Cavanaugh in the Rough Page 10

  She waved away his suggestion. “That’s okay, I don’t—”

  “Eat?” he guessed. “Yeah, you do,” he contradicted. “I’ve seen you, remember?”

  She frowned slightly. He kept jumping in, substituting words for what she wanted to say. “I was going to mention that I don’t mix my personal life with my professional one.”

  Chris laughed shortly. “From what I’ve seen, Suzie Q, you don’t have a personal life to mix with anything. And just so you know, I’m proposing dinner, not marriage, so stop coming up with all these excuses, and grab dinner with me, okay?” He spared her a quick look. “I promise that’s the only thing I’ll grab.”

  She drew herself up. “I’m not afraid of you.”

  “Good, because I’m afraid enough of you for the both of us,” he cracked. “So have dinner with me and calm my fears.”

  She couldn’t help it; he made her laugh. Suzie shook her head. “You are crazy, you know that?”

  “Well,” he said honestly, “if I wasn’t at the start of this week, I’m certainly getting there now.”

  She sat up, alert, as she saw their workplace out of the corner of her eye. “You’re passing the precinct,” she told him as she watched it go by.

  “The restaurant’s not in the precinct,” he answered simply.

  Suzie sighed and sat back in her seat. “I give up.”

  “Good,” he approved. “Surrender. I like that. You’ll chew better if your jaw’s not clenched.”

  Maybe she’d been too hasty in agreeing to partner up with this man.

  The feeling in her gut concurred.

  Chapter 10

  Suzie was having second thoughts about agreeing to this. She would be better off just going home, not going to some restaurant with this detective who was much too confident for her own good.

  “You really don’t need to do this,” she told Chris as he pulled up in front of what she assumed was a restaurant. It looked to be hardly more than a storefront, really. If it sat more than ten customers, she would be greatly surprised.

  “Eat?” he asked, pulling up the hand brake and getting out. “Yeah, I do. I do it every day.” After waiting for her to get out, he locked the vehicle and came around to her side. “It’s kind of gotten to be a habit.”

  “No, I mean bring me here.”

  “You’ve got to eat, too, Suzie Q. You’ve got to keep your strength up.” He held the door open for her.

  She had no choice but to enter the restaurant. She was right: the place was tiny. But it did have a warmth to it, she grudgingly admitted. “Why? So I can put up with you?”

  Taking her arm, Chris guided her over to a table.

  Apparently, the restaurant was self-seating, she thought.

  “I was going to say to go on with the investigation,” he answered, “but you can have it your way if it makes you happy.”

  Sitting down across from him at the table, she met his gaze. “What would make me happy is to go home.”

  He appeared completely unconvinced, then went on to tell her why. “I don’t think you mean that. Home’s a dark and lonely place. You probably have nothing in the refrigerator and there’s a three-quarters-empty box of stale breakfast cereal in your pantry.”

  She resented that he thought he knew her so well. “You’re wrong on both counts,” she informed him.

  Obligingly, Chris reversed the order. “Okay, your pantry’s empty and the cereal’s in your refrigerator?” he guessed.

  She didn’t want him digging into her life and definitely not into her head. “Maybe your time would be better spent figuring out who killed our victim and why,” she told the detective in a voice that was meant to cut him dead.

  “Already working on it,” he answered, with a cheerful confidence she found both annoying and yet somehow strangely compelling.

  “All right,” she challenged, not sure if she believed him. “Fill me in.” Listening to dull details about the investigation had to be better than feeling herself being dissected by those penetrating green eyes of his.

  “It’s kind of sketchy,” Chris admitted.

  A sense of satisfaction washed over her. He had nothing, and ultimately, was all talk. “Uh-huh. Thought so.”

  “But tomorrow,” he went on, pretending not to notice the smug look on her face, “I thought we could track down and talk to a few of those people we managed to identify in the videos.”

  “Who?” she questioned. At last count, as far as she knew, there’d been only two people that he’d identified. “Besides Warren Eldridge and Simon Silas?”

  “Those two, to start,” he allowed.

  “And that’s all we’ve got?” Suzie asked, confident that she already knew the answer. The videos had been too grainy for her to positively identify those two, but he seemed to be certain that Eldridge and Silas were in that clip.

  Chris meted out his words slowly, as if doing so gave them more weight. He seemed pleased to prove her wrong. “Actually, no. A few more of the attendees were identified.”

  She’d gotten eyestrain looking at those videos and come away not being able to see anyone clearly. “By who?” she asked.

  He laughed. It had taken a lot of pleading on his part, as well as calling in some favors.

  “Let’s just say that I owe my cousin Valri my firstborn. And Brenda gets the second one,” he added after a beat.

  “Brenda?” Suzie repeated. And then it occurred to her who he might be talking about. “You don’t mean the head of the tech lab, do you?”

  The look on his face told her that he got a kick out of her wording. “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “Right.” What was she thinking? “She’s a Cavanaugh, too,” Suzie realized.

  He raised another important point. “Don’t forget she’s also the chief of d’s daughter-in-law,” he reminded her, then replayed her last sentence. “But you say that as if it’s a bad thing, being a Cavanaugh. As a detective, I’m supposed to use everything in my skill set to solve a crime. Access to the more capable people in the family is part of my skill set,” he told her.

  She sighed, shaking her head. “Who am I to argue?”

  “I don’t know, but you’ve been doing a damn good job of it so far,” he commented. “Why don’t we call a truce and order?” he suggested. “The sooner we eat, the sooner you can get rid of me,” he added.

  “Waitress!” Suzie called out in response, raising her hand to attract the attention of the lone server, who had just passed their table.

  “You sure know how to make a guy feel special,” he told her, amused.

  She refused to see his comment in any light that had the possibility of making her feel uncomfortable. “You’re not a guy, you’re just a detective I’m working with. Temporarily.”

  “Just a detective?” he echoed. “I’m a man just like any other man. If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you kill us, do we not die?” he asked her, deliberately paraphrasing lines from one of Shakespeare’s more famous plays.

  Susie’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t tempt me to test that theory and find out.”

  “Wait, I saw a smile,” Chris declared triumphantly. “It’s a little one, but it’s there. I knew it,” he cried. “I’m growing on you.”

  Damn it, she hadn’t meant to smile. She was certain she’d kept a straight face. The problem was, he did amuse her—to an extent.

  “Don’t pat yourself on the back just yet, O’Bannon. Fungus grows on things, too.”

  The overworked waitress picked that moment to finally come over to their table. “What can I get for you?” she asked, an inviting smile on her face. She was looking at Suzie first.

  “An escape route.” The words just slipped out.

  The waitress in turn looked confused. “Excuse me?”

  Rather than backtrack, Suzie placed her order. “I’ll have the chicken parmesan.”

  “My favorite,” the young woman commented, nodding in approval. “And how would you like that?”

  There was no
hesitation on Suzie’s part. “Quickly.”

  Chris felt compelled to intercede. “This is our first date,” he told the waitress with a wink. “She’s in a hurry to get back to my place.”

  “I don’t blame her,” the woman responded, a wistful note in her voice as she looked enviously at Suzie. “And your order, sir?”

  In the interest of speed, he kept it simple. “I’ll have what she’s having.”

  “Two chicken parmesans coming up,” the young woman told them, making the proper notations. “Oh, and if it doesn’t turn out,” she told Chris, lowering her voice, “call me.” She left a card on the table in front of him.

  Picking up the card, Chris slipped it into his pocket. He didn’t want to take a chance on insulting the waitress.

  “See?” he said. “Not everyone finds me repulsive, Suzie Q.”

  “You do know I’m carrying a gun,” she reminded him pointedly.

  His smile only widened. “That’s what makes it so exciting.”

  Suzie rolled her eyes.

  *

  “There, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” Chris asked an hour later as he and Suzie finally left the restaurant.

  She felt very full, but in a pleasant way. She couldn’t remember feeling this well fed in a long time. “I hate to admit it, but it was excellent. I’m talking about the food,” she added, when it suddenly occurred to her that he would think she was referring to the conversation over dinner.

  “Never thought you meant anything else,” Chris told her innocently.

  He’d said it with a straight face, but his tone of voice made her think he really didn’t mean the food.

  She took a deep breath of the heavier night air. She felt too full to walk any great distance, so she looked at Chris. “You are going to drive me back to my car in the police parking lot, aren’t you?”

  He left it up to her. “Unless there’s somewhere else you want to go.”

  “No, absolutely not,” she told him in no uncertain terms. “I want to get back to my car.”

  “Then that’s where I’ll take you,” he answered.

  They got into his car and he threaded his way out onto the main drag.

  Glancing in Suzie’s direction, he noticed that she was still as stiff as he’d ever seen her. What was going on in her head?

  “Relax, I’m not part of some international kidnapping ring grabbing up women in the street and selling them into slavery. Even if I was,” he told her, “I’d lose my standing bringing you in. You’d flatten them all within a couple of hours.”

  “You make me sound like some kind of cavewoman.”

  “Not at all.” Although she could be his cavewoman anytime, he thought, keeping the comment to himself. He wasn’t about to risk her taking his head off and handing it to him. “Just a very worthy opponent. Lord knows I’d hate to be on the wrong side of you.”

  “What makes you think you’re not?” she challenged.

  “Remember those skill sets I mentioned?” he asked her. “Well, I’m using part of them right now. They help me read people, and I can read you.” He grinned at her confidentially. “You’re having trouble keeping that guard up against me.”

  He was getting too close for her comfort and she needed to keep him at arm’s distance. “Are all the Cavanaughs of your generation so cocky?” she asked.

  They were back in the police parking lot and he came to a stop. “The lucky ones are,” he told her, and then pointed out, in case it escaped her, “I brought you back safe and sound—and fed—just like I promised.”

  That was when Suzie finally looked at the vehicle on her right. The one he’d just pulled up beside. Her eyes widened.

  “How did you know this was my car?” she asked. To the best of her recollection, he hadn’t seen her driving it or parking it.

  “I’m a detective,” he answered with a broad grin. “I detect.” Before she could say anything in response, he said, “Go home and get some sleep, Suzie Q. And come back more trusting in the morning.” And then he couldn’t keep himself from adding, “I’m not such a bad guy.”

  “Jury’s still out on that,” she told him as she got out, then closed his car door behind her.

  The problem was, Suzie thought as she got into her own vehicle, that jury she’d just so flippantly evoked was turning on her.

  *

  To get an early start on searching for similar, unsolved cases in the last five years, Suzie came into the precinct a little after seven. She expected to find the squad room empty, and it was—except for one occupant.

  The last person she would have expected to find there.

  Approaching the desk she’d been assigned to, the one, she believed, that belonged to the partner O’Bannon had told her was off on sick leave, she pulled out the chair and sat down. All the while never taking her eyes from the other figure in the squad room: O’Bannon.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked him, not bothering to hide her surprise.

  Chris was wearing different clothes than yesterday. Otherwise she would have thought that maybe he’d gone to meet some of his fellow detectives at Malone’s, the cop bar only a few blocks from the precinct, then come back to the squad room to sleep it off at his desk.

  To her, that would have been a more plausible explanation for finding him here at this hour of the morning.

  “I think they call it working—but don’t quote me,” Chris warned wryly. Finally looking up, he said, “You look surprised.”

  She was. There was no point in pretending otherwise. No one was that good of an actress. “I thought you were the type to come in late.”

  “Well, you’re wrong,” he pointed out, then added, “There’re a lot of things about me you might have gotten wrong.” He’d been at it for a while now and could do with a break. “Why don’t you grab some coffee and I’ll fill you in on what I’ve found so far?”

  “Tea,” she corrected, knowing it was a petty point. It didn’t stop her. “I drink tea.”

  “Okay, then grab some tea,” he said, “and I’ll fill you in on what I’ve found so far.”

  “The hell with the tea,” Suzie declared, dragging her chair around so that she could position it next to his. “Fill me in now.”

  He liked her eagerness. A small part of him couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to have that eagerness focused on him.

  “You know that idea you had about a serial killer? Well, you just might be onto something. I went through all the unsolved cases in the Northern California region with similar MOs in the last ten years. Then I widened my search to include Southern California, as well.”

  “And?” she pressed, almost afraid to hear what he had to say. Either way it would be bad. He’d either found no similar MOs, which meant they were back to that awful square one again, or he’d found a number of such cases, which meant some blood-thirsty psychopath was out there, killing women for pleasure and sport.

  It felt like a lose-lose situation.

  “And,” Chris was saying, “I found nine. Nine women who were strangled. Nine young, statuesque blondes,” he elaborated, “who just disappeared without a trace—until their bodies were found in abandoned buildings.

  “Since they were all in different cities throughout the state, no one made the connection between these women.” He looked at Suzie with amazement. “You were right,” he declared.

  “I didn’t want to be,” she answered in almost a whisper.

  He understood exactly where she was coming from. “Yeah, I know. As grim as it sounds, one body is a lot easier to deal with than the thought of nine bodies.”

  “If there’s only nine,” she qualified.

  When he gazed at her quizzically, she explained, “There might have been more, but maybe they weren’t found. Not every abandoned building gets made over into something else, so it’s possible that the dead women don’t get discovered. In some places, buildings stay empty and abandoned for years. The only reason Bethany was found was because those two te
ens were scavenging for whatever souvenirs might have been left over after that impromptu bash. If they hadn’t done that, who knows?” she said. “There’s been no missing person’s report filed on Bethany. Neither her ex-boyfriend nor her ex-roommate were looking for her. It’s possible that might have been the case with other victims, as well.”

  “What are you suggesting?” he asked. “That those victims were wined and dined to death? Or maybe they were lured away with the promise of a lifetime of parties and a lavish lifestyle?”

  “To be honest,” Suzie confessed, “I don’t know yet.” She paused, thinking. “Maybe the killer has a thing against tall, beautiful young blondes. Or maybe he was dumped by one, like Sellers? Or maybe killing these beautiful women with their whole lives in front of them fills some inner bloodlust for the killer,” she said, more to herself than to Chris, adding under her breath, “He’s probably not doing it to get them to atone for their lives of sin.”

  Chris looked at her sharply, not quite sure he heard her correctly. “What?”

  Suzie blinked. Damn it, she had to watch herself more carefully. But there was so much here that kept reminding her of her father’s spree.

  She shook her head. “Nothing.”

  But Chris had heard her and he replayed her words in his mind now. “Where did that come from?” he asked.

  Denial would just make O’Bannon more insistent, she knew that, so she soft-pedaled what she’d said. “I’m just throwing things out there.”

  “Well, that last thing was right out of left field.”

  “That’s what ‘throwing’ is all about,” she said flippantly.

  “You’ve had experience with this kind of thing before?” Chris questioned.

  “No,” she snapped. “Now stop asking me questions and let’s get back to this killer and what we know about him. I’ll make a list,” she decided, pulling out a sheet of paper. She looked for a pen.

  And what do I know about you, Suzie Q? he couldn’t help wondering.

  Their killer wasn’t the only mystery here.

  Chapter 11

  Looking back, Chris thought of the day as being less than productive. He felt that the bulk of it was spent spinning wheels and going nowhere, since he and Suzie were predominatly talking with people who had no desire to talk. At least, not about an impromptu bash where a dead body was discovered.