Becoming a Cavanaugh Page 9

  “I also brought coffee,” Jaren said when it was obvious that her partner wasn’t going to browse through the large box of doughnuts for a selection. “Asphalt, just the way you like it,” she added. She paused to pick up a container that sported a large, red X on its white lid. “This one’s mine,” she told him, removing the lid. The creamy beige surface testified to its composition: one part coffee and two parts pre-sweetened creamer.

  Getting up, Kyle glanced at her container and shuddered. “You’re welcome to it,” he commented. Selecting another container, he removed the lid and looked down at the inky contents. One hearty sip later, he allowed a contented sigh to escape his lips. And then his eyes met hers. “Thanks.”

  Was it her imagination, or was there an awkwardness shimmering between them? Did he feel it, or was it just her?

  Jaren chewed on the inside of her cheek, debating her next move. They were either going to go through the motions of an awkward dance, or move on, placing last night’s kiss behind them.

  She’d always prided herself on being a direct person. “Look, about last night,” she began.

  Holloway’s desk was a good half room away, but apparently the detective had ears like a bat. He scooted his chair around, walking it across the length of the separation until he was all but in her face.

  “There was a last night?” he asked with keen interest shining in his small brown eyes.

  “There’s always a last night,” Jaren answered, her voice crisp and detached. “Tonight will be last night tomorrow.”

  Holloway’s small eyes narrowed even more. “You’ve got a college degree, don’t you?” he guessed. “In one of those disciplines that don’t do you any good, like literature or liberal arts.”

  She heard the slight note of dismissive disdain. She would have to win her place here. And it wasn’t going to be a piece of cake, either. She’d need more than pastries and hot coffee to get into their permanent good graces, Jaren decided. So be it, she was up to it. This wasn’t the first time she’d been on the outside, looking for a way in. But she always found one.

  She smiled warmly at the big man. “As a matter of fact, my degree’s in criminology and I plan on putting it to good use here.”

  Holloway took the last bite of what was to be just the first part of his breakfast. “Sounds good to me,” he told her, selecting another doughnut and then making his way back to his desk.

  Jaren picked up a napkin and crossed to the older man’s desk. She held it out to him with a smile.

  Taking the napkin, Holloway asked, “Where?” She pointed to the corner of his mouth and he wiped away the streak of strawberry jelly that had somehow eluded his consumption.

  Kyle observed the interaction with a mixture of amusement and something he couldn’t quite identify.

  He would have to be careful, he decided. He liked keeping his private life as uncomplicated as possible, and what he’d felt ever so briefly last night was far from uncomplicated. It had all the earmarks of something that could become very complicated if he dropped his guard. The shapely lady was trouble. It remained to be seen just how much trouble.

  Biding his time, he waited until Jaren looked in his direction. When she did, he shifted his eyes from her face to the door and then back again. The next moment, he got up and crossed to the threshold, walking out.

  Jaren waited a couple of minutes before getting up to follow him since that was, she surmised, what he wanted. But just as she pushed her chair back, the phone on her desk rang.

  “Rosetti,” she announced into the receiver.

  “Detective, this is Dr. Carter. The M.E.,” the raspy voice on the other end of the line added when she made no response. “You and O’Brien want to come down to the morgue for that autopsy on the latest guy to get a stake through his heart, or do you just want me to send it up when it’s typed?”

  She tried to think like O’Brien. In his shoes, she would have wanted the autopsy five minutes ago. Preferably written. But in this case, a verbal one was going to have to do.

  “We’ll come down,” she said.

  But even as the words came out of her mouth, she couldn’t help wondering if O’Brien was going to be bent out of shape that she made the decision for them. After all, any way you looked at it, O’Brien was the senior detective on this and she didn’t want him to think she was trying to usurp him, especially after last night. Some men would see what happened as calculated on her part, trying to exercise control over the man by means of sex. The only thing was, that spontaneous combustion reaction between them had caught her by surprise just as much as it had him.

  Jaren hurried into the hallway, only to find Kyle leaning against the wall closest to the door. He was obviously waiting for her.

  But before he could say anything, she started talking. “The M.E. just called. He wants to see us at the morgue. He said he just completed the autopsy on the Count and thought you might be interested in getting the verbal report.”

  Kyle wondered if there was something unusual about it—other than the cause of death. Most likely, it was just Carter’s way of getting a little attention. Being a medical examiner seemed like a lonely choice of a career, considering all the choices the man could have made with a medical degree. But he’d heard that Wayne Carter wasn’t much of a people person and patients who couldn’t answer back suited him just fine.

  “Morgue it is,” Kyle agreed, straightening. He took the lead, heading for the elevators.

  Jaren fell into step beside him. Kyle still hadn’t said anything when they reached the elevators. “Did you want to say something to me?”

  Pressing the down button, he glanced at her. “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. In the squad room, you looked at me and then indicated the door so when you got up and walked out, I thought you wanted me to follow you.”

  Kyle debated yanking her chain a little more—after all, she was the one responsible for his sleepless night—then decided there was nothing to be gained by playing games. He was ordinarily above that. He shrugged now, as if what he’d intended on telling Jaren really wasn’t all that important.

  “I was just going to warn you about Holloway and Sanchez. They like getting on the new kid’s case. Right now, that happens to be you.” They arrived in the basement and the doors opened for them. “But you seem to be holding your own.”

  She stepped out before Kyle, then turned to look at him. “Thanks.”

  He brushed off her gratitude. “Still, if I were you, I wouldn’t give them any loaded lines, at least not for a while.”

  The smile that curved the corners of her mouth was rueful. “You mean like about last night.”

  He struggled to suppress the smile that automatically came to his lips as the memory of the unsettling kiss feathered through his brain. “That phrase does come to mind.”

  “Okay, since we’re alone,” she began, lowering her voice. “About last night—” Jaren took a breath. Kyle said nothing as he went on watching her. Jaren moistened her lips. With just a little imagination, she could still taste him. “I don’t want you to think that I—”

  She was squirming, he thought. Initially, he’d expected that this might amuse him a little, but it didn’t. He didn’t want her to feel uncomfortable, not about that. He didn’t want to hear her make any protests about the kiss that had caught them both by surprise. Some things were better left alone and unexplored.

  “I don’t,” he told her briskly, cutting Jaren off.

  Jaren stared at him. She opened her mouth to ask Kyle just exactly what he thought she was going to say, then decided that maybe, in this case, it was better to let sleeping dogs lie. Besides, it would never happen again. She didn’t believe in getting involved with coworkers.

  “Okay. By the way, why were you late?” she asked, putting the sensitive topic to rest.

  He started walking. Since she had no idea where the morgue was, Jaren fell in just a half step behind him, letting him lead the way.

  “I went
to the evidence room and checked out one of the copies of the book we found at the first two murders. It was the neurosurgeon’s copy,” he added before she could ask—not that it made any difference whose copy he had. Both were pristine, with no markings on the pages.

  Jaren looked at him in surprise. “You mean The Vampire Diaries?”

  He couldn’t help the condescending frown that rose to his lips. He still didn’t understand how anyone would want to read that kind of drivel. For that matter, he couldn’t see how a publishing company would want to place their logo on the spine of something so demeaning.

  “That’s the one.”

  “I could have given you my copy last night.”

  “It didn’t occur to me last night,” he told her honestly.

  “Why did it occur to you this morning?” Jaren asked.

  He continued leading the way down the winding hallway. Jaren looked around, trying to take note of the numbers on the closed doors they passed. Right about now, she regretted not bringing bread crumbs with her to mark her path.

  He shrugged casually. “Thought it might help me get into the killer’s mind.”

  Score one for her side, Jaren thought. “So you do think the book has something to do with the murders,” she said.

  “I haven’t made up my mind about that, but it can’t hurt to get familiar with the work, just in case it is tied into the murders.”

  Even as he said it, it still sounded utterly ridiculous to his ear. Someone was slaying vampires, or people that he or she believed to be vampires. It sounded like a bad plot hastily thrown together for some movie-of-the-week program on one of the lesser cable channels.

  Kyle looked at Jaren just before he pushed open the door and walked into the morgue. “I like covering all my bases.”

  Jaren surprised him by nodding. Her expression was completely serious. “So do I.”

  Chapter 9

  Jaren expected the morgue in Aurora to be similar to the one she’d been to in Oakland: an eerily quiet place where the attendants moved around like wraiths on rubber-soled shoes. If they spoke at all, they kept their voices at a low level out of respect for the dead. Should music be part of the scene, something classical or very low-keyed would be piped in.

  What she definitely did not expect was to walk into the middle of a rousing John Philip Sousa march.

  Startled by the blaring rendition, Jaren halted right before the door and looked at Kyle. “Are we in the right place?”

  Pushing the door open, Kyle gestured toward the wall comprised of closed, large metal drawers, behind which rested the latest group of homicide victims and deceased people whose manner of death raised questions.

  “It’s the morgue all right,” he told her. Kyle raised his voice to be heard above the crash of cymbals. “The M.E. likes to counterbalance the solemnity of death with a little cheery music.”

  “There’s cheery and then there’s deafening,” she pointed out.

  This was downright weird, she thought. But not at all creepy. Looking around, Jaren saw the man who had summoned them a few minutes ago.

  There was no one else in the room—if you didn’t count the body he was presently working on.

  Rail-thin, Dr. Wayne Carter seemed taller than he actually was. A welcoming smile curved his mouth when he glanced up and saw them entering the morgue. He waited until they’d both crossed to him.

  “You must be the new homicide detective,” he said to Jaren.

  Her smile felt tight and forced. So-called cheerful music or not, this was definitely not her favorite place. “I must be.”

  “You’ll forgive me if I don’t shake hands,” Carter said, nodding at her and then at the man standing beside her.

  Jaren looked at the M.E.’s rubber gloves. They, as well as his blue paper smock, were covered with blood. He’d obviously just concluded the autopsy right before he’d called them.

  “More than forgive you,” she assured him.

  Kyle got down to the reason they were there. “What’s wrong with this one, Doc?”

  Carter eyed the ragged clothes and black cape neatly folded on the counter behind him. Until several hours ago, they had been all but hermetically sealed to the vagrant known as the Count.

  “In this case, it would be easier to say what wasn’t wrong,” Carter responded.

  Kyle was amenable to playing along—up to a point. “I’ll bite. What wasn’t wrong?”

  Carter’s voice grew more expansive, as if he was conducting a lecture in a classroom. He milked the moment.

  “Given the kind of life the Count had to have led on the street, his liver is in remarkable condition.” He looked at Jaren, addressing the words to her as if he were in charge of her personal edification. “Most people on the street tend to have livers that are on the way out, thanks to incredible alcohol abuse.”

  Expecting some sort of litany, Kyle waited for more. There wasn’t any. “That’s it?”

  The M.E. spread his hands. “That’s it.”

  “Cause of death?” Kyle pressed. Carter raised his eyes from the body he had just now finished sewing up again and gave him an incredulous look. “I have to ask,” Kyle explained.

  “A wooden stake driven through his heart,” Carter replied and then he paused, as if debating whether or not to ask the next question. “Is there really some nut out there running around and trying to make the world safe from vampires?”

  The question was for both the detectives in the room, but Carter ended it by shifting his quizzical eyes toward Jaren.

  It was Kyle who answered. “It’s shaping up that way,” he conceded reluctantly. The idea still didn’t sit right with him. He felt he was being deliberately played.

  Jaren, he noted, looked preoccupied. The next moment, she moved over to the dispenser on the wall and pulled out two rubber gloves. Slipping them on, she picked up the dark, wooden stake that the M.E. had placed on the counter next to the current victim’s clothing. She examined the stake carefully, then addressed the M.E.

  “What kind of wood is this?” she asked Carter.

  The M.E. nodded. “O’Brien said you’d want to know so I had the guys at CSI run it for you.” He paused, as if waiting for some kind of a drumroll. He had to settle for another crash of cymbals instead. “That is Brazilian hardwood,” he told her, raising his voice again. “It’s pretty rare around here.”

  Jaren turned the stake over in her hand. Did that have some kind of significance, or had it just been handy for some reason when the killer had murdered the neurosurgeon?

  Looking up at the M.E. she asked, “Are you saying that someone went all the way down to Brazil to carve the stakes?”

  Thin shoulders moved vaguely up and down beneath the blue paper gown. Carter pulled it off and deposited the cover into a nearby wastepaper basket. “I’m saying that your killer is a very organized, didactic person, maybe even superstitious.” He regarded the table at the latest victim. “This has all the earmarks of a ritual slaying.”

  Jaren tried to make sense out of what Carter was saying. “So, you think he stalked them and then killed them?”

  “Sounds like a theory,” Kyle allowed noncommittally. He heard the doubt in her voice. “Why, what’s your take on it?”

  She didn’t have a definite take on it. She felt like someone stumbling around in the dark, knowing that there was a light switch somewhere. If she only could find it.

  “Maybe he’s just prepared,” she guessed, thinking out loud. “He has the stakes in his car just in case he comes up against another vampire.” And then an idea hit her. “Maybe he’s just a slayer, not a hunter.” She saw the skepticism in Kyle’s eyes. Not that she blamed him. “Protecting himself preemptively rather than just looking for a fight.”

  Kyle wasn’t sure where she was going with this. “So, we do what, get on TV and tell everyone who bought that stupid book to get rid of it? And not to wear any clothes that might be mistakenly identified as something a vampire might wear?”

  “D
oes sound pretty stupid when you say it out loud like that,” she agreed. “Although we are dealing with someone who’s a few cards shy of a full deck.”

  “Or wants us to think that he or she is,” Kyle countered.

  So many ways to go with this, Jaren thought, frustrated. Just exploring the options made her tired. She looked down again at the stake in her hand. Was this a clue, or a red herring? Most of the time, killers were just ordinary people trying to get away with their crimes. But once in a while, they turned out to be far more diabolical than anything found in a novel. Which one was this?

  “So, if I wanted more of these hardwood stakes,” she said, turning back to the M.E., “I’d do what, go off to Brazil?”

  Carter thought for a moment. “Or check with some of the exclusive landscapers and nurseries. See if anyone recently either purchased a Brazilian hardwood tree—”

  “Or had one cut down and ground up,” Kyle interjected.

  Was he humoring her, or was he serious? She still had trouble reading Kyle’s expression. “Sounds a little out there,” she admitted.

  They were past the point of a little out there. It was more like a lot out there.

  “So is driving a stake through someone’s heart,” Kyle answered. He turned to Carter. “So, how soon can I have the official report?”

  “All in due time, O’Brien, all in due time.” Carter stripped off the gloves he’d used for the autopsy and threw them into the trash after his paper gown. “By the way, who do I release the first victim to?” he asked. “I’m all done with the autopsy and I sent the report over yesterday.” He waved a hand around the area. “I’ve got a storage crunch going on.”

  “Who asked for the body?”, Kyle asked.

  “That’s just it,” Carter told him. “Nobody requested the remains.”

  “Nobody?” Jaren echoed. This was a man who interacted with a great many people every day. He wasn’t some hermit found by the wayside like the Count. “But he was married.”

  “Divorced,” Carter corrected. He picked up the file he’d comprised from his desk and waved it for emphasis. “And I tried calling his ex, but she said she didn’t care if I turned the good doctor into fertilizer and sprinkled him around in some park—preferably an out-of-state one.” Carter opened the folder and glanced down a page to check his facts. “His receptionist told me that there was no next of kin, no parents, no kids and she has no idea if the man had any siblings.” Closing the folder, he dropped it back on his desk. “He never mentioned any, and there were no burial instructions.”