Cavanaugh on Duty(23)
They got out on the ground floor and began walking to the exit and the parking lot beyond.
“So you catch yourself waiting and holding your breath until whatever you know is going to happen—” she paused, then said “—happens.”
In a way, they weren’t all that different, always expecting some sort of chaos, Esteban thought. That was the way he lived his life, as well.
“Easy to peg you for a Cavanaugh,” he commented. “Your family’s always in the thick of it, all that constant action,” he added in case she wasn’t following his reasoning.
“We like keeping busy and keeping the peace,” she told him.
“Or being in the middle of all the noise,” he countered, giving the general situation another interpretation.
She inclined her head, not seeing the need to challenge the point he’d just made.
“There’s that, too.”
* * *
Unlike the other two victims, the third victim—a Ronald Hays—was in his early forties and, according to the coworker that they interviewed, Hays was far too busy with his social life to volunteer for any sort of activity. “Don’t get me wrong—when they passed the hat around for Vera, Ron gave just like everyone else. Maybe even a little more,” he added after thinking it over.
“Vera?” Kari asked, waiting for some kind of an explanation from the man who claimed to be the deceased’s closest friend at the accounting firm.
The interviewee nodded. “Vera Wells,” he clarified, but the name still didn’t mean anything to her. “Vera’s husband was in a car accident, and the bills just went through the roof in record time. We took up a collection in the office to help her cover a little of what the insurance didn’t. Ron didn’t even stop to count what he was putting in,” he told them proudly, “just grabbed a handful of bills out of his wallet and slipped them all into the collection envelope.
“But he didn’t have time for stuff like coaching some Little League team or mentoring a kid having trouble in his math class.” The man laughed to himself as he recalled a specific incident.
“Remember something funny?” Esteban asked him.
The question, coming from someone like Esteban, instantly sobered the man being interviewed.
“Hell, when Ron got that jury summons in the mail, it put him in a bad mood for a week—especially when the boss told him his pay wasn’t getting docked, that the company looked favorably on that sort of thing.”
“Wait.” Kari held up her hand, trying to understand. “You’re saying he became angry because his pay wasn’t getting docked?”
“Yeah. He was going to use that not-getting-paid thing as an excuse for getting out of jury duty. But since the boss said it was his patriotic duty to go down for jury duty, he had to go. And he wound up getting put on a case, too.” The man paused to laugh, shaking his head as he began relaying more things about the incident. “I can tell you that really got him mad.
“Turns out, the case didn’t last all that long. It started to, but Ron told me he pushed through the deadlock, convincing everyone else that the guy was guilty. They voted to convict the guy and Ron hightailed it back to work.
“But you see, he just didn’t have time for volunteering and selfless stuff like that.” As if suddenly aware of the picture he’d just painted of the victim, the man’s friend quickly added, “But that really didn’t make him a bad guy.”
“No,” Kari agreed. “It didn’t.”
But what did? she couldn’t help wondering. What made Ronald Hays, Mae Daniels and William Reynolds “bad guys,” at least in the killer’s eyes?
That, she thought, was the question that needed answering.
Chapter 11
The more she and Esteban delved into Ron Hays’s life, the less he appeared to have in common with the first two victims. He was younger than they were, still employed and obviously had little interest in volunteering any of his free time to help those less fortunate than himself.
Kari paced back and forth in front of the bulletin board. Hays’s photograph had been added to the board, taking its position next to William Reynolds and Mae Daniels.
Even the photograph looked out of place, Kari thought, slanting a glance toward it as she paced. Hays looked young enough to be their son.
Why was he victim number three?
Was he victim number three? she suddenly wondered, stopping dead in front of the board and staring at the man’s photograph.
Leaning back in his chair, Esteban noted the way she was looking at the board—as if her eyes could shoot laser beams out. “Got something?” he asked.
Maybe yes, maybe no, she thought.
“Maybe someone killed Hays after reading about the other two murders,” she theorized. She turned to look at her partner, her eyes bright.
Damn, but they were hypnotic, he thought. Like the rest of her. He forced himself to focus on her train of thought. “You mean, using the so-called serial killer—”
“Almost serial killer,” Kari interjected. “Technically, it takes three like murders before we can call the perp a serial killer, and we haven’t quite put Hays in the same category as Reynolds and Daniels,” she reminded Esteban.
“Okay.” He had no problem with adjusting his statement to suit her. He was accustomed to rolling with the punches—most of the time. “Using the so-called ‘almost serial killer’ for cover, whoever killed Ron Hays might have just been focused on getting rid of him and was hoping the murder wouldn’t wind up on his doorstep.” As he spoke, another idea occurred to him. “Or the other two murders he committed could have been done to provide his cover and his real intended victim was Ron Hays all along,” he suggested.
He watched her face to see her reaction, not quite sure just what to expect. What he saw was an amused, nonjudgmental smile. A smile that caught him a little off guard. “What?” he demanded.
She would have never believed it. “You were a fan of Agatha Christie mysteries when you were a kid, weren’t you?”
Defensiveness had always been second nature to him. Now was no different. “What makes you say that?” he wanted to know.
“Because you just described the setup behind one of her classic stories. I think it was called The ABC Murders. A killer murders three people in order to ‘hide in plain sight’ his intended victim.”
Esteban frowned. “I take it you don’t agree with the last theory.”
“I didn’t say that,” she pointed out. “I don’t have enough information on the third victim to rule that ‘hide in plain sight’ theory in or out right now.” She took a breath. “What I am saying is that the only thing that we know for certain that victim number three has in common with numbers one and two is that slashed throat.”
“Not the only thing.”
Kari and Esteban turned around in unison and looked toward the doorway at the woman who’d just spoken. Sean’s senior assistant, Destiny, was standing in the room.
“Okay,” Esteban said gamely, recognizing the woman from the last crime scene. She’d been one of the investigators there. “What else is there?”
Kari looked at her hopefully. “You found something,” she added, mentally crossing her fingers.
Destiny didn’t answer either one of them. “The boss wants to see the two of you in his lab.”
Kari knew better than to try to badger an answer out of Destiny. The woman could give lessons to clams when it came to being closemouthed.
“Lead the way,” Kari told the other woman, gesturing toward the door.
Destiny wordlessly turned on her heel and did just that.
* * *
“You know, I don’t recall you ever being this dramatic,” Kari told her father as she and Esteban filed into the main lab directly behind Destiny.
Her father was there, along with his array of the latest state-of-the-art equipment, all of which was lined up along the dark blue granite counter within easy reach. When she spoke, Sean Cavanaugh looked up from the microscope he’d been using.
“Must have something to do with my renewed lease on life,” her father speculated. He was all but beaming.
She noted that he’d been that way for weeks, ever since Deirdre Callaghan had accepted his marriage proposal.
“Remind me to thank your fiancée the next time I see her,” Kari told him, doing her best to look serious. About to say something else, she abruptly stopped as she remembered. “That’ll be a week from Saturday, won’t it? Boy, that came fast. I’m still trying to get used to the idea.”
Because she could see from the slightly puzzled frown on Esteban’s face that he wasn’t following any of this, she told him, “My father’s getting married next Saturday. To Detective Matt Callaghan’s mother.”