Cavanaugh or Death (10 page)

“First things first, Moi,” she told herself. “You've got to find your way out of this maze of tombstones and dead people.”

The only question that remained, she thought as she looked around what appeared to be an endless sea of headstones, was how.

Chapter 9

I
n the end, because time was important, Moira was forced to call her youngest sister, Valri, for help.

In addition to being a virtual wizard when it came to computers and getting them to cough up embedded data as well as being one of the Aurora police force's most recently minted detectives, Valri Cavanaugh was the living, breathing embodiment of a GPS system. Moira firmly believed that her little sister could undoubtedly guide a small fleet of fog-enshrouded crafts safely to shore with one hand tied behind her back.

And Valri, unlike their brothers, would not hold Moira's lack of a sense of direction against her or tease her incessantly about it for the next three decades—if not longer.

The hard part was getting Valri's attention. Her sister had a tendency to become completely immersed in her work to the exclusion of everything else.

It took ten minutes for Valri to finally respond to her text.

Once she did, Moira asked her to ping her cell phone, lock in on it and then give her directions on how to get to the cemetery's east entrance. She'd parked her car there.

Five minutes later, Moira was behind the wheel of her vehicle, heading back to the precinct.

Relieved to finally be out of the cemetery—she was beginning to feel like a hapless rat in a maze—Moira braced herself for her next challenge. She began to mentally gear herself up for a second go-round with her less-than-approachable lieutenant, rehearsing in her mind what she would say to him.

* * *

She never got a chance to use any of the arguments she'd prepared. The moment she broached the subject to Carver, he shut her down.

“I thought you Cavanaughs were supposed to be smart,” Carver said sarcastically. “What part of ‘no' don't you understand?”

“But, sir, it can't be a coincidence that I found a second grave that's been tampered with.”

The lieutenant glared at her. “I'm not authorizing any more time for this wild-goose chase just because the guy who's supposed to be taking care of the graves there is falling down on the job.”

Telling Carver that it wasn't that simple a matter wouldn't carry any weight with the man. She phrased her appeal differently. “But if I could have just a little more time—” she began.

“I said no and I mean no. Now get back to the case I assigned you—unless you suddenly find yourself needing a leave of absence without pay,” he snarled.

He was getting to her, but Moira held on to her temper. She wasn't about to give up easily. “But, Lieutenant, I have pictures—”

Gripping the armrests, Carver straightened in his chair, looking some two inches taller. “I don't care if you have a whole freakin' two-hour movie with a cast of thousands, the answer's still no.”

She gave it one last try. “Don't you think that it's kind of odd that both the first grave and the second grave had coffins in them that were buried twenty years ago?” she asked doggedly. She refused to believe the man didn't make the connection.

The expression on Carver's face bordered on barely suppressed fury.

“I think a lot of things are odd, Cavanaugh—like bacon-flavored potato chips—but I'm not about to authorize a costly investigation into that, either. As for both those coffins you're so fascinated with being buried twenty years ago...in case it escaped your notice, people
did
die twenty years ago. Something had to be done with those bodies. Burying them seemed like a logical solution,” he concluded sarcastically. His voice grew hard as he asked, “How are you coming along with the last B and E I gave you?”

Moira suppressed an impatient sigh. “I'm still working it.”

“Work harder. And stop hanging around cemeteries,” he all but snarled, waving her out of his office. “Close the door behind you,” he snapped just before he went back to ignoring her.

Closing the door, Moira counted to ten. She'd entered the fray aware that it might not go the way she'd hoped no matter what.

But that didn't help to abate her frustration.

* * *

Moira gave the B and E her best shot.

Three hours after reviewing the information she'd gathered regarding the ancient TV heist and canvasing the neighborhood where the burglary had taken place, she still had no answers. She decided to extend her canvas to include local pawnshops.

That was when she discovered that Aurora
had
no pawnshops, local or otherwise. The two pawnshops closest to the burglary were both located in Rosewood, which was a couple of cities over from Aurora.

The first pawnshop she went to turned out to be a dead end since the Golden Pawn Shop dealt strictly with jewelry. However, the Pre-Owned Palace Pawn Shop turned out to be lucky for her. Looking into the store through the window, Moira could make out what appeared to be the stolen antiquated television set sitting on a counter in the back of the shop.

“One of a kind,” the pawnbroker behind the counter enthused when she walked in and inquired about it. The man patted the top of the set with the kind of affection a used-car salesman displayed for the merchandise he was attempting to push. “They just don't make 'em like these anymore. As you can see, it's a rare little gem.” He gave the set a long once-over before saying, “I can let you have it for...say, a hundred bucks.”

She doubted the broker had paid the burglar more than twenty-five dollars, if that much, for the stolen merchandise.

“Just when did you come into possession of this ‘one of a kind' set?” she asked.

He pretended to think. “As a matter of fact, just recently. Can't promise that it'll still be here when you come back if you're thinking of sleeping on it,” he told her, trying to seal the deal.

Moira glanced up at the camera mounted on the wall directly above the counter. “Does that camera work?” she asked, nodding toward it.

“Everything here works,” he told her with just a touch of indignation.

At that point, Moira quietly took out her badge and identification, showing both to the broker.

“Aw, why d'you want to go and spoil my day, Detective?” the pawnbroker lamented.

“Well, you just might have made mine,” she told him, putting her badge and ID away. “Do you have the name of the person who sold you this ‘rare gem'?”

Looking disgruntled, the pawnbroker pulled up his purchase log on the laptop next to his register. He skimmed it then located the purchase receipt. “Yeah. Andrew Jackson.”

“Original,” she murmured. But then, the world had more stupid criminals than most people knew, she thought, happy that she could finally stop spinning her wheels over this penny-ante theft and get back to the mystery that was eating away at her. “Now, if I could see the video feed you have from the date of the sale.”

The man frowned. “Sure.” With a resigned sigh, the broker led the way to his tiny back office. “Any way I can get to keep the television?” he asked her hopefully.

Moira took out a piece of paper from her wallet and held it up for him to see. “I've got the stolen item's serial number. What do you think?”

The broker sighed deeply as he indicated a box of surveillance DVDs from the previous week. “I think I'd better start asking for some photo ID.”

Moira spared the man an approving smile. “Good decision.”

Once she located the section she was looking for, Moira forwarded the pertinent video clip to Valri with a text requesting that the man in the surveillance tape be run through the lab's facial recognition software. If she got lucky, she might get the thief's real name and, hopefully, his address. Once she had that, winding up the case would be easy and she could move on.

And she knew just where she wanted to move to.

* * *

Moira didn't report back to Carver or her squad room when she got back to the precinct.

Instead she did something she normally didn't approve of and actually felt decidedly uncomfortable about doing.

She went over the lieutenant's head.

Moira registered her discomfort when she presented her case to the Chief of Detectives half an hour after Valri had replied to her text.

Brian Cavanaugh listened to his grandniece patiently, looking with interest when she showed him the photographs she'd taken of both gravesites.

When she was finished making her case, she put away her cell and repeated what she'd said when she'd first entered his office and asked to speak with him.

“Like I said, Chief, I don't believe in going over my superior's head, but—”

Brian smiled understandingly at her. “But you have this gut feeling that's telling you something's wrong,” he interjected.

Moira flushed. “I know it must sound silly to you—” she began, trying not to trip over her own tongue or sound incoherent.

“No, actually, it doesn't,” Brian contradicted. “I'm a great believer in gut feelings, Detective. Most of the family is.” He felt he was telling her what she already knew—but there was still something she
might
not know, he reasoned. “You're a latecomer to all this, so I don't know if you're familiar with the former police chief's story—”

Moira knew that he was referring to his older brother, Andrew Cavanaugh. “I am,” she quickly responded.

“So you know that even when everything pointed to another scenario, he believed that his missing wife was actually still alive and he acted accordingly. Every chance he got, he reviewed all the evidence he could find and kept after it—with very good results eventually. If he hadn't had that ‘gut feeling' and respected it, Rose might have never gotten her memory back, might never have known who she really was, and her children would have gone on believing that their mother was dead. I think
all
the Cavanaughs became true believers when it came to gut feelings after that.”

The smile he gave her spoke volumes.

“So then I'm free to go back to the cemetery and investigate?” she nonetheless asked, watching the chief's face.

He nodded, adding, “You'll still need another court order.”

“Not a problem,” she assured him quickly.

Brian nodded. He hadn't expected that to be a stumbling block for the young detective. She struck him as being very capable, not to mention resourceful.

“And for the duration of this case,” he went on, “whatever path it might take, I'd like you to continue working with Detective Gilroy.”

This time Moira offered him a less than enthusiastic smile. She'd given him all the facts, including how she'd teamed up with the other detective, but she had done it to give him a full picture of everything that had transpired until now. She hadn't foreseen this turn of events.

“
That
might be a problem,” she told him.

Her response surprised him. “You'd rather not work with Detective Gilroy?” She hadn't indicated during her narrative that there was any friction between them.

“Oh, I have no problem working with him,” she told the chief quickly, “but I think he has a problem working with me.”

Intrigued, Brian asked, “How so?”

For a moment she wasn't sure just how much she could tell the chief without sounding as if she was telling tales out of school. She decided to tread lightly.

“Gilroy doesn't want to work with any partner—something about losing two of them in three years,” she explained vaguely. At that point, she stopped, thinking that if the Chief of Ds needed anything further on the subject, he would talk to Gilroy directly. After all, working together—or
not
working together—was Gilroy's problem, not hers.

Brian steepled his fingers thoughtfully. “I like accommodating my people whenever possible. However, I also believe in using the best people for the job and, in this case, since Detective Gilroy was in on it at the very beginning, same as you, I think teaming the two of you up again is in everyone's best interest.”

Moira pressed her lips together for a moment as she shook her head. “I think Gilroy might have a different opinion about that.”

“Don't worry about Gilroy,” the chief counseled. “I'll speak to him—and to Lieutenant Carver,” he added in case she was concerned about what to say to her superior. “You just get back on the case and see if you can find out what's so attractive about twenty-year-old gravesites that makes people want to dig them up—or whatever it is that
is
going on with those graves.”

Taking the meeting to be over, Moira rose to her feet. “Thank you, sir,” she said, impetuously shaking the man's hand.

The chief shook her hand warmly before releasing it again. “Don't thank me, Detective, just follow your gut—and get those answers,” he instructed with a smile.

Sitting again, Brian reached for his phone as she let herself out.

Walking out, Moira felt her cell phone vibrate in her pocket.

When she took it out and looked at the screen, she suppressed a triumphant shout. Valri had forwarded the driver's license of one Robert Anthony Ullman.

The face on the license was a complete match for the face on the pawn shop surveillance tape.

“No MENSA Scholar of the Year award for you,” she murmured, looking at the man's face.

Texting her thanks and a short
I owe you
to her sister, she felt a little better about what was transpiring.

She knew she wasn't exactly going to be Carver's favorite person from here on in—not that she'd been in the running for that particular honor in the first place—but at least she'd solved the case he'd given her and, more importantly, an eighty-year-old, retired singing waiter would be reunited with his television set, she thought with a satisfied smile.

* * *

“What the hell's going on?”

The question—and the man—ambushed Moira as she left her squad room almost an hour later.