Internal Affair (13 page)

“You really weren’t kidding about being able to hack into data banks.” The look he gave her wasn’t quite accusing, just mystified. “Where did you learn how to do this?”

She didn’t bother boring him with the fact that she had perfect recall. The kind that made people leery around you. “From a computer genius I knew in high school.” She thought of Ronnie Rindle and smiled to herself. “He liked to challenge himself. His aspirations ended when he was caught starting a major upset on Wall Street by moving stock around and having false data show up in accounts.” She still got cards from Ronnie at Christmas. “While he was behind bars, he found a new passion. Pottery. Keeps him out of trouble.”

Patrick didn’t quite follow her narrative. “And he passed on his mantel to you?”

Ronnie had tried to get her to join him, but she’d politely pointed out the very real danger of what he was doing. He’d been caught the very next day. “No, just gave me a few tips in gratitude.”

“Gratitude?”

“He was kind of lonely. I was the only one who called him a genius, not a geek. He was a little odd, but nice.”

Patrick had a feeling that she was the type of person who could find some good in almost anyone. They were as different as night and day. “For a felon.”

“Reformed felon. Very good sculptor, really.” Maggi looked back at the screen. “We’ve got Ramirez’s social security number, shouldn’t be too hard for us to get anything else. His wife said something about the money being in First Republic, didn’t she?”

“You figure the money’s just sitting in his bank account?”

“If your ex-partner got mixed up in this by accident, sure, why not? You make things too complicated, Cavanaugh. Only hardened criminals pay attention to safeguards and details. Besides, if Ramirez was accustomed to blowing money the way you said he was, he’d want it where he could get his hands on it easily enough.”

But even now, she was frowning. A scan of the bank’s records showed that the joint account held by Eduardo and Alicia Ramirez had less than a hundred and fifty dollars in it.

“This wouldn’t take care of a week’s groceries for a family of four,” Maggi commented. The money had to be somewhere else. But where?

“See if there’s another account.”

She’d already tried that. “Not with his name and social on it.” Maggi bit her lip, tying again.

“Try his wife.”

“That’s what I’m doing.” Glancing over her shoulder at him, she grinned. “You know what they say about great minds.”

“Yeah, they’re inside swelled heads.” No one was going to accuse him of thinking like this woman.

Maggi shook her head. “Definitely need to work on your holiday spirit.”

Patrick pointed at the flat panel. As far as he was concerned, Christmas was just another day, like all the rest. “Keep your mind on the screen,” he told her tersely.

Maggi typed, her fingers flying, keying in codes. Watching her, Patrick marveled at how fast she was going. When he typed, it took him more than a minute to find every letter of a word.

Sitting back, Maggi looked at the information she’d manage to pull up. She was far from satisfied. “Okay, Alicia Ramirez has a checking account with almost a thousand dollars in it.”

He thought of the way the woman had turned down his offer to help. “I guess it was just her pride, then,” he surmised.

Still typing, Maggi wasn’t ready to throw in the towel. “Maybe, maybe not.”

There was something in her voice that put him on the alert. “You find something?”

Yes!
“There’s a third account.” Satisfaction rippled through her as the information began to emerge. “Neither Ramirez nor his wife is the principle reportable social security number on it.”

He didn’t follow and hated feeling dumb. “Then how did you—?”

She turned the screen at an angle so he could see it, as well. “I tried to link either one of them up with another account. You know, like maybe in one of the kids’ names.”

“And?”

She tapped the top line of the screen. “You have any idea who Maria Cortez is?”

“No, why?”

“Well, she and Alicia have a joint account together and this Maria’s social security number is the one that gets reported to the IRS. And whoever she is, she must be one rich lady.”

Moving aside, Maggi indicated the bottom line of a series of entries, all made in a relatively short amount of time. And fairly recently.

The current balance in the account was close to two hundred thousand dollars.

Maggi shook her head as she looked at the figure. “If this does represent money that Ramirez was putting away in his wife’s name, all I have to say is that the raises in your department must be phenomenal.”

Chapter 13

S
he was having a hard time concentrating, what with Patrick behind her, moving back and forth like a brooding duck at a shooting gallery. Until now, she would have sworn that the man had been created without any nerves, but this clearly flew in the face of what she thought she knew about him.

It was obvious that what they were discovering about Ramirez bothered him. Why? Because she was getting close to something, or because this was about someone he’d allowed himself to think of as a friend? Did it disturb him because he thought his judgment was poor, or because it was Ramirez, a man he’d liked?

Whatever the answer, the relentless movement behind her began to grate on her nerves. When she hit a misstroke and had to backtrack, she bit off a curse. Trying to hold on to her temper, she glanced over her shoulder. “You know, I could do this a lot faster if you weren’t pacing around like that.”

Patrick stopped, not because she wanted him to but because he hadn’t realized he was pacing. His own display of unrest annoyed him. “I thought nothing distracted you.”

“So did I.”

Her answer was barely audible and was meant more for herself than for him. She was becoming increasingly attuned to Patrick and not in a useful way. Maggi was afraid that it would make her want to tip the scales and the second she did, she became worse than useless to Internal Affairs.

Patrick pointed a finger at the screen. “Just work.”

She caught the vein of distress beneath the royal command. “This is bothering you, isn’t it?”

He raked his fingers through his hair, sending it into further disarray. Watching him, she found herself wanting to do the same, but she kept her fingers flying over the keyboard. It was safer that way.

“Wouldn’t it bother you to find out you had a crooked partner?”

“Yes,” Maggi deliberately turned around to look at him, “it would.” She watched his face.

Nothing. Not a flinch, not a twitch, not an uncomfortable look. You’re either very, very good, Cavanaugh, or you’re innocent.

And she knew exactly which way she wanted to vote. Trouble was, you couldn’t vote on facts. They either existed or they didn’t. So far, there was nothing she could find to substantiate the rumors against him. But that didn’t mean they weren’t true, she reminded herself. Just that Cavanaugh was good at burying things.

It didn’t take Maggi much more digging to discover the identity of Alicia Ramirez’s partner on the joint account. Cortez turned out to be Alicia’s maiden name. Maria Cortez was her mother.

Playing on the side of the angels, she asked, “Did Ramirez ever mention or hint that his mother-in-law was well-off?”

Patrick shook his head as he stared at a flickering light on her tree. She needed a new bulb, he thought absently. “He didn’t say much about her except that she was a dragon lady and never forgave him for getting Alicia pregnant.”

The more she heard about his late partner, the more she liked him. But then, she’d learned a long time ago that nothing was ever black or white. Dirty cops could be nice guys, too. “Pretty open, wasn’t he?”

“That’s my whole point.” The frustration Patrick felt was barely contained beneath the surface. “If he’d gotten into something that wasn’t aboveboard, he would have told me.”

Still on the side of the angels, she pushed a little further. “Then maybe this is his mother-in-law’s money.”

He looked at the screen she’d pulled up, his expression darkening. “Not if she was making deposits up to six weeks ago.”

She looked at the string of deposits that were listed. They’d stopped abruptly the third week in October. “Why?”

“Because I attended her funeral nine months ago.”

Without saying a word, Maggi scrolled back to the beginning of the account. “This account was opened seven months ago.”

Damn it, Ed, what the hell were you up to? What were you thinking?
He looked at Maggi. It didn’t make sense. “So tell me, how does a dead woman open a bank account?”

That she could answer. “It’s very simple, really. Alicia goes in, saying she wants a joint account, but that her mother is too ill to come in and sign the papers. Wanting their business, the bank is more than happy to be accommodating. They give her a signature card to take home to mom, Alicia brings it back signed and voilà, a new account is opened, bearing mom’s name.” She stopped. He had that strange look in his eyes, the one that said he was examining her. “What?”

“How would you know that?” Patrick asked.

“I worked Fraud for a while in ’Frisco. You pick things up.” She frowned as she viewed the screen again. There was no doubt about it—this did not look good. Wanting to see what he would do next, she placed the ball back in his court. “Now what?”

Patrick shoved his hands into his jeans. “Now I try to figure out what to do with this.” He hated the kind of thoughts he was having. Ramirez had been one of the few people outside his family he’d trusted. Hell, he’d trusted the man more than he’d trusted his own father. What the hell did that say about his ability to read people? He slanted a glance at Maggi. “Those deposits wouldn’t happen to be traceable, would they?”

Maggi shook her head. “Cash, every time.” And then she paused, looking closer. “Interesting.”

“What is?” Patrick leaned more closely over her, his hand on her shoulder as he looked at the screen.

She felt waves of warmth working their way through her, coming out of the blue. Trying to seduce her.
Not the time, Mag, not the time,
she warned herself. The waves kept coming.

Shifting, she got him to remove his hand. “The handwriting on the deposit slips doesn’t seem to match Alicia’s.” She pointed out the copies, then, hitting a button, she enlarged the portion that had caught her attention. “Hers is neat, precise.” She shifted back to the deposit slips. “This is somebody dipping a chicken’s foot in ink and making passes on a piece of paper. It actually makes my dad’s handwriting look good.”

Patrick’s expression was grim as he looked at the samples she pointed out. “That’s the way Ramirez used to write.”

Ramirez made the deposits, probably to keep his wife innocent of what was going on. Maggi sincerely doubted the woman knew what her husband was really up to, other than trying to avoid reporting interest on an account.

Keeping his wife in the dark was one thing. Keeping his partner there was another matter. She was having a difficult time believing that Cavanaugh had no inkling of what Ramirez had been up to. After all, it wasn’t as if Cavanaugh was mentally challenged or walked around, oblivious to things.

Maggi decided to go fishing. “You said he liked to talk. He ever approach you about this, make any vague references to feel you out?”

Patrick looked at her sharply. “No, he knew better than that.”

She was pushing him, she thought, and he looked like he was on the edge. Maggi shoved with both hands. “You mean that he knew you were a straight shooter, right?”

He came close to telling her what she could do with her sarcastic tone, but stopped himself in time. He wasn’t angry at her. He was angry at Ramirez for betraying him and for being stupid.

“I’m not pure as the driven snow,” he informed her tersely. “I’ve got my share of black marks, but you don’t get mixed up in something like that. One way or another, they’ll get you.”

Her eyes never left his face as she typed in more code. “You talking about the good guys or the bad?”

“Both.” Bullets came from both directions. The way he saw it, if the good guys didn’t catch you, the bad guys killed you. “Somebody gets greedy, somebody gets nervous.” Cursing roundly, he moved away, needing space. Feeling frustrated. “Damn it, why didn’t I see it?”

His anguish seemed genuine. So genuine she wanted to comfort him but knew that was both stupid and counterproductive. She needed him like this. If he was emotionally strung out, he was more likely to slip up.
If
there was anything to slip up about.

“Maybe because you’re not clairvoyant.”

He didn’t need or want her sympathy. It changed nothing. Ramirez was dead not because he hadn’t gone first into that building but because he hadn’t been smart enough to pick up on things. He’d let the man down.

“I was his partner, the guy who was stuck with him for eight, ten, twelve hours a day. I should have felt it. He’d gotten quieter in the end.” Patrick blew out a breath. Why hadn’t Ramirez said anything? Why? “I just thought he and Alicia were having problems.”

“I thought you said he always talked. Doesn’t that mean he would have said something to you about it if he was having problems with his wife?”

A broad shoulder rose and fell. “Well, sometimes Ramirez kept a little something to himself. Chewed on it until he was ready to share.” Now that he thought about it, things started to fall into place. Ramirez
had
looked as if he wanted to talk just before they’d gone on the raid, but then the man had waved it away. At the time, he hadn’t thought anything of it. Maybe Ramirez had wanted to make a clean breast of his involvement. “He’d been preoccupied that last week.”

“Maybe debating whether or not to get out.”

And the wrong people had found out, Patrick thought, and decided to have him eliminated. He clenched his fists in his pockets. “Maybe.”

She stopped pretending to type and turned to give him her full attention. “Any ideas on what he might have been mixed up in and who else might be involved?”

He frowned as he eyed her. “Right now, where I stand, everybody’s a suspect.” His meaning was clear.

The look in his eyes made her squirm inside, but she kept a mild expression on her face as she raised her hands in protest. “Hey, I’m the new kid on the block. I’m clean.”

“This is a virus. It could have spread out in any direction.” But he really didn’t believe she was mixed up in something. She was the one doing the probing. If anything, he held that against her, but nothing else.

Patrick’s words triggered a thought. Her father popped into her head. The accidental shooting had gotten her father off the force. Had that been on purpose? Had her father been about to stumble onto something and been blocked just in time?

“The trouble with conspiracy theories,” she said aloud, “is that they start making you paranoid, get you looking over your shoulder all the time.”

He thought of the way he’d been fooled. It wasn’t an image of himself he relished. “Maybe that’s not such a bad thing.”

She laughed shortly, thinking more of her line of work than anything he was facing. “Hell of a way to live.”

“Key word here is ‘live’ and to keep on living.” The image of his partner on the ground, already having taken his last breath, leaving behind a wife and three small children, ran through his head. “Maybe Ramirez should have been a little paranoid.”

“Maybe he was. Maybe he tried to get out and that’s when they had him shot.”

She was on to something, he thought. And he needed to act on it. “I think I’ll start by talking to Dugan.”

“The guy who shot him?”

Mentally he was already out of the apartment and on his way. “Yeah, he’s on disability.”

Maggi was on her feet. The man definitely didn’t know how to segue into anything. “Now? You’re going to see him now?”

“Now’s as good a time as any.”

If he was going to question the man, she wanted to be there. This could all wind up being part of the same puzzle. She began to entertain the idea that maybe someone was throwing dirt on Cavanaugh to avoid any undue scrutiny.

“Give me a second to shut down my computer and unplug the tree.”

Instinct told him to keep walking. He stopped anyway. “Why?”

“Because I’m going with you.”

“He was my partner.” He didn’t want her tagging along. It was bad enough he had to put up with it during work hours.

She looked at him before answering, trying to figure out just what was going on in his head. “Yes, and you’re mine.”

Arguing with her would take up too much time. And he had a feeling that if he opted to walk out, she would be right there on his tail. He might as well keep her in his sights.

Sighing, Patrick gestured at the Christmas tree. “All right, go ahead, unplug it.”

To his surprise, she began to crawl under the tree. He couldn’t help watching as she snaked her way underneath, her small, tight posterior moving just enough to dry his mouth. He was only vaguely aware when the tree went dark after she hit the switch at the end of the abbreviated extension cord.

“You know, it must be five degrees hotter around this tree. Are you single-handedly trying to fund the energy company?”

Maggi wiggled back out from beneath the tree and rose to her feet. She’d managed to emerge a little closer to him than she’d anticipated. But to take a step back would have shown him that his proximity affected her. She remained where she was, at least for a beat.

“Hey, it’s only one month out of the year. And it makes me happy.”

The scent of something sweet and heady swirled around him. Cologne? Shampoo? Hadn’t the woman ever heard of using scent-free products?

“I didn’t think you needed anything to ‘make’ you happy,” he said gruffly. “I thought you came that way.”

“Never hurts to have a little reinforcement.”

Her smile unfurled inside him like a cat stretching awake before a fireplace. “Whatever you say.” If he didn’t back off now, he knew he was done for. “Let’s get going.”

“Right.”

Thank God he had backed away, or she would have had to, Maggi thought. She was going to have to remember to leave space between them. Lots and lots of space. Otherwise, the temptation to have no space at all would overwhelm her.

Another time and place, this would have been different, and she might have acted on what she was feeling, but here it wasn’t going to work. Anything that might have been between them was doomed before she ever laid eyes on the brooding man. Allowing herself to go further down that road was only asking for trouble.

Why did trouble have to look so damn enticing?

Josh Dugan lived in a small wooden framed house that had once belonged to his parents and looked it. Like an aging former athlete, the two-story building sagged in a number of places and there were shingles missing from its roof.