Cavanaugh Encounter

“But the times, they are a-changing and there have been a number of documented female serial killers. It doesn’t happen very often—but it does happen. So, bottom line, rule out no one because of their gender,” he advised. “Keep an open mind at all times.”

“Sorry, just a figure of speech,” Frankie told the lead detective.

Luke nodded, accepting her explanation. “I’ll consider this as part of your learning curve,” he replied. He began to head toward the victim’s bedroom only to realize that Frankie was going in the same direction. “Why don’t you take a look around your friend’s bedroom? Sorry,” he caught himself before she could correct him. “I mean your acquaintance’s bedroom. I got the victim’s bedroom,” he said pointedly. Turning to the other member of the team, he said, “White Hawk, you’ve got everything else.”

White Hawk sighed. “I figured as much,” the tall detective acknowledged.

“Then let’s get to it,” Luke instructed, walking into the victim’s bedroom.

It was small, compact and orderly. The victim had been a great deal neater than he was, Luke noted, thinking of his own living quarters.

He reviewed everything methodically. If Kristin Andrews had done any entertaining in this bedroom the night she was killed, there didn’t seem to be any evidence of that fact at first glance.

But if she had been murdered by the serial killer he was currently hunting down, Luke had already learned that the man was methodical, not sloppy.

If it was a man, he added silently with a slight ironic smile.

En route here, Luke had had his uncle send him a list of things that the CSI unit had taken from the apartment to examine for possible clues as to why Kristen been chosen by the killer. Scrolling through that list now on his smartphone, he found no indication that a cell phone or a computer of any sort—laptop or tower—had been found on the premises and taken to the lab.

Luke stared at the list and frowned. That didn’t seem right. In this day and age, everyone had electronic gadgets. They were all but hermetically sealed to them. Why weren’t there any in Kristin’s room?

His first guess was that this meant whoever had killed Kristin had made off with her cell phone and whatever laptop, tablet or other electronic device she used to surf the net and entrust with her personal data.

Still, he went through her closet and her bureau drawers, just in case he was wrong. After all, the killer got his kicks terminating the lives of young women, not making off with their electronic gadgets.

The killer also didn’t sexually attack his victims, which only added to the mystery. Just why were these women killed?

Coming up empty in his search, Luke decided to check one last place—under the victim’s mattress. Lifting it as far up as he could, he reached in and felt around along the entire perimeter of the box spring.

The tips of his fingers came in contact with something hard and smooth.

“Eureka,” he declared a little louder than he had intended.

The next moment, White Hawk peered into the bedroom. “What’s up? Did you just discover buoyancy?”

After putting down the mattress, he pulled out what he had found. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“You know, that Greek guy, Archimedes,” White Hawk said. “He yelled ‘Eureka’ when he realized that water caused his legs to be buoyant.”

Luke snorted. “You are one strange guy.”

“No,” White Hawk corrected, coming farther into the bedroom. “Unlike you, I read.”

Luke regarded the laptop he had uncovered. “If you ask me, White Hawk, you need to get out more. You definitely need a life.”

“I’ll tell Linda you said so,” White Hawk said, referring to his wife.

Drawn by the commotion, Frankie walked into her cousin’s bedroom, joining the other two detectives. A shiver went down her back. She did her best not to show it.

“Is this a private party, or can anyone join in?” she asked sarcastically. And then she saw the laptop O’Bannon was holding. Her heart froze for a moment. “You found something.”

Luke laughed dryly as he turned toward White Hawk. “Nothing gets past her.”

Could that possibly contain the identity of the person who had killed Kris? How had she missed that? She’d been in this room, looking for a clue. But, she recalled, Sean Cavanaugh had been with her, working the scene at the time.

“What is that?” she asked in a quiet voice.

“On second thought, maybe some things do get past her,” Luke couldn’t resist commenting.

Annoyed, Frankie asked, “Is that the victim’s laptop?”

Luke had noticed that she paled slightly when she first looked at the computer. What was up with that? Was this woman somehow involved in this latest homicide? He found that hard to believe, but there was no denying that her complexion resembled the hue of a melted marshmallow.

“I haven’t gotten on it yet, but considering where I found it, I’d say that’s a pretty good guess.” Luke turned his piercing green eyes to meet hers. “Is that a problem?”

She was careful not to blow out a breath or appear to be anything but blasé. “No, no problem,” Frankie lied. “Why should there be?”

To the best of her knowledge, Kris didn’t have any photographs of the two of them on her laptop. If her cousin did, then she’d find a way to explain it away, Frankie told herself.

Luke continued eying her. “I don’t know,” he answered. “You tell me. You’re the one who looks pale enough to have seven little men following you wherever you go.”

Frankie stared at him, confused.

“O’Bannon’s talking about Snow White,” the other detective explained. “That’s his clever way of telling you that you look ghostly pale.”

Her eyes momentarily shifted toward O’Bannon, then back to White Hawk. “Not all that good at communicating, is he?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I got my point across, didn’t I?” Luke asked cavalierly. And then the smile on his lips disappeared. “Seriously, is there anything on here you don’t want me to see?”

She lifted her shoulders and let them drop in an exaggerated shrug of indifference.

“I haven’t got the faintest idea what she might have had on her laptop,” Frankie told him, “so off the top of my head, I’d have to say that the answer to your question is no.”

“Good,” Luke pronounced—not that anything she could have said would have stopped him from putting the laptop into evidence. “Then I’ll hand this over to Valri and have her take a look at it after we get back from the second crime scene.”

The second crime scene. She’d forgotten about that. “You want me to come along to that?” Frankie asked as they walked out of the apartment.

Luke paused as he locked up the apartment again, then proceeded to replace the yellow crime scene tape across the door.

“Well, unless you want to walk back to the station on your own, yes, you’re invited to come along,” he told her as they walked back to his vehicle. He’d left it parked at the curb. “Why wouldn’t we want you to come with us?” he asked, curious to hear what her answer would be.

She had no solid answer for that. She’d assumed that he had brought her along only to work Kris’s crime scene, not anyone else’s.

“I thought you just took me along because I brought the crime to your attention,” she told him.

“I’ve decided to keep you on because of your keen insight,” Luke told her as he hit the key fob to open the car’s locks.

Frankie didn’t trust herself to answer the comment civilly. Instead, she looked at White Hawk. “Do you want to ride shotgun this time?”

The other detective laughed.

“You’ll find that O’Bannon is an acquired taste.”

She tried to find a graceful way out of the situation. “No, it’s just that I figured that I needed to ride up front before because I was giving O’Bannon directions. But now that he knows where he’s going, I thought maybe you’d want to trade seats.”

“That’s okay,” White Hawk demurred, opening the rear door and climbing into the backseat. “I’ve ridden shotgun with this guy for three years. You can keep him for today.”

“Shotgun for three years?” Frankie repeated, opening the passenger door and getting into the passenger seat. “Doesn’t he let you drive?”

White Hawk thought for a moment. “The one time he was wounded, he did. Although, as I recall, I had to bully him into that. He can be a real ornery son of a gun when he wants to be.”

Key in the ignition, Luke cleared his throat. “In case it escaped both of your keen detectives’ eyes, I’m right here,” he pointed out.

“I bet his disposition gets even worse when he’s been shot,” Frankie guessed, turning in her seat to look at White Hawk.

The other detective rolled his dark eyes. “You have no idea.”

“Still here,” Luke reminded them tersely. He started up the engine. “And if both of you don’t plan on walking to the next crime scene, I’d suggest tabling this little discussion right now.”

White Hawk smiled. “Sorry, O’Bannon, I keep forgetting how touchy you can get before your fourteenth cup of coffee.”

“Don’t give away all my secrets,” he told his partner with a straight face.

“No chance of that happening,” White Hawk said cheerfully. “That would take me longer than either one of us have left on this earth.”

Leaning back in her seat, Frankie continued listening to the two men bantering and exchanging quips. Very slowly, she found herself beginning to relax just a little.

Chapter 4

It was immediately obvious that the distraught-looking older woman who answered the front door had been crying. Holding on to the door almost for support, she appeared to be struggling to keep from falling apart.

Standing on the other side of the threshold, Luke politely asked, “Mrs. O’Keefe?”

“Yes?” the woman responded hoarsely.

Luke held up his credentials for the woman’s benefit. “I’m Detective O’Bannon. This is Detective DeMarco.” He nodded toward the woman on his left. “And that’s Detective White Hawk.”

Both Frankie and the other detective quietly displayed their IDs as well as their shields.

Mrs. O’Keefe’s red-rimmed eyes barely turned in their direction.

She addressed her words to Luke. “If you’re here to tell me about Ellen, I already know,” she told him, her voice breaking at the end of her sentence.

Frankie’s heart ached. She felt for the woman. More than that, she could easily relate to what Mrs. O’Keefe was going through. Without thinking, she stepped forward and took the grieving woman’s hands in hers.

“We’re very sorry for your loss, ma’am,” Frankie told her with genuine feeling. “Detectives O’Bannon, White Hawk and I are here to ask you a few questions so that we can find whoever did this to your daughter and make him pay for it.”

Mrs. O’Keefe pressed her lips together to suppress the sob that rose to her lips and threatened to burst out. When she spoke, her voice was hardly above a whisper.

“Please come in.”

Turning, the woman, bent with grief, led the way into her small, two-bedroom house.

Deferring to the lead detective, Frankie waited for Luke to follow the woman, but he surprised her by waving her in first.

“Not bad,” he mouthed to her as she passed him.

Frankie assumed he was referring to the fact that she had managed to get a sliver of the woman’s trust.

Mrs. O’Keefe brought them into her living room. Despite the fact that it was a little past noon, the room was shrouded in darkness. The house’s orientation kept the sun from coming in.

The victim’s mother turned on a lamp as an afterthought.

“Please sit,” she said, gesturing toward the sofa. And then, as if suddenly remembering the rules of etiquette, she asked, “Can I get any of you anything?”

“No, we’re fine, ma’am,” Luke assured her. There was a kind expression on his face as he asked, “Can you tell us about your daughter?”

Clutching a worn handkerchief, Mrs. O’Keefe knotted her long, thin fingers together in her lap. “Ellen was a wonderful girl. She was smart, kind, thoughtful. She was a kindergarten teacher, you know,” she told them with pride. “The children all loved her. She just graduated from college last year.” A small sigh escaped her lips. “She’d had a setback a while ago, but my daughter had finally gotten her life on track.”

“What do you mean by a setback?” Luke asked the woman gently.

Mrs. O’Keefe’s shoulders stiffened, as if she was bracing herself for an ordeal. “Ellen had an addiction problem, but she conquered that. It was all behind her,” she told them with finality. “Everything was fine. Everything was fine,” she repeated, her voice coming very close to cracking again.

Luke noticed the way DeMarco looked up, alert, when Ellen O’Keefe’s mother mentioned that the victim had been an addict.

Pulling herself together, Mrs. O’Keefe told them, “She was even beginning to date again.”

“Was that unusual for her?” Luke asked.

Mrs. O’Keefe offered them a small smile. “Ellen was very shy. She always had been. Getting addicted to painkillers had only added to her sense of being worthless. It made her feel that she had nothing to bring to a relationship. But getting her teaching degree and working with all those children changed all that.” Mrs. O’Keefe’s eyes shone briefly. And then she clutched the handkerchief she was holding. “I was so hopeful...”

“Would you happen to know the name of the person your daughter was dating?” Luke asked. He knew that this was too much of a break to hope for, but he still had to ask.

Mrs. O’Keefe shook her head. “Ellen wouldn’t tell me. She was afraid that she’d wind up jinxing it if she said his name out loud.”

Luke tried another approach. “Did your daughter happen to say if she met this man at school? Was he another teacher?”

Mrs. O’Keefe shook her head. “I’m sorry, I really don’t know. Wait,” she said suddenly, as a memory returned to her. “I think she met him on one of those online dating services.”

These days, there was no end to dating sites, Luke thought. He had a friend who was extolling the benefits of online sites for anonymity. Luke preferred finding his dates the old-fashioned way—face-to-face.

“Would you mind if we took a look at Ellen’s computer?” White Hawk asked the woman.

Mrs. O’Keefe nodded numbly. “She had a laptop. Do what you want with it. It’s in her room,” she told the detective. “Ellen moved back here after rehab. She said living at home would help her keep from relapsing—and she couldn’t afford to rent a place of her own because she needed the money to finish up and get her college degree. She dropped out when she was taking drugs.” Mrs. O’Keefe’s eyes filled with tears. “How could anyone do something so horrible to her?” she asked all three of the people in her house.

Frankie was the one to step forward again. “I’m afraid that there are terrible people in the world that do unspeakable things that we can’t begin to understand. Is there anyone who we can call to come stay with you?” she asked.

The older woman took a shaky breath. “My sister said she would be here as soon as she could.”

“Does she live around here?” Luke asked. “We could send someone to bring her.”

Mrs. O’Keefe shook her head. “No, my sister wouldn’t like that. She’s very independent, but thank you,” she said, doing her best to smile. She placed a hand on Frankie’s arm. “When I found my little girl lying on the floor, there was a syringe in her arm. I don’t care what it looked like, or what your fancy medical examiner says he found in Ellen’s—Ellen’s autopsy.” Mrs. O’Keefe nearly choked on the word. It took her a moment to pull herself together so that she could continue. “My Ellen was clean. She was very proud of that fact. Proud that she had managed to kick her drug addiction,” Mrs. O’Keefe told them with the fierceness of a mother lion protecting her cub. “And she had,” the woman insisted. “I would bet my life on that.” Again, her eyes filled with tears that spilled out onto her cheeks.

White Hawk was about to tell the woman that it wasn’t uncommon for an addict to relapse. Drugs were far more available these days than they used to be. There was no end to temptation for a former addict.

Frankie could see by the look in White Hawk’s eyes that he was about to say something and she shook her head, mouthing don’t.

Out loud, she managed to waylay him by asking, “Got a minute, Detective White Hawk?”

Puzzled, he said, “Sure,” and followed Frankie outside. “What’s up?” he asked.

“I know your heart’s in the right place, White Hawk,” she told him, starting out diplomatically. “But that woman inside the house doesn’t need another dose of harsh reality. She’s just had way too much of it. If she believes that her daughter was drug free, let her believe it.”

White Hawk studied her for a long moment, then asked, “What if it’s not true?”

“What if it is?” Frankie countered in the same tone of voice.

He inclined his head, going along with Frankie for the time being. “Why don’t we hold off on any speculation until we get the lab results back?” White Hawk suggested philosophically.

“And maybe even longer than that,” Frankie tactfully suggested.

“You do know that you’re a softie, Detective DeMarco, right?” White Hawk asked her with a wide smile.

“Not really,” Frankie denied. She preferred to think of herself as being tough as nails. But in this instance, she wanted to go easy on Mrs. O’Keefe. The woman had been through enough. “But I just don’t see the advantage of robbing a mother of her last illusion about her daughter. If Ellen’s relapse helps to crack the case, then we’ll push forward with it. But until then, there’s no harm in letting Mrs. O’Keefe remember her daughter the way she wants to.”

“White Hawk’s right,” Luke said, coming out to join them. He had a laptop tucked under his arm. The victim’s mother had handed it over to him in the young woman’s bedroom. “You are a softie.”

She didn’t mind White Hawk calling her that. But hearing the words coming out of O’Bannon’s mouth just put her back up.

Frowning, she pointed toward what he was carrying. “Is that Ellen’s laptop?”

“It is,” he confirmed. Looking down at it for a moment, he smiled. “My guess is that Valri’s going to be very busy for the next couple of days,” he commented.

He was talking about Kris’s laptop, Frankie thought. She was uneasy about anyone poking around her cousin’s computer until she got a look at it herself.

“I’m pretty good with computers,” she told Luke. “Why don’t I take a crack at Kristin’s and you can bring the one you’re holding to your cousin? That way, the work’ll get done twice as fast.”

Luke looked at her for a long moment. She felt as if he could literally see every thought in her head.

“Any particular reason you’re volunteering to take that one instead of this one right here?” he asked, holding up Ellen’s laptop.

Frankie spread her hands in exaggerated innocence. “None whatsoever. The other one was just the first one that came to mind since it was initially my crime scene.”

“Don’t worry,” Luke told her. “Valri likes a challenge. She can handle both of them. Besides—” he unlocked all four doors of his vehicle and then popped the trunk “—she likes having people owe her.” He placed the second laptop in the trunk of his car beside the first one. Since they were made by different manufacturers, there was no chance of getting them mixed up.

His stomach was making rumbling noises in loud protest. A rueful smile curved his mouth. “Now, unless either one of you have any objections, I vote we stop for lunch before driving back to the station.” He looked at the other two for an answer.

“Hey, fine by me,” White Hawk said. “I’m always hungry.”

Both detectives turned to look at Frankie, waiting for her answer. She shrugged. “You’re the one with the car keys.”

“I guess then it’s settled,” Luke said. “Lunch it is.”

But as the other two detectives began opening their doors to get into the vehicle, Frankie held up her hand. “One minute, please,” she said, ignoring the impatient look on O’Bannon’s handsome face. “I just want to check on Mrs. O’Keefe one more time before we leave.”

“Why?” Luke asked, but she had already hurried back to the front door.

“She really does seem to be pretty compassionate,” White Hawk commented, watching the detective disappear into Mrs. O’Keefe’s house.

“Either that,” Luke replied thoughtfully, “or she relates to the woman’s grief.”

Curious, White Hawk asked his partner, “What are you thinking?”

“I’m not really sure yet,” Luke answered truthfully. “But you’ll be the first to know if something occurs to me.”

White Hawk snorted as he gave Luke a pointed look. “I’ll hold you to that.”

Inside the house, Frankie found Mrs. O’Keefe in the living room, exactly where they had left her. She handed the woman her card.

Accepting it, Mrs. O’Keefe gazed at her.

“It’s my card,” Frankie explained. Turning the card over for the woman, she pointed out, “That’s my cell phone number on the back. If you need anything—anything at all—give me a call. Any time,” Frankie emphasized. “Day or night.”

Holding the card in her hand, Mrs. O’Keefe made a dismissive motion. “Thank you, but I already told you, my sister’s coming to stay with me.”

“I know. But sometimes, you need someone to listen who isn’t family.” Frankie smiled sympathetically at the woman. “Who won’t bring up old flaws. And,” she added, “you can use that number in case you think of anything that might be useful to our investigation.”

Folding her hand over the card, Mrs. O’Keefe tucked it into her pocket.

Just as Frankie was about to say goodbye and leave, Mrs. O’Keefe took her hands in hers and held them fast. When Frankie looked at her quizzically, the woman said fiercely, “Promise me. Promise me you’ll catch the miserable bastard who did this to my little girl. I’m counting on you,” she said with feeling, then, looking into her eyes, the woman added with a knowing expression, “You understand.”

There was a bond between the two of them, she could feel it. Somehow, the woman knew. Frankie nodded her head.

“I promise, Mrs. O’Keefe,” she told her with sincerity.

Taking a breath, the woman released her hands. “Thank you,” she whispered.

The simple words continued to echo in her head as Frankie hurried back to the two men she’d left outside, standing by O’Bannon’s vehicle.

“Hey, everything okay?” Luke asked her when she rejoined them.

Frankie opened the rear passenger door and took the seat behind the front passenger one. “As okay as they can be for that poor woman,” she said evasively.

“No, I mean with you,” Luke said deliberately, getting in behind the car’s steering wheel. The fact that she had taken a seat in the back of the car wasn’t lost on him.

Was she afraid of being scrutinized? Or was there something more?

“Just dandy,” she told O’Bannon with a false cheerful note. The next second, she changed the subject. “You two decide where we’re going for lunch?”

Luke blew out a breath. For now, he let the other matter drop, even though he knew something was definitely bothering the newest member of the team. Instead, he went on to answer her question.

Sort of.

“Well, White Hawk here says he wants burgers. I like Thai food. We thought we’d leave it up to you,” Luke told her. “You can be the tiebreaker.”

“Well, I vote for pizza,” she told them.

“So much for a tiebreaker.” White Hawk laughed.

“Great, a stalemate,” Luke said with a huff. And then he shrugged, exhibiting what his uncle Andrew referred to as grace under fire.

“Okay, since you’re the newbie,” he told her, “we’ll let you pick the place. Pizza it is.”

He turned left at the next corner, heading toward a restaurant that, in his opinion, served the best pizza in the area.

“What did you have to say to Mrs. O’Keefe?” he asked casually.

“Nothing, really.” She met his eyes in the rearview mirror and knew that the man wasn’t about to let the matter go at that. “I just gave her my card and told her to call me in case she thought of anything she might have forgotten.” She debated adding the next part, then decided to do it in case O’Bannon thought she was holding something back. “And then she asked me to promise that we would catch the bastard responsible for her daughter’s murder.”