Cavanaugh Hero

“You’re barking up the wrong tree,” she told him mildly.

He was getting tired of hearing her say that. “Well, unless and until another tree comes leaping out at me, this is all I’ve—we’ve—” he corrected himself before she could “—got. Unless you’re keeping something from me,” he tagged on.

She was, but it had nothing to do with Matt’s murder and everything to do with her being able to investigate it, so she kept the information to herself as she shook her head. “Not a thing.”

In his opinion, Charley sounded entirely too innocent when she said that and he always held displays of innocence to that degree suspect. But he had nothing to go on other than a gut instinct, one he wasn’t able to pin down or flesh out yet. Until such time, he intended to keep this detective close to him and the best way to do that was to allow her to think he was all for their joining forces.

Getting comfortable at his desk, he gestured to the somewhat scarred desk facing his.

“Spenser was moving out his stuff when I left here this morning. Looks like he’s finished so you can park yourself there for the time being if you like.”

She pulled the chair out and sank down into it. It was going to need some adjustment. This Spenser was a big man, she concluded. “Spenser your partner?”

“Ex-partner.” Declan didn’t look up, his fingers gliding along the keyboard as he continued to search for Melissa Merryweather’s address. “He decided he could make more money in the private sector.”

That wasn’t exactly a newsworthy discovery. “He probably can,” she speculated. The police department wasn’t exactly known for its princely salaries. “You two work together long?”

He had to think for a moment before answering. “A little over a year and a half.”

“Get along?”

That caught his attention. “Average,” he acknowledged, looking at her sharply. “What’s with the twenty questions?” he asked. What was she up to? Even back in the academy, he remembered that Charley had an agenda, a schedule. She went at training doggedly—a preview of how she handled everything else. He doubted that a leopard could change its spots.

“Just catching up,” she said. Moreover, if Declan was answering questions, he couldn’t be asking them.

“That works two ways,” he reminded her. “I get a chance to catch up, too.” He had a few outstanding questions about her he wanted to ask—especially about that mysterious husband of hers who had devolved into a long story for a slow night.

Rather than comment on what he’d just pointed out, Charley indicated the computer he was typing on. “Find anything yet?”

No, and it wasn’t for lack of trying, he thought in frustration.

“Program’s slow,” he said out loud. “The department’s way overdue in investing in new computers to keep us up to speed.” The fact that his department wasn’t alone in this didn’t make it any more palatable for him. Declan had never ascribed to the “misery loves company” way of thinking.

“Could be worse,” Charley offered philosophically.

He frowned at the blank screen with its maddening note at the bottom that told him it was “waiting to connect.”

“How?”

“You could still be banging out end-of-day reports on typewriters and have to make do with just one computer to a floor.”

Now she was just making things up, he thought. “Nobody’s that archaic.”

“Oh, you’d be surprised,” she countered.

The last police department she’d considered applying to, located in a little town in New Mexico, had a force of exactly three—a sheriff and two deputies—for the entire county, and the only accessible computer was located in the town’s one-story public library. The deputies and the sheriff’s secretary did all their work on electric typewriters.

“You’ll have to tell me about it someday,” he told her in a voice that indicated “someday” wasn’t going to be anytime soon. A second later, he triumphantly announced, “Got her.”

Charley didn’t have to ask who.

Chapter 4

Melissa Merryweather tended bar in a cocktail lounge within one of Aurora’s more upscale hotels. The Aurora Maxwell was located on a major thoroughfare and was approximately a mile away from the city’s commuter airport.

Given the hour, the lounge was close to empty with only a couple of harried travelers seated at tables for one, looking to unwind.

The ambience—semidarkness—was either soothing or depressing, depending on the point of view of the person taking it in. Charley found it depressing. The thought of sitting on a stool at the bar, ruminating over a half-filled glass of alcohol only made it more so.

The less-than-genuine smile on Melissa’s carefully made-up face widened as she looked up when Declan walked into the lounge. It was obvious to Charley that although both of them were approaching the bar at an equal pace, Melissa only saw him.

It was like watching a predator come to life, Charley thought. Even Melissa’s strawberry-blond, corkscrew curls seemed to become bouncier.

“Hi, handsome, what can I get you?” Melissa asked in a husky voice that Charley thought was probably more suitable for someone making an obscene phone call, which she wouldn’t have put past Melissa.

“A few answers,” Declan replied, the width of his smile matching hers.

Except on him, Charley had to admit, the smile looked rather seductive—make that very seductive. It was obvious that Melissa was aware of it.

“How about we start with ‘yes’?” Melissa suggested, leaning in as close as she could to him, given that there was a bar between them. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to see that she was flirting with him for all she was worth and it was only partially to get him to spend money at the bar.

In her mind, Melissa was probably already going home with him.

This was the woman who had gotten her hooks into her brother, who had taken him for everything she could, then tossed him aside, filleted and aching. For two cents, Charley would have loved to sink her fist into that annoying face.

It was a struggle to hold her tongue and not tell the woman to drop the act and behave like a responsible person. For all she knew, to Melissa, this was her idea of a responsible person. The woman had the IQ of a dirty shoelace.

Declan appeared unmoved by the woman’s blatant flirtation, although he remained friendly. “How about, where were you last night?”

Melissa shrugged dismissively, as if that was of no consequence. “No place special. But I can be anywhere you want me to be tonight.”

Okay, enough was enough. Any more of this and she was going to be nauseous.

“We need you to be more specific than ‘no place special,’” Charley interjected.

The pretty forehead furrowed and a look of annoyance crossed her face as she regarded her. “Why?”

“It’s not your turn to ask questions yet,” Charley informed her curtly.

The furrowed brow became more so as Melissa stared at her. “Don’t I know you from someplace?” she asked, struggling to remember.

“That’s another question,” Charley pointed out, determined not to give Melissa a scrap of information.

Anger etched a line into her features. “Listen, you—”

“That’s ‘Detective’ You,” Charley corrected wryly. “And we still need to know where you were last night—and early this morning,” she added since her brother’s time of death hadn’t been established yet.

“You’re police?” Melissa asked, the last of the friendliness evaporating from her voice.

Declan had taken a backseat for a moment, amused at the exchange between the two women. He had a feeling that Charley had it in her to be a real spitfire if she wanted to be.

But since the woman behind the bar had asked a legitimate question, he decided maybe he should step up before the situation really spun out of control.

“Afraid so,” he told her, taking out his identification for her viewing. “Detectives Cavanaugh and Randolph,” he said, introducing himself to her.

“Terrific,” Melissa muttered. The brightness had definitely left her smile. “Did Matt send you to hassle me?” she demanded.

“Why would he do that?” Declan asked, his voice marginally interested.

“Because I broke up with the loser,” she snapped, rubbing at a spot on the bar that wouldn’t give up its stain. “It’s not my fault he thought it was serious between us.”

“Right. He should have realized that the only serious affair you could have was with money,” Charley murmured under her breath.

She knew better, and ordinarily she would have refrained from saying something like that, but she wasn’t exactly thinking clearly at the moment and her temper had gotten away from her.

“You can’t talk to me like that!” Melissa cried indignantly.

“Actually, she could probably talk a lot worse to you than that, so I wouldn’t push it if I were you,” Declan warned her, completely surprising Charley. Whether he realized it or not, he’d just helped her regain control over her temper.

All Melissa seemed to be aware of was being insulted. “Look, you give Matt a message for me. You tell him I don’t care who he sends over, we’re not getting back together and that’s final.”

Declan inclined his head. “I’m afraid it is.”

The bartender looked somewhat perplexed. For the moment, her confusion paralyzed her. “You mean you think he’ll back off?”

“Sergeant Holt can’t do very much of anything anymore,” Declan informed her. “He’s dead.”

The woman behind the bar appeared stunned, as if the person she’d just been talking to had lapsed into a language she couldn’t comprehend. “What?” she asked hoarsely, staring at Declan.

“He’s dead,” Charley repeated, struggling to keep her voice from cracking. Her eyes darted to Declan to see if he noticed her momentary shift in tone, but he seemed only focused on Melissa.

Was that because he still thought of the woman as a suspect, or because the vest Melissa was wearing set off her breasts to their best advantage, emphasizing her cleavage?

Charley couldn’t decide.

“This is a joke, right?” Melissa asked, glancing at her and then Declan, waiting for one of them to tell her she was right.

Charley took out her phone and showed her the photo she’d taken of her brother at the crime scene, the cryptic note still pinned to his chest. “This isn’t a joke,” she said.

Melissa stared wide-eyed at the picture on the cell phone, then turned her head away. “Oh, God, he’s dead in that, isn’t he?” she asked, directing the question to Declan. Upset or not, she never lost her focus, which meant playing to the best-looking man in the room.

“Yes, he is,” Declan replied patiently, knowing that if he left it to Charley to answer her, he couldn’t be sure just what would come out.

Anyone paying minimal attention could see that she didn’t like the woman. Was that because she felt Melissa had treated Holt badly—or because she was jealous of the connection, however brief, the two had had?

“How did it happen?” Melissa asked. “Was it the bullet that killed him?” Her eyes strayed back to the photograph and the hole in Matt’s chest.

“Well, it didn’t help,” Charley snapped.

Then, to her surprise, she saw tears shining in the other woman’s eyes. Given what she knew about their relationship, she wouldn’t have thought Melissa capable of any genuine grief or any real emotion whatsoever. There was a chance that she had misjudged the woman—but she tended not to believe that.

“I’m sorry,” Melissa said. “I’ve got to go sit down somewhere.”

Coming around the bar, rather than take a seat the way she’d indicated, Melissa went straight to Declan and leaned heavily against him, her chest heaving with supposedly trapped sobs.

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.