Cavanaugh Cold Case Page 10

  Kristin shook her head. “You can’t hold the umbrella and change the flat.”

  Malloy grinned. “Guess you’ve got a point,” he agreed. “I left my second set of hands at home.” And then he said more seriously, “I’m already wet. More water won’t hurt.” He nodded toward her vehicle. “Get in the car,” he repeated.

  “But you don’t have to get any wetter on my account,” Kristin argued, refusing to give an inch. Instead, she went on holding the umbrella over his head.

  Malloy opened the driver’s-side door. “Nobody’s keeping score.”

  Her eyes met his. In that moment, he knew she was not about to budge, no matter how long or persuasively he argued.

  “I am,” she countered.

  He shook his head, surrendering. “You are by far the stubbornest woman I’ve ever had to deal with—and I come from a family of stubborn, pigheaded women. Congratulations, you are now the queen of stubborn women.” He took out the car jack as well as the torque wrench. “My sisters will be by to pay homage later.”

  As he moved back to the front tire, she moved with him, holding the umbrella over his head as much as possible. The wind still refused to cooperate.

  “From what I’ve heard about the Cavanaugh women, I’m in very good company.”

  Getting the jack under the car on the side with the flat, he began to slowly raise it up.

  “And what have you heard about the Cavanaugh men?” he asked, curious.

  “To be very careful around them,” she answered Malloy seriously.

  “Well, they were right,” he said as he removed the last lug nut from the tire.

  Putting all four down next to the jack, he went back to her trunk to retrieve the spare. Moving aside the plastic mat that was covering it, he loosened the tire so that he could lift it out.

  “About the other Cavanaugh men, not me,” he assured her, hefting the tire out. He had to wait a second until she got out of his way before he could start to put the spare on.

  “Oh?” she asked, trying not to laugh despite the fact that she could now feel water making the inside of her shoes soggy. “You’re different?” she questioned, playing along.

  “Absolutely,” he said with feeling. Slipping the lug nuts into place, his forearms strained as he made sure that each one was securely tightened before moving on to the next one. “I’m just a pussycat,” he informed her, looking up and winking.

  Kristin deliberately ignored the corresponding flutter in her stomach. “That certainly wouldn’t be my description for you.”

  Malloy tested each lug nut one last time to make sure he hadn’t missed tightening one of them. “Oh? And just how would you describe me?”

  She paused for a minute as she chose her words. “Pushy, persuasive—and dangerous,” she concluded even as she felt her pulse speeding up with each word. Damn it, she should have more control over her reactions than this.

  “Dangerous?” he echoed incredulously. “Me?” And then he laughed at the very idea. “Only if you’re a bad guy. The innocent and pure have nothing to fear from me,” he assured her.

  His smile went clear down to her bone. “Oh, I think the ‘innocent and pure’ have a great deal to fear from you, Cavanaugh,” she told him. “Mainly that they wouldn’t remain that way.”

  “You do have one hell of an imagination, Doc,” he told Kristin.

  Finished, with rain and a reasonable amount of dirt clinging to his slacks around the knee area, Malloy rose to his feet and carried the tools he’d used back to her trunk.

  Closing it, he turned to look at her. “You’re ready to roll,” he told her, then qualified, “Although I wouldn’t roll too far. Those tires are only good for about fifty miles at best. They’re thinner and smaller than the real thing, but they can get you to a gas station where you can buy another tire—or two to keep them balanced and equal,” he added. “By the way, that last part was free,” he tossed in.

  Immediately alert, Kristin braced herself. “And the first part?” she asked. What would he want for that? “You changing my tire,” she prompted.

  “That’ll cost you,” he answered. Then, seeing the wary look on her face, he couldn’t find it in his heart to tease her and draw this out any longer. “That drink I asked to take you out for earlier,” he told her.

  “You want to buy me a drink?” she asked, not all that certain that she believed him.

  “Unless they’re giving them away,” he added. “Or someone’s buying rounds for the house. Yes,” he confirmed, “I’d like to buy you that drink.”

  “But I’m wet,” she protested, looking down at her clothes. Because of the umbrella, she wasn’t completely drenched, but she was a long ways from dry.

  He spared her a glance and tried not to let himself linger over the way her blouse was provocatively clinging to her upper torso. His imagination was in danger of running away with him at any second, so he reined it in but not without some effort.

  “Don’t worry about it,” he assured her. “Everyone else will be wet, too. No one’ll notice.”

  Especially if their eyes were sealed shut, he added silently. The woman was impossible not to notice, but saying so was not going to get him what he wanted—just a quiet drink with her to start to break the ice between them.

  Kristin chewed on her lower lip as she weighed the pros and cons of the situation. Malloy didn’t have to stop to help her. If he had driven away, she wouldn’t have even known that he’d seen her or the dilemma she had found herself in. If he’d just gone home, she would have been none the wiser and he would have been dry.

  She owed him.

  And she always paid her debts.

  Kristin made her decision. “I guess I can’t say no.”

  “You can always say no,” he contradicted, surprising her. She found herself warming to him far more than she wanted to or was comfortable with. “But I’d really rather that you didn’t.”

  “Okay,” she agreed, even though a part of her felt that she would regret this. “But we’ll each drive.”

  “Wouldn’t have it any other way,” he told her. He had an exact location in mind. “Do you know where Malone’s is?”

  Malone’s was a bar owned and run by a retired police officer, and it was where all the off-duty law enforcement agents went to try to shake off the stress of the job. They did so by exchanging stories, picking each other’s brains about particularly baffling cases and just spending some time in the company of people who knew what they were feeling without their needing to say a word.

  “I’m familiar with it.”

  The way she said it, he had a feeling that Kristin might have driven past the place once or twice without really taking any note of it.

  So this would be something new for her, he thought, enjoying the idea.

  “Tell you what, you follow me. Malone’s isn’t far from here.” Then, to encourage her to come, he said, “The drinks aren’t watered down, neither is the conversation—and Sal makes a mean cheeseburger if you’re hungry,” Malloy added as he felt his stomach rumble in protest that it had been neglected.

  “Sal?” she repeated. Was that one of his girlfriends? Kristin couldn’t help wondering. “Is that short for Sally?”

  He laughed, thinking of the feminine name being affixed to the barrel-chested, balding man he’d just mentioned. “It’s short for Salvatore,” he told her. “Salvatore Vincenzo. A great cop,” he told her. “Caught a bullet, retired and lasted four months before he was looking for something to do with himself. Eventually, he bought the bar.”

  Kristin was trying to connect the dots. “But you just said that the bar’s name was Malone’s, not Vincenzo’s.”

  At least she was paying attention. “The guy who originally owned the bar was Tim Malone. His widow sold the bar to Sal. She wanted it to be ‘in good hand
s,’ she’d told him, which was why she’d sold it to another cop.”

  Although Malloy had to admit that there was something intimately isolating about standing out here in the rain with this woman, he decided that it might be a better idea to go where catching pneumonia wasn’t a viable option.

  “Why don’t we continue this inside Malone’s?” he suggested. “Where it’s dry,” he added so that she understood why he’d said what he had. “You can ask me anything you want then.”

  His teasing comment made her realize that she was still standing out in the rain with her less-than-effective umbrella, listening to his every word.

  What was the matter with her?

  She knew better, and she definitely had enough sense to come in out of the rain. So what was she doing here, getting soggy, talking to someone she had just recently been trying to get away from?

  She had no answer for that, which bothered her even more.

  “Right,” she murmured. “Sure.” Neither word sounded very convincing to her ear. “You lead the way,” she added unnecessarily as she slid behind the wheel of her car again, doing her best to simultaneously close her umbrella as she did so.

  She still managed to get wetter. Muttering to herself, she tossed the umbrella on the floor of the passenger side.

  Malloy pretended to take no notice as he got into his own car.

  A minute later, he was leading her out of the parking lot and onto the main drag in front of the precinct. From there, it was a very short trip to the bar he had invited her to.

  * * *

  Despite the weather, the parking lots behind and in front of Malone’s were more than three-quarters full. They had to find spaces that weren’t next to one another or even in the same row.

  He saw a spot closer to the building and, flashing his rear lights to catch her attention, directed Kristin to it. Once she understood and eased her car into the parking space, he went looking for one of his own.

  After finding one, he parked his vehicle and then hurried over toward the rear entrance.

  He was surprised to find Kristin waiting for him outside the building, right under the eaves.

  “Why didn’t you go inside?” he asked her once he was close enough for her to hear him.

  “I thought if you didn’t see me, you’d leave, and the whole idea of coming here was because you wanted to have a drink together. I didn’t want to sit in there, waiting and wondering how long I should give you before I gave up and went home.”

  “You wouldn’t have had to wait at all,” he assured her. Malloy opened the door. Flashing a smile, he took her lightly by the arm and guided her into Malone’s. “I wouldn’t have kept you waiting. Takes less than two minutes to hurry across any corner of the parking lot to Malone’s entrance.”

  He was being charming again, Kristin thought. Right now, he had far more going for him than against him—which was bad. She’d do well to get away from him as soon as possible.

  “Just one drink,” she reminded him.

  “And a cheeseburger,” he added.

  She supposed there was no harm in that. “And a cheeseburger,” she echoed a second before the warmth generated by the bodies within Malone’s hit her, welcoming her as if she were an old friend instead of a stranger.

  Chapter 10

  While not overwhelmingly loud, the atmosphere within Malone’s was definitely boisterous. It took a moment for Kristin to orient herself before she moved forward.

  As she walked just slightly in front of her unofficial guide, Kristin saw that more than a few of the bar’s occupants smiled and nodded in his direction. It certainly wasn’t in hers, since she had never been here before and, for the most part, hadn’t interacted with all that many members of the police force. Only a few faces of those patrons present now were vaguely familiar to her.

  “Beer okay with you?” Malloy asked her, bending to get closer to her and posing the question right next to her ear.

  Kristin fought back a shiver that came shooting out of nowhere.

  “Beer’ll be fine,” she answered stoically.

  She half turned to see if Malloy had heard her and saw that he was looking at the man behind the bar, holding up two fingers.

  “Coming up,” the bartender replied, then proceeded to fill two mugs with the amber liquid, placing them on the counter.

  Malloy put several bills on the counter beside the beer mugs. “Cheeseburger still sound all right to you?” he asked Kristin.

  That would mean waiting for the cheeseburger to be made, not to mention the time it would take to eat it once it was brought out. None of that pointed to making a quick getaway. But she had to eat something, she reasoned, and although her refrigerator was filled with meals her mother had made and loaded her down with the last time she’d visited home, Kristin felt like having something different.

  So, after a minute’s worth of mental wavering, she answered him.

  “Yes.”

  Malloy picked up the two mugs from the counter and handed the first one to her. “And two of your world-famous cheeseburgers, Sal.”

  “Gotta be a real small world, then, Detective,” Salvatore noted dryly. “Haven’t seen you here,” the bartender went on, addressing his words to Kristin this time.

  “There’s a reason for that, Sal. It’s her first time,” Malloy told him. Then, after slanting a significant look toward Kristin, he added, “here.”

  “Let her speak for herself, Cavanaugh,” Sal told him, then asked Kristin, “You can speak for yourself, can’t you?”

  She shot a reproving look at Malloy before answering the bartender. “Yes, I can. Very well, as a matter of fact.”

  “See?” Salvatore said to the man who had ushered her in. “I had a feeling. By the way, since this is your first time here, the first drink’s on the house.” So saying, he slid a bill back toward Malloy. “Save it for the next time,” the bartender told him.

  It was on the tip of Kristin’s tongue to protest that there wasn’t going to be a “next time,” but that seemed rude somehow, so she decided to keep those words to herself.

  “About the cheeseburgers, Sal?” Malloy prompted patiently.

  The smile Salvatore offered was for Kristin alone. “Coming right up. Oh, a word to the wise.” He leaned over the bar, getting closer to her. “Watch yourself with this one, honey.”

  She was quick to set the man straight. This was a bar, and she had no doubt that misinformation could take off like wildfire. There was no way she wanted that to happen. “We just work together—temporarily,” Kristin told him in no uncertain terms.

  Salvatore merely smiled at the information, obviously discounting it. “Uh-huh. That’s what a lot of them say,” he said as he went to fill the order.

  “Let’s grab a table before they’re all gone,” Malloy advised, taking his beer and leading the way.

  “Salvatore doesn’t have a very high opinion of you, does he?” Kristin noted as she sat down at the table Malloy had staked out.

  He shrugged indifferently. “Probably has me confused with one of my cousins.”

  Setting her mug down on the table, Kristin looked around at the room. Because of its reputation, the customers in Malone’s were all men and women who were associated, in some capacity, with the police department. A number of them, she was fairly certain, were related to the man who had brought her here.

  Turning back toward Malloy, she studied him for a moment before abruptly asking, “Just how does that happen?”

  He assumed she was referring to his being confused with one of his cousins. “Well, most of us have the same hair color, more or less, and if you look quick, we’ve got roughly the same build, give or take a few inches, so if you’re only—”

  “No,” she said, stopping him before he could really give her an involv
ed answer. “I mean how does it happen that practically every member of your family and your extended family winds up being on the police force?” she asked.

  “I’d call it luck,” he told her.

  He said the words so effortlessly, he sounded as if he believed them—but then, she also had the impression that he could sell fur coats to people in the middle of an unending heat wave. There was just something about the man that won people over to his side—hence his reputation.

  “The city’s lucky to have so many dedicated members on their police force,” he went on to tell her. “I’m not talking about myself, but when it comes to Andrew and Brian and Sean, well, they’re the personification of dedication. Only reason Andrew ‘retired’ was because his wife disappeared and he had five kids to raise—all of whom, by the way, are now on the force.”

  “Andrew,” she repeated a little uncertainly. The name was familiar, but she couldn’t go beyond that at the moment. She tried to remember which one that was. “Was that—”

  “The former chief of police,” Malloy prompted, filling in the void for her. “He’s a pretty remarkable guy in a lot of ways. When everyone thought that his wife was dead, he didn’t. He refused to give up. It finally turned out that she was in a car accident, one she managed to walk away from—but because of the whole trauma she went through, she got amnesia.

  “Uncle Andrew kept working the pieces, looking for clues whenever he could—and he found her eleven years later.” Malloy looked at her, driving his point home. “That’s what I mean by dedication.”

  “Is Malloy bending your ear, recounting all his heroics?”

  Kristin turned around to see who was talking to her. At the same time, the owner of the resonant, slightly mocking voice came around to face her. There was an engaging smile on the man’s lips as he placed himself between her and the man he’d just referred to.

  Holding a mug of beer in his hand, he crouched down at the table, his attention completely focused on her. “Has he told you about the time he dove into the water, fully clothed, to save that little boy who’d gotten dragged out by a riptide?”