Cavanaugh's Missing Person

“Or he could be lying in some alley, bleeding or dead,” Connie cried, interrupting Kenzie. “Tossed aside like so much garbage.”

“You don’t know that for a fact, Connie, and until you have reason to believe that’s the case, I want you to focus on positive thoughts,” Kenzie instructed, keeping her voice just stern enough to get the other woman’s attention.

Connie covered her face with her hands, crying again. “I should have never yelled at him,” she said, her voice hitching, “never told him that he was acting like an old man when he had so much of life to live still in front of him.”

“Sometimes fathers need to be yelled at,” Kenzie told the other woman with sympathy.

Connie raised her head, her eyes pleading for some sort of reassurance. “Have you ever yelled at yours?” she asked.

Kenzie laughed. “More times than I could even begin to count,” she told Connie.

It wasn’t true. At least she hadn’t yelled at her father in years, but that wasn’t what this woman needed to hear right now. She needed to be able to assuage her conscience in order to think clearly, so Kenzie told her what she wanted to hear.

Connie nodded, sniffling and once again struggling to get control of herself. “Then you’ll look for my father?” she asked hopefully.

Kenzie nodded. “You just need to fill out this paperwork and we can get started on our end.”

Kenzie opened up the large drawer to her right and took out a folder that was filled with official-looking forms. Beneath the folder she had another file folder filled with forms that were already filled out.

Those she had already input into the system over the last couple of years. Some of the people on those forms had been found, but there were still a great many who hadn’t. Those people bothered Kenzie more than she could possibly say. Not because they represented opened cases that counted against her, but because they represented people who hadn’t been reunited with their loved ones. People who might never be reunited with their distraught loved ones.

She didn’t know what she would do if she ever found herself in that set of circumstances. Which was why, her Uncle Brian had told her when he’d assigned her to this department, she was the right person for the job.

* * *

Connie broke down and cried twice during what should have been a relatively short process of filling out the form.

The second time, Kenzie kindly suggested, “Do you want to go outside and clear your head?”

But Connie bit her lower lip and shook her head, refusing the offer. “No, I want to finish filling out the form. And then I want to help you find my father.”

She could relate to that, Kenzie thought. But even so, she had to turn Connie down. She smiled patiently at the woman. “I’m afraid that it doesn’t quite work that way.”

Connie looked at her, confused. “How does it work? I don’t mean to sound belligerent,” Connie apologized. “I thought I could help, because I know all his habits. But I just want to know how you find someone.”

“A lot of ways,” Kenzie answered matter-of-factly. “We talk to people at your dad’s place of work, to his neighbors, find out if he had a club he liked to frequent more than others—”

Connie cut her off quickly, shaking her head. “He didn’t.”

“All right,” Kenzie said, continuing. “A favorite restaurant, then—”

Again Connie shook her head. “My father didn’t like fancy food and he didn’t believe in throwing his money away by having someone else cook for him when he could do a better job of it himself.”

“How about his friends?” Kenzie asked. “Did he have anyone he was close to?” she asked, already doing a mental sketch of a man who had become a loner in his later years.

Connie shook her head just as Kenzie had expected her to. “My father stopped seeing his friends once Mom had died and after a while, his friends stopped trying to get him to come out.” She sighed again. “I guess they all just gave up on him—like I did.”

“It’s not your fault,” Kenzie underscored. “And I’d still like to have a list of his friends,” she told Connie. “One or two of those friends might not have given up trying to get him to come out of his shell,” she said to the other woman.

Connie looked almost wounded. “You mean the way I gave up?”

Part of her job, the way Kenzie saw it, was to comfort the grieving. Guilt was a heavy burden to bear. Kenzie did her best to help Connie cope.

“You had your own life to live, your own grief to deal with over the death of your mother,” Kenzie insisted. “And you didn’t give up on your dad. You just gave him a time-out so he could try to deal with the situation on his own.”

Connie sighed. “When you say it that way, it doesn’t sound so bad,” she told Kenzie, a trace of gratitude in her voice.

“And it’s not,” Kenzie told her firmly. “Sometimes you can’t drag a horse to water, you have to let him see the water and then clear a path for him so that he can go to it at his own leisurely pace.”

Connie’s mouth curved. “I never thought of my father as a horse,” she commented.

“Maybe more like a mule?” Kenzie suggested with a smile.

Connie sighed. “He could be so stubborn, there was just no talking to him.”

Kenzie nodded. “I know what you mean. I have a few relatives like that of my own,” she told the woman. She saw a little of the color returning to Connie’s thin cheeks. “Feel better?” she asked.

“A little,” Connie admitted. “I’ll feel a whole lot better once you find him,” she said.

“So will I,” Kenzie assured the other woman. When people came in to file a missing person report, she took great care in making those people feel as if this was a joint undertaking and that she was in this together with them. It seemed to help them hang on. “Now, if you could give me as many names and addresses of your dad’s friends, that would be a great help.”

“I’ve got my mother’s old address book at home. I kept it as a souvenir,” Connie explained. “Will that help?” she asked.

“That will be perfect,” Kenzie assured her.

“And you’ll find my father?” Connie asked again, desperately needing to hear Kenzie make a promise to that effect.

“We’ll do our very best to find your father,” Kenzie told her.

Connie nodded, rising to her feet. “Okay. I’ll get that address book to you today,” she promised.

“That’ll be great,” Kenzie told her.

In her opinion, Connie looked a tiny bit better as she left the office.

Now all she had to do, Kenzie thought, was to deliver on her promise and everything would be fine.

Chapter 2

“Here, you look like you could use this.”

Detective Jason Valdez placed a slightly misshapen container of coffee on the desk directly in front of his sometimes partner, Detective Hunter Brannigan.

Hunter raised his half-closed green eyes slowly from the container and fixed what passed for a penetrating look at the man who worked with him in the police department’s Cold Case Division.

“You got this from the vending machine?” Hunter went through the motions of asking even though the answer was a foregone conclusion on his part.

“No, I had a carriage drawn by four matched unicorns deliver it. Yes, it’s from the vending machine,” Jason answered. “What do you think, I’m going to drive over to the closest coffee house to get you some overpriced coffee just because there’s a fancy name embossed on the side of the container?”

Removing the lid, Hunter sniffed the inky-black coffee in the container and made a face. “This is swill,” he pronounced.

Jason took no offense. Everyone knew that the coffee from the vending machine was strictly a last resort, to be consumed when nothing else was available.

“But it’s swill that’ll open up those bright green eyes of yours,” Jason told him, sitting down at the desk that butted up against Hunter’s, “and I’m betting after the night you’ve had, you could use any help that you can get.”

Hunter moved the container aside. “How do you know what kind of a night I had?”

“Because I’m a detective,” Jason answered. “And because you always have that kind of a night, especially when it’s on a weekend. For some reason, unbeknownst to me, women seem to gravitate to you, willingly buying whatever you’re selling.”

Hunter laughed. “You’re just jealous because you’re married and Melinda would skin you alive if she even saw you looking at another woman.”

“Yeah, there’s that, too,” Jason agreed. He shook his dark head that recently sprouted a few gray hairs. He blamed that on his wife, as well. “I swear, ever since my wife got pregnant, she’s turned into this fire-breathing, suspicious monster.”

Hunter shook his head, suppressing a laugh. “There’s no accounting for some people’s taste, I guess.” And then he grew more serious. “Just don’t give her any reason to be suspicious.”

“Any reason?” Jason questioned. “She’s got me too busy running all these errands for her and going around in circles. Any free time I used to have now gets totally eaten up. I couldn’t hook up with anyone else if I wanted to—which I don’t,” he emphasized in case that point had gotten lost in the conversation.

“Just hang in there, Valdez. Once the baby comes, Melinda will turn back into that sweet little woman you married.”

Jason looked skeptically at the man sitting across from him. “You really believe that?”

Hunter lifted and then dropped his shoulders in a careless shrug. “Hey, it’s good to have something to hang on to,” he told Jason with a grin.

“I guess,” Jason murmured. “It’s for damn sure that these cold cases certainly don’t fill that void,” Valdez said. “Sometimes I wonder why we keep beating our heads against that brick wall.”

Instead of a flippant remark the way he’d expected, his partner addressed his question seriously. “Because, every once in a while, there’s a crack in that wall and we get to give someone some closure about a loved one. That, my friend, in case you’ve forgotten, is a good feeling,” Hunter said.

Without thinking, he picked up the container Jason brought him and took a sip. Hunter made a face almost immediately, setting the container down again. This time he banished it to the far corner of his desk.

“I think the vending machine people have outdone themselves. This tastes like someone’s boiled socks,” Hunter declared in disgust.

“How would you know what boiled socks taste like?” Jason asked, apparently intrigued.

Hunter never hesitated. “I have a very vivid imagination,” he answered.

James Wilson, a prematurely balding, heavyset man, peered into the squad room. Spotting whom he was looking for, he crossed the floor over to Hunter.

By the time he reached Hunter’s desk, Wilson was breathing heavily, sucking in air noisily.

“You really should see a doctor, Wilson,” Hunter said. It seemed to him that each time he saw the detective, the man just got heavier and heavier. There had to be a cutoff point.

“Yeah, yeah, you and my wife,” Detective Wilson said dismissively. He made an annoyed face. “You want to hear this or not?”

“Sure,” Jason answered, speaking for both of them. “What brings you huffing and puffing into our corner of the world, Wilson?”

Wilson looked from one detective to the other, then answered with a single word. “Rain.”

“You’re a bit late, Wilson,” Jason told the other man. “It rained yesterday. Unseasonably so,” the detective added. “Ever notice how Californians drive in the rain? Like they’ve never seen the stuff before and just want to get home before they drown.”

“Don’t mind him, he’s a transplant from New Mexico,” Hunter told the detective. “I’m sure you didn’t come all the way over here to talk about the unusual shift in the weather.”

Wilson smiled, making Hunter think of a cat that had secretly swallowed a canary. “Indirectly, I am.”

While Hunter claimed that his evenings out had no effect on him, last night had been particularly taxing. He’d gotten all of three hours’ sleep, and it was beginning to catch up with him. Opening a drawer, he checked to see if he was out of aspirin. He was.

“Wilson,” he said, closing the drawer again, “I’ve got a headache building behind my eyes and I’m not in the mood for twenty questions. Now, is this belated weather report going somewhere or not?” he asked.

Instead of answering the question, Wilson asked one of his own. “Mind if I sit?”

Hunter played along and gestured toward the chair next to his desk. “Now, what did you come all this way to tell me?”

James Wilson worked on another floor for another division, but what would have seemed close to another man was like a trek through the Himalayas to the man now sitting beside his desk. It had to have taken a lot to bring Wilson here, Hunter reasoned.

“You know that cold case you keep coming back to?” Wilson asked. When Hunter didn’t respond, Wilson added, “That first one that you picked up?”

Hunter knew exactly which case the other detective was referring to. It was the one that really haunted him because he could never identify the victim for a very basic reason.

“You’re talking about the man who was missing his hands and head,” Hunter said.

Like a game show host, Wilson pointed toward Hunter, then touched the tip of his nose as if the other detective’s answer was dead-on. “That’s the one. You know that rain we had yesterday?” Wilson asked.

“The rain you led with?” Hunter asked. It was a rhetorical question. “What about it?”

Wilson enjoyed having other people listen to him and it was obvious that he was stretching this out. “Well, apparently it washed away some dirt.”

“It was a torrential downpour,” Jason recalled. “A lot of dirt was washed away.”

“Yeah, but this dirt was covering up what turned out to be a shallow grave.” Wilson paused, whether for dramatic effect or because he’d temporarily run out of breath wasn’t clear.

In either case, both Hunter and Jason cried out, almost in unison: “What was in the grave?”

“Hands and a head,” Wilson informed them almost smugly.

Hunter was on his feet immediately. “Where are those hands and that head now?” he asked.

“Where do you think? The ME’s got them,” Wilson answered.

Hunter started to hurry out of the squad room, then abruptly stopped. They were two men down today, bringing their total down to two. Jason and he couldn’t both leave the squad room at the same time. He looked back at his partner, a quizzical look on his face.

The latter waved him on. “You go, Brannigan. This was your baby to begin with. I’ll man the desk and answer the phones—not that they’ll ring,” Jason added.

“You sure?” It evolved into a joint case, although it was more his than Jason’s since he had taken the case over from the retiring homicide detective who hadn’t been able to close it.

“I’m sure.” Jason grinned, looking at his friend. “Looks like the color came back to your cheeks, Brannigan. Both of our names might be on the report, but this is your case. I wouldn’t deprive you of going down to see this latest piece of the puzzle,” he told Hunter.

That was all Hunter needed.

“How did you happen to find out about this, anyway?” Hunter asked the other detective. He slowed down in order to allow Wilson to catch up.

“Heard two detectives talking in the snack room. Thought of that cold case you had,” Wilson said with a touch of bravado. They got to the elevator and he pressed the down button. “What do you think are the odds that these hands and head are your cold case’s head and hands?” Wilson asked.

“Well, given that this isn’t a run-of-the-mill kind of kill,” Hunter speculated as the elevator car arrived, “I’d say the odds are better than fifty-fifty.”

Getting in and holding the door open for Wilson, he waited until the other detective got on, then pressed for the basement. Ordinarily, the medical examiner’s offices were housed in a different building. However, in the interest of efficiency, in the last few months the office had been moved to the building that housed the police department. It now occupied the same floor as the CSI lab and the computer tech department.

The elevator arrived in the basement, but as the doors opened, Wilson remained where he was. When Hunter glanced at him, Wilson said, “I’ll let you go the rest of the way yourself.”

“You don’t want to come with me?” Hunter asked.

He’d been surprised that the detective had accompanied him this far and had just assumed that Wilson would tag along to see if this was indeed connected to the cold case he’d taken over when he first came to the division.

However, Wilson looked more than a little pale as he hung back.

“I’ve seen enough things on this job to give me nightmares as it is. I don’t need this to prey on my mind, too. Just wanted to bring you the ‘good news,’” Wilson said, raising his voice just as the elevator doors closed again.

Hunter shook his head. “Takes all kinds,” he murmured under his breath.

He wasn’t particularly anxious to see a dismembered head either, but if it brought closure to the case he’d worked on over the last few years, it would be well worth it. Maybe now he could go through the database and put a name to the headless, handless person who had been his first case. Put a name to him and possibly bring closure to a family if the murder victim actually had one.

In any event, as long as the fingerprints weren’t burnt off—and he really doubted that they would be, because why get rid of the hands if you could burn off the prints more easily—he stood a good chance of at least giving the victim a name.

The moment Hunter stepped into the medical examiner’s room, he knew that the head and hands didn’t belong to the man whose file was in his desk. The head and hands on the ME’s table looked much too fresh, as if whoever had been dismembered and buried had suffered the indignities less than a week ago. Decomposition hadn’t gone too far yet. The victim in his cold case file had been killed several years ago and his hands and feet—unless extraordinary measures had been taken to preserve those body parts—would have been badly decomposed.

Still, he was here so he might as well ask a few questions, Hunter thought.

“What do you have for me, Doc?” Hunter asked, walking in.

“Not all that much yet I’m afraid,” Dr. Alexander Rayburn said, gesturing toward the three body parts on his table. “The crime lab techs just brought this lovely package to me about two hours ago.”

The head he was looking at had gray hair and a very pale complexion. If nothing else, the victim hadn’t been a sun worshipper, Hunter thought. “Can you tell me how long he’s been dead?” he asked the ME.

“Well, all this is still preliminary, but my guess is that he’s been dead for about a week, possibly less, maybe a little more. Judging from his face, I’d say that he’s a man in his later fifties. A professional man,” the doctor added.

Hunter looked at the ME, puzzled. “How can you tell that?”

“The hands,” the doctor answered. He picked up one carefully in his gloved hand. “There are no calluses on his hands, no rough skin. He didn’t work with his hands, he worked with his brain.”

“Which it seems was generously delivered to you, as well,” Hunter commented, looking at the victim’s head. He circled the table slowly, looking at the three dismembered parts that were laid out on the table. “What kind of a person does this, Doc?”

“That’s an easy one to answer,” the ME said. “A sick person. A methodical person. And an extremely organized person.” He looked at Hunter. “These cuts weren’t made hastily, or haphazardly. The killer knew exactly where to cut for minimum damage and bone resistance. My guess is that the victim was anesthetized—or more likely, already dead—when he was cut up.”

Hunter separated himself from the deed that the ME was describing. It was a coping mechanism he’d learned to use on his first case. Otherwise, he’d be spending every available moment in the men’s room, throwing up his last meal.

“Anything else?” he asked the ME.

“Yes.” The doctor looked up at Hunter and said with atypical passion, “I hope that the bastard who did this rots in hell.”

“You and me both, Doc,” Hunter agreed.

Well, he’d gotten what he came for. This didn’t involve his cold case. Even so, Hunter remained in the room and continued to thoughtfully look at the body parts that were laid out on the ME’s table.

“Something on your mind I can help you with, Detective?” the ME asked, glancing at Hunter over his shoulder. “You said these aren’t the missing parts from your cold case.”

“They’re clearly not,” Hunter agreed.

“Well, I know that it isn’t my scintillating company that’s keeping you here,” the ME said, “so what’s the problem?”

Hunter went on studying the dismembered parts on the table. He had an eerie feeling about them. About this whole thing.

“The problem is that I think my cold case might very well have been the first victim for whoever killed this man.”

The doctor looked up from the notes he was taking and looked pointedly at the detective. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

Hunter nodded. “I think we’ve got a serial killer on our hands.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” the doctor said, pausing, “but doesn’t it usually take three victims before someone can be declared to be a serial killer?”

Hunter nodded, but even as he did, he said, “I’m sure there’s a third body out there somewhere. And possibly a fourth and a fifth. I’m going to take a cadaver dog out there with me and check that whole area where these hands and head were found,” he informed the ME.

The ME sighed. The doctor had a very clear picture of what lay ahead if Hunter was successful in his “mission.”

“I’d say ‘good luck’ but I’m not sure which way that would be,” the ME told Hunter.

Just as Hunter was leaving the room, he almost walked right into MacKenzie Cavanaugh. Backing up, he inclined his head as he smiled at her. “Kenzie.”

She nodded, as well, uttering a crisp, “Hunter.”

“Suddenly there’s a really cold chill in the room,” the ME commented.

“Well, Brannigan’s on his way out, so the chill’ll be gone soon,” Kenzie told the medical examiner.

The doctor looked in her direction. “What brings you down here?”

Kenzie wanted to make sure that she wasn’t trying to locate a man who was already dead, so starting out in the ME’s office made sense. “I came to find out if you have any unclaimed bodies down here.”

“Only mine,” Hunter volunteered, speaking up from the doorway.

Kenzie chose to ignore him. Hunter Brannigan might be really close friends with two of her brothers, but she had no intention of encouraging the ladies’ man to talk to her any more than absolutely necessary.

“Who are you looking for?” the ME asked Kenzie.

But at that moment, Kenzie had glanced down at the dismembered head on the table and her mouth dropped open.

“I’m looking for this man,” she said, the words almost dribbling out of her mouth as she held up the photo that Connie had given her.

Chapter 3

The medical examiner looked briefly at the photograph that Kenzie had in her hand. There was no doubt about the match.

“Then I’d say you found him. Or what there is of him at the moment,” the doctor amended.

Kenzie felt shell-shocked. This was so much worse than what she’d expected. Connie was going to be devastated when she broke the news to her.

“When—when did this happen?” Kenzie asked, trying not to let the scene get to her. It wasn’t the gruesomeness of the crime so much as the crime itself that she found unnerving.

The medical examiner looked at her. “You’re the second person to ask me that in the last few minutes. I’ll tell you what I said to Detective Brannigan—” Dr. Rayburn got no further.

Kenzie looked at the ME sharply. “Detective Brannigan?” she echoed in surprise.