Cavanaugh Strong

To her relief, Lucy looked just the slightest bit contrite. Undoubtedly, it was done strictly because Duncan was present, but she had always made a point of taking what she could get.

Uttering a short laugh, the woman waved a dismissive hand at Lucy’s comment. “That’s all right. I don’t get offended easily.”

“Too bad,” Lucy commented, keeping her eyes straight ahead and focused on the minister.

The latter took that as his cue to ask, “Will there be any more coming?” He directed his question to the woman who had sought him out on the spur of the moment on Saturday and retained his services for her friend’s unexpected demise.

Lucy raised her chin. Noelle’s heart quickened when she saw tears shimmering in her grandmother’s eyes as she focused on the reason they were actually here.

“Actually, Reverend, this is twice as many people as I thought there’d be,” she told him. “Sorry, Henry,” she whispered, then looked at the minister and said, “You may start.”

The minister nodded and took out a small, worn black book of prayers. Leafing through it, he found the passage he wanted.

The sky above them was a bleak shade of gray, the perfect color for a funeral, as Reverend Edwards recited several brief prayers that seemed rather suited to the occasion.

When he was finished, the minister closed the small book and returned it to the deep pocket he’d kept it in. Scanning the faces of the four people standing on the other side of the grave, he said, “If anyone would like to say something regarding the deceased,” he said, glancing from one person to the next, “now would be the time to do it.”

Since she had only met Henry once and, to her knowledge, Cavanaugh and Henry had never crossed paths, Noelle thought that the only one who was actually qualified to say something about the recently departed man was Lucy.

Leaning in toward her grandmother, she coaxed her, murmuring, “Go ahead, Lucy.”

The next moment she, Duncan and especially Lucy were surprised that Amanda stepped forward, taking the minister up on his invitation.

“I met Henry on my first day as a volunteer at the Happy Senior Retirement Home,” the woman began, and in a steady, even cadence, she went on to deliver what could only be described as a eulogy.

A lengthy, rambling eulogy.

Noelle felt her grandmother instantly stiffen beside her and knew that Lucy was struggling to contain her anger and hold her tongue.

She also knew that it was an act of superhuman strength on the part of her grandmother.

The uninvited woman went on and on for several very long minutes, talking about what a loss this was for everyone at the home and how she personally would miss the sound of Henry’s voice and his infectious laughter.

Each word she uttered just seemed to stoke Lucy’s fury.

The minister was smiling as he appeared to listen, but Noelle had the feeling that the man’s smile was forced and that the minister really longed to be somewhere other than at this cemetery, watching a minidrama play itself out.

Noelle could only pray that Lucy would keep herself in check out of respect for Henry as well as for the minister’s collar. Lucy could be a real pistol when she wanted to be.

When Amanda finally concluded her eulogy, the minister looked at the remaining attendees at the funeral and asked, “Anyone else want to say anything?”

“Yes,” Lucy said between gritted teeth, stepping forward.

Noelle noticed that the minister struggled to suppress a sigh as he gestured for her grandmother to begin.

The smile on Lucy’s lips was tight while she looked down at the casket, but Noelle could have sworn she saw her grandmother’s lower lip quiver.

“Bet you’re glad to be someplace where you don’t have to listen to that anymore if you don’t want to,” she told her friend. Patting the casket’s lid, she added, “Well, you know I’m going to miss you. That goes without saying. Miss your stubborn arguments, even if I did always manage to talk you out of things.” She sighed, struggling to keep her voice from cracking. “Goodbye, Henry. Tell Dan I’ll be there in another fifteen years or so. Make sure he behaves himself,” she added.

Lucy took a step back and raised her head to look at the minister. “You can have him lowered into the ground now, Reverend.”

With a nod, the minister gazed over their heads and signaled to the two strapping groundskeepers standing off to the side.

Coming forward, the two men went about the business of lowering the casket slowly into the ground. Rather than retreat quickly, despite his apparent desire to do just that, the minister made his way over to Lucy and took her hand in his.

“I know you probably already have one of these cards, but just in case you misplaced it, if you ever feel like you’d like to talk about your friend—or anything at all—I can be reached at this number,” he told her.

Lucy closed her hand over the card. “Thank you, Reverend, I appreciate that. But I have been blessed with a granddaughter who actually listens.”

The minister glanced at Noelle and then at the young man standing on the older woman’s other side. He smiled in understanding.

“Not everyone is that lucky. You are a very fortunate woman, Mrs. O’Banyon,” he told her. “In many ways. But I think you already know that.” The minister looked at Noelle and then at Duncan. “And you have a very nice family.”

With that, the minister took his leave.

Even as he began walking away, the man’s words registered belatedly with Noelle. She immediately opened her mouth to set him straight and correct the misconception that the minister had obviously managed to make. She realized that the man thought she and Duncan were married.

Raising her voice, she called after the minister, “Oh, but he’s not—”

“Save it, Noely,” her grandmother advised. “The reverend’s out of earshot—and it doesn’t matter anyway,” Lucy said.

It was time to go. She’d said what she wanted to say, paid her respects to a lifelong friend as well as paid for his funeral. There was nothing more to be done here. Turning to Duncan, Lucy said, “Young man, your arm, please.”

For the second time in a very short span, Noelle’s mouth dropped open again. If she didn’t know better, she would have said her grandmother was flirting with Cavanaugh.

Keeping the observation to herself, she fell into step behind her grandmother and her partner. Lucy seemed to be hanging on his every word, not to mention physically hanging on his arm as she allowed him to guide her back to the car.

The end of the world, Noelle decided, was undoubtedly being announced sometime in the next few hours.

Chapter 4

It kept nagging at her, even as she sat at her desk at work.

Noelle knew she had a great many things—small and large—to occupy her mind, not the least of which was the pile of reports she’d had to catch up on during the lull the division was currently experiencing. She had no reason to dwell, especially after two weeks, on a small, seemingly throwaway detail about Lucy’s deceased friend. Lucy had only mentioned it in passing while talking about the general state of Henry’s health.

After all, Lucy hadn’t indicated that she was in any way bothered by the existence of this fact.

But she was.

Especially since she hadn’t gotten a good answer to her question from Lucy when she’d asked about this loose detail.

“Okay, what are you chewing on?” Duncan asked her.

The question caught her off guard. As far as she knew, she’d given no indication that something was bothering her. Maybe she needed to work on her poker face a little, she thought.

“What?” It had taken her a moment to hear Cavanaugh’s question, almost as if her brain was on some sort of five-second delay. Hearing the inquiry, she shook her head. “Oh, nothing,” she said, hoping that was the end of it.

It wasn’t. She should have known better. This was Cavanaugh, a man who managed to take “annoying” and turn it into an art form. Even his good looks managed to annoy her. Annoy her because she couldn’t seem to get to the point where she could just ignore them, or become oblivious to them. If anything, the man continued to increasingly disturb her peace.

“Don’t give me that. I’ve been your partner for six months and I’ve gotten to know that face,” Duncan told her. “Something’s bugging you and it’s been bugging you for a while now.”

Rather than tell him what she was thinking about, she switched subjects, taking the opportunity to clear up something else. “Okay, if you must know, I’m just trying to figure out what your angle is.” She saw a hint of confusion furrow his brow, so she elaborated. “Why did you go out of your way to attend a funeral for someone you didn’t know?”

“Because you were going and it’s what partners do for each other,” he replied. “But that’s not it,” he added. It was her turn to look quizzical and his turn to clarify his point. “That’s not what’s making you chew on your lower lip. That’s your tell, you know. That’s what you do when you’re trying to work something out in your head. Now, what is it?” he asked. “I think you should tell me before you wind up chewing right through your lip.”

Noelle didn’t like sharing things until she had a handle on it. In this case, she had no answer, nothing that stood out for her as even a remote answer, much less a reasonable one.

But if Cavanaugh knew her, she also knew him. He would continue badgering her, most likely at inopportune times, until she gave him an acceptable answer to his question.

She might as well save herself some grief and aggravation and tell him. “I’m trying to figure out why a man who had no family and only one really dedicated friend would take out an insurance policy. Henry had to have had something better to spend his money on than an insurance premium, don’t you think?”

Duncan shrugged. “Depends. Who got the money once Henry was gone?”

Noelle sighed, frustrated. “I asked my grandmother that, but she got sidetracked before she could give me an answer.”

“It’s been a couple of weeks. She’s had a little time to deal with the loss. Ask her now if it’s bothering you that much,” he suggested. And then Duncan paused, studying her for a prolonged moment as a thought hit him. “You don’t think that Henry died of natural causes, do you?” he guessed.

Noelle pressed her lips together. She still wasn’t in control of this subject and she didn’t want to say things that put her in a vulnerable position. Devoid of vanity, she still liked being perceived as generally being on top of things, not someone who allowed their imagination to run wild.

“Lucy said he was the picture of health,” she replied cautiously.

“The problem with pictures is that you only see what’s on the surface. There could be things going on underneath that you have no idea about. Old people die. It’s what’s expected, what they do. Nobody lives forever, O’Banyon.”

“Right,” she said, blowing out a frustrated breath. “It’s what’s expected,” she repeated. And that could just be the whole point, she realized. “So nobody thinks twice, nobody looks into it if an old man like Henry suddenly dies.” Impassioned, Noelle leaned forward, lowering her voice so that only Cavanaugh heard her. “What if Henry was in the pink of health? What if someone decided to ‘help’ him along?” she postulated. She knew how crazy this sounded—but he had asked. “What if someone killed Henry before his time?”

“You mean like a mercy killing?”

“Mercy killing usually involves terminal patients who are suffering. Lucy said that Henry wasn’t sick,” she reminded him.

“If you feel that way, that your grandmother’s friend was murdered, why don’t you bring this to Homicide’s attention?” he asked.

For a smart cop, he was missing the obvious, Noelle thought. “And get labeled as a troublemaker? I don’t think so.” She was cautious, even if she did explore all the options. “I need some kind of tangible proof before I say anything to anyone.”

“If you want, I could bring it to Brennan’s attention,” he said, mentioning his older brother who was currently a detective in the department’s homicide division. “He owes me a favor—or two,” Duncan told her, thinking of an off-the-record surveillance detail he’d performed for his brother recently. That had ultimately brought down a notorious flesh trafficker and was still fresh in Brennan’s mind.

“Why would you do that?” Noelle had never liked being in anyone’s debt. Her eyes narrowed suspiciously as she looked at him.

“Because it’s obviously bothering you,” Duncan answered, then asked a question of his own. “Have you always been this suspicious, or do I rate some kind of special treatment?”

Both, she thought. Out loud she said, “Let’s just say that I like being careful. A lot of people have disappointed me.”

Her answer made him wonder things about her that couldn’t be answered in a sentence or two. Still waters really did run deep.

“I’m not ‘a lot of people,’” Duncan pointed out.

No, he certainly wasn’t. Not with those looks, she thought. And it was precisely those looks that had put her on high alert and her guard up.

“I like to find things out for myself,” Noelle replied.

“The only way I see that happening is if I wind up doing what I say I’m going to do—hand this over to Brennan—with no ulterior motive,” he added, thinking that might have occurred to her next.

“I’m probably making a mountain out of a molehill.”

“Possibly,” Duncan agreed. “But then again,” he went on quickly, before his partner could shut down the discussion, “you could be reacting to a gut feeling and in my opinion, gut feelings trump a great deal of schooling and logic.” He looked at her pointedly. “You can’t teach ‘gut feelings.’ It’s just something you have to be opened to.”

“Wait, let me guess. Police Work 101?”

He let the crack slide and gave her a serious answer. “More like a Cavanaugh credo.”

For a second she’d forgotten that he came from a family that had more cops than most small towns. Taking a deep breath, Noelle lightened up.

“I appreciate your support,” she told him and realized that she actually did. “But I’d like to ‘chew on this,’ as you called it, for a while before I ask you to follow through on it.” Because there might not be anything to all this, she didn’t want to really get him involved until she was sure.

He shrugged. “Suit yourself,” he answered, adding, “Do what you have to do and then, if you feel that there’s anything there, get back to me. My offer to help you is still on the table.”

She nodded, mentally withdrawing from the conversation. But just before she did, she glanced up at him and said, “Cavanaugh?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

She inclined her head, as if she was almost embarrassed to say it, then murmured, “Thanks.”

His grin was lopsided and she tried not to look at it for more than a single beat, because it did things to her, sparked a new kind of awareness.

“Don’t mention it,” Duncan said.

She probably would have been better off if she hadn’t, Noelle thought. That she had tendered her thanks left her open to his speculation and she didn’t like being pigeonholed.

* * *

Noelle bided her time. She waited until her partner finally took a trip to the vending machine to secure a little energy wrapped in silver foil a couple of hours later.

The minute Cavanaugh was clear of the squad room, she pushed aside the files she’d been inputting and called her grandmother.

The woman picked up her phone on the second ring. “Hello?”

“Lucy, it’s me, Noelle. How are you doing?” she asked, wanting to check on her grandmother’s state of mind before she asked her anything else.

“Fine, sweetheart. Life goes on, right?” Lucy asked with a note of cheerfulness. “Don’t worry about me.”

“Comes with the territory, remember?” Noelle asked. “You taught me that.” And then she got down to the main reason for her call. “Listen, Lucy, remember when you told me about how healthy Henry was and that he’d gotten himself a life insurance policy?”

“Yes?”

She could hear the patient wariness in Lucy’s voice, as if her grandmother was waiting for a shoe to fall. “I asked you who he left his money to and you never got around to telling me.”

Lucy laughed shortly. “There’s a reason for that,” she anwered. “I don’t know. He never told me.”

“You didn’t ask?” Noelle asked incredulously. Was everyone devoid of curiosity? Or did she just have a double dose of it?

She was surprised by her grandmother’s tone. “I had more important things on my mind than asking questions about such foolishness.”

Noelle wasn’t ready to give up just yet. “Didn’t it strike you as odd that he’d do something like that at his age?”

Lucy laughed again, this time there was no edge to the sound, only a flash of irony. “Honey, there were a lot of odd things about Henry.” And then she asked, “What are you getting at?”

Noelle wasn’t ready to voice her suspicions just yet. Lucy had been through enough for the moment. She didn’t want to add the possibility of her friend being murdered for the insurance money until she was absolutely sure of it. If it turned out to be a wild theory, there was no point in getting Lucy upset.

“I’m just filling out the picture for myself,” she told her grandmother.

Lucy was sharp enough to quickly put the pieces together. “You don’t think that Henry died of natural causes, do you?”

“I didn’t say that,” Noelle tactfully pointed out.

“You didn’t have to,” Lucy said. “I can hear it in your voice. To be honest, if I had to make a choice, I would have said that Sally was the one who didn’t die of natural causes.”

“Sally?” Noelle echoed.

“That other person I was referring to when I told you that Henry was the second friend I had who’d died in the last few months,” she explained to Noelle.

Her grandmother hadn’t really said anything much about this first friend who had died. Or maybe she hadn’t really been paying attention. It could have happened when she and Cavanaugh were hip-deep in getting the goods on a designer-handbag counterfeiting ring.

“Tell me about Sally,” she coaxed.

There was a lengthy pause on the other end. She was just about to ask if Lucy had heard her when the other woman began to answer. “There isn’t all that much to tell, really. One day she seemed like she was in fantastic shape—training for a 5 km marathon—the next day, she was gone.”

“Dead?” Noelle asked.

“Very. Her running partner got concerned when she didn’t show up in the park for their daily run, so she went to Sally’s house—Sally had given her a key. She let herself in when there was no answer and she found Sally in her bed, unresponsive and very cold. It looked like she’d died somewhere in the middle of the night.”

“And you were suspicious?” Noelle pressed, wanting to get to the bottom line.

“Well, yes. Sally said she’d gotten a clean bill of health from her doctor when she went for a checkup a couple of months earlier—that was just before she applied for a life insurance policy.”

Noelle’s antennae went up on high alert. Two life insurance policies on senior citizens, two deaths. Was there a pattern here?

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Cavanaugh returning to his desk. His attention was clearly on her and her end of the conversation. She thought of calling her grandmother back. But right now, getting more details out of Lucy was more important to her than not arousing her partner’s radar.

“Then Sally had applied for insurance, too?” she asked, just to double-check her facts.

“Yes.”

That couldn’t be just a coincidence, could it? That had to be a connection. Now all she needed was the right follow-through. “Why didn’t you tell me about Sally? And her life insurance policy?” she added for emphasis.

Lucy made no apologies for her actions—or her lack of them. “Well, to be honest, I didn’t think you’d be interested.”

Now came the big question. Mentally, Noelle crossed her fingers. “Would you happen to know if Sally got her life insurance policy through the same company that Henry did?”

Lucy paused for a moment, obviously thinking and trying to remember the answer to the question. “I think she’d said something about deciding to go through a broker. Supposedly the broker was going to turn her onto the best insurance company to go with.”

“Do you have his name?”

“Her,” Lucy corrected. “I remember Sally said her broker was a woman and that she found women easier to deal with than men.”

Noelle saw Duncan eyeing her curiously. For once it looked as if he wasn’t having any luck piecing together what was going on. Good.

“Yes, I know what she means,” she told her grandmother. “Do you remember the broker’s name?” she asked hopefully.

The next second, her heart sank—then buoyed up again, all in the space of one sentence.

“No, but I have a card here somewhere. Sally gave me the woman’s card, saying that I might want to get a life insurance policy so that you won’t have to face any unexpected expenses that might come up when it’s my turn to kick the bucket.”

The last thing in the world Noelle wanted to think of was her grandmother’s passing. “You’re not going to be kicking any buckets any time soon,” she informed the other woman firmly.

The laugh was short, humorless and ironic. “That’s what I told Sally, but to humor her, I took the card anyway.”

It was a good thing that she had. It might lead them to something—or at least allow them to rule out something if they didn’t.

“Do me a favor, Lucy,” she went on to tell her grandmother. “When you go pick up Melinda from school today, could you swing by your place and find that card for me?”

“Then you do think something’s wrong, don’t you?” Lucy pressed.

As far as the world was concerned, she processed everything slowly. It was only the brass—and her partner—who knew exactly how fast she could be if necessary. And she intended to keep it that way.

“Not sure yet, but having all the facts won’t hurt,” she answered her grandmother evasively.

She heard her grandmother snort on the other end and knew that the woman wasn’t buying that. “I’m not sure where I put the woman’s card, but I’ll give you a call as soon as I find it.”

“Great.” She was about to hang up when she remembered something else. “Oh, wait, one more question, Lucy. Did Sally have a family?”

Lucy thought for a second, wanting to make sure she had her facts straight. “A few distant second cousins somewhere,” she recalled, “but beyond that, I don’t think so.”

“She was never married?”

“No, poor thing. According to her, she never found Mr. Right. I tried to talk her into Mr. Right Now, but Sally was stubborn. She didn’t want to hear about it. She said that she wanted the bells and the banjos—or nothing. She settled for nothing.”

Well, she couldn’t blame Sally for wanting it all, Noelle thought. On the pragmatic side, this was beginning to sound eerily like a pattern that led to a fatal end.

“Do you know who she took the policy out for?” Noelle asked next.

“I think she mentioned that it was some charity or foundation. Sally was into helping others whenever she could. I told her to spend the premium money on herself, that you only go around once in life and should enjoy yourself, but she was adamant. Said that someone told her it was a good thing she was doing.”

Noelle could feel the hairs on the back of her neck standing up. Was this “someone” the person who was responsible for her friend’s death? Possibly even for Henry’s death? She knew that sounded far-fetched and pretty much off-the-wall, but you never knew when something would pay off—and truth had a habit of being a lot stranger than fiction.

“Would you happen to know who this ‘someone’ was?” she asked.

“Haven’t a clue. I’d better go,” Lucy said abruptly. “School’s letting out soon. I’ll give you a call when and if I find the card,” she promised. The next moment, the line went dead.

As Noelle hung up her desk phone, she could almost feel Cavanaugh watching her. When she raised her head so that her eyes met his, he had one question for her.

“What did I miss?”

She tried to play dumb, hoping to get him to drop the subject. “What do you mean?”

He laughed, not taken in for a second. “I mean that I could see your detective antennae go up and quiver clear across the room and all the way down the hall. Now stop playing innocent and come clean. What did I miss?” he repeated.