Marie Ferrarella - Cavanaugh On Call

“Another week or so,” Duncan answered. A bemused smile played on his lips. “But you know that old adage about a watched pot not boiling—”

Hearing that, Scottie couldn’t help commenting, “I’m sure your wife must love being compared to a pot.”

“Actually,” Duncan told her, “she was the one who came up with that line when she insisted I go about my business normally. As if I could.” Duncan laughed with a shake of his head. “Lucy’s with her when I can’t be home,” he told his brother in case the latter thought he was just abandoning his wife.

“‘Lucy’?” Scottie repeated.

“Noelle’s grandmother,” Duncan told her. “She doesn’t like being called ‘grandma.’ Likes ‘great-grandma’ even less,” he added with a laugh.

“Still, don’t you want to be sober for your firstborn?” Bryce asked.

“I am sober, bro. So sober that it’s almost painful. This is a light ale,” he told them, holding his bottle aloft. “And I’ve only had one, which is my limit these days. I’m here more for the company than the libation,” Duncan confided. “Like I said, Noelle doesn’t like having me hovering around her, being nervous.”

“You, nervous?” Bryce echoed incredulously. Growing up, Duncan had always been the one who leaped first then looked, practically giving their late mother a heart attack more than once. “I thought you were the brother with nerves of steel.”

“His nerves might be made of steel, but he’s got a heart made out of pure mush,” Moira Cavanaugh, their sister, chimed in as she joined their small circle. “Hi, I’m Moira. I have the sad fortune of being their sister,” she told Scottie, indicating both men at the table.

Duncan was about to defend his good name when suddenly the first few bars of a song that almost everyone was familiar with rang out. It was a marching song written by John Philip Sousa. Both Bryce and Moira looked right at Duncan who, for the first time in his life, turned rather pale.

“It’s Lucy,” he cried before he even took out his cell. “I had Valri program that ringtone for Noelle’s grandmother so I’d know it was her calling.”

“Maybe she’s just checking in to see when you’re coming home,” Moira suggested, even though it appeared to Scottie that she was beginning to get excited, as well.

“What are the odds?” Duncan asked. Yanking the phone out of his pocket, he almost dropped it right in front of Scottie before he managed to get a better grip on it and then swipe it open. “Hello? Is it time?” he asked, his voice almost breathless. “Oh. Okay.” His shoulders sagged with relief as he told the caller, “I’ll pick it up on my way home. Be there in twenty minutes.”

Terminating the call, Duncan saw that all eyes around the small table and beyond were on him.

“Noelle wants me to pick up some mint-chip ice cream on my way home.”

Like the others, Bryce had thought it was “time.” The false alarm had him laughing. “Better get going then, bro. And give my love to Noelle.”

“Isn’t that how this whole thing got started?” Moira quipped innocently.

Duncan waved a silencing hand at her. He left his half-consumed bottle of ale on the table, nodding at Scottie as he said, “Nice to see you finally out after hours.” And with that, he made his way to the front entrance.

“I sure hope she gives birth soon,” Moira commented to Bryce and his new partner as she started walking away, as well. “Right now, Duncan’s moving around like a man in a trance.”

“As opposed to the way he’ll be moving around after the baby’s here and he hasn’t had a decent night’s sleep in a week.”

Scottie turned in her chair to see that the comment had come from Sean Cavanaugh, the head of the Crime Scene Investigation’s day shift and part of the older generation of Cavanaughs working in the precinct.

Obviously having overheard their conversation, Sean smiled warmly at the young woman at the table with his nephew.

“Poor guy doesn’t know that these are what he’ll look back on as ‘the good old days’ for the first couple of years as he struggles to get his ‘daddy legs,’” Sean said with a fond laugh.

“‘Daddy legs’?” Scottie repeated, looking toward the older man for an explanation.

“They’re just like sea legs except they’re a lot trickier to maneuver with,” Sean recalled, laughing softly as he remembered several instances. “After having seven kids, I ought to know.”

“I thought it was the mother who stayed up all night with the kids,” Bryce commented.

His uncle laughed, patting him on his cheek. “So young, so much to learn,” he commented with amusement. And then he looked at Scottie again, as if taking a close look at her this time. “You’re Bryce’s new partner, aren’t you?”

She and Sean Cavanaugh had never crossed paths. That he even knew who she was really surprised her. “Yes, but how did you—?”

The corners of Sean’s mouth curved, his expression almost bordering on the mysterious.

“There are no secrets in the police department, Detective Scott. And even less in the Cavanaugh world.” His green eyes took measure of her quickly and he clearly liked what he saw. “First time here at Malone’s?” he asked.

Was there a sign taped on her back that said tourist or something along those lines? Or was it that she just looked so out of place? She had to ask the man, “Now, how would you know that?”

“I head the CSI unit, Scottie. It’s my job to know everything,” he told her mildly. Turning toward the bartender, he signaled for the man’s attention. When he got it, Sean indicated the two people sitting at the table behind him. “The next round’s on me,” he told the bartender.

Scottie protested immediately. “No, I just stopped in for the one.”

“You don’t have to drink it,” Sean told her good-naturedly. “Just hold on to the bottle. ‘Getting a drink at Malone’s’ is, for the most part, just an excuse to linger on the premises and mingle with your brothers and sisters in blue.” His smile, a genial, comforting expression, widened as he added, “In my family’s case, that’s truer than you’d expect. Be seeing you around,” he said to both Bryce and Scottie just before he walked away and left the establishment.

“Two of the same, right?” the bartender asked, depositing two more bottles at the table that she was sharing with her partner.

“I really never drink this much,” Scottie told the man sitting opposite her.

“Like Uncle Sean said,” Bryce reminded her, “you don’t have to drink. It’s just an excuse to linger.”

She wanted him to get something straight right off the bat. “If I wanted to linger, I wouldn’t need an excuse,” Scottie told him.

His mouth quirked just a little. “The key word here being wanted,” Bryce guessed. It was obvious that she wanted to leave. He sat back. He would have wanted her to stay a bit longer, but he wasn’t about to tie her to her chair. “Well, you lived up to your bargain, so you’re free to go.” But before she left, in the spirit of honesty, he couldn’t help telling her, “I was just hoping that once you came, you’d want to stay a bit.”

Scottie had been feeling restless and antsy ever since she’d come out of the homeless shelter empty-handed. “I don’t like wasting time.”

Bryce gestured around to not just include their table but the surrounding people, as well. “This isn’t wasting time.”

She pinned him with a look. Everyone was sitting around, exchanging bits and pieces of what had once been conversation. They lived in a world of abbreviations and sound bites.

“All right, then tell me. What is it?” she asked.

“It’s recharging your batteries, maybe talking things out with other law-enforcement agents who might have a clearer perspective than you do. It’s clearing your head so that you can go home without keeping everything bottled up inside and scaring the person who means the most to you. At its simplest level,” Bryce added, “it’s networking.”