Cavanaugh or Death (16 page)

Campbell's brow furrowed as if struggling to comprehend what was going on. “You mean like her jewelry or something?”

Or something,
Moira silently concurred.

Out loud she told the groundskeeper, “It might be a little more complicated than that.”

Campbell was already moving toward the small building where all the business that went into running the small cemetery was conducted.

“I can look it up, but I'm pretty sure no one's been by to see Maryanne in a few years.”

Davis looked at him a little suspiciously. In his own way, Campbell struck him as odd as Weaver did. “How would you know that?”

“I make it a point to know all the people who come by to visit their loved ones,” Campbell replied proudly, like a sentry who never left his post, at least not figuratively. “Let's go back to the office,” he suggested. Not waiting for them to agree, the groundskeeper turned and began to lead the way.

* * *

Campbell beamed when he was proved right.

According to the copious records he kept, the name of Maryanne Wilson's next of kin—Sheldon Wilson—was crossed out and a date—November 1999—was written in pencil above the crossed-out name.

It was, he informed them, the last time anyone had visited the grave.

“You actually keep records?” Davis asked, looking at the man incredulously.

Campbell nodded then almost sheepishly confessed, “Not much else to do around here.” He laughed softly to himself. “Just so much raking, watering and fertilizing a man can do before there's nothing left to rake and he's drowning the flowers and the lawn. And then it's not pretty for them anymore.”

“Them?” Moira questioned.

Campbell nodded. He scanned the immediate area and went on to proudly inform his all but captive audience, “I like to think of the people resting here as family.”

Chapter 15

“D
ear lord, I hope you never find yourself being that lonely,” Moira said to Davis when they finally left the cemetery almost four and a half hours later.

Thanks to Blake Kincannon's new court order and the ever-amazing swift efficiency of the crime scene investigators who arrived on the scene, Maryanne Wilson's coffin had been exhumed and opened. It was immediately evident that the elderly woman's body had been disturbed and then returned to its place. However, none of it was done as carefully as with the other four coffins over at St. Joseph's Cemetery.

Not only that, but there were also scuff marks evident on the coffin lid, as if someone had pried it off. Recently, from all appearances, since the marks looked fresh, no more than a month old if that much.

Moira's guess was that Maryanne had been the grave robbers' first.

But first what?

And why?

Her remark to Davis as they left the grounds now had him scowling at her. “What the hell are you talking about?” he asked.

He liked to think of himself as an intelligent man, but trying to follow Moira's train of thought was like hoping a sidewinder would travel in a straight line for at least a little while. It just wasn't going to happen.

“The way Campbell referred to all those dead people as his ‘family.'”

Davis shrugged, dismissing the whole scenario. “The guy's strange. I'm not strange.”

“But you are lonely.”

Getting into his vehicle, he slanted a warning look at Moira. “Don't start.”

“I won't—” she promised, getting in on her side “—if you come to the christening this Saturday.”

The days since he'd begun working with the woman who never stopped talking all seemed to run into one another, like fudge that refused to set. “That's not over with yet?”

She snapped her seat belt, the click underscoring her response. “Nope.”

He jammed his key into the ignition but didn't turn it. Instead he shifted in his seat to glare at her. “Look, we're working together—it seems like continuously—isn't that enough for you?”

The corners of her mouth curved into a wide, innocent smile. “I repeat. Nope.”

Davis blew out a breath. “Well, it's going to have to be. Get used to it.”

He was about to turn the key when her next question had his hand freezing again. “You have a landline, right?”

His eyes narrowed. What did that have to do with anything? “Yes. Why?”

She was the face of innocence as she answered. “Just wanted to know if you're rather have the call come in on your cell phone or your landline.”

He felt as if he was going around in circles. “What call?”

It amazed him how long she could go on looking so innocent when everything she said pointed to the opposite. “The one from the Chief of Ds to personally invite you to the christening.”

He was getting that itchy feeling in his hands again, the one that had him wanting to strangle her. “You're like a damn plague of locusts, you know that?”

“But I'm prettier,” Moira said sweetly, deliberately batting her eyelashes at him like a heroine in a B-grade movie out of the 1950s.

Davis wasn't sure just what possessed him at that moment. Most likely it was frustration.

Or maybe he just wanted to get her to back off once and for all and the only way he felt he could do that was to frighten her off. He reasoned he could do that by kissing her.

That was why he turned toward Moira and, operating on what amounted to automatic pilot, he suddenly, and without a word, pulled her to him despite her seat belt. He didn't even remember leaning against the rather awkward transmission shift that was between them, dividing them from one another like an old-fashioned bundling board. All that he did remember was that he kissed her.

Kissed her hard.

Kissed her until neither one of them could breathe anymore and the only sound within the sedan was the one created by two pounding hearts.

“Well, guess that definitely settles it,” Moira said when she was finally able to drag enough air into her lungs to speak again.

This time she managed to lose him in record time. Davis looked at her rather uncertainly. “Settles what?” he asked.

She raised her head just a little, so that her eyes met his. “That you don't think of me as locusts. You wouldn't have kissed locusts.”

I shouldn't have kissed you, either
, Davis thought, upbraiding himself ruefully for his monumental descent into insanity. He wasn't even sure just what had brought it on—other than the plain fact that some sort of a raw attraction sizzled between them. One he neither welcomed nor wanted.

Moira took in another breath so that she could speak above a ragged whisper. “So, will you be needing that personal phone call from Uncle Brian, or are you going to surrender peacefully and come to the christening of your own free will?”

There was no doubt about it, the woman made his head ache. He had never encountered anyone so tenacious. “Just how can it be of my ‘own free will' if you're threatening me?”

Moira shrugged. “That's for you to work out,” she told him and he had the feeling that she meant what she was saying, even if it made no sense. “It's just a matter of semantics, anyway. So, what'll it be?”

Davis finally turned on the ignition and pulled onto the road, away from the cemetery.

“I'll come,” he said between gritted teeth. It was the only way he knew of to make her back off.

Moira spared him a small, skeptical look, but for now she kept her thoughts to herself.

Instead she gave him all the details he supposedly “needed to know” to make it to the christening, which was going to be at ten in the morning that coming Saturday, and to the after-party that followed, conveniently, immediately after the christening. In both cases, she gave him the address of the church and the address to the former chief of police's house—twice.

* * *

Davis intended to be out of his apartment and gone no later than nine that Saturday morning. Not to get to the church where the christening of one Brian Andrew Cavanaugh was to take place, but to make good his escape so he didn't
have
to attend the christening. Having come to know how Moira operated, he wouldn't put it past her to appear at his door with the intentions of dragging him to the christening.

As it turned out, he was a decent judge of character, especially when it came to Moira, and he had called it. What he hadn't taken into account, however, was the fact that she was obsessively—and almost criminally—early. So while he was shooting for a getaway before nine, Moira showed up at his aforementioned door at 8:01 a.m.

Thinking it was his neighbor who periodically enlisted his help in finding her wandering cat, a calico tabby appropriately named Houdini, Davis grudgingly came to the door.

Opening it, he began his usual mini lecture by saying, “Mrs. McBride, you've got to learn to keep your windows and doors closed.”

“Puts on quite a show, does she?” Moira asked wryly, moving him slightly aside as she walked into his apartment.

She forced herself to keep her eyes on the disheveled state of the apartment and not on the arousingly disheveled state of the man who had just opened the door for her. Dressed in worn, cut-off jeans that were precariously hanging on to his hips, Davis was bare-chested as well as bare-footed. His hair was still tousled from his night with an uncooperative pillow and the day-old stubble on his face seemed to make his cheekbones appear even more prominent than they already were.

He was the kind of man that caused nuns to seriously consider chucking a lifetime of celibacy for one night of ecstasy.

Davis sighed, upbraiding himself for not looking through the peephole before opening the door. Confusion always seemed to enter a room whenever Moira walked in.

“Who are you talking about and what are you doing here, anyway?” he demanded, his voice going up in volume with each question.

Since he wasn't closing his door, Moira did. “I'm talking about this Mrs. McBride who doesn't seem to keep her door or windows closed, despite your instructions to the contrary. As for what I'm doing here—” she turned around to face him, making sure she kept her eyes strictly on his face and not on the incredible six-pack she had only, up until now, suspected was there beneath the conservative-looking suits he wore on the job “—I came to give you a ride to the church.”

“I don't need a ride,” he informed her with what he thought was finality.

It wasn't.

“Sure you do,” Moira countered.

“Okay, let me put it this way—I don't
want
a ride,” he amended.

“Ah, now that I believe. Now get dressed.” Both sentences were equally cheerful. “Uncle Brian made sure we had the whole church to ourselves—he's been friends with Father Gannon since they were in fifth grade together—but parking is tricky and I want to make sure we don't have to walk too far.” She glanced down at the glittering four-inch heels she was wearing. “These shoes are new and I haven't broken them in yet.”

Her smile widened as she could feel his resistance growing. “And if you're in need of a little pep talk to convince you that attending this function is a good idea—” she took her cell phone out of her purse and held it aloft “—I've got Uncle Brian on speed dial. He can deliver the closing argument if I haven't managed to win you over yet.”

Davis bit off a few choice words that rose to his lips. “Did anyone ever tell you that you're one hell of a colossal pain?”

“Not in so many words, but I'm pretty good at reading body language.” She smiled broadly at him. “And if it makes you feel any better, I've been called worse.”

He glared at her. Arguing with her wasn't going to get him anywhere and he obviously couldn't seem to intimidate her.

“I haven't showered yet,” he retorted.

Moira gestured toward the rear of the apartment where she assumed that his bedroom and bathroom were located. “Go right ahead.”

She watched him march out of the living room and then heard what she took to be the bedroom door slam. Just to be certain, she took a few steps in that direction until she could see the closed door for herself.

“I don't know why you're fighting this so hard. You're going to have a good time.” She said it as if it was a foregone conclusion.

Because he was feeling perverse as well as cornered, Davis shouted, “I
never
have a good time,” through the closed door.

“You will this time,” he heard her say and he could have sworn he heard a smile in her voice.

The woman was really starting to drive him crazy.

Because he'd been about to take a shower before Moira had turned up and pounded on his door, disrupting his Saturday and blowing up all his well-laid plans of escape, Davis showered.

He dressed for the same reason, except a little more formally than he'd initially intended.

As he walked out of his bedroom fifteen minutes later, he found himself wishing for news of another gravesite disturbance at one of the two cemeteries—
anything
to get him out of attending this formal thing with Moira and her family—or, in other words, half the Aurora police department.

But both his cell and his landline were perversely silent. No one was calling.

Small wonder, he thought. Anyone who could have placed the call to him was probably at the church right now.

The next moment his dark, surly mood lightened by several degrees as he was greeted by the compelling, savory aroma of deep, rich coffee.

Curiosity—not to mention his saliva glands—got the best of him and lured him into his minuscule kitchen.

The coffee aroma grew stronger and more tempting with each step he took.

Entering the kitchen, the first thing he saw was a coffeemaker on the counter beside the sink. He frowned at it.

He didn't own a coffeemaker.

“Where did that come from?” he asked, jerking a thumb at the appliance that had just finished making its percolating sounds.

“I brought it from my place,” Moira told him cheerfully as she pressed a large mug filled almost to the brim with shimmering black liquid, as dark as any storm at sea, into his hand. She'd brought both items, as well as the coffee itself, with her and had fetched them from her car while he was in the shower. “Music is supposed to soothe the savage beast, but in this case, I figured coffee might be better.”

“Breast,”
Davis corrected her just before he took a long swig of the coffee she offered. Swallowing, he looked at Moira and saw the quizzical expression on her face. He guessed what was behind it. “The word is
breast
, not
beast
.”

Her grin was annoying and beguiling at the same time, making him wonder if perhaps she'd slipped something into the coffee she was offering so readily. It was either that, he judged, or close proximity to her was causing him to quickly lose his mind.

“Again, in your case,” Moira told him, “I think my first choice—
beast
—works better.”

Davis drained the mug, thinking that the stiff, hot brew might help him cope with her.

Setting the empty mug down on the counter, he finally had a chance to take in the rest of the kitchen. In the time he had taken to shower and dress, Moira had not only made the coffee, but she'd washed the dishes in the sink and straightened up the rest of the small area.

Was she just neurotically domestic or trying to prove herself indispensable to him?

He didn't like either choice.

“You didn't have to do that,” he told her, grumbling. There was nothing wrong with the kitchen to begin with. Clutter suited his needs. He could see where everything was instead of having to hunt for it.

“I don't like being idle,” she told him. “Besides, messy areas interfere with my ability to think clearly.”