Cavanaugh or Death (12 page)

She nearly laughed at the idea that she could be afraid of him.

“There's a reason for that,” she returned. “I'm not. I grew up with four brothers. There's very little I'm afraid of. And you, Gilroy, are not one of them.” Which was a lie. There was something about him that she was afraid of, but it had nothing to do with the standard definition of fear. He made her nervous—and he made her want things that would get in the way of any working relationship they might have.

Assuming a confident air was getting harder and harder for her.

His expression remained unreadable. “I'll keep that in mind,” he told her.

Looking around the small office, Davis came to the conclusion that housekeeping was not this Mr. Montgomery's first priority. Granted, everything appeared to be neatly in place, but a very visible layer of dust on the desk, shelves and furnishings had more than settled in on the area.

Davis ran two fingertips across the top of the computer. He left behind a trail running across the surface.

Rubbing his fingers against his thumb to diminish the feel of grit, Davis casually asked her, “What do you really think is going on here?”

Ordinarily she thought nothing of tossing around theories, but this time she didn't want to get pinned down. Not by him. Not if she turned out to be wrong. She wanted to bring her A game when it came Gilroy.

“Too soon to speculate,” she replied. “About the only thing I can say with relative certainty is that nobody's making off with body parts in order to resell them on the black market.”

“Are you saying that because the body was intact in that coffin we opened earlier this week?” he asked.

“Well, that does add weight to the supposition,” Moira allowed, glancing at her watch. She was timing Montgomery. “But the main reason is that both of the coffins were buried twenty years ago. Twenty-year-old body parts are definitely
not
in demand for anything but possibly building your own specimen of a zombie or whatever the popular undead thing is being called these days,” she said, suppressing a shiver.

Even so, Davis took note of the way she stiffened her shoulders.

“Not a fan of zombies I take it?” he asked and she could have sworn she saw more than a glimmer of an amused smile on his lips.

Once it was out on the table, she saw no reason to deny it. She'd always been taught to own her fears and to get in front of them.

“In no manner, shape or form,” she assured him, recalling, “I even hated ghost stories as a kid.”

“And now?” he asked with obvious interest.

Maybe the man was human, after all, she thought. At least he was initiating a conversation.

“Now I just find them a waste of time. The living have got too many quirks and hang-ups, I don't need to deal with the notion of walking dead people.”

“Is that why you're not in Homicide?” he asked casually.

“That,” she admitted, adding, “and I like foiling bad guys.”

Just then the door opened and a tall, older man with hair that was graying at the temples and a small, trim moustache he may or may not have dyed on a regular basis, walked in.

His vivid blue eyes swept over the people in his office, slowly taking measure of them, one at a time.

“I'm Robert Montgomery,” he announced rather needlessly.

Chapter 11

M
oira was the first to reach the man, putting her hand out to greet him. “Thank you for coming in on such short notice, Mr. Montgomery.”

“Well, it is my office,” the man pointed out. His eyes swept over her and it was obvious that Montgomery was scrutinizing her. “But you did just catch me in time. If you'd called ten minutes later, you would have missed me. I was on my way out.”

Moira guessed that she was being put on notice. He wanted this kept short.
Answer our questions the right way and it will be
, she promised silently.

Out loud she said, “I'm sorry we're taking you away from whatever you had planned for the afternoon, Mr. Montgomery, but this'll only take a few minutes.”

“Robert, please,” the dapper man said to Moira, completely ignoring the fact that there were two detectives in his office not just one. “And it was just a golf game. Coming down here just postpones the inevitable.”

Moira wasn't sure if she understood what he was attempting to infer.

“The inevitable?” she asked.

“My losing to my brother-in-law,” Montgomery said matter-of-factly. “He and I have been playing together for over twenty-two years and I think I can count the number of times I've won on the fingers of one hand.”

“If that's the case, why would you go on playing?” Davis asked.

If it were him, he would have given the game up a long time ago—not that golf held any sort of fascination for him anyway. The game moved much too slowly for his taste. There had to be better things to do with one's time than attempting to hit a small white ball farther than the person playing with you.

“Fresh air, exercise, they say it's good for me,” Montgomery answered flippantly. “And my brother-in-law pays for drinks at the end of each game. Winning puts him in a good mood,” he confided to Moira with a self-satisfied wink.

“We were wondering if you could give us the name of whoever made the funeral arrangements and burial request for one of your older ‘occupants,'” Moira said, using the term for lack of a better one.

Montgomery sat at his desk, but rather than turn on his computer he looked at Moira and said, “Might I ask why?”

“We'd like to contact them if possible. We—” Moira glanced toward the other detective, expecting Gilroy to contradict her inclusion of him in this particular part of the narrative. When he didn't, she continued. “We discovered that this person's grave has been disturbed and we'd like to see if we can find out why.”

Montgomery's brow furrowed. “I thought that was already taken care of.”

She'd assumed that since the man hadn't been around previously, he hadn't been filled in about the first grave. That was a detail she'd intended to fill in later, once they investigated the second grave.

“Then you know,” she concluded.

Montgomery allowed just a hint of a smug look to infiltrate his expression—as well as his tone. “I might play golf more than the average sane man, but not much escapes me when it comes to what goes on here at St. Joseph's.” He gave a cursory glance through the rear window, which looked out on the cemetery proper. “Mr. Weaver informed me that the grave of one of our ‘occupants' as you so amusingly put it was exhumed and that nothing out of the ordinary was found. Has anything changed since then?” Montgomery challenged.

“Possibly,” Moira hedged. “This is another grave that's been disturbed.”

“Two graves have been disturbed?” Montgomery asked, looking both skeptical and just the slightest bit concerned.

“That we know of,” Moira interjected. “There very well might be more that we don't know about.”

Montgomery didn't seem to be buying into her theory. “Why would anyone be disturbing graves here?” he asked.

“That's what we're trying to find out,” Davis replied evenly, answering the man's question before Moira could attempt to.

The two men exchanged looks. Moira had the distinct impression that she was witnessing two elks sizing each other up before doing battle over territory.

“Yes, of course,” Montgomery finally said. “Anything I can do to help. Which grave is it?” he asked, turning on his computer.

Making himself comfortable, he waited to type the name in.

Moira gave him as succinct a description as possible of the area, followed by the name on the headstone and the date that the woman had been laid to rest.

“That's before my time,” Montgomery told her when he heard the date.

“The Valli family owned St. Joseph's back then. I think their nephew ran the place for them. But they left all the files when they sold the place,” Montgomery explained as he conducted a search through the computer's database. “Ah, here it is,” he declared triumphantly. “Marjorie Owens. It says here that her daughter, Janice, was the one who made the arrangements. I've got an address,” he offered, looking further through the file. The next moment he hit the print key and the printer behind him came to life. “But after all this time, who's to say that the daughter is still there? Or anywhere,” he added significantly, handing her the printout.

Given that the burial had taken place twenty years ago, the man could have a point, Moira thought. She made no comment on his speculation.

“Thank you, you've been very helpful,” Moira said, folding the piece of paper with the woman's last-known address. She tucked the paper—after looking at it—into her pocket.

Pushing back his swivel chair, Montgomery turned it in her direction then stood. “Anything else I can help you with, Detective?” he asked attentively, his eyes sweeping over her.

“We'll let you know,” Davis told him, positioning himself so that he was between Moira and the man who ran the cemetery. He looked at Moira. “We've got to go,” he told her.

They did, but she wasn't exactly thrilled that Gilroy had suddenly taken the lead. But because she had to work with the man, Moira bit her tongue and hadn't contradicted the detective in front of the cemetery director. Instead she'd thanked Montgomery again for his help and promised they would be in touch “soon.”

However, once they were outside, heading toward Gilroy's car, she looked at the detective and said, “That was kind of rude, don't you think?”

Gilroy's response was bordering on indifferent. “He was hitting on you.”

Moira rolled her eyes. “You never mentioned that you had a vivid imagination.”

“I thought you women were supposed to have some kind of radar when it came to that kind of thing.”

“We do,” she replied. “Which is why I know he wasn't hitting on me. If anything, he was just harmlessly flirting.”

Davis blew out a breath as he released the security lock on his vehicle. He had no patience with semantics. “Sorry, I'm not up on the finer points. I just know that slimy is slimy.”

She was about to contradict him but instead she flashed a grin. “Why, Detective Gilroy, are you being protective?”

“Just get in the car,” he growled.

Moira made no move to do anything of the kind. “
Please
get in the car,” she corrected and waited expectantly.

Davis looked as if he was going to spit fire. But, after a couple of minutes had gone by framed in icy silence, he finally repeated the line she had fed him and ground out, “Please get in the car.”

“Much better,” Moira told him with approval.

Then, opening the car door on the passenger side, Moira slid into the unmarked vehicle. As she reached for her seat belt, she glanced down at her hand. There was dust on it where she had touched the door.

“Ever consider taking this car through a car wash?” she asked.

“There's a drought on,” Davis reminded her tersely, glad for the change in subject but none too happy about having any sort of shortcomings pointed out, no matter how accurate she was being or how trivial the shortcoming might be.

“Birdbath, then,” she amended whimsically.

“Don't we have more important things to concentrate on than the cleanliness of my car?” Gilroy asked.

“You're absolutely right,” she agreed. “We have more important things to focus on than dirty cars or slimy cemetery directors.”

Davis glared at her as he pulled out onto the street then relented. He was beginning to learn that engaging in verbal warfare with this woman was an exercise in futility.

“Where to now?”

He expected her to say back to the precinct and was caught off guard when Moira responded, “How about grabbing some late lunch while I call my sister, the computer wizard, to see if she can verify that this is Marjorie Owens's daughter's current address.”

“You're the primary.”

“Yes, we've already established that,” Moira said patiently. Getting direct answers out of this man was definitely an exercise in patience. “Does that mean you don't care if we eat or not, or are you hungry and just don't want to admit to experiencing something as human as hunger?”

He shrugged again, his wide shoulders moving rhythmically in their indifference. “If you're hungry, I could eat.”

Moira sighed. He actually challenged her patience even more than her brothers did. They'd probably love him, she concluded.

“Someday, Gilroy, you're going to have to practice giving straight answers to straight questions. You do realize that, don't you?”

“‘Someday' is far from today,” he answered her. “I wouldn't concern myself about it if I were you.”

She knew he was telling her that they weren't going to be working together long enough to be facing a “someday” in their future.

“You mean I'm not growing on you?” she asked innocently.

He glanced at her for less than half a second. “You mean like fungus?” he countered.

Moira bit back a long sigh, dropping the subject. “Do you have anything against Hamburgers and Heaven?” she asked, referring to a semi-fast-food restaurant located in the general vicinity.

His tone gave nothing away one way or another. “Nope.”

“And with the resounding endorsement, we're off to Hamburgers and Heaven.” Since he was driving, she gave him the general directions. “It's located on Yale and Aurora Center Drive.”

“I know where it's located, Cavanaugh,” he told her, never taking his eyes off the road.

Since the place was not the hub of criminal activity, there was only one reason for his being familiar with the restaurant.

“Do you eat there often?” she asked him.

Davis didn't bother to think his answer over. It was automatic and almost robot-like. “Once or twice.”

Since his answer was so bland and emotionless, he wasn't prepared for the woman's pleased expression or for the words that followed.

“This is good.”

“‘This'?” he questioned.

Moira gestured toward him and then to herself. “What we're having here. This back-and-forth thing,” she said, gesturing again. “In case it escaped your notice, it's called having a conversation.”

The look he spared her said he thought she was crazy.

“If you say so,” was all that Davis allowed himself to say.

Moira smiled to herself.

Sometime in the past ninety minutes she had decided not only to get to the bottom of whatever odd thing was happening at the cemetery, but also to get her tall, dark and silent partner to become a card-carrying member of the human race again.

Even if it killed her—and possibly him.

* * *

“You do know that I have other work to do,” Valri asked her when she'd placed a call to her sister while she and Gilroy were waiting in the restaurant for their orders to be filled. “
Real
work. Official work,” Valri specified.

“This
is
official work, Valri,” Moira protested. Because she caught Gilroy looking at her quizzically, she turned her back to him and lowered her voice, wanting to get this ironed out before she said anything to her temporary partner.

“Just not
my
official work,” Valri pointed out needlessly.

“I can't help it if I'm not a computer expert,” Moira protested. “Some of us weren't born with an ongoing Wi-Fi signal coming in.”

“It's called opening up a basic computer programming book and doing a little studying on your own,” her sister pointed out.

“Say what?” Moira deliberately made a high-pitched noise that could have passed for static in her cell phone. “Sorry, Val, you're breaking up. I'll try to get you later.”

With that, Moira terminated the call. Turning back in his direction, she saw Gilroy looking at her skeptically. Although she would have happily ignored him, she knew she couldn't.

“What?” she asked impatiently.

“Your signal's not breaking up.”

Technically, he didn't know if it actually was or not, but given that this was Cavanaugh, he definitely had his suspicions that she had just made the excuse up for some reason. Probably because she'd been backed into a corner.

Moira didn't bother denying it. “I know that. Val knows that, too. But it's better than just hanging up on her outright.”

She saw one of the servers come out from behind the counter, a tray with a number displayed on it in her hands.

The young woman announced, “Number thirty-three,” as she looked around the immediate area for someone to raise their hand.

“That's us,” Moira said, rising to her feet from the booth.

She was surprised when Gilroy put his hand on her arm as if to hold her in place. Without saying anything to her, he rose and went to take the tray from the young girl.

Although on a tray, the food they had ordered was bagged rather than plated.

“Want to eat inside or out?” he asked Moira when he returned with the tray.

Rather than answer, she flashed him yet another wide smile.