“No disrespect, Lieutenant, but aren’t one of the other teams up?” She gestured vaguely around the room. Most of the desks were unoccupied, but that was only because the teams were out to lunch or in the field. “I’m still—”
Harrigan cut her short. “Same M.O. as your dead lawyer,” he told her. “Hands and feet tied up and a leather strip around the neck, choking off the air supply.”
Once was bizarre. Twice was eerily unbelievable. “You’re kidding.”
The lieutenant gave her a look that said she should know better. “When have you known me to kid?”
The flicker of hope died ignobly. “Right. Where’s her body?” Taylor asked as she took her oversize, carry-everything purse out of the bottom drawer and slung it over her shoulder.
“His,” Harrigan corrected. Both Zach and Taylor looked at him, obviously taken aback. “His body.”
“His body?” Taylor repeated incredulously.
The barest hint of a smile came to the older man’s lips. “Aced your hearing test, did you?”
Taylor blew out a frustrated breath. “So this wasn’t personal, this is just some homicidal wacko getting his jollies.”
“Draw no conclusion before its time,” Harrigan advised. He handed her the slip of paper with the dead man’s name and address on it. “Here you go. Dispatch just called.”
“Terrance Crawford,” she read out loud then saw the address. “Lakeview Middle School.” She raised her eyes to the lieutenant’s. “He’s a teacher?”
“Not anymore,” Harrigan contradicted with a heavy sigh.
“Okay, guess you’re off the hook,” Zach said to her as the lieutenant retreated to his office. “I’ll take a rain check. But you get yourself something to eat, hear me?” She nodded dismissively, her mind already working on this newest twist. Was there a connection between the homicides, or was this killer just an opportunist? “If you’re going to be the godmother of my kid,” Zach told her as he began to walk away from her desk, “I want you healthy.”
Taylor’s thoughts vanished as her mind came to a skidding halt. She grabbed her brother’s arm and turned him around to face her.
“Hold it!” she ordered. “What godmother? What kid?”
“You,” he said in a mild tone, struggling to keep a straight face. “Mine.”
“You don’t have a kid.” And then she backtracked. “Do you?”
Zach grinned. “According to Kasey, who’s much more of an expert on these things than I am, considering she’s a doctor, it’s the size of a peanut. But it is mine. Ours,” he amended with all the pride that flowed through a newly minted father’s veins.
“Oh, God, Zach! A baby!” Excited, thrilled, Taylor threw her arms around her brother. There were a lot of babies of varying ages and sizes in the Cavanaugh family, but this was the first one for the McIntyre contingent. “Does Mom know?”
“Officially?” he asked, then shook his head as Taylor released her hold on him. “No. But she probably just heard you scream it out. Kasey and I thought we’d tell her and Brian over dinner tonight. Want to be there?” he offered.
Taylor knew her location tonight was still up in the air, depending on what she was going to learn at this new crime scene, but she said what was in her heart. “I’d love to.”
Like the rest of them, including their mother, Zach had no illusions about the demands of the job. He read between the lines.
“I’ll understand if you’re not.” He took his leave, saying, “Now go solve this damn thing before we have to set up another task force.”
Taylor paused only long enough to kiss her brother, give him another warm, fierce hug, and then she rushed off. She had a body waiting for her.
It almost didn’t seem right to feel this happy while going to investigate yet another murder but this ultimately kept them all going. The small, deep, unexpected pockets of happiness that they dipped into to sustain them.
Otherwise, it was all sorrow, all darkness in the worlds they occupied. She knew without exploring it that she wouldn’t have been able to cope with that. Most likely, none of them could.
Thank God for her family. How would she have ever maintained her sanity without them? It was a rhetorical question.
Pulling up to Lakeview Middle School, Taylor parked her car right beside the patrol car and got out. It appeared to be the last parking space. The lot was completely filled with cars that undoubtedly belonged to the teachers who worked here.
Out of the corner of her eye she noticed one car parked off to the side that looked vaguely familiar, but then she shrugged it off. Lots of cars looked familiar at this point.
She wondered how the students were coping with this turn of events, or if somehow the teachers had managed to shelter them from the traumatic truth. The irony of the situation wasn’t lost on her. This made twice. Two murders in two neighborhoods deemed exceedingly safe. Patrolmen were more likely to hand out tickets for failing to wear a bicycle helmet or not coming to a full stop at a stop sign than deal with the grisly details of a murder.
Walking up to the wood-framed double glass doors, Taylor took a breath and braced herself. She pulled open the right door with one hand, holding her badge in the other.
As she crossed the threshold, she found she didn’t have to say anything. The principal, a Mrs. Hammond, was waiting for her and she pointed out the way as she fell into step beside her.
“I don’t know what to say to the parents,” Mrs. Hammond confessed, tension radiating from every pore as she obviously struggled to hang on to her composure. “Nothing like this has ever happened here before. Nothing,” she repeated, her voice cracking.
“You need grief counselors,” Taylor advised kindly. She paused for a moment, looking through her wallet. Finding the card she wanted, she handed it to the woman. “Call this number,” she told her. “You’ll get the help you need. Meanwhile, what can you tell me about the teacher who was killed?”
Mrs. Hammond swallowed before answering. “He didn’t call in today.”
Taylor looked at the stately woman, confused. “Excuse me?”
The principal ran her tongue quickly across her dry lips. “He wasn’t here this morning and he didn’t call in. I thought it was rather strange. He’s one of our most dedicated teachers,” she explained, her voice speeding up nervously with each word she uttered, her distress very evident. “He was always volunteering for after-school programs. The kids all love him. Loved him,” she corrected. “And then, Jack opened up the closet where the equipment’s stored—”
“Jack?” Taylor interrupted before the woman could continue.
But it wasn’t the principal who answered her.
“The maintenance man,” Taylor heard an all-too-familiar voice say.
No, it couldn’t be.
But it was.
She didn’t know which she was more, angry or stunned. “What the hell are you doing here, Laredo?” she demanded, swinging around to face him.
He appeared nothing if not easygoing as he answered, “Just lending a hand.” Then, to placate her, he added, “I own a police scanner and heard the call being made to dispatch.”
Trying to maintain her temper, Taylor turned to the principal.
“I’d like to talk to you later, Mrs. Hammond. Will you be in your office?”
“Yes.” There was almost an echo in the woman’s voice.
Taylor nodded. “Good. And please, make that call,” Taylor pressed, indicating the card that she had just given her.
The principal glanced down at the card numbly, nodded and then retreated. She looked like someone on automatic pilot.
The moment the woman was out of earshot, Taylor whirled around to face the private investigator who was turning up more often than the proverbial bad penny.
“This is getting more than a little suspicious, Laredo.”
He nodded, gazing down at the body that had fallen out of the closet at the frightened maintenance man’s feet. “That’s what I think, too.”
In a patient voice that instantly got under her skin, he reminded her, “I already told you what I was doing at the first scene. As for this one—” he looked back at the body again “—it’s just too much of a coincidence not to be our boy.”
He was really starting to tick her off. “We don’t have a boy. I have a suspect.”
He raised his eyes to hers, interested. “You do?”
He was making her trip over her own tongue. “I mean I would if I could find the guy who supposedly delivered flowers at the building the night Eileen Stevens was killed.” To cover all bases, she’d spent the better part of one afternoon calling every florist within a twenty-mile radius. No one had a delivery scheduled to anyone at The Villas. She really hadn’t expected them to.
“There was a delivery guy?” Laredo asked. “Who told you that?”
“The security guard. Nathan Miller,” she added in case he’d talked to another one.
The information surprised him. “Funny, he never mentioned that to me when I talked to him.”
“Maybe you’re not as persuasive as you think,” she couldn’t resist saying.
“Maybe,” he allowed. And then he smiled at her. “Maybe we could go out to dinner and you could teach me your persuasive ways.”
Behind her, the patrolman who had been first on the scene and had called dispatch cleared his throat. “Um, Detective?”
Chagrined, Taylor turned toward the uniformed man. “Why didn’t you run this man off?” she asked.
Nervous to be placed on the spot, the patrolman told her, “He said the Chief of D’s would vouch for him.”
“And you just took him at his word?” she asked incredulously.
“No, ma’am, I called in to check. And Chief Cavanaugh did. He vouched for him. And he told me to tell you that sometimes a little outside help is necessary.”
Taylor rolled her eyes. Just what she needed. Her stepfather on this irritating man’s side.
She didn’t bother suppressing her deep-rooted sigh. Some days it just didn’t pay to get out of bed. This was turning into one of those days.
Chapter 6
T aylor, grudgingly accepting Laredo’s help, spent the better part of the afternoon interviewing everyone who was at the school when Terrance Crawford’s body had been discovered. The primary question was: How did they feel about the dead teacher? The words the interviewees used might have varied, but the essence of what they had to say was the same: Terrance Crawford was a wonderful teacher who was loved by everyone.
Incredibly selfless, the science teacher slash coach gave of himself to the point of exhaustion. If there was an after-school program that needed someone to helm it, Crawford was the first—sometimes the only—one to volunteer his services. And if there was no funding available for the program, he found a way to run it for free.
It quickly became apparent to Taylor that, in his own way, Crawford was as passionately devoted to his work as Eileen had been to hers. The difference being that there was no king’s ransom to be had in the teacher’s case. What Terrance Crawford reaped were not exorbitant fees but gratitude and accolades. As in Eileen’s case, the main people in Crawford’s world were his colleagues. The difference again was that, according to several teachers’ testimonies, Crawford could kick back with them. Taylor sincerely doubted that Eileen had kicked back with anyone in years.
Because there were so many teachers, students and, in some cases, parents to interview, Taylor found herself having to reluctantly accept Laredo’s help. Otherwise, there was no telling when she would finish and it would be a matter of the proverbial cutting off her nose to spite her face syndrome.
“Glad to see you’re being sensible instead of territorial,” Laredo had said when she’d relented and told him that he could talk to the teachers without her being present—as long as he showed her his notes afterward. “This way we can probably get the preliminary interviews done in one afternoon instead of two.”
There was that we again, she thought as she herded off her group of teachers and students. Where did this man get off thinking they were a set? And just what was it about him that got her back up so fast? She was usually a lot more tolerant of people, even when they behaved like insufferable jerks. Since there was no answer, Taylor was forced to drop the matter. But it still gnawed away at her.
She was just getting to her last interview, the vice principal, Alyce Chin, a diminutive woman who was particularly teary-eyed over Crawford’s murder, when Taylor saw Laredo looking into the classroom through the glass window on the upper portion of the door.
Damn, she should have known that he would be finished first. But it wasn’t a competition, right?
Doing her best to ignore the man’s presence, which still felt intrusive despite the door that separated them, Taylor forced herself to focus on the gut feeling she had about the vice principal.
Alyce Chin wasn’t telling her everything.
After getting the standard answers about how well liked the dead teacher had been, Taylor lowered her voice, making the exchange more intimate. “Were you and Terrance Crawford close?”
The young woman began to shrug, denial obviously rising to her lips. And then she sighed. The moment she did, she broke down.
Alyce’s lower lip trembled as she hoarsely whispered, “Yes.”
Taylor was not about to leave anything in an ambiguous state. She wanted everything to be perfectly clear and spelled out. “Does that mean you were seeing each other outside the school?”
The woman hesitated again, then answered, “Yes,” in a small, lost voice.
Thank God, finally something personal. “Then what can you tell me about him?” Taylor pressed, trying not to sound too impatient or eager. “Did Terrance have any enemies, anyone he felt had it in for him?”
The vice principal’s dark eyes widened in stunned surprise. “No, no, everyone loved him.”
“Not everyone,” Taylor reminded her. More tears slid down the other woman’s cheeks. Taylor thought of Eileen and how the criminal lawyer had turned her life around after giving birth to her baby. “Was there something in his past that he was ashamed of? That might have come back to haunt him?”
Again Alyce Chin hesitated for a moment, as if debating over something. But then she shook her head. “No, nothing.”
“You hesitated,” Taylor seized on that, her eyes holding the other woman prisoner. “Was there something? Think, this is important, Alyce. It could lead us to whoever killed Terrance.”
Loyally, the vice principal shook her head. “No.” And then she pressed her lips together, testing the weight of her next words. With a reluctant sigh, she said, “This might be nothing…”
“Let me be the judge of that,” Taylor coaxed.
“All right. Once, when he was over at my place and he’d had a few drinks, Terry told me that in his senior year in high school, he’d gotten a girl—another student—pregnant. When he found out her condition, he wanted to marry her. She called him an idiot and said that she wasn’t about to compound her mistake by making an even bigger one. She gave the baby up for adoption even though he wanted to keep it. He offered to raise it, but she absolutely refused. It killed him that she could do that, that he had no rights as a father.”
She shifted in her chair, uncomfortable about sharing her late lover’s secret. “I think that’s why Terry got into teaching. He wanted to make up for not being there for his son. I know it sounds corny, but he wanted to make a difference, to touch as many young lives as he could.”
From the first word of the narrative, Taylor felt her breath catch in her throat. Every nerve ending she had was now on high alert. If this was a coincidence, it was one hell of one.
“Did Terrance ever happen to mention the girl’s name to you?” Taylor asked, mentally crossing her fingers.
&nb
sp; Alyce thought for a moment, her expression indicating that she was having difficulty recalling. “Arlene, Irene, something like that…” Her voice trailed off as she searched for the name that sounded right.
“Could it possibly be Eileen?” Taylor asked.
The vice principal didn’t answer immediately. Again her expression indicated that she was thinking. “Maybe. I really don’t remember.” Her shoulders slumped a little as she wiped away more tears. “I’m sorry. I just can’t think right now.”
Taylor’s heart went out to the woman. How would she feel, losing someone she loved? Wasn’t that why she shied away from relationships? Because giving your heart came with a high price tag?
“I understand,” Taylor told her gently. “I gave your principal the name of a good grief counselor to call in for the students.” Her mouth curved in a soft, sympathetic smile. “He works with adults, too.”
Alyce pressed her lips together, nodding. She was struggling not to sob. “Thank you,” she murmured.
Finished, Taylor had no choice but to go back into the hallway—where Laredo was still lying in wait, she thought, bracing herself. Hopefully, he’d learned something useful, although she doubted he’d discovered anything as good as what she’d just gotten.
“That’s one hell of a connection,” Laredo said the moment she opened the door and walked out.
Taylor stared at him, dumbfounded. He couldn’t possibly have heard. She’d had to lean in so that she could hear the vice principal herself.
“What is?” she asked cautiously.
“That the dead teacher is the father of Eileen Stevens’s baby.” This took the two murders in a whole different direction. He wasn’t sure what that new direction was yet.
Her mouth almost dropped open. How did he know?
“You couldn’t have possibly heard that,” Taylor insisted.
“You’re right,” Laredo acknowledged. “I didn’t ‘hear’ it. Technically, I read it.”
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