Marie Ferrarella - Cavanaugh Or Death

He eyed her impatiently. “Let me guess, Dracula was after them.”

She hadn’t wanted to mention this until she’d gotten Carver to agree to let her investigate the tampered-with gravesite. “No, as a matter of fact, there was some blond guy running after them—”

“Ah, the plot thickens,” Carver mocked. “Does this ‘blond guy’ have a name?”

“I’m sure he does, sir, but he ran by too fast for me to ask him,” she said, now impatiently trying to get to her point.

“Too bad, this sounded like it might have gotten interesting.” Carver looked wistfully at the second cruller but apparently decided to wait until he was alone again before having it. “Is there a point to this haunting little tale, Cavanaugh?”

“I went into the cemetery and saw that one of the headstones had been disturbed. I think—as strange as it might sound—that they were trying to rob a grave.”

Carver stared at her as if she’d lost her mind. Certainly she’d lost his interest, mild as it had been to begin with. “And you want to do what about that?”

Moira squared her shoulders defensively a little bit as she said, “I’d like permission to investigate the site so I can see if they were trying to dig something up.”

Carver’s frown deepened. To his way of thinking, he had likely indulged the detective way too long. It was obvious that he wanted her out of his office and out of his thinning hair. “In case it has escaped your attention, Cavanaugh, this is the robbery division.”

“I know that, sir,” Moira answered evenly, painfully aware that shouting at the man would get her nowhere except reprimanded—if not suspended. “Grave robbing would fall under that heading.”

“Grave robbing,” he repeated, clearly stunned.

This wasn’t going well but Carver, despite all his foibles, was, at bottom, a decent detective, or had been before he’d assumed command of Robbery. That was the part of him she was attempting to reach.

“Yes, sir.”

His eyes narrowed as he pinned her in place. “Who complained?”

Moira wasn’t sure what he was getting at. “Excuse me, sir?”

“Who complained?” he repeated evenly before spelling it out for her. “In order to go out and investigate this so-called ‘headstone disturbance’ we need to have someone file a complaint.”

The lieutenant was crossing his t’s and dotting his i’s. He only did that when it served his purpose—or he didn’t want to okay something. She knew for a fact the man bent rules when he wanted to.

Playing along, she said, “Okay, I’ll file.”

Carver sighed dramatically. “Didn’t anyone in that family of yours teach you anything, Cavanaugh? You can’t be the one to file a complaint. In this case, as you’ve laid it out, you’re a jogger, not an interested party.”

“But I’m very interested,” she persisted, picking up on the word he’d used. “What if there’s a cult of grave robbers out there?”

“In Aurora?” he mocked. Growing just the slightest bit serious, Carver added, “Then we would have heard about it.”

“Maybe they’re just getting started,” Moira countered.

Carver eyed her in moody silence for several seconds, weighing options. “You’re not going to drop this, are you?”

Her first reaction was to say no but she squelched it. Knowing better than to go up against the lieutenant outright, Moira tried to approach the subject in a calm, logical manner. “I really think there’s something to this, Lieutenant.”

“Of course you do.” Carver swallowed the curse that rose to his lips. He paused for a long moment, as if weighing the pros and cons of her request. “Okay. I’m a reasonable man,” he told her.

The jury’s still out on that, Moira couldn’t help thinking.

“Go and investigate your heart out—just you, not your partner,” he clarified, adding, “Warner’s got real police work to do.”

Moira had always maintained that she could get along with anyone, even the devil, but there was something about Detective Alfred Warner that made her wish she had another partner instead of the older, by-the-book detective.

Maybe it was because the man reminded her too much of Carver.

Whatever the reason, she was more than happy to investigate whatever was going on at the cemetery on her own. She wondered if the man realized that.

“Yes, sir,” she replied.

“Talk to the cemetery caretaker,” Carver suggested. “Find out if he knows anything or has noticed anything funny going on. See if this has happened before. But if you can’t find anything—and I’m talking something tangible here—in forty-eight hours, that’s it. I don’t want to hear any more about it. Forty-eight hours, that’s your window, Cavanaugh. Understood?”

“Understood, sir,” she quickly responded. “And thank you, sir.”

It was obvious from the expression on his face that he was far from happy about this, but he didn’t want to just arbitrarily ignore what she’d brought him just in case there was something to it.

“Yeah, yeah.” Carver waved her away. “Just get out of my office. And close the door behind you,” he added sharply.

“I always do, sir,” she responded with a smile as she gripped the doorknob.

She thought she heard Carver mutter something caustic under his breath as she left, but she knew better than to ask what. Pretending she hadn’t heard his voice, she closed the door behind her.

As she paused by her desk to make a notation on her computer, she glanced up to see that her partner had just walked in and was approaching his desk.

The next moment he was removing his jacket and draping the twenty-year-old article of clothing over the back of his chair.

Glancing over toward her, he asked suspiciously, “Who brightened your day?”

She was not about to waste any time going into specifics. Warner had a habit of taking everything apart and down to the tiniest component. Opting for brevity, Moira simply said, “The lieutenant just gave me a case to look into.”

Warner dropped into his chair. The fifteen pounds he had gained on the job in the past year caused the chair to creak loudly in protest.

“Hell, I’ve already got too much to do,” he complained.

“This is just a solo case, Warner,” she told him cheerfully. “Nothing for you to worry about.”

Which, once the words were out, she knew was exactly what Warner was about to do since she wasn’t giving him any details. The detective was not keen on exerting more effort than he possibly had to, but neither did he like being purposely excluded from anything.

Moira admitted to herself that it was small of her to bait him this way, but she had heard the man say several nasty things not just about her but about others in her family. It had been all she could do to hold her tongue when she did.

Making the man feel as if he was missing out on something was, in her estimation, merely a small payback.

“See you later,” she told him cheerfully as she walked away, heading toward the doorway.

“Wait, what’s this case about?” Warner called after her.

Moira pretended she didn’t hear the question and just kept walking.

Her smile widened. Maybe she was being petty, but as far as she was concerned, Warner deserved it. She couldn’t ask for another partner—there had to be a specific reason for the request and saying that the man annoyed her just wouldn’t fly with the lieutenant—so she had to satisfy herself with this.

Besides, according to her father, this was the kind of thing that built character. Had she actually said anything to her father, he would have advised her to stick it out with Warner.

“I’m going to have one hell of a character by the time that man retires,” she mumbled to herself as she pressed for the elevator. “If I survive,” she added in an even softer whisper.