Cavanaugh on Duty

chapter 6



When she and Esteban strolled into the small office where the manager of the storage facility spent most of his time, Jennings was already at his desk, hunched over his computer.

The staccato sound of keys being struck in less than a rhythmic fashion told her that the poor typist was either busy spreading the word that his storage facility had been the scene of a gruesome murder, or he was searching through old records to see if he could uncover anything about the poor old sap who had been renting the unit. Jennings suddenly looked up, startled, when the sound of the door slamming shut—thanks to a gust of wind—reverberated through the dust-laden office.

Surprise swiftly turned into annoyance. “You’re still here,” he complained.

“Yes, we are,” Kari acknowledged, deliberately sounding cheerful. She could tell that irritated him, which seemed only fair since Jennings’s noncompliant attitude irritated her. “I see you’ve had a chance to look up the deceased’s name.”

Kari actually couldn’t “see” anything of the kind, but she surmised that it would have been the manager’s first order of business the second he got back into his cubbyhole of an office. The flushed expression on his face told her she’d guessed right.

“What is it?” she asked him, her eyes all but nailing him to his chair.

Jennings squirmed uncomfortably. He evidently didn’t like being read like a book. “William Reynolds,” he answered, not without a trace of reluctance.

“And what’s the late Mr. Reynolds’s address?” she wanted to know.

A nervously defiant look came over his face. “That’s confidential,” Jennings informed her. “I can’t go around giving out our customers’ addresses.”

Esteban leaned over the thin, gouged beige counter that separated the man’s office from the small space in front of the outer door.

“We’re not asking for ‘addresses,’ we’re asking for an address,” he told the manager, “and the information’s not ‘confidential’ unless you’re a priest and it was given to you while taking Reynolds’s confession.” Esteban spoke softly, but each word he uttered carried weight and, strung together, they came very close to sounding as if there was a threat waiting in the wings.

Beginning to sweat, Jennings sucked in his breath and then hit a series of keys on the keyboard.

“There!” he declared, gesturing at the screen. “Satisfied?” His derisive question was intended for both of the detectives who’d so vexingly invaded his minor domain.

Kari raised her cell phone and took a quick picture of the information on the monitor. She caught the quizzical look on her partner’s face.

“It beats writing,” she told him. “Besides, I’ve got pretty terrible handwriting,” she added.

It was the kind that, unless she actually remembered what it was that she’d jotted down earlier, she had difficulty deciphering.

“You should work on that,” Esteban commented.

Maybe she liked him better when he didn’t talk, she thought, not quite sure if he was being serious or sarcastic. In either case, she didn’t welcome the unsolicited advice.

Turning her attention back to the less than cooperative storage-facility manager, she asked one final question. “Is there anything you can tell us about the deceased?”

Jennings was still guarded. “Like what?” he replied.

She couldn’t decide if the man was hiding something or was just uncooperative with the law in general. “Like did you hear him arguing with anyone? Did he look upset in the last week or so?”

He raised and lowered his shoulders in a vague, dismissive manner. “I only saw him maybe a couple of times.”

“Recently?” Esteban growled out the word, issuing it like a challenge.

“N-no,” Jennings stammered, clearly uncomfortable when Esteban addressed him. The manager thought for a moment, then said, “He paid his bill on time and never gave me any trouble.”

She supposed that was something—or a non-something. Nonetheless, she said thank-you as she took out one of her business cards. “If you do happen to think of something else, you can reach me at this number.” She placed the card on his desk.

Jennings picked it up and looked down at the number imprinted on the face of the off-white business card. “If I call this number, I’ll just get you?” he asked, raising one eyebrow as he looked up at her.

There was no way she was going to have the man thinking this was about anything but the murder. “That’s the precinct number for both of us,” she informed him in a clipped voice.

“Oh.” Suddenly disinterested, Jennings tossed the card onto the side of the desk just as they began to walk out.

“Looks like you just blew your chances for a date,” Esteban quipped. The smallest hint of a grin accompanied his wry observation.

Kari narrowed her eyes at him as she banked down her surprise. “You have a sense of humor. Reassuring,” she commented. “As for your remark, I’d rather eat dirt.”

If he was going to comment on her unappetizing choice of entrée, the words died unspoken as both he and Kari saw the Aurora Police Department’s white CSI van pull up onto the storage facility’s grounds.

“That way,” Kari called out to the driver, who was none other than her father. She pointed in the general direction of Reynolds’s storage unit.

Rather than say anything, Sean Cavanaugh briefly stuck his hand out the driver’s-side window and gave a quick wave in response before continuing on his way. Kari followed quickly behind the vehicle.

She didn’t bother looking over her shoulder to see if Fernandez had opted to wait for her in the car or to follow her lead.

Now that the scene was going to be thoroughly documented, she wanted to get at the body wrapped up in the rug. There could be something on the torso that could help them figure out who killed Reynolds and why.

Sean Cavanaugh and his two investigators were already inside the storage unit when she reached it. The sound of cameras clicking, freezing the crime scene in time, greeted her as she walked in.

One thing struck her immediately. The smell was just as appalling the second time around as it had been the first.

“Drumming up business for my department?” her father asked as he snapped another picture of the rug and the victim within it.

“Actually, I thought I’d make my new partner’s first day on the job an unforgettable one,” she jested.

“New partner,” Sean repeated. This was the first he’d heard about Kari getting someone new to work with. “That would be you?” he asked, looking over his daughter’s head at the tall and striking dark-haired man who was half a step behind her.

Kari turned around. Damn, but he was incredibly quiet, she thought for a second time. He didn’t seem to make a sound when he moved. If he stayed on, she might have to give serious consideration to getting him a bell to wear around his neck.

“So you did decide to come along,” she murmured.

Esteban ignored her for the time being, looking instead at the man who’d asked him a question.

“Detective Esteban Fernandez,” he said, extending his hand to the man he assumed was the supervisor of the CSI day crew. He had a very authoritative manner about him that lent itself well to the position.

“Sean Cavanaugh,” Sean introduced himself, taking the offered hand in his.

The younger man had a good, solid handshake, Sean thought. You could tell a great deal about a man by the way he stepped up and presented himself. He felt a little more at ease about his daughter being out in the field. This partner, he judged, would have her back.

“My daughter giving you a hard time?” he asked Esteban amicably.

“Not that I noticed, sir,” the detective replied with stoic resignation that was not wasted on Sean. He took a second look at the young man, and then looked at his daughter. This could prove to be interesting, Sean thought.

Kari noted the subtle shift, but before she could say anything, one of her father’s two assistants called out to him.

“Sean, come look at this,” Destiny Richardson requested. She and the other investigator had managed to carefully unfurl and remove the rug from around the victim’s body. The entire area where the rug had been in direct contact with the dead man was completely soaked with blood.

Kari was right beside her father and looked down at the corpse sans his cocoon. “Looks like he was killed on that rug,” she theorized.

“Or wrapped up immediately after he was killed,” Esteban interjected. Inherent concern masked by a veil of curiosity had him glancing in her direction to see how she was handling this up-close view of murder. That her pallor hadn’t changed nor had she bolted to purge her suddenly nauseated stomach, drew grudging admiration from him. “Looks like cause of death was having his throat slashed,” Esteban observed.

“At least it was quick,” Kari said, then raised her eyes up to her father’s, looking for confirmation. “It was quick, right?”

Sean nodded. “That would be my preliminary guess, at least for now. I’ll know more once we get him back to the lab.”

“How long do you think he’s been dead?” Kari asked.

Rather than answer, Sean looked at the investigator who had called him over to the unveiled body. Destiny, the young woman he had initially taken under his wing and personally trained because she had such an aptitude for the work, was soon going to become an official member of the family. She was engaged to Kari’s older brother, Logan.

Right now, though, she had just removed the thermometer she’d inserted into the victim’s liver in order to ascertain body temperature, which in turn allowed them to establish approximate time of death.

“According to his liver temperature, I’d say that he’s been dead close to a week,” Destiny estimated.

“You heard the lady,” Sean said to his daughter.

Before she could thank Destiny, Esteban was calling her attention to something else.

“Hey, Hyphen,” he said, using the same nickname that he’d heard the lieutenant use.

Kari looked in his direction, not entirely sure if she liked the man calling her that or not. She supposed it beat Fernandez referring to her as “hey, you,” so for now she let it go.

“Yes?” she responded, waiting.

“What do you make of this?” While the others were gathered around the victim’s head, looking at him upside down, Esteban was standing on the other end of the body, peering down at the victim’s chest.

Kari circumvented the body, coming over to stand next to her partner. “Make of what?” she wanted to know.

“This.” Esteban pointed to the front of the dead man’s pullover sport shirt.

She squinted, trying to see exactly what it was that had caught her partner’s eye, other than the massive bloodstain that had soaked through the entire front of what looked to have been a light green shirt. The deceased had a large neck, and all three buttons at his neckline were open.

She didn’t notice anything until she looked down a second time. Staring at the shirt, she began to make out what looked like a crude drawing that had been stenciled in with a black laundry marker.

A message from the killer?

“If I had to make a wild guess, I’d say that looks like the scales of justice.”

She looked up at her partner, waiting to hear if he concurred with her or made out some other kind of symbol. The drawing looked almost primitive, but if it had indeed been left by the killer, maybe he’d been interrupted before he could finish his artwork.

Rather than agree or disagree with her guess, Esteban looked over to the head of the crime lab for his assessment. “Chief?”

Sean studied the stained drawing for a moment. “Scales of justice gets my vote. Whoever did that definitely needs to brush up on their technique,” he added.

“Let’s hope he does it on a canvas and not a person,” Kari quipped. “Let me—let us,” she corrected herself, not wanting her new partner to think she was trying to slight him, “know if you find out anything interesting in the autopsy.”

She’d stopped herself just short of saying “Dad” at the end of her request. For the most part, she kept her professional life separate from her private one, but there were times when it was far too easy just to slip up when she was dealing with her family.

And now it had become that much more difficult with the vast increase of family members.

Sean nodded absently in response, his mind already moving on to another part of the procedure. But just as Kari began to leave the storage unit, he remembered to remind her about something.

“See you Sunday,” he called out.

Walking quickly out of the unit in an effort to once again leave the awful smell behind, she caught herself waiting for Esteban to ask about the reminder. When he didn’t, she decided that her new partner didn’t possess a shred of normal curiosity.

She decided to volunteer the information anyway. “He means Sunday dinner.”

Esteban merely nodded. “I kind of figured,” he said offhandedly.

She knew someone else would have just dropped it, but someone else most likely wouldn’t mind dealing with the silent treatment. She, however, did. Habitual silences had always been an indication of awkwardness as far as she as concerned. And if you felt awkward around someone, you definitely didn’t feel as if they had your six, which in turn went to trust. Trust, she had found, even in her young career, was the most important part of police work. If you didn’t have trust, you didn’t have confidence...and if you didn’t have confidence, you were nothing more than a walking target, waiting to be taken down.

“Seems that the former chief of police, Andrew Cavanaugh—now one of my two brand-new uncles— likes to have the family over on Sundays. He goes all out—cooks a huge meal. He throws his doors open to welcome as much of the family as can turn up.

“And I hear that when everyone shows up, there’re too many people to fit into the house all at the same time.” She looked at her partner as they reached the car. He hadn’t so much as grunted in response to what she’d just said. “You’re not listening to any of this, are you?” As far as she was concerned, it was really a rhetorical question.

Rather than answer yes or no, Esteban had a question of his own.

“Would it matter?” he asked her. “You seem to like to talk, and I’ve got a pulse.” He looked at her over the hood of the car before getting in. “I figure that’s about all you require.”

Kari got in behind the steering wheel and buckled up, snapping the metal tongue into the slot. “You are a cynical son of a gun, aren’t you?”

“What I am, Hyphen, is a survivor,” Esteban told her.

Kari put the key into the ignition and left it there for the time being. “Is that what you’re doing?” she wanted to know. “Trying to survive this partnership?”

Esteban didn’t answer. He assumed that if he let enough time pass, she’d forget about it. But then something told him this wasn’t going to be the case here.

He could feel Kari’s eyes staring at him. Could feel her waiting. She hadn’t started up the vehicle yet and something told him that she wouldn’t, not until he made some sort of a response.

“If you’re going to require answers and input each and every time, then I’m going to have to rethink this whole association,” he told her matter-of-factly.

Kari sighed. She couldn’t just wait him out. They had to get going.

“We’ll work on it,” she promised, then, for his benefit, she decided to lapse into silence for a while, at least until they reached the dead man’s apartment.

* * *

The trip took all of ten minutes.

Getting out of the car, she spared Esteban a look. “Quiet enough for you?”

He looked somewhat disappointed that the solitude had been broken so soon.

“It was,” he replied. “But I guess all good things must come to an end.”

“At least for now.” Then she couldn’t resist adding, “I doubt if Reynolds’s neighbors would appreciate my asking them questions using hand puppets.”

The picture that evoked in his mind made him laugh. It was a deep, rich sound that seemed to immediately weave directly under her skin.

She didn’t need this, she thought.

“You never know,” Esteban quipped, “it might be worth a shot.”

“I’ll keep it in mind as a last resort,” she said dryly, doing her best to ignore his effect on her. He wasn’t irritating her in the least, just unsettling her.

Pausing just short of the building superintendent’s door, Kari looked over to Esteban just before she rang the doorbell.

“I’ll do the talking,” she told him, intending to relieve him of the pressure of actually having to form words.

She was about to tell him as much when she heard him say, “I figured you would.”

“Nice to know I haven’t disappointed you,” she said to him.

She wasn’t sure, but she could have sworn that he said, “Yet,” under his breath.

It was all the challenge she needed.