The Rookie's Assignment

“It must have been really hard to work in Boston,” she said with a tinge of sadness. “I’m sorry for you.”

“Don’t be sorry for me. Be sorry for all the nameless, faceless victims who never get justice because others decide to bend the truth for their own sakes.” His pause didn’t give Keira time to reply before he added, “Or for the sake of their friends or family.”

That was another veiled accusation if she’d ever heard one. “Knock it off, mister. My family is innocent of any crimes, now or in the past. We’re the good guys around here, in case you haven’t noticed. My dad has devoted his life to upholding the law, my uncle Mickey is the fire chief and my grandfather is mayor.”

“And three of your brothers are cops. I’ve never seen a town with more nepotism or more chances to sweep dirt under the rug than this one has. Look at it from my point of view, Keira. If you were an outsider, what would you think?”

“I wouldn’t condemn people just because they’re in a position to falsify evidence, that’s for sure. My brothers would never be a part of any kind of a cover-up.”

The rumble of his voice made the hair on the nape of her neck prickle when he stared at her and replied, “I sure hope you’re right.”

“I am. And once you’ve talked to all the people who were there and seen the truth for yourself, I’ll expect an apology.”

“If it’s due, you’ll get it,” Nick said. “Nothing would please me more.”

Nick welcomed the timely arrival of Captain Douglas Fitzgerald and one of the regular officers, a stocky guy named Hank Monroe. Monroe was a bit of a blowhard and thoroughly unlikable from the get-go but the captain seemed genuinely concerned about the incident.

“You didn’t get a good look at the guy?” Douglas asked, his pen poised to take notes.

“No. Sorry.” Nick was only half listening as he watched Monroe dusting for prints. “He was wearing a ski mask and a knit cap. I think he probably had on gloves, too. It felt like it when he hit me.”

“Age? Weight? Distinguishing marks?”

Shrugging, Nick felt a muscle in his shoulder cramp so he kneaded it as he answered. “I’d have to guess by the way he moved. Maybe forties, maybe a little older. And he outweighed me, although it was hard to tell if it was muscle or flab under his heavy black coat. Like I said, I was pretty groggy after he conked me.”

“Any notion what he might have been after?”

Nick shook his head. “Not a clue. I don’t think he’d been in the room long because he didn’t touch my suitcases or my laptop. Most of this damage was caused when we fought.”

He could tell that Douglas wasn’t satisfied but there was nothing he could do to remedy the situation—other than suggest that someone might have targeted him because he had come to Fitzgerald Bay to investigate the unsolved murder. It would be interesting to find out how many people already knew why he was in town.

“Okay,” Douglas said. “If you think of anything else, you know where to find me. What are you planning to do for the rest of the day?”

“That’s up to Keira.” Noticing the other man’s raised eyebrow Nick smiled and added, “I’d call her Officer Fitzgerald but there are so many of you floating around, I figured it would get too confusing.”

“Sometimes it does,” the captain replied. “See you later, then.” He touched the brim of his cap, nodded to his sister and started to leave.

“Wait, Douglas,” Keira said. “Nick needs a place to live, especially now. How about renting him the condo?”

“Well…”

Nick could tell the other man wasn’t particularly keen on having him for a tenant so he provided a way out. “Don’t worry about it. I can stay here.”

“That’s okay,” Douglas said, visibly relaxing as he spoke. “I converted an old flour mill down by the river. It’s not fancy but I’d be glad to rent to you. Just got the second unit finished, as a matter of fact, and my sisters decorated it a bit.”

“Sisters?” Nick eyed Keira. “Oh, that’s right. There is one more sibling, isn’t there?” He grinned. “Is she a cop, too?”

“No way,” Keira said. “I wasn’t supposed to be one, either. Everybody expected me to go to work with my big sister, Fiona, in her bookstore, but I had other ideas.”

“Now, why does that not surprise me?” Nick said, sharing a conspiratorial glance with her brother.

“That’s what we got for letting Keira tag along too much when we were kids. She was always trying to outrun or outclimb or outswim us boys.” Douglas smiled. “And she did, too. More often than I care to admit.” He reached over and playfully attempted to ruffle her hair as she ducked out of reach. “She’s one tough cookie.”

“You could have fooled me until I saw her in action,” Nick said, figuring it was better to join in the teasing than to behave too stiffly.

To his surprise, the captain sobered as his gaze swept the messy room. “I don’t like this. See that you look after her well, Delfino.”

“Spoken as her brother or a brother officer?”

“Both,” Douglas assured him.

One glance at Keira told Nick she was not happy with the direction their masculine discussion had taken. That was no surprise. Her academy records had already told him she was smart as well as being a crack shot.

Although he understood her desire to serve in her hometown with other members of her family, she would have been able to pass muster in just about any department in the state. Given the way her brothers and father were trying to coddle her, perhaps that career choice would have been a better one.

Nick began to smile as he made up his mind how to play this. “Okay, if you insist,” he drawled. “But only if she promises to keep saving my skin, too, like she did a few minutes ago.” He held out his hand to her. “Thanks, partner. I owe you one.”

Keira grinned from ear to ear as they shook hands.

It was not going to be a struggle to treat her as an equal, Nick decided. She’d worked hard to make it this far and she deserved the badge she wore so proudly.

He just hoped the rest of her family was as upstanding and honest as he’d already judged her to be. If, as he suspected, the Fitzgeralds were the only ones who had known why he was in town—to a point, anyway—then the ransacking of his room led straight back to them.

In that event, would it be foolish to rent an apartment from Douglas? No, he decided. Although Douglas probably thought he could keep an eye on Nick that way, there was a good possibility Nick could turn the tables and do a little snooping of his own.

There was an old saying he often thought of in situations like this. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

That motto had never failed him before. The hardest part of his Internal Affairs job was telling the difference between his friends and his enemies.

After Nick had returned from a working lunch with the chief, Keira had spent the rest of the afternoon listening as Nick casually interviewed her brothers Ryan and Douglas, plus Hank Monroe, mainly because they happened to be the ones he encountered in the office.

When Nick arrived at the station the following morning she jumped to her feet, more than ready to give him a promised tour of the town.

“How about driving around a little to orient you?” she asked before he had a chance to even remove his jacket. “I know you’ll want to talk to some of the witnesses besides us.”

It wasn’t exactly comforting when Nick arched a brow and asked, “Why the big hurry?”

“It’s not that I’m trying to rush you off,” Keira said. “I just feel dumb sitting here like a barnacle on a pier piling and not accomplishing a thing. We’ve all been through this before. You’ve read the reports. Surely there’s somewhere you want to go or someone you want to question.”

“As a matter of fact, I’ve already talked with the lady who owns the inn and café and her staff,” Nick said. “Last night, I had her move me into the same room Olivia Henry occupied when she first came to town.”

“Why? I thought you were going to rent from my brother.”

“I probably am. But I needed a handy place to sleep that wasn’t a shambles and I also wanted to have a chance to go over the victim’s former suite at my own pace. Didn’t your department do that?”

Keira made a face. “I don’t think so. It had been months since Olivia had stayed at the Sugar Plum.”

“Still, there’s always a chance she left something behind, either by accident or on purpose.”

“Well?” Keira faced him, hands on her hips. “Did you find any clues?”

“No. But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t have looked just the same. You never know. She did leave that letter to her ‘Sweetheart’ with—who was it? Merry?”

“Yes. I told you they were friends. That info is all in the file, too. Why do you keep acting as if we’re either foolhardy or hiding something?”

“I don’t mean anything of the kind,” Nick insisted. He squared his cap on his head. “So, where shall we go first?”

The car Keira chose for their official use was a black-and-white, four-wheel-drive, short-bodied utility vehicle. Other than her personal motorcycle, which she’d had to forgo riding due to the snow and ice, she liked this unit best.

Right now, she figured it was important to acquaint Nick with her town, with the interesting if quirky residents, and get him used to patrolling these narrow, cobblestone streets. Unfortunately, he didn’t seem to be paying much attention to her spiel or to the passing points of interest she was mentioning.

She frowned and quieted. All she could see was his profile. What was he studying so intently? And why did he keep peering into the side mirror that way?

“Hey. What’s wrong?” she asked, surprised to see him twitch at the sound of her voice. Boy, when that guy concentrated, he really concentrated.

“Nothing. Why?”

“Because you keep looking behind us as if you think we’re being followed.”

His head snapped around. “Did you notice something out of place?”

“Of course not. Why are you so nervous? I wouldn’t think catching a prowler in your room would upset you so much. Is your head bothering you? Maybe you have a concussion. Do you need to see a doctor?”

“My head’s fine. Let’s drop the subject of my fitness for duty, shall we?”

“Sure. No problem,” she said, although what she really wanted to do was insist he tell her why he was acting so edgy. Everything looked normal to Keira. Then again, she did see one strange pickup truck traveling in their direction about half a block back.

Disgusted, she shook off her misgivings. They crossed Oak Street, heading past the red-roofed old lighthouse keeper’s quarters where her brother Charles and the twins resided. Keeping an eye on the reflections in her mirror she watched the nondescript truck turn and disappear down an alley.

See? There was nothing to it, Keira assured herself. So there were one or two vehicles around town that she couldn’t readily ID. So what? That didn’t mean there was any reason to jump at shadows the way her new partner seemed so prone to do.

Maybe he had personal problems, she concluded. If so, he’d come to the right place for healing. Except for the one recent murder—the first they’d had there in over forty years—he’d have absolutely nothing to worry about. Fitzgerald Bay was probably the safest town in the whole state of Massachusetts.

“I’ll swing by Douglas’s condo so you can see if it suits you,” Keira said. “It should feel more like a real home than the inn does.”

He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. Any port in a storm.”

“Really? What kind of place do you have in Boston?”

“The usual.”

The last thing he wanted to do was discuss his private life, not that he had much to talk about beyond his job. His Boston apartment was little more than a convenient place to crash. And the few romances that had crossed his path had always faltered because of his dedication to duty. At least that’s what those women had each claimed when they’d broken up with him.

Nick glanced in the mirror for the hundredth time. His eyes narrowed. Could that be the same old truck he’d been watching a few minutes ago?

“Do you recognize the tan pickup behind us?” he asked.

“Not offhand, although I saw a similar one earlier. Want me to slow down so you can get a look at the license?”

Swiveling, Nick loosened his seat belt. “Don’t bother. There’s ice or snow plastered on the plate. I can’t even tell what state it’s from.”

“I could pull over and let him pass.”

“No. Keep driving steady.”

“Why am I getting the idea this is more than curiosity on your part?” Keira asked, hands fisted on the wheel, eyes on the road.

“Just being cautious.” He wasn’t about to reveal the nagging notion that someone was already bent on stopping him from doing his job in Fitzgerald Bay. Whether he was dealing with a conspiracy or with an individual was a moot point. Danger was danger no matter who was behind it.

Of course, there was also a chance that his imagination was playing tricks on him. It had before.

Yet it was that kind of keen awareness of surroundings that kept veteran officers alive. He’d be a fool to laugh it off.

THREE

Nick was out of the vehicle the moment Keira came to a stop at the curb in front of the condo. Remaining close to the SUV he waited for her to join him.

“See anything now?” she asked.

“No.” Although her position wasn’t too exposed, it didn’t suit him so he nudged her between himself and the side of the car.

“Then why are we skulking around? This is broad daylight in Fitzgerald Bay, not the middle of the night in some dark alley in Boston.”

He forced himself to relax on the outside while his heightened senses continued their vigilance. “Look. Whoever was ransacking my room might have been no more than a run-of-the-mill thief. Or—” he cleared his throat “—he might have been somebody who knows why I’m here and intends to stop me, one way or another.”

“Hardly anybody was aware of your assignment yesterday when you surprised the burglar, though.”

“I’m not so sure of that. By the time I had a little chat with the proprietor of the inn around suppertime, she seemed to know all about me. She even understood why I wanted to transfer into Olivia’s old room for the night.”

“What can I tell you? It’s a small town.”

“Okay. So what if somebody is trying to convince me to give up and go back to Boston? Who do you know who might object to my being brought in to investigate the Henry killing?”

Keira chuckled quietly, grinned and arched her eyebrows at him. “Is that a trick question?”

It was frustrating to see that she wasn’t taking this situation seriously enough. That was the problem with being raised in the same place she was sworn to protect. She liked it here so much that she was unable to see the worst, even when it was staring her in the face.

“Look,” Nick said, “I know none of you are thrilled to have me butting in on your murder case but the chief did agree to accept my help so we may as well bite the bullet, so to speak, and make the best of it.”

“Agreed.”

“Good. That’s a start. You also need to anticipate heightened danger once we poke our noses into other people’s business. I don’t think you’re ready for that.”

“We’ve been over this subject before, Delfino. What do you expect me to do, suspect everybody?”

“All I’m asking is that you keep an open mind in both directions, good and bad. Just because a person may be familiar to you, that doesn’t make them innocent.”

“Aren’t you getting tired of hinting that my brother is guilty? I’m sure getting tired of listening to you.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Sounded like it to me.” She pushed past him and started for the condo. “Take my advice. You’ll get along a lot better around here by keeping your unfounded deductions to yourself.”

Nick followed closely, continuing to scan the area. “Noted. Look, Keira, I’m not oblivious to your family conflict. I’ll back your decision if you ask to be reassigned.” To his astonishment he saw her set her jaw and start to shake her head.

“Uh-uh. Not on your life. You’re supposed to be the best. I not only want to learn from you, I want to be in on solving poor Olivia’s murder. She didn’t deserve to die, and whoever is responsible needs to pay. Scripture says that vengeance is the Lord’s but I’d be overjoyed to have Him use me—use us—to bring that killer to justice.”

“I believe you,” Nick said, smiling in spite of himself. “You’re quite a woman.”

“I’m a cop,” she countered, chin lifted proudly. “That’s what I was born to be and that’s all that matters right now. We’ll get along fine as long as you add that important fact to the list of other things I’ve told you.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said with a snappy salute.

“Humph.” Keira made a fist and slugged him playfully on the upper arm while exhibiting a lopsided smile. “I’m glad we understand each other. Remember, I grew up with four brothers. If I could hold my own with them, I can certainly keep up with you.”

She produced a key. “Come on. Let’s have a look at the apartment. I think you’ll like it.”

As Keira unlocked the front door of the former flour mill, he studied the old stone building. It had two visible stories, indicated by parallel rows of multipaned windows. The idle wooden waterwheel had been left in place on one side and definitely increased the rustic structure’s character.

Several cars were inching past, obviously taking it easy because of the slick roadways and the hidden hazards presented by the cobblestones beneath the packed snow and ice.

At first, Nick didn’t notice anything odd. Then, in the background, he spotted a truck that looked like the one that had been following them before. It was parked in a private driveway with only the front part of its hood visible from behind a board fence. Clouds of rising exhaust indicated that the motor was running.

He tapped Keira’s shoulder. “Wait. Look. Do you see what I see?”

She wheeled. “Where?”

“There. Half a block south. By the yellow house.”

“That property belongs to the Smiths. They always go away for the winter.”

“Any chance they’re home now?”

“No. Their nephew sometimes stops by to check the place but he drives a red SUV so that’s not him, either.”

“Only one way to find out for sure what’s going on, then.” Nick was scanning the surrounding area. “It’s too open right around here. What’s the best way to work my way there on foot without being spotted?”

“The mill basement joins up with a river that’s probably still frozen solid. We could travel along the banks until we got to some cover, then cut through a few backyards and come up behind him.”

“Not we. I,” Nick said firmly.

“But…”

“No buts, rookie. I’ll need you to keep an eye on that truck and provide a distraction if necessary.”

“Okay, okay,” she finally said with a sigh. “Come on. I’ll show you through to the back.”

Nick followed her. The vacant apartment was sparsely furnished yet appealing. Crossing the polished, wood-floored living space they hurried through the kitchen to a door that led them down a dusty flight of stairs into the former grain-storage area. The cavernous, musty-smelling room served as a catchall for extra building supplies and some antiquated milling equipment.

Keira threw a dead bolt and slid open a heavy, wooden, garage-type door. She pointed. “Head that way. It’s a little steep but not bad. Once you reach the river, keep off the ice just in case it’s starting to melt.”

Nick might have rolled his eyes at her if she hadn’t looked so apprehensive. Truth to tell, he’d been skating on figurative thin ice ever since he’d taken that first IA assignment and had begun to seek out and expose crooked cops—the kind who gave the whole profession a bad name.

“I know enough to keep from breaking through the ice,” he said wryly.

“Sorry. Be careful, okay?”

“I will.” He pointed back up at the living area they had just passed through. “Turn on a light in there so it looks like I’m making myself at home, then go back out to the patrol car and be ready for a pursuit if it comes to that.”

“Gotcha.” She reached for her belt, unclipped a small leather case and handed it to him. “Here. There’s a base radio in the car so you can take mine.”

“Thanks. Call me if he makes the slightest move. And don’t look so grim. I won’t get lost.”

“See that you don’t.”

Glad that he’d thought to order her back to the SUV where she’d be safe, he clipped the handheld radio to his belt and started off at a jog. The way he saw it, the less Keira was exposed to added risk, the better he’d feel.

The thought of what her reaction would be if he actually said as much made him smile. Admittedly, his initial judgment of her capabilities had been too low but she was still far too green to be considered reliable, at least in his professional opinion. Many a rookie had learned the hard way that real life on the streets wasn’t the same as acing tests in a classroom. Keira Fitzgerald was one cop he wanted to see get her seasoning without being hurt along the way.

Or disillusioned, he added. He didn’t know what she’d do if her brother Charles turned out to be a murderer.

Racing back up the stairs and into the living room, Keira flipped a light switch on the wall and raised the blinds so any observer would be sure to notice occupancy. Using the side of her fist she wiped condensation off the window pane and peered out.

The tan truck remained parked where it had been, still puffing exhaust. What she couldn’t see was whether or not the driver had stayed behind the wheel. That didn’t really matter. If Nick radioed for help, and she prayed he wouldn’t have to, she’d be back in the patrol car, waiting and watching, just as he’d ordered.

Checking the readiness of her Glock she holstered it and headed for the street. The trick was to appear nonchalant in case she was being watched. Part of her kept insisting she was being silly while the part that had listened to Nick’s warnings shivered and surreptitiously scanned her surroundings.

Her jaw dropped when she noticed a crouching figure working his way closer, moving from shrub to shrub in nearby yards. Her initial reaction provided a jolt of adrenaline. Then, she realized who and what she was seeing.

Nick? It was him! The man must have run all the way in spite of the slippery riverbanks. And, judging by the darker-looking knees and ankles of his uniform, he hadn’t made the trip without getting wet.

Proceeding slowly and taking extra care to avoid staring at Nick, Keira rounded the patrol car and started to open the driver’s door.

In the distance a motor revved. The tan truck they’d been watching was not moving but a different one, a slightly lighter-colored one, was coming toward them from the opposite direction.

Keira reached for her belt out of habit, intending to alert Nick. Of course, there was no radio clipped there. She’d given it to him because he hadn’t picked one up for himself at the station.

Muttering to herself she quickly slid into the SUV and picked up the mike. He didn’t have a call sign so she simply used his name. “Nick. Come in.”

Although he was now hidden from her sight she peered out at the area where she’d last seen him and tried again. “Delfino. Do you copy?”

Still no reply. The hair at the nape of Keira’s neck prickled. Where could he be? Why wasn’t he answering? Only moments ago he’d been working his way closer, so what was keeping him from using his radio? Had something bad happened to him or was he simply observing radio silence because of his present position?

If she spent too much time trying to reach Nick or called him on a different frequency, their dispatcher would surely get involved. Right now, that was the last thing she wanted.