Cavanaugh Hero Read online

  Making eye contact with him, Charley didn’t even try to hide her disdain. She rolled her eyes, letting him know exactly what she thought of this little performance.

  “Who did it?” Melissa asked.

  “That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Declan replied, looking around for a likely place to deposit the woman who at this point was all over him. Under different circumstances, it might have even been a pleasant enough interlude, but given the situation, having her like this was rather awkward and uncomfortable.

  Charley grabbed the back of a chair and unceremoniously shoved it against the back of Melissa’s legs, causing them to buckle. The next moment, the bartender found herself landing in the chair with a thud. She swung her head around and glared accusingly at Charley, who in turn smiled innocently at her and reminded her, “You said you needed to sit down.”

  Melissa’s glare vanished as she turned her brown eyes toward Declan.

  “You can’t think that I had anything to do with it,” she protested, obviously feeling that was enough to terminate any further questions.

  She was surprised then to hear Declan ask, “Did you?”

  “No!” she exclaimed loudly. “We were finished and he finally got that through his thick skull. I didn’t have to kill him,” she declared flatly.

  And then suddenly, just as the topic seemed to be closing, Melissa’s eyes widened and she looked at Charley, recognition setting in. “You’re his—his friend, aren’t you?” she asked. “Don’t deny it, I recognize you. There’s a picture of you in his house.”

  “I have no intention of denying it,” Charley told her coolly. “We were friends—and I want to find out what happened to my friend.” There was just the slightest pause between the last two words, one she hoped Declan didn’t hear. “And for what it’s worth, I don’t think you did it.”

  “Oh.” Caught off guard, Melissa smiled, almost magnanimously. “You don’t?”

  “No, I don’t,” Charley replied. “Something like that takes a lot of planning. That’s not exactly your strong point.”

  Brow furrowed again, Melissa looked at Declan. “Did she just insult me?”

  “No,” he reassured her. “From where I’m standing, she was just stating a fact.”

  “Oh,” Melissa murmured, her expression that of a woman who was clearly bewildered.

  What in heaven’s name had her brother ever seen in this half-witted woman? Granted Melissa Merryweather’s body was a knockout, but Matt had standards. He had a brain and he required conversation, at least occasionally. From all indications, Melissa had the kind of brain where thoughts went to die, not flourish, Charley thought.

  And then she shrugged inwardly. She supposed that everyone had their weak point, their waterloo. Matt’s reaction to Melissa didn’t have to make sense to her, it only had to make it to him, she decided.

  Melissa looked rather subdued as she asked Declan, “Do I really need an alibi for last night?”

  “It would help,” he told her.

  Melissa sighed, as if she knew that what she was about to say took her out of any game that might be played out between her and the good-looking detective, at least for tonight.

  “I was with Josh,” she reluctantly told him.

  “Josh?” Declan repeated, waiting for more.

  Melissa shrugged, annoyed to be put in this sort of a spot. “I don’t know his last name. He’s staying here at the hotel for a few days. Business,” she added importantly, then recited, “Room number 805. He stayed here until closing time last night and then we went up to his room.”

  “Unbelievable,” Charley murmured under her breath.

  She looked to Declan to wrap this preliminary—and hopefully the only—interview and do what they had to do to tie this up with a bow. She was anxious to begin actively investigating Matt’s murder. This was only a waste of time.

  * * *

  Melissa’s story checked out.

  “Josh” in room 805 was Josh Walters and he confirmed that she had spent the night with him. The pharmaceutical sales rep was more than willing to volunteer a detailed account of their sleepless, active night together.

  “That’s all right,” Charley said, cutting him short, “we just needed to have her alibi confirmed.”

  “It’s confirmed all right,” Josh said with bright-eyed enthusiasm. “I had no idea the human body could bend that way,” he said with a laugh. And then he suddenly sobered. “Hey, she’s not in any trouble, is she?”

  “None except with her conscience,” Charley said.

  “’Cause I don’t even know the woman,” he continued as if nothing had been said in response.

  “Other than the fact that she’s very flexible,” Declan interjected.

  Josh had the good grace to look embarrassed. “Yeah, except for that.”

  The sales rep looked from one detective to the other. “Am I free to go? ’Cause I have this meeting I’m supposed to be attending at three—”

  “You’re as free as a bird,” Declan told him. The hotel door instantly closed on both of them, the sales rep gladly putting both of them—and most likely his friendly bartender—into his past.

  With a sigh, Declan headed for the elevator. “Well, you were right.” Charley could see that it had taken a lot for him to admit that.

  “About?” she asked quizzically.

  Each word seemed to cost him. “That she didn’t do it.”

  Charley nodded. She saw no reason to gloat. He was just doing what a good detective did and she was just going by her gut.

  “Yeah, I know.” There was no joy in being right this time. “I kind of wish she had.”

  Her response caught him off guard. “What? Why?”

  “So we could stick her butt in jail. That would be fitting payback. That kind of woman just spreads grief and misery wherever she goes.”

  “But flexibly,” Declan deadpanned, still able to see the humor in the situation.

  “Huh,” Charley commented. “I wonder if that means you can tie her into a knot.”

  “Might be interesting to find out,” Declan mused. He frowned just slightly, not remembering having parked this far from the hotel entrance.

  Charley became serious as they approached his vehicle. She was still rather uneasy about her place in the investigation. This was his show and he actually had the right to keep her out of it—even if she had no intention of stepping aside.

  So, in as respectful a voice as she could manage, she inquired, “Now what?”

  Declan had to admit that he was surprised she was deferring to him. He would have bet money that, fired up, Charley would have tried to take over the investigation, forcing him to take a backseat to her even if she didn’t belong on this case at all.

  Was she pretending to defer to him in order to stay on his good side? After all, technically, she didn’t really belong on this investigation to begin with.

  Getting into the car, he waited until she was in on her side and buckled up.

  “You know you can’t work this case with me indefinitely, right?”

  Well, that didn’t take long. Charley felt as if he’d just prodded her with a hot poker.

  “Why not?”

  Did he really have to explain it to her? Or was she doing this to make him relent and let her continue working with him?

  “Because you’re from a different department and there are rules about this sort of thing,” Declan pointed out. To be honest, he just assumed there were rules to follow since obviously detectives couldn’t just work whatever case they wanted to. A lot of cases would go begging if that was true.

  “Who can overrule the rules?” Charley asked.

  Since Declan wasn’t sure if his lieutenant was coming in tomorrow, that more or less left him in charge of himself,
but he wasn’t about to tell her that.

  In settling the matter of jurisdiction over a case, aside from the head of his department, only one name came to mind.

  “The chief of Ds,” he told her.

  “Good enough for me,” Charley murmured, already working on her strategy to get the man to side with her.

  To her way of thinking, it was the only smart, economical way to proceed. For one thing, officially or unofficially, she intended to work this case until it was solved. For another, she was going to use her downtime to see if there was an angle they missed going over. She’d think that the chief of detectives would have wanted his detectives working together, not haphazardly, when it came to working on the murder of one of their own.

  She was prepared to tell him that once she was granted an audience with the man.

  Chapter 5

  The connection between his father and the chief of detectives had come out more than a year ago, but there were times, Declan admitted to himself, when he still found it odd and a touch surprising that he and his siblings were actually directly related to Brian Cavanaugh, the chief of detectives. The man who was in charge of them all.

  Nodding at his secretary, a formidable woman who had seen her share of street action early in her career, Declan knocked on his uncle’s door.

  A deep voice from within the office said a single word, “Come.”

  Rather than walk in once he’d opened the door to his uncle’s office, Declan first stuck his head in and asked, “Got a minute?”

  Brian Cavanaugh smiled, a hint of amusement highlighting his deep, deep blue eyes. He checked his watch.

  “Three, actually. Come in, Declan,” he invited. Seeing that his nephew wasn’t alone, Brian half rose in his seat, inclining his head by way of a greeting.

  Belatedly, Declan realized his omission and made the introduction—or at least began to. “Sorry,” he apologized for the oversight. “This is—”

  Brian’s smile widened just a touch as he extended his hand to the young woman. “Detective Charley Randolph, yes, I know.”

  The greeting took Charley slightly aback as she shook the hand that was held out to her. Brian Cavanaugh’s hand seemed to all but swallow hers up. Even so, the contact managed to create a feeling of well-being rather than a feeling of being lost within something that was larger than she.

  “You do?” she asked. To her best recollection, she had never had any interaction with the chief of detectives before, other than seeing him at a distance.

  Brian nodded as he gestured toward the two chairs on the other side of his desk. His meaning was clear. Declan and Charley took their seats.

  “I make it a habit of being familiar with all the detectives who work under me,” Brian replied. “It makes for a more efficient police department.”

  Declan slid to the edge of his seat. He had no intention of overstaying. “Then you know that Lieutenant Jacobs had a family emergency that’s taken him away from the department.”

  Brian nodded grimly. “Scares a man to death to hear that kind of news about his wife.” He received a report regarding the accident within minutes of its occurrence. To his way of thinking, they were all part of one very large family unit. “But she came out of surgery well and the operating surgeon believes that she’ll make a full recovery quickly.”

  How did he do it? Charley wondered. How did the man stay on top of things like that and still keep tabs on what went on within the different departments and the cases they were working on? Talk about multitasking. The man probably only got about three to five hours of sleep a night—if that.

  At the same time, all Charley could think of was if the chief of detectives was this up on everything, he might also very well be up on her connection to the deceased police officer. Unlike the Cavanaughs, who seemed to be in every department, neither she nor Matt talked about their relationship and they did have different surnames, so the connection wasn’t immediately made. But someone as sharp as the chief of Ds could have unearthed that sort of information with very little effort.

  Charley felt herself fidgeting inside, waiting for a shoe to drop—or an ax to fall.

  “Does this have anything to do with Jacobs?” Brian prodded when neither person in his office said anything further.

  Even as he asked, he glanced at his watch again. He had a budget meeting to get to—it was the least favorite part about this job of his. He had a battle ahead of him, not one he relished.

  “In a manner of speaking,” Declan responded. “I’m short one partner—” He could see he was saying nothing that the chief didn’t already know. Still, the request had to be formally made to someone in authority. “—and Detective Randolph volunteered to help with the investigation. Ordinarily,” he quickly explained, “we’d put this to the lieutenant but inasmuch as he’s not here and might not be tomorrow, I thought we should ask someone with the authority to grant permission—or veto it,” Declan added after a beat, feeling that he should in all fairness.

  Brian turned to look at the young woman in his office, his expression thoughtful as he studied her. “Why do you want to work this case?” he asked her quietly.

  Her gut told her that the man could see through lies. Charley realized that she was about to verbally walk a tightrope. She did it very carefully.

  “I was the first one on the scene,” she told him, “I found the victim’s body and I thought—well, that I might be useful in the long run, being able to tie in what I saw to perhaps trap the killer.”

  Brian appeared interested in her reasoning. “You have total recall?” he asked.

  She was pretty good about remembering details, but she wasn’t perfect, which was what she thought he was asking about. “Total enough,” she replied.

  Brian laughed, clearly tickled by her response. “Honest,” he pronounced. “Good. All right, since you’re shorthanded and for once, the narcotics division seems to be fairly caught up, Detective Randolph is free to work the case with you.” And then the smile faded from his lips as he leveled his gaze at his nephew and Declan’s new, temporary partner. “I want whoever’s responsible caught and faster than our usual time. No one kills one of our own and gets away with it.”

  “Understood, sir,” Charley readily agreed. “We’ll get whoever did this.” She made the promise with zeal, not just to the chief of detectives, but to her brother, as well.

  “And now,” Brian informed them, rising from his chair, “if there’s nothing else, I’m afraid I have to cut this short.”

  “No, nothing else, sir,” Declan told his uncle, already backing out of the room.

  “Thank you, sir,” Charley felt compelled to say before she followed Declan out.

  Brian looked after them for a moment. He knew he was bending the rules, but he kept that to himself. Because he knew how he would have felt in Randolph’s place. Rules were there for a reason—but blood had a way of winning out and nobody knew that better than a Cavanaugh.

  * * *

  “I had no idea that he was such a nice man,” Charley commented as they got into the elevator at the end of the hall.

  Declan pressed the button for the ground floor. “Yeah, he’s one of the few who remember what it was like, coming up through the ranks. A lot of other guys suddenly get amnesia when they get to the top, see it as an opportunity to lord it over the rank and file beneath them, but the chief of Ds is a real regular guy.”

  He wasn’t aware that there was a touch of pride in his voice as he said what he did—but Charley was. She heard it loud and clear. She wondered if he cashed in on the connection every now and then. It would have placed a lot of people in his debt, she thought. He didn’t strike her as the type to do that, but then she really didn’t know him all that well. “Well, not too regular,” she pointed out. “He is, after all, the man in charge.”

 
And, as such, she’d noted, the man did have quite an aura, casting a shadow that was even larger than his tall stature would have ordinarily warranted.

  Declan laughed under his breath. “He is that,” he agreed.

  Stopping short just after they left the building via the rear exit, he looked at his temporary partner as a thought hit him.

  “Hey, you hungry?” he asked her, realizing that they had worked through lunch, a fact that his stomach was now rather impatiently reminding him of.

  Charley shook her head. “Not really.”

  Seeing Matt like that, his life ebbed away before she had managed to find him and to possibly try to save him, had completely wiped out any trace of an appetite she might have had.

  Most likely her appetite was wiped out for days to come, Charley judged. It was going to take a lot to erase that image from her mind.

  Declan had never been one to quietly accept things he felt were wrong, even minor things. “You want to work with me, you’ve got to eat,” he informed her simply, taking a serious tone. “I’m not going to have you suddenly keeling over on me because you’re suffering from malnutrition.”

  She opened her mouth to protest, but didn’t get the chance.

  “We can get something to go, eat on the way,” he suggested. “You won’t even notice you’re eating.” He added, “I’m buying,” thinking that might be the added incentive she needed.

  Arguing with him wasn’t going to get her anywhere, Charley decided. And besides, she got what she wanted—she was on the case, allowed to work it in the open rather than covertly. She didn’t want to seem as if she was giving him a hard time over something that obviously seemed to matter to him.

  “Okay,” she relented.

  “Great, what’s your pleasure?” he asked as he began to walk toward his car again.

  The wording threw her. If she didn’t know any better, she would have said he was talking about... “What?” she said rather than wonder and come to the wrong conclusion.