Cavanaugh on Duty

chapter 7



“Murdered, you say,” the building superintendent, Walter Meyers, said for a third time as he shook his bald head.

It was obvious that he was having trouble wrapping his mind around the concept. The barrel-chested older man had insisted on coming along with them to unlock the late William Reynolds’s fifth-floor apartment.

“You sure it was murder?” he asked Esteban. Putting the key in the lock, he twisted it and opened the door, but blocked it with his rather wide body.

Esteban deliberately moved the overall-clad, heavyset superintendent out of the way. “Most people don’t enclose themselves up in a rug, then slit their own throats,” he deadpanned as he and Kari walked into the apartment.

Inside it smelled stagnant and oppressive.

This place sure could use some ventilation, Kari thought to herself as she slipped on a pair of plastic gloves. Since Esteban was not following suit, she dug into her pocket and produced a second pair. She wordlessly held them out to him.

After a beat, Esteban took them from her and slid the gloves on.

Satisfied, Kari turned to Meyers. “What can you tell us about Mr. Reynolds?” she asked. “Did he get into arguments with his neighbors or have any enemies that you’re aware of?”

She left it open-ended, waiting for the superintendent to fill in the details.

He shrugged his wide, squat shoulders in response to her question. “Far as I know, everyone liked the guy. He wasn’t that much of a talker, especially after his wife passed on, but he always had a friendly word to offer if you ran into him in the elevator. Paid his rent on time, never made any demands or had any complaints.”

“Where did he work?” Kari asked. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that her partner was already carefully going over the small apartment, looking for signs of a struggle that would indicate that the victim had been killed here. By his expression, she gathered that Reynolds had most likely met his end somewhere else.

“He didn’t,” Meyers was telling her. “He was retired from the post office. He mentioned doing some volunteer work at the local hospital. Said he didn’t like rattling around the apartment now that his wife was gone.” He shook his head as if he couldn’t fathom the notion. “Me, I’d be thrilled to death to be able to just bum around the apartment without having my wife breathing down my neck.” The superintendent sounded almost wistful.

Kari had no doubt that the woman in question would probably say the same thing about him, given half a chance. It made her wonder how some couples ever wound up with each other.

She caught herself looking at Esteban as she pondered that. The next moment, she deliberately looked away. “Would you happen to know which hospital?” she asked Meyers.

He shook his head. “Sorry—he never said. Just that on a good day he could get there on foot.”

Well, that certainly narrows it down, Kari thought. After all, what are the odds that there’s more than one hospital in the area within walking distance?

“Hey, Hyphen,” Esteban called to her. “Come look at this.”

She saw that look of curiosity flicker in Meyers’s eyes. However, she was not about to enlighten the stranger about her deplorable nickname.

Instead, she told the man, “Thanks. If we need anything else, I’ll be sure to let you know.”

Meyers dug in his heels. “That’s okay...I can hang around for a while,” he told her, craning his neck to see what it was that the other detective had found.

Some people, Kari decided, had to be beaten over the head before they took the hint.

“No, you can’t,” Kari informed him with a smile. “We’ll take it from here.” She left no room for argument, although Meyers did look as if he really wanted to convince her to let him stay.

But after a moment, the man sighed and retreated.

Only once the man was out of the apartment did she turn to go and find her partner. But by then, Esteban had evidently grown tired of waiting and had returned to the living room to show her what he’d found.

He was carrying a small black binder that looked as if it had seen years of wear and tear. When he came closer, she saw that the spine appeared to be slightly cracked down the middle.

“Find a secret diary?” she asked, only half joking.

On the job only a few years, she’d learned not to be surprised by anything. The man thought to be a saint could very easily turn out to be a sinner of the highest caliber.

But not today, she learned as Esteban answered her question.

“No, I found his address book.” He held it out to her. “From the faded ink and coffee stains on it, I’d say it’s probably a few decades old, if not more.”

She took the book from him and perused a few pages. “A lot of the entries are crossed out,” she noticed, then raised her eyes to Esteban’s. “People he’s not speaking to anymore?”

“Or people who’ve moved or died” came Esteban’s reply.

Kari thumbed through a few more pages, then threw out a few far-out ideas. “Maybe he ‘helped’ those people to die. His murder could be someone’s idea of payback—or justice,” she pointed out. “That could explain the crude drawing of the scales of justice on his shirt.”

Esteban inclined his head. “It’s possible,” he allowed, although he didn’t look all that convinced. Taking back the book, he picked up where she’d left off paging through it. “Looks like he’s got a relative in New York. A Sandra Reynolds.”

“Could be a daughter or a sister,” she speculated. “If Reynolds worked for the post office, we can get next of kin information from them. Nice work,” she commented, nodding at the address book.

Rather than welcome the compliment, Esteban shot her a derisive look. “I don’t need to be patted on my head like an overeager, wet-behind-the-ears recruit every time I do something you approve of.”

Wow, she thought. That’s some chip you have on your shoulder.

“Fine,” she told him out loud. “Next time I’ll just hit you with a stick.” She tucked the book into her oversize purse, planning to go through it more thoroughly once she had it logged in as evidence. “Meanwhile, I thought we’d go pay Little Sisters of Mercy a call.”

He maintained an apartment here, but it had been years since he’d lived in the area. The terrain, which had undergone changes, was somewhat unfamiliar to him now.

“You mean the hospital?” he asked, trying to place a location in his mind.

“No, the strip club,” she quipped. “Of course the hospital. From what I could ascertain from Meyers, our dead former mail carrier volunteered there. Maybe hospital personnel could enlighten us about any relationships he had that might have caused him to wind up being gift-wrapped in a rug.”

“Worth a try.” Esteban gestured for her to lead the way out of the apartment. “You’re the one driving,” he reminded her.

It almost sounded to her as if he didn’t want to get behind the wheel. That didn’t jibe with the macho image she recalled, so she decided to bait him just a little.

“Yes, but I’m not a fanatic about it. Anytime you want to relieve me and drive for a while, just say the word.”

When he looked over at her, she had the impression that he’d guessed at her elementary strategy.

“I’ve got no problem with you driving,” he informed her mildly.

Yes, but I have a problem with you not having a problem, she mused to herself, heading toward the elevator.

* * *

Patty Simon, the older woman in charge of keeping track and scheduling the hospital’s volunteers, looked somewhat leery when they asked about William Reynolds’s work history. As it turned out, she was a self-professed procedural-TV junky who had logged in hundreds of hours watching every program devoted even in some minor way to the field of forensic science. Patty initially answered all their questions without incident, but then she suddenly burst into tears midway through the interview.

“Something happened to him, didn’t it?” Patty cried, figuring out the reason behind all the veiled questions about William Reynolds.

Her interest instantly piqued—this could all be an elaborate performance—Kari asked, “What makes you say that?”

Instead of a direct answer, Patty sobbed, “It’s all my fault. My fault.”

Kari exchanged looks with Esteban. Could it be this easy? She sincerely doubted it, but sometimes the gods did smile down on poor, hardworking detectives.

“Go on,” Kari coaxed the woman. “Why is it your fault?”

“Then he is dead,” Patty lamented. Fresh tears slid down her rounded cheeks. “It’s my fault because he’d finally asked me out. We were going to that new restaurant on Von Karmen this Friday.” Rolling her eyes heavenward, she made no effort to stifle her sobs. “I have the worst luck with men. The last man who asked me out was in this awful car wreck. And another man canceled his date with me because he was suddenly facing a major audit by the IRS.”

Stifling a hiccup, Patty dug into the pocket of her pink smock and pulled out a crumpled tissue. She used it to wipe her eyes. “I’m like Typhoid Mary. I’ve got to find a way to discourage men from asking me out....”

From where she was standing, the older woman did not appear to be a femme fatale. It really did take all kinds, Kari thought.

“You work on that,” she told the other woman. “Meanwhile, is there anything you can tell us about Mr. Reynolds?”

“Only that he was a sweet, wonderful man who always had a smile. Can you tell me what happened to him?” she asked, her eyes all but eagerly begging for details. She looked from her to Esteban, hoping one of them would tell her.

“I’m afraid not,” Kari said gently. “We can’t give out any details on an ongoing investigation.”

There was desperation in the woman’s deep-set brown eyes. “But he is dead?”

With all her heart, Kari wished it wasn’t so, not just for Patty Simon’s sake, but mostly for Reynolds’s sake.

“Yes, very,” she told the older woman.

Patty sighed. Her tears drying, she got back down to business. “I’m going to have to find someone to fill in William’s spot on Thursday,” she said. “It won’t be easy,” she confided.

“Then we’ll leave you to your work,” Kari said. Handing the woman her card, as she’d done with the others, Kari encouraged her to call if she remembered any further details.

“Everyone you deal with that crazy?” Esteban asked her after they had left the hospital’s main lobby and were headed back to where they had parked the car. “A man’s dead and all that woman thinks about is her own bad luck. Her bad luck?” he questioned incredulously. “What the hell about Reynolds’s luck? Or is that just considered collateral damage?”

Kari paused to flash him an amused grin over the roof of the car. “Welcome to the wonderful world of homicide,” she cracked.

She was about to get into the vehicle when her cell phone rang.

“Cavelli-Cavanaugh,” she answered briskly. It was obvious from her expression that she was unhappy with whatever was being said, and he felt a rush of adrenaline course through his veins in anticipation of what was to come.

“Yes, we’ll be right there,” Kari told the person on the other end of the line before terminating the call. The connection broken, she slipped the phone back into her pocket.

“Let me guess,” Esteban said. “It’s not good news.”

“That’s putting it mildly,” she told him. “We can stop looking at the case as an isolated incident....”

It wasn’t hard to guess why she looked like that. “Another body?”

“Another body,” she repeated heavily.

Esteban’s expression remained unchanged, and he asked for street directions wearing that same impenetrable look. All of a sudden, she felt a growing need to somehow break through that outer shell of his, to reach the part of him she was certain could still feel. After all, it had been inside him once—why not still?

“Same M.O.?” he asked her.

She considered that point. “Yes and no. The location is different, but the woman’s throat was slashed just like our retired mail carrier’s was—and she’s a retired teacher.”

Two retired victims in a row. Esteban frowned. He doubted if that was just a coincidence in the killer’s random selection process.

“Maybe someone’s got it in for retired people,” he cracked.

“Terrific,” Kari retorted, sincerely hoping that was not the case. “Then we’re going to need a hell of a lot bigger task force,” she concluded, paraphrasing a famous line from a classic movie. Except in that case, the word “bigger” referred to acquiring a boat—this meant more manpower, something the department always seemed to be short of these days.

Esteban proceeded slowly, going over the facts of the first case and seeing if they measured up to the evidence in the second one.

“They didn’t find the victim rolled up in a rug in a storage unit, did they?” Because that, he couldn’t help thinking, would have been truly bizarre.

“No, no rug,” Kari told him. “The victim’s granddaughter hadn’t heard from her for a few days, and when she tried to reach her, she didn’t get an answer. She said that raised a red flag since her grandmother was always very good about returning calls. So the woman went to her grandmother’s house to check up on her and found her in the kitchen, her throat slashed.”

Esteban nodded as he took the new information in. “Maybe it’s just a coincidence.”

Kari slanted him a look as she eased her foot off the gas pedal and onto the brake, coming to a stop at a red light. That was overly optimistic, especially for him.

“You really think so?” she wanted to know.

He shook his head. “No.”

She sighed. “Me neither. But I really don’t like where this is headed.” It had all the signs of a serial murder case in the making.

“Makes two of us,” he commented brusquely.

* * *

The woman’s granddaughter, Anne Daniels, had to be sedated and wasn’t up to answering any questions by the time Kari and her partner reached the crime scene.

The cheery-looking town-house kitchen, bathed in afternoon sunlight, looked like an improbable place for a murder. But then, she’d learned that murder never cared about its surroundings. It barged in everywhere.

“I guess there’s no question about where the victim was murdered,” Esteban said grimly as he bent down to study the rather frail-looking dead woman. “There’re no defensive wounds.”

“He came up behind her and caught her by surprise.” Kari let out a shaky breath. “The poor thing never had a chance. She looks like she could have been overpowered by a strong three-year-old.”

“Notice anything else?” Esteban asked her.

She looked down at the body, wondering what he was referring to. “I’m not sure...” Then she glanced over at an eight-by-eleven cookie sheet. It was covered in parchment paper and a dozen extralarge mounds of cookie dough ready for the oven. “Baking cookies.” She looked up at Esteban. “I think she was comfortable with whoever it was who killed her.”

“Maybe,” Esteban allowed. “Or maybe she was too busy to hear the intruder coming in. But I’m referring to what’s missing.”

Her eyes swept over the victim again. “Missing?”

He nodded. “No crude drawing of the scales of justice.”

The story of Reynolds’s murder had just hit the news, but the detail about the scales had been deliberately left out. “Maybe this is a copycat killer,” she theorized.

“Maybe,” he echoed in that stoic voice she was really starting to dislike.

Feeling frustrated, wanting to glean something useful, Kari went outside the town house and proceeded to question the neighbors, asking the standard questions about noise and any odd behavior. No one had seen or heard anything out of the ordinary.

“Batting zero here,” Kari muttered, growing more exasperated.

Neighbors on both sides of the victim’s town house were appalled that something like this could have happened to “such a lovely woman like Mae.”

The two neighbors, a divorced vet and an unemployed construction worker who was currently in between significant others, had nothing but kind words about the woman, who’d periodically baked “the best damn raisin cookies on the planet” for the two men. Neither had heard any loud noises coming out of the woman’s home.

“I wish I had. I wouldn’t have let anything happen to Mae if only I’d known. She didn’t deserve this,” the construction worker—a large, burly man who gave Kari the impression of towering over her, even though he was the exact same height—said with genuine sorrow in his voice. “She wasn’t...wasn’t...you know.” He stumbled over his words, then looked toward Esteban to fill in the missing term he couldn’t make himself utter.

“No, she wasn’t,” Esteban answered, assuming that the man was asking whether the retired schoolteacher had been raped or violated in any way. “The M.E.’s preliminary exam indicated that she hadn’t been violated.” It was a lie. The M.E. hadn’t even arrived yet, but the man asking looked really distressed, and Esteban felt for him. “Why?” he asked. “Do you know anyone who would—”

Esteban didn’t get a chance to finish. The construction worker was shaking his head. “No, no, it’s just that there’re so many crazy people running around these days.... It’s bad enough she was killed, but to have that happen first, well it’s just unthinkable.”

“From all appearances, it was quick,” Esteban reassured him.

When both neighbors offered their services to “get justice for Mae,” Kari quickly promised to let them know if there was any way they could help.

* * *

“Well, that was enlightening,” she commented to her new partner as they walked away from the two men and headed back toward the victim’s town house.

Esteban looked at her. A slight scowl formed on his brow. Had he missed something? “You pick up something from what was said?”

“No. I meant enlightening about you,” she corrected, glancing his way.

Esteban’s frown deepened. She’d lost him. As far as he knew, he hadn’t said anything of consequence. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means I didn’t realize until just now that you still have a compassionate bone in your body. What you just said to that construction worker was meant to make him feel better. You and I both know that we won’t get the whole story until the M.E. files his report.” She smiled up at him. “So that was really nice of you. I would have bet money that you would have just walked away, leaving him to think the worst.”

Esteban’s intense blue eyes narrowed just as the CSI van turned the corner at the end of the block and drew closer. But he wasn’t looking at the van—he was looking at Kari.

“What do you mean ‘still’?” he wanted to know. Tossing out that word meant that she must have believed that he was compassionate before, and for that to be true, she had to have known him previously.

That, in turn, spoke to the vague feeling of familiarity he’d experienced in the Chief of Detectives’ office.

The feeling, he realized, he was experiencing again now.

Plus more.

Esteban waited for her to answer him so he could put that sentiment to rest once and for all.