, giving every indication that he intended to take the advice to heart.

Instead of saying anything to Brannigan, Kenzie walked away from what had at this point turned into an excavation site. Heading toward her car, she stopped to look around for O’Reilly. Finding him, she crossed to the handler and his dog.

“I’m heading back to the station, O’Reilly,” she told him. “You two want a ride?” she asked, glancing at the dog as well as the handler.

“My mama taught me to always leave with the lady I came with,” O’Reilly told her with a big sunny grin.

“I think that actually refers to bringing a date to a dance,” Hunter told O’Reilly as he came up behind the handler and Kenzie.

Kenzie’s eyes narrowed as she looked over her shoulder and glared at Hunter. “It refers to manners, something I’m sure you know next to nothing about, Brannigan.”

“Ouch,” O’Reilly said, wincing. “On second thought, I think it might be safer for Jupiter and me if we hitched a ride back to the station with the chief,” the K-9 officer speculated. O’Reilly sounded as if he was only half kidding.

“Don’t do that, O’Reilly. I know for a fact that Kenzie’s had her necessary shots so you wouldn’t be running the risk of getting rabies on the ride back,” Hunter told the handler with a straight face.

Both men saw Kenzie’s eyes flash. But there was no outburst of temper the way they might have expected. Instead, her voice was rather cold as she told Hunter, “I have no idea why my brothers find you amusing, but I certainly don’t. I’m leaving now,” she informed the two men. “You can either come with me or find your own way back.”

As she began to walk, Jupiter fell into place next to her.

“Well, it looks like my partner’s made his choice,” O’Reilly noted with a laugh. He started to walk beside his dog. “I guess that’s good enough for me.”

Hunter joined them.

Officer O’Reilly raised a brow in his direction and the cold case detective told him, “I decided that there’s safety in numbers.”

Without missing a beat Kenzie asked him, “Who says that the dog’s on your side?”

O’Reilly’s laugh was deep and rich. “She’s got you there, Brannigan,” he said as they reached Kenzie’s vehicle.

Hunter merely smiled as he opened the door on the passenger side. And then he paused. “Okay if I sit up front?”

“I was thinking more along the lines of in the trunk or strapped to the roof,” Kenzie said, buckling up. “But I guess I can put up with you sitting there for a few minutes.”

* * *

“You weren’t kidding about a few minutes,” Hunter commented when they pulled up into the parking space several minutes later.

Kenzie had driven as if the car was on fire, squeezing through yellow lights just as they were about to turn red.

Hunter took a second to get the air back into his lungs. “I think I lost my stomach back there.”

“Too bad you didn’t lose your mouth,” Kenzie retorted shortly. She slammed the driver’s side door as she got out of the car. Her manner softened when she looked at O’Reilly and Jupiter as the duo climbed out of the back seat. “Thanks for all your help,” Kenzie said to the handler.

“It’s been an experience, Detective Cavanaugh,” O’Reilly told her with a bemused smile. “It surely has. Be sure to let me know how the case goes.”

O’Reilly’s last request was addressed to both detectives but Kenzie acted as if the handler had said the words to her only.

“I’ll be sure to do that,” she promised Officer O’Reilly.

Hunter waited until the handler had taken Jupiter back to the kennel and was out of earshot. Catching her arm to keep her from taking off, he asked, “What do you have against me, Kenzie?”

Kenzie shrugged his hand off. She seriously considered just walking away and ignoring the man and his question, but she knew that he wasn’t going to drop it and she had no desire to be confronted in the squad room in front of people she worked with on a daily basis. He was capable of that.

So she turned around and faced Brannigan squarely as she replied, “Do you want that alphabetically, chronologically or in the order of magnitude?”

He whistled softly, as if impressed. “Wow, you’ve been saving that for a while now, haven’t you?” Hunter asked. He saw Kenzie opening her mouth, but he acted quickly, beating her to the punch. “Tell me in any order you want to, Detective Cavanaugh,” Hunter said, deliberately using her surname the way she had requested.

“I know your type, Brannigan.”

He knew he was asking for trouble, but at the same time, he was rather curious what she had to say. “And just what type is that?”

“You’re a narcissist who mistakenly believes that he is God’s personal gift to women and despite your intelligence, you’re not bright enough to know that you’re not anything of the kind.”

His eyes met hers. She expected him to back off. Instead, she saw that smile of his slowly curve the corners of his mouth.

“So,” he said, his smile growing, “you think I’m intelligent.”

She threw up her hands and started to walk away. “You’re missing the whole point, Brannigan. Why am I not surprised?”

But he wouldn’t let her walk away. This time, rather than take hold of her arm, he put himself in front of her, bodily blocking her path to the back entrance.

“Oh no, I don’t think I am missing the point,” he contradicted. “You had one bad experience with a Class A jerk a little over a year ago who didn’t know how lucky he was and screwed up a really good thing. You let that color the way you view every other man who even comes near you and you judge them and shut them down before they ever have a chance to open their mouths.”

Where the hell did he get off spouting all that at her? Did her brothers say anything to him? But how could they? She’d never said a single word to her brothers or anyone in the family about the way Billy had behaved or why she had dumped him. There was no way Brannigan could have known.

“Trust me, not opening your mouth is not your failing, Brannigan,” she informed him. “Now, you might not have anything better to do than stand out here in the hot sun, flapping your gums, but I do.”

And with that, Kenzie neatly turned on her heel and marched away from him and toward the rear steps of the police station.

She hurried up the steps quickly, intent on getting away from Brannigan as fast as she could. She needed to cool off before she slipped up and said something to confirm his assumption.

Hunter let Kenzie keep several feet ahead of him. It was really more prudent that way.

When he walked into the building a couple of minutes after Kenzie had, he wound up running into Murdoch, one of Kenzie’s older brothers. He nodded a greeting at the detective and the other man crossed over to him.

Murdoch obviously had something on his mind. “I hear your cold case just heated up and you’re working with my sister,” the homicide detective said.

The whole incident was less than a few hours old. There was a time not that long ago when Hunter would have been surprised that news about a potential “new” case could travel so fast.

But he had learned that there was an inside private line of communication within the departments, especially when it came to all matters concerning any of the Cavanaughs. It was almost as if at least some of them—if not all—were blessed with telepathy.

Hunter laughed at Murdoch’s suggestion. “Not if she has anything to say about it,” he told his friend.

“That cold case is yours, right? The guy without the head and hands,” Murdoch specified just for the record as they walked over to the elevator bank.

“Right. That was my first case when I came into the Cold Case Division. I’ve managed to clear some of the other ones since then, but that one,” Hunter told his friend, “it just kept going nowhere.”

“Well, I heard that the case Kenzie just caught today looks as if it might be connected to your cold case,” Murdoch repeated. “Both victims lost their heads.”

Hunter shook his head, softly laughing to himself. “You Cavanaughs are just amazing, you know that? Somebody not knowing any better would say that you all seem to operate on the same mental wavelength.”

Murdoch grinned. “Hey, who says that we don’t?” he laughed. “Seriously, though, if Kenzie’s case is somehow connected to yours, this could be the first big break you’ve had with it in a long while. I know how territorial she can be at times. Whatever you do, don’t let her chase you away.”

“Oh, I have no intentions of letting her do that,” Hunter assured the other detective. Belatedly, he pressed for the elevator. “I just plan on backing off for a minute or so to allow her to cool off and regroup. After that, I plan to go at this case again, this time full speed ahead. If there is a connection, I’m going to use it to my advantage. It’s time this cold case was finally put to bed.”

Murdoch nodded his approval. “Good for you. Kenzie’s a good detective, one of the best, but she needs to know that she can’t just boss people around whenever she wants to. You have every right to the information about this case as she does.”

Hunter had to laugh at the simple statement. He bet that Kenzie didn’t see it that way.

The elevator car arrived and he got on. Murdoch remained where he was, so Hunter put his hand up to keep the doors from closing just yet.

“You want to tell her that?” he asked Murdoch.

“Me? You kidding? Not on your life. Becoming a lion tamer might be easier. As a matter of fact,” Murdoch said, “I’m damn sure of it. Good luck, though,” he said to Hunter as the elevator door closed.

Hunter took the elevator up to his floor. He wanted to stop by his squad room long enough to let Valdez know what he was going to be doing for the next few days—or possibly longer.

As he got off the elevator, Hunter felt a rush of adrenaline, the way he always did whenever he felt he was closing in on a case. In his estimation, there was nothing else like it.

“We caught a break, Valdez,” he told his partner as the latter was enjoying his third cup of inky-black, lukewarm coffee.

Valdez looked up. “You mean that lead that Wilson was going on about actually panned out? That head that those kids found in Aurora Park belongs to your cold case?”

“No, but it looks like the killer might be the same guy who beheaded my guy. I think we’re finally going to be getting some answers,” Hunter told Valdez, trying his best not to sound too excited. “Looks like I’m going to be working with Kenzie Cavanaugh in Missing Persons for a week.”

Valdez looked at him a bit doubtfully. “Does she know that?”

“Well, if she doesn’t, she’s about to find out now,” Hunter said to his partner with an air of finality that left no room for doubt.

It was a known fact that Kenzie didn’t welcome merging with other departments unless it was her idea. This didn’t sound like it was that.

Valdez studied his partner for a long moment before finally asking, “Where would you like me to send your remains?”

Hunter suddenly found himself in the unique position of having to defend the very woman he knew would have been more than happy to see his head served on a platter.

“She’s not all that bad,” he told Valdez, doing his best to sound as if he believed what he was saying.

“Oh really? Well, I hear she’s a spitfire,” Valdez said, calling after his partner as Hunter walked out again. “Just don’t say I didn’t warn you. It’s your funeral, Brannigan.”

“Good thing my life insurance is paid up,” Hunter shot back at his partner.

He left the squad room grinning with anticipation.