Cavanaugh Standoff Page 3

  Ronan glanced at her for half a second before looking back on the road. “Your dad’s a fireman?” he asked in disbelief.

  It was an old, standing joke that firemen and policemen were natural rivals. How did she square being in the police department with her family?

  Sierra seemed completely comfortable with her admission. “He is. So are my three brothers. Everyone at the fire station thinks your mother’s a great lady—and a hell of an ambulance driver in her day, too,” she added.

  She wasn’t certain if that praise would somehow annoy O’Bannon—or make him proud. She didn’t know him well enough yet to make that kind of a call. But she had told him the truth and she didn’t see any reason not to say as much. She knew that she always liked hearing good things about her family from other people.

  “Yeah, I know,” Ronan responded, his voice so low it almost sounded as if he was talking to himself rather than answering her.

  Low voice or not, it was a start. Maybe, in time, she’d wear him down and actually draw O’Bannon into a normal conversation that didn’t require pulling teeth.

  Focused on getting O’Bannon to talk to her, she hadn’t really been paying attention to the area they were driving through. But when he brought his vehicle to a stop a few minutes later, Sierra looked around for the first time.

  They definitely weren’t in Aurora anymore.

  The buildings on both sides of the streets all had a worn, run-down feel to them. Poverty, desperation and fear almost seemed to waft through the air. This was the kind of area people with any sort of ambition typically strove to leave behind, not come home to night after night.

  And yet, for many, there was no other choice.

  Eventually the streets won and the area beat people down, stripping them of all their hopes and dreams, as well as their dignity, leaving them with nothing to hold on to.

  Ronan glanced at her. “You wanted to come along,” he said gruffly.

  It was as if he could intuit what was going through her head, Sierra thought, doing her best to banish her reflections.

  “I’m not complaining,” she told him, getting out on her side.

  “Maybe I am,” Ronan murmured, hardly audible enough for her to hear.

  The address on Walker’s license coincided with a five-story brown building that had gone up in the early seventies. Situated in the middle of a block, there was a bakery right next door to a shoe repair shop. A boarded-up dry cleaner’s was on the other side.

  The building where Walker had lived had a front stoop. Several men, ranging from the ages of around seventeen to their midtwenties, were either sitting or standing in the stoop’s general vicinity. There were five of them, just enough so that, immobile, they all but barred access to the entrance.

  “Mind getting out of the way?” Ronan asked evenly. His no-nonsense tone told the loiterers that they had no choice in the matter.

  Mumbling, the five men moved only enough to create a small, accessible space to the door. Ronan went first, creating the path.

  When Sierra started to follow him, one of the men on the stoop shifted just enough to keep her from entering the building.

  Ronan never even turned around. “I heard one of you shifting. That had better be to give her more space, not less,” he warned.

  The immediate shuffling noise that followed told him that the offender had moved out of the detective’s way.

  “That’s a neat trick,” Sierra told him, falling into place beside Ronan once she’d crossed the threshold and had gotten inside the building. “Do you have eyes in the back of your head, too?”

  “Don’t test me,” he told her. He expected that to be the end of it.

  “Don’t tempt me,” she countered.

  Since it didn’t appear as if there was an elevator, Ronan walked to the base of the staircase. “You always have to have the last word?” he asked.

  “Not always,” she answered. Her cheerful response told him more than her words. “Lead the way, Fearless Leader.”

  He looked back at her and frowned. “Don’t call me that.”

  “Choi did,” she reminded him, using that as her excuse.

  “That doesn’t make it right.”

  “Want me to tell him to stop?” she offered, still searching for a way to get on O’Bannon’s good side—if there was such a thing.

  “I want you to be quiet and stay sharp,” he told her, looking around the poorly lit area carefully. The dim lighting on the stairs made it difficult to see beyond a few feet, which in Ronan’s mind placed them at a definite disadvantage.

  “I can do both,” she told him, but for the sake of peace—and pleasing O’Bannon—she deliberately kept quiet as they carefully made their way up the next five flights of stairs.

  Coming to the landing, Sierra blew out a breath. She exercised daily and felt she was in decent shape, but climbing all those stairs still took a bit of a toll on her, given that she was trying to keep up with O’Bannon’s pace.

  “Wow, I’d hate to have to do that after a long day at work,” she commented.

  “Could be why Walker and his so-called ‘friends’ didn’t work,” Ronan said cryptically, adding, “At least not in the traditional sense.”

  Finding the apartment number he was looking for, Ronan knocked on the door. He gave it the count of ten and was about to knock again when they heard the sound of several locks being opened on the other side. Then someone pulled the apartment door back a crack. There was a chain holding the door in place.

  The wary-looking woman on the other side of the door appeared as if she had once been very attractive. But it was obvious she had weathered more than her share of the worst that life had to offer.

  Dark brown eyes regarded them both suspiciously, coming to her own conclusions. “If you’re selling religion, I tried it but it didn’t work.”

  With that she began to close the door on them but Ronan put his foot in the way, which prevented her from shutting it.

  “Hey!” she shouted in protest.

  Ronan held up his badge so she could see it. “We’re with the police department.”

  “I tried them, they didn’t work, either,” the woman informed him. There was a deep chasm of bitterness in her voice.

  “Are you related to John Walker?” Sierra’s question was an attempt to cut through any further protest the woman might have to offer.

  A flicker of despair passed through the woman’s eyes. “I’m his mother, why? What’s he done this time?” she demanded. There was anger in her voice as well as weariness that went clear down to the bone.

  “May we come in?” Sierra asked politely.

  But the older woman held her ground.

  “No. You have something to say, you tell me from where you’re standing. What’s he done?” Walker’s mother demanded again, looking from Sierra to the man who still had his foot in her doorway.

  Despite Ronan’s thoughts to the contrary, she had never had to break this sort of news to a deceased’s family member before. Sierra could feel a lump forming in her throat as she struggled to push the words out.

  It almost felt surreal as she listened to her voice saying, “Ma’am, I’m sorry to have to tell you—”

  “Oh, Lord, he’s dead, isn’t he?” Mrs. Walker cried. Her small, frail body began to shake. She struggled as she removed the chain from the slot where it was anchored. “I told him,” she cried with anguished frustration. “I told him that the kind of life he was leading would kill him.” The woman sobbed, looking as if she was going to dissolve where she stood.

  Once inside the apartment, Sierra tried to put her arms around the woman to keep her from sinking to the floor.

  Walker’s mother fought her for a moment and then gave up as she broke down, sobbing against her shoulder. And then, after several
minutes, Mrs. Walker straightened, seeming to tap into an inbred resilience.

  Squaring her bowed shoulders and holding her head high, she looked at Sierra. “How did it happen?”

  “Someone shot him. His body was found in the alley behind the Shamrock Inn,” Ronan told the woman, reciting the words in almost a clinical fashion.

  Mrs. Walker nodded numbly, led the way into her small, cluttered living room and sank onto a sagging sofa that was all but threadbare.

  “Tell me everything,” she requested in a hoarse whisper.

  Chapter Three

  Although it made him uncomfortable, Ronan had no choice but to take a seat beside the victim’s mother on the sofa.

  Sierra, he noted, sat on the woman’s other side. Looking at her, he saw nothing but compassion in the detective’s eyes.

  Maybe he should have dispatched her to do the notification on her own, but there’d been no way of knowing who Walker lived with ahead of time and he couldn’t just cavalierly put her life in danger because he was uncomfortable notifying a thug’s mother of her son’s demise.

  Taking a breath, Ronan told the victim’s mother, “I’m afraid there isn’t much to tell, Mrs. Walker. Your son was found in the alley behind the Shamrock Inn. A single gunshot delivered to the back of his head was the cause of death.”

  The woman jolted as if she’d been touched by a live wire but, struggling, she managed to regain some of her composure.

  “He didn’t suffer, did he?” she asked, obviously trying to rein in her emotions.

  “Well, it looked—” Ronan began.

  Oh, Lord, he is going to be truthful, Sierra realized. Didn’t he know that there was a time when the truth wasn’t welcome?

  “No, it was quick,” she assured the older woman, talking quickly and deliberately avoiding eye contact with O’Bannon.

  Her goal right now was to make sure Mrs. Walker didn’t fall apart. As long as the woman held it together, there was a good chance she would remain coherent and maybe even answer a few more questions for them.

  “Was your son having trouble with anyone?” Ronan asked. “Any unusual arguments? Had anyone threatened him lately?”

  “Well, this wasn’t done by a friend now, was it?” Mrs. Walker snapped sarcastically, then immediately appeared to regret her show of temper as tears filled her eyes. “I’m sorry. This is all such a shock. You spend every day worrying something’s going to happen to your kid, but when it does you’re just not ready for it.”

  Sierra placed a comforting hand on the woman’s shoulder. Mrs. Walker released a shuddering sigh. For a moment she looked as if she was about to dissolve into tears, but then she managed to rally again.

  “We’re very sorry for your loss, Mrs. Walker,” she told the woman with genuine feeling. “Is there anyone we could call for you?”

  The woman laughed softly, although the sound was completely devoid of any humor. She shook her head. “No one who would come if they saw the police around.”

  It wasn’t an accusation but a simple statement of fact. Sniffling, she took out a crumpled tissue out of her pocket and wiped her eyes, then returned the tissue back to her pocket.

  “When can I claim his bod—my son?” she asked, choking up.

  “The medical examiner has to do an autopsy first, but as soon as your son’s body is released, we’ll let you know,” Sierra assured her. “Until then, here’s my card. If you think of anything to add, please call. Or if you just need someone to talk to—” Sierra gave the woman’s hand a squeeze as she gave her a business card “—call me.”

  Mrs. Walker grimly nodded her head. The card went into the same pocket as the tissue. She tried to choke out a thank-you, but the words seemed to stick in her mouth.

  “Thank you for your time,” Ronan said, rising. “We’ll let ourselves out.”

  * * *

  “WELL, THAT WOMAN’S never going to be the same again,” Sierra observed sadly as soon as they walked out of the almost airless little apartment.

  “Nobody who loses someone ever really is,” Ronan commented drily.

  Something in his voice caught her attention and Sierra looked at the tall man walking next to her. But his face was impassive, so if there had been an expression she could have interpreted, it was gone in an instant.

  Ronan remained silent as they walked to his car. She decided it was just as well because he was undoubtedly disappointed that nothing new had been learned.

  It wasn’t until they had pulled away from the curb and were driving back to the precinct that Ronan spoke again. To her surprise it wasn’t about the fact that they had learned nothing new about the victim.

  “You weren’t half-bad in there.”

  Sierra blinked, stunned as well as puzzled. “I’m sorry, I’m confused,” she confessed. “Are you praising the half-full glass or criticizing it because it’s half-empty?”

  Ronan upbraided himself for having said anything, but since he had, he knew he needed to clarify it or Carlyle would just go on asking questions. He was beginning to realize she was just built that way.

  “What I’m saying is that you handled an awkward situation without making it worse.”

  Sierra suppressed a laugh. “That really is a left-handed compliment, you know.”

  His eyes on the road, Ronan shrugged. “It’s all I’ve got.”

  This time she did laugh. There was a decent human being in there somewhere, he just had to be dug out. She wondered if he was even aware of that fact.

  “I really doubt that,” she told him.

  “And just what is that supposed to mean?”

  “Your mother’s a really nice, savvy woman,” Sierra said, hoping that would put what she said into perspective for him.

  “So?”

  She leaned back in her seat. “Never mind.”

  “No, out with it,” Ronan ordered, sparing her one quick glance. “You started to say something, so now finish it.”

  “And if I do, you’ll have reason to get rid of me?”

  Did she really think he was that petty? What did he care what she thought about him? he asked himself the next second.

  But he had pushed this and he wanted it resolved. “We’ll talk consequences later. Now, out with it. What are you trying to say?”

  Sierra chose her words carefully, aware he would examine each one. “Your mother’s a really great, outgoing woman—”

  “You already covered that part,” Ronan told her impatiently.

  She supposed she could sugarcoat this, but she couldn’t get herself to lie. So she didn’t. “And you act as if you’d been raised by a she-wolf in a cave.”

  Well, that was certainly straightforward enough, he thought. This woman obviously didn’t have any trouble telling the truth. He supposed that was a valuable asset—to both him and the team. Still, they weren’t going to get anywhere with this investigation if they kept clashing all the time.

  “If you have a problem with the way I do things, Carlyle, you can always transfer out,” he told her. There was no emotion in his voice.

  That just made her angry. “I don’t quit things,” she informed him.

  “Then I’d say you have a problem.”

  “I guess I do.”

  He had no idea where she stood after saying that. And he certainly couldn’t just leave it. Easing into a stop at an intersection, he looked at her. “So, what’s it going to be? Are you in or are you out?”

  She was probably going to regret this, Sierra thought, squaring her shoulders. But she’d told him the truth. She didn’t quit things. That left her only one answer. “I’m in—but don’t expect me to stop trying to get through that stony exterior,” she told him, qualifying her answer.

  “What I expect,” Ronan stated deliberately, “is that you do y
our part to solve the crime to get whoever’s playing vigilante off the streets.”

  The word he used caught her attention. “So now you think it’s a vigilante?”

  He reminded himself that she was brand-new to the team and as such wasn’t apprised of pertinent details. He reviewed them in a nutshell. “This is the fifth street thug who’s been ‘executed’ this way. Three from one gang—the War Lords—and two from another—the Terminators. If it’s not a vigilante, what’s your take on it?”

  “Well, off the top of my head,” she said, working through the problem as she spoke, “maybe it’s the work of a third gang, trying to get rid of the competition.”

  “Aurora doesn’t have a gang. We had a few nerdy types a few years ago who tried to flex their muscles by spray-painting a couple of buildings, but the fact that they’d painted slogans using four-and five-syllable words gave them away. They were tracked down pretty quickly and turned over to their parents. That was the end of Aurora’s one and only ‘gang,’” he declared. “Anything else?”

  Sierra grinned. “Nope. Not at this time.”

  He caught her expression out of the corner of his eye as he continued to the precinct. “Then why do you look like some damn cat that swallowed a canary?”

  “Because that’s the most number of words you’ve said to me since I became part of your team. I knew you had it in you.”

  Ronan shook his head, exasperated. He didn’t trust himself to say anything in response so the rest of the ride to the precinct was made in silence.

  * * *

  THE MOMENT HE reached the squad room, Ronan walked straight to Martinez and Choi’s desks. “You guys learn anything?” he demanded.

  Choi spoke first. “In between a bout of dry heaves, Billie, the guy who tripped over our victim, swore he’d never seen him before. I tend to believe him,” he said and then explained why before Ronan could ask. “The guy thought he was going to die and most people tend to tell the truth when they think they’re going to die.”

  “And the bartender?” Ronan asked. So far, this wasn’t going well, he thought dourly.

  “The guy who opened up the tavern wasn’t the guy on duty last night. He had that guy come down, but the evening bartender wasn’t all that helpful. According to Dave, the guy tending bar last night,” Martinez interjected, “it was really crowded and our victim didn’t make much of an impression on him. He said he ‘thought’ he saw our victim downing some tequilas with some sexy little number making eyes at him, but when Dave came back to that side of the bar, our victim and the woman who might or might not have been with him were gone.”