Cavanaugh Pride Page 11

  None of the career women who’d been slain were familiar to either of the two shelter employees. Half was better than none.

  “You’re not going to say anything to the media, are you? About them being here, I mean. The dead women,” Wilcox elaborated haltingly as he walked them to the entrance of shelter. He paused to pick up a mop that had fallen on the floor, leaning it back against the wall. He muttered something about no one knowing how to do a decent job these days, then looked at Frank for an answer to his question. “You’re not, right?”

  Frank had little use for the media. They tended to sensationalize everything. He believed the dead women should be allowed to rest in peace—as soon as their killer was caught.

  He fixed Wilcox with a penetrating look that made the man squirm. “Why don’t you want the media to know?” he asked.

  Wilcox looked genuinely horrified. “That kind of publicity will keep them from coming here, the ones who need this place the most. If they think someone’s watching, picking them off…” He fumbled for a conclusion to his statement and his voice just trailed off.

  Frank didn’t know whether to feel sorry for Wilcox or disgusted by him. The man was obviously worried about keeping his job, not the people he was supposed to be helping.

  “I doubt the people who come here have the time or the opportunity to watch TV,” Frank replied sarcastically.

  “We do a lot of good here,” Wilcox called after them. “We do.”

  “Jerk,” Frank muttered under his breath.

  “He’s just afraid for his job,” Julianne said, getting into the car on the passenger side. And then she looked at Frank as he got in on his side. “You think there might be two serial killers at work?”

  Turning on the ignition, he pulled out of the space before glancing at her. “What?”

  “Do you think there might be two serial killers?” she repeated. “One killing prostitutes, one targeting career women.”

  Now there was a horrific thought. “Two killers with the same M.O.? Highly unlikely.” He noted the flashing red light in the middle of his dashboard. It meant a seat belt wasn’t secured. “Buckle up,” he instructed.

  Julianne glanced down and realized her oversight. She pulled the belt over and slid the metal tongue into the slot. “Maybe they’re playing tag team, like wrestlers.”

  Frank shook his head. There were no documented cases to support that theory—and he hoped to God there never would be. “Any time there’s been a team, they’ve worked together. One dominant, one subservient, but always both together.” Again, he glanced quickly at her to bring his point home. “And, before you say it, I don’t think it’s a copycat killer, either. Not all the details have been released to the press, so someone reading about the murders and deciding to go off on their own killing spree wouldn’t be able to follow the M.O. to the letter.”

  She knew he was referring to the fact that no mention had been made that there had always been a tiny cross carved on the victim’s right shoulder. That part had been deliberately left out.

  Thinking, she sank deeper into her seat. “Okay, so what have we got? A rather loose connection between the prostitutes,” she said, answering her own question. “How does this relate to the career women?”

  “Oh, my turn?” he asked, tongue in cheek, then grew serious. “It doesn’t. Yet.”

  The last word surprised her. “You know, when I first met you, McIntyre, you didn’t strike me as the optimistic type.”

  He sped up in order to pass a car in the next lane, then changed lanes to get in front of it. “Just for the record, that’s not optimistic, White Bear, that’s tenacious.”

  She nodded. “So, then you’re not optimistic.”

  “Didn’t say that,” he pointed out. “Just trying to clear up a point.”

  Okay, if it wasn’t A, then it was B. “Then you are optimistic.”

  He spared her a fleeting glance even though he was driving. “Yes.”

  She studied his profile for a moment. It had noble lines. And, if she were to draw conclusions from last night, so did he. “About solving this case?”

  She thought she saw the corner of his mouth curving. “Among other things.”

  Was this about last night? she wondered. Had he just pretended to be noble, in effect laying groundwork for later? To what end? He could have had her last night if he wanted. And this morning, there would have been no recriminations.

  The man was complicated, she decided. “They all involve you being tenacious?”

  “Yup.”

  Definitely complicated. She knew she was better off for not having anything happen last night, and yet…more than a little curiosity had been aroused.

  And that wasn’t the only thing to have been aroused.

  “I see,” she murmured.

  “By the way, there’s a party being thrown for my mother and stepfather this Saturday,” he said without any preamble. “You’re invited.”

  She ignored the invitation for the time being. “What’s the occasion?”

  “Their six-month anniversary.” In some ways, it felt as if his mother had been married to Brian forever. Maybe because that was the way it should have been, from the beginning, he mused.

  Her frame of reference when growing up had been life on the reservation. Even though it had been eight years since she’d left, she still wasn’t fully acclimated to the outside world. “Do people usually throw parties for that around here?”

  He thought that was an odd way to phrase it, but didn’t comment. “They’re not throwing it, Andrew Cavanaugh is.”

  She connected the name to what she’d been told previously. “The former chief of police to whose house both you and Riley have tried to get me to go.”

  He was unaware of Riley’s efforts, but nodded. “That’s the one,” he replied with a grin. It was obvious that he was fond of the other man. “His parties are usually loud and noisy, but the food is incredible and you can’t beat the atmosphere. Wall-to-wall cops and family,” he elaborated when Julianne said nothing.

  Wall to wall Aurora cops and family. And she was neither. “And I’m invited.”

  He nodded. “You’re invited.”

  It wasn’t the former police chief who was inviting her, it was McIntyre. Even if she liked parties, she wasn’t about to crash one. “Andrew Cavanaugh doesn’t know me from Adam.”

  They were at a light, and Frank gave her a very thorough once-over. One that made her feel as if her clothes had evaporated.

  “Oh, he could tell you from Adam, trust me. Besides, I know you—and you’re a cop. That’s more than reason enough for an invitation.”

  She was about to point out that she was on loan, that she didn’t belong here and that she didn’t believe in crashing parties, but only got as far as the first two words.

  “I don’t—”

  He didn’t give her a chance to refuse. “What have you got to lose?” he challenged. “I’ll give you the address and you can come over on your own. You don’t like it, you’re free to leave. Nobody’s going to handcuff you to the banister.”

  The way he said it suggested to her that he’d considered that an option. “So that’s already crossed your mind?”

  “No, but I’m guessing it probably crossed yours,” he countered.

  Of course it did, since she said it, she thought. “Good call. Okay. Maybe,” she qualified, knowing that when tomorrow came, more than likely, she wouldn’t show up at the gathering.

  “All I heard was okay,” he told her, putting her on notice.

  She laughed shortly, amused. “Is this where you being tenacious comes in?”

  McIntyre merely grinned at her. She had her answer.

  For the rest of the day, they went over the list of St. Vincent de Paul’s employees, past and present, and the handful of volunteers that Wilcox had ultimately given them. While Sanchez, Hill and Riley reexamined the late prostitutes’ living quarters, she and Frank remained at the precinct, checking into backgrounds and any
prior histories that the employees and volunteers might have had for any arrests or run-ins with the law.

  By day’s end, Julianne’s frustration had grown to huge proportions.

  “Other than one of the volunteers being arrested for lewd behavior on the beach almost a decade ago, the worst thing I could come up with are several unpaid traffic tickets—all belonging to Wilcox,” she told Frank when he came by her desk to check on her progress—or lack thereof. “Maybe that was why he looked so nervous when we came in,” she speculated.

  “That,” Frank allowed, “or maybe he just had a natural aversion to having the police come by to question him.”

  Frank leaned in to look at her screen. What he accomplished was simultaneously invading her space and clouding her thinking. In an effort to get him to move, she repositioned her monitor so that he had a better view. He remained where he was. Crowding her.

  “Looking for something?” she finally asked.

  He hit a key, then another. The screen changed, but enlightenment didn’t come. “Yeah.”

  She looked from the screen to Frank. “What?”

  This time, Frank did straighten up. A sigh escaped his lips as he did so. “I don’t know. Just that magical something that’ll put us on the right track. I was really hoping that we had a former mental patient or someone with a history of violence in that pack. But from the looks of it, we’ve got nothing but average people and solid citizens.” He tapped two of the names on the list on her desk. They corresponded to the two screens he’d just perused. “One’s a lawyer who also volunteers his time at a free legal aid clinic in Oakland and the other’s a C.P.A. who’s a scout master and he used to volunteer at a soup kitchen in Santa Cruz when he lived there. Even sings in the church choir.”

  Perching on a corner of her desk, Frank scrubbed his hand over his face, as if that could somehow sharpen his focus, or bring something to light.

  “Nothing,” he repeated more to himself than to her. “Nothing.”

  “I think we need to get away from this for a while,” Riley suggested, getting up from her desk. The day she and the other two detectives had spent had bore no more fruit than Frank and Julianne’s day. “Take a break and come back fresh. Maybe something will come to us then.”

  The look Frank gave his sister was both skeptical and weary. “Let’s hope the serial killer takes a break, too.”

  “After upping the kill to two? Not damn likely,” Sanchez scoffed. Julianne saw Riley shoot him a dirty look. Sanchez shrugged his stocky shoulders, backpedaling as swiftly as he could. “But hey, what do I know? Anything’s possible.”

  Frank looked at the string of dead women neatly tacked up on the bulletin boards. His gut told him this wasn’t the end of it. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  She had no intention of attending the six-month anniversary party, just as she’d had no intention of showing up at Andrew Cavanaugh’s breakfast table when both Riley and Frank had suggested it. It wasn’t even on her mind when her cell phone rang a little before noon on Saturday. She was on her way back to McFadden Boulevard with Mary’s photograph in her purse.

  When she saw Frank’s name on her caller ID, the first thing she thought of was that there’d been another murder.

  “Where and when?” she snapped out as she got on the line.

  “18931 Riverview.”

  She began to program the address into the car’s navigational system, then stopped. She’d heard that address before. “Isn’t that Andrew Cavanaugh’s house?”

  “Yes.” She heard the smile in his voice.

  Julianne sighed. For a second, she was sorely tempted just to terminate the call and keep driving to McFadden. But, technically, McIntyre was her boss. For now. She couldn’t just blow him off no matter how much she wanted to.

  “I thought there’d been another murder,” she said impatiently. “Look, I’m in the middle of something—”

  “Still trying to find out where your cousin was staying.” It wasn’t exactly a guess. And the silence that met his statement told him what he needed to know. “I might have some information for you along those lines.”

  She was instantly alert. “Might?” she echoed expectantly.

  “Actually,” Frank amended, “I do.”

  She wanted to demand the information, but knew that wasn’t the way the game was being played. “And, let me guess, if I want it, I’m going to have to meet you at Chief Cavanaugh’s house.”

  “Captain Randolph did send us the sharpest knife in the drawer, didn’t he?”

  She knew he was smirking, she would have given anything to wipe the expression off his chiseled face. She had absolutely no patience with games, or people who played them. “If this turns out to be a ploy just to get me over there—” And why it should even matter to him that she should be there left her completely baffled.

  Frank stopped her before she could—he instinctively felt—begin to elaborate about the slow torture she could devise for him. “It’s not. I do have some information you’d be interested in.”

  “About?” It was going to turn out to be something trivial—if he actually had something, which she still doubted.

  “Where your cousin lived.”

  Four words. Just four words. And they went straight to her chest, rendering her immobile. He was probably bluffing, but she couldn’t afford to just discount it. Because McIntyre was just perverse enough to actually have exactly what he said he had.

  “And if I show up, you’ll tell me?”

  “Yes.”

  She didn’t believe him. There was more of a catch to it. “Immediately?”

  Julianne heard him laugh. Though she tried to block it, the sound encompassed her, warming her like a fire on a cold night. She wished it wouldn’t, but there was no getting away from the fact.

  It had been her hope that having sex with Frank McIntyre would have permanently laid to rest her attraction to him, but that hadn’t happened. Yet.

  “No, not immediately,” he told her. “I want you to stay at the party for a little while.”

  She knew better than to agree outright. He had her over a barrel, but she still wanted to be clear on as much as she could be. “How little a while?”

  She heard him pause, considering her question. “Give it two hours.”

  Two hours. An eternity. “And after that?”

  “I’ll tell you,” he said cheerfully. “So, do we have a deal?”

  She was already turning her car around and heading back to the hotel. “Do I have a choice?”

  “Sure. You don’t have to come.”

  Right. He knew that wasn’t going to happen. For only one reason. “And you won’t tell me.”

  “You catch on quick.”

  Stopped at a light, she looked down at what she was wearing: worn jeans and a T-shirt that had seen better days. She’d put them on so she’d appear nonthreatening to the prostitutes. Ordinarily, she didn’t care what people thought, but she didn’t want to look like a raga-muffin, either.

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can,” she told him.

  “Don’t bother changing,” he told her, guessing for the reason for the delay. “It’s strictly casual. Come as you are.”

  “And if I’m naked?” she posed.

  “You wouldn’t be driving around in your car if you were.”

  “Good hearing,” she commented.

  “I like to keep all my parts in top running order,” he quipped.

  She refused to let her imagination run off with that. “Yeah, that’s what they all say. I’ll be there soon,” she promised, ending the call with a snap of the lid on her cell phone.

  When had it gotten so warm in her car?

  Forty minutes later, after stopping at the hotel to put on a shirt, a long-sleeved white one that buttoned in the front and had been freshly ironed, and black, thin pinstriped slacks, then picking up a bottle of wine as a last-minute gift, Julianne showed up at Andrew Cavanaugh’s residence.

  The noise—mus
ic, laughter and overlapping conversations—was not fully contained by the closed door. The people inside sounded as if they were having fun. She didn’t know if she was up to facing that.

  For a moment, she debated just turning around and getting back into her car. McIntyre was probably putting her on about the information, using it to get her over here.

  But she couldn’t leave any stone unturned, Julianne silently insisted.

  She forced herself to knock on the door before she could leave. She knocked hard, instinctively knowing that the doorbell would go unheard. The moment she knocked, the door sprang open, giving her the impression that someone had been waiting and watching for her.

  She expected to see Frank standing there. Instead, she found herself looking up at a tall, distinguished-looking man in his early fifties with possibly the warmest smile she’d ever seen.

  He looked enough like Brian Cavanaugh to convince her that she was in the presence of the family patriarch and former chief of police, Andrew Cavanaugh. But before Julianne could say a word or introduce herself, the man was enveloping her hand warmly between both of his.

  She felt both power and tranquility radiating from the contact.

  “You must be Julianne.”

  Chapter 11

  “I guess I must be,” Julianne heard herself murmuring, a faint smile rising to her lips almost of its own accord. Had Frank said something to him about her attending? “How did you…?”

  His eyes crinkled as his smile deepened. “I’m the former chief of police, Julianne. It was my job to know everything. I still like to keep my hand in, exercise the old brain cells every now and then.” His eyes skimmed over her, taking full measure, no doubt. He made her think of an eagle, majestic and in control of all he surveyed. A nice eagle, she amended. “According to my brother, Brian, Frank and Riley speak very highly of you.”

  Julianne was at a complete loss as to how to respond to that. She wasn’t accustomed to being confronted with compliments. Criticism, yes, she knew how to react then. But this was unfamiliar ground for her.