Cavanaugh or Death

by Marie Ferrarella

  So, apparently, they were back in their corners, she thought. But not for long, she silently vowed.

  “See you,” she echoed. “And make sure you give what I said at the fast-food place about coming to the christening some more thought,” she requested.

  “Answer’ll still be the same whether I think about it or not,” he promised, raising his voice. Then, in case there was any doubt as to what that answer would be, he tendered it. “No.”

  “If the answer’s the same, that means you haven’t really put any thought into it,” she noted.

  “No, that just means I was right in the first place and there isn’t anything to expand on.” Instead of leaving, he caught himself pinning her in place with his eyes for a moment. “Why use fifty words when five will do?”

  The first reason that came to her mind was voiced. “To avoid misunderstandings.”

  Davis laughed shortly. “Now you sound like a lawyer. Only lawyers use a hundred words to describe ordinary, everyday items.”

  “I don’t need a hundred. I just want to hear one,” she told him as he started walking away. “That word’s ‘yes,’” she called after him.

  He didn’t bother turning around. Instead he just kept walking as he said, “Not going to happen.”

  The problem was that as much as he had the courage of his convictions, he wasn’t a hundred percent convinced that what he’d just said was going to transpire.

  This particular Cavanaugh was far too stubborn for his own good.

  * * *

  Because two of the gravesites had already been recently disturbed, there was enough probable cause to order a temporary shutdown of the cemetery, during which time Moira and the people assigned to her could conduct a thorough search of the grounds for more disturbed graves.

  The search turned up two more.

  “Just two?” Moira asked, almost disappointed as she looked at the group of five police officers she and Davis had been able to get assigned to the search. “You’re sure?”

  “We could go through the grounds again, Detective, but that’s all we found,” a seven-year veteran of the force named Jefferson Wakefield told her.

  “I suppose two’s better than nothing,” Moira murmured.

  “All it’ll take is one to provide us with the key to all this,” Davis reminded her.

  “You’re right,” she agreed. Turning to the officer closest to her, she requested, “Show me where the graves are.”

  The graves were at opposite ends of the cemetery. The first was in the same section as the first two had been found. The second, however, was located in the section reserved for the more expensive plots. These faced the morning sun, which in turn meant that they were in the shade for the hotter part of the day, which was an added benefit in the summer. Also, the view in this particular section was better, both of which could be considered as important points for the family of the deceased, not the actual deceased, Moira thought.

  And that, in turn, might turn out to be to their benefit.

  “I take it that—” she paused to read the name inscribed on the gravestone “—Shirley Reynolds has next of kin.”

  “Don’t know yet,” Davis told her. For that, they needed Montgomery, or at least his access to the information. “But I’d say it is a safe bet. Or, at the very least, the woman had next of kin when she died.”

  Moira looked around the immediate vicinity. “Where is our friendly neighborhood groundskeeper?” she asked.

  Weaver had been the one they had served papers on when they had first arrived. The man had looked overwhelmed with all the rhetoric in the papers so she had explained it to him, telling him that, for the time being, the cemetery had to be closed to the public and to all visitors for the officers to be able to do their job.

  “Haven’t seen him since we got started,” Davis told her. “My guess is that the guy’s probably off hiding somewhere.”

  She tended to agree. “Or making himself very, very scarce.” Was that because he was brooding over this invasion of his “space”? she wondered. Or was it because the groundskeeper had some sort of connection to the disturbed graves?

  Davis looked at her, shaking his head. “Our boy Weaver’s not smart enough to be part of something like this.”

  “To engineer it, no,” Moira agreed. “But he’s definitely smart enough to look the other way if someone paid him to.”

  Davis gave her a rather dubious look. “Be serious. Would you trust Weaver with your secret?”

  “No, but I’m smarter than the average criminal,” she told him.

  Davis laughed shortly. “Beauty, brains and modesty, what a combo,” he quipped.

  “What part of that was sarcasm?” Moira asked, pretending to bat her lashes at him.

  There was something almost seductive about her when she did that and he found himself doing what he could to block it. To keep her from guessing what was on his mind, what passed for a smile fleetingly touched his lips.

  “That’s for you to figure out.” He glanced back at the second grave. The exhumation count was going up. “More court orders?” he proposed.

  She nodded. “Unless Shirley or Anne back there have next of kin we can actually talk to.”

  “Next of kin might say no,” he reminded her, adding, “I certainly wouldn’t want Uncle Alfred dug up on the say-so of some wet-behind-the-ears detective.”

  “Uncle Alfred?” she questioned, instantly curious.

  Did he have family, after all? Family he wasn’t owning up to? And if he did, why did he act as if there was no family for him to turn to?

  Again, Davis could all but read her mind. He knew where she was going with this. “Figure of speech,” he told her. “There is no Uncle Alfred.”

  She let that go for now. But she wasn’t done yet. “And the ‘wet-behind-the-ears-detective’ comment refers to...?”

  He’d found out a long time ago that the less he said specifically, the less he could be blamed for. And the less that would come back to bite him.

  “You’re primary on this, but I’ve been with the force longer. You figure it out.”

  She reacted to his tone rather than to his words. “You are a cup of sunshine, Gilroy.”

  “Never claimed to be.”

  She turned toward the two officers who were closest to her. “Rope off the two graves we just found and don’t let anyone near them. The detective and I are going to request permission to shed a little more daylight on this case,” she said so that the officers were kept in the loop and knew what was going on.

  Davis looked at his watch. It was already past noon. “This might take a while,” he pointed out.

  She stopped and turned around. “You’re right. Sommerville,” she called out to another officer. When the latter crossed to her, Moira took out several large bills and handed them to the officer. “Get yourself and the officers something to eat. We’ll be back as soon as we can,” she promised. “In the meantime, nobody goes near the graves—this means the groundskeeper if he ever turns up again.”

  “You think because you fed them, you bought their loyalty?” Davis asked as they headed toward the cemetery’s main exit.

  “No,” she contradicted, “I think because I treated them like people, not ‘underlings,’ I created some good will.” She looked at him pointedly as they returned to his vehicle. “I believe in treating people the way I like being treated.”

  He thought of her continual harping on this so-called christening she wanted him to attend.

  “So what you’re telling me is that you like being ordered around and forced to do things you don’t want to do.”

  She knew immediately what he was referring to. Moira grinned at him as they reached his car. “You are definitely a challenge, Davis. But, in case you haven’t really realized it yet, Cavanaugh
s—”

  “Never give up. Yes, I know. So you keep telling me. There’s another thing that Cavanaughs are,” he told her, getting into the car on his side.

  Moira pulled the passenger door open and got in. “What?”

  “Annoying.”

  Moira laughed. “I’ll be sure to pass that along to the Chief of Ds,” she told him with a grin.

  Davis started up his car. The comment he muttered under his breath was lost in the noise. Moira decided it was best that way.

  * * *

  As with the other two deceased occupants of disturbed graves before her, Anne Hemmings had no immediate next of kin. Shirley Reynolds, however, did. A distant nephew named Michael McFarland.

  But McFarland was off on a European cruise and couldn’t be reached currently. Exhumation of her grave had to be temporarily put off. But the one for Anne Hemmings went ahead.

  With, it turned out, the same end results.

  * * *

  “I think this can now be officially labeled a wild-goose chase,” Davis told her in exasperation.

  Glancing at Moira, he was tempted to say something about backing dead horses, or something even more sarcastic, but she seemed far too disappointed for him to rub salt into her wounds.

  He had to be getting soft in his old age, he told himself.

  Davis thought back to his initial idea that a fraternity was behind the disturbed graves. Possibly, in all likelihood, that was it.

  “Maybe it’s just nothing more than a prank or a practical joke,” he suggested.

  Hardly paying attention to what he was saying, Moira squatted beside the exhumed coffin. Temporarily ignoring the dead person in it, she looked intently into its interior. Not only had the deceased been moved awkwardly to one side, but she thought she saw a slight tear in the lining of the coffin.

  She examined it closely for a moment. Rising, she looked at the lead crime scene investigator. “Take this into the lab for further examination.”

  “And by ‘this’ you mean...?” Davis asked her before the investigator could.

  “The coffin,” she told both of them. “Look.” She pointed to the tiny rip she’d spotted. “Something was put in here—and then retrieved.”

  “You sure?” O’Shea asked uncertainly. He examined the spot she’d pointed out. “It hardly looks like it’s been touched.”

  “That’s because whoever is doing this is being very, very careful. In fact, they’re being meticulous.” She emphasized the word. Rising to her feet, she dusted off her hands and turned to Davis. “I think that it’s time to bring Mr. Weaver in for questioning.”

  The request could only mean one thing. “Then you do think he’s in on it.”

  Moira hadn’t made up her mind about that yet. “Maybe yes, maybe no, but he’s definitely seen something or knows something he’s not talking about. We’re going to loosen his tongue.”

  “You want me in on the guy’s interrogation?” Davis asked her. With Moira, he was never really certain about what motivated her.

  She answered as if there had never been any doubt. “Sure.”

  “Then it’s going to be good cop, bad cop?” he asked, assuming he was right.

  She grinned at him. “Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of good cop, evil cop. You do have a way of striking fear into people’s hearts when you scowl,” she pointed out.

  He snorted, acknowledging the obvious. “You’re not fearful.”

  She flashed a completely phony smile. “That’s because I know your secret.”

  “Which is?” he asked suspiciously, having no clue what she was talking about.

  “Deep down—” she poked his sternum “—there is a marshmallow center.”

  His frown went deep. “That doesn’t even merit a reply.”

  “You can’t think of one because you know I’m right,” Moira gloated.

  Davis bit back a few choice words—but it definitely wasn’t easy.

  Chapter 14

  St. Joseph Cemetery’s hulking groundskeeper appeared to be a great deal less confident and far more visibly nervous seated at the table in one of the three interrogation rooms on the precinct’s third floor.

  Away from his familiar surroundings, Avery Weaver gave the impression of being a fish out of water—a very panicked fish who was on the verge of losing the ability to survive.

  Less than ten minutes into the interrogation and the man was sweating profusely despite the fact that the temperature within the precinct as well as the room itself was rather cool.

  “Let’s go over this again,” Moira said patiently. “What do you know about the four coffins that were disturbed?”

  “I don’t know nothing. Only that you dug them up,” Weaver protested defensively. He was rocking to and fro ever so slightly, his bravado gone.

  “How long have you worked at the cemetery?” Moira asked him.

  “Almost ten years,” Weaver responded, his eyes wide, as if he was expecting to be verbally ambushed at any second. “Look, I was asleep. Whenever these ‘disturbances’ were supposed to have happened, I was asleep,” he cried.

  Davis looked at him pointedly, getting into the man’s face. “If you don’t know when they were supposed to have happened, how would you know if you were asleep at the time?” he asked.

  Unlike Moira, he didn’t bother approaching the subject slowly. His voice was gruff and intimidating.

  Weaver began to noticeably shake.

  “’Cause I’m asleep every night,” the groundskeeper cried. He appeared exceedingly uncomfortable about making the admission.

  Moira looked at Weaver with mingled surprise and exasperation. “Seriously?”

  The man’s wide, sloping shoulders rose and fell in a hapless shrug. “I fall asleep every night. Nothing happens at the cemetery at that hour—except maybe on Halloween,” he amended. And then he regarded the two detectives ruefully. “I mean, it didn’t until this thing with the graves started up.”

  “And you never heard anything?” Moira pressed the man.

  “Can I help it if I’m a sound sleeper?” Weaver returned helplessly. “And these guys who mess with the graves, they don’t make any noise on purpose,” he added as if that served as his excuse.

  “But aren’t you supposed to patrol the grounds?” Davis asked accusingly.

  Weaver squirmed in his seat. “They don’t pay me very much and, like I said, nothing happens at that hour, except maybe a couple of teenagers wanting to see what it’s like to make love in a cemetery.”

  The idea of making love on a gravesite was less than appealing to Moira, but she managed to keep her reaction from registering on her face or in her voice as she asked the groundskeeper, “You saw them?”

  “More like I heard them. You know, some heavy breathing and then the sound of them running away,” Weaver answered.

  Which could have been the grave robbers, Moira thought—if she could just figure out what it was that was being robbed. Weaver wasn’t bright enough to know the difference.

  “So what you’re saying is that you don’t know anything about these attempted grave robberies, is that it?” Moira demanded.

  Weaver crossed his heart and raised his hand as if taking a solemn pledge. “On my mother’s grave, I don’t know anything.”

  “Well, that’s rather appropriate,” Moira muttered under her breath. She was certain he would have confessed to his part in this—if he’d had a part in this. Apparently—at least for now—he was just an ignorant bystander.

  “And none of these names mean anything to you?” Davis asked, turning the list of the four names inscribed on the gravestones around so that Weaver was able to read them clearly.

  Weaver shook his head so hard, Moira thought it was in danger of falling off.


  “No.” The groundskeeper’s small, dark eyes moved back and forth like loose marbles. “Can I go now?”

  Rather than sound arrogant, the way he initially had when the investigation had first started more than a week ago, he was almost pleading now, addressing his words to both detectives because he apparently wasn’t sure which of them was in charge and he didn’t want to take a chance on offending either of them.

  “You can go,” Davis finally told him after a prolonged pause. “Just don’t leave town. If I have to come looking for you, neither one of us is going to be very happy,” he warned.

  Weaver’s eyes looked as if they were about to pop out. “No, sir. I mean, yes, sir. I mean—”

  “Just go,” Moira told him wearily, waving her hand toward the door.

  Once the groundskeeper had scurried out like a field mouse that had avoided being swatted out of the room with a straw broom, Moira turned to look at her reluctant partner.

  “Well, you certainly struck fear into his heart.”

  “Just wanted to make sure he wasn’t going to run out of town,” Davis replied.

  Moira laughed shortly, thinking of how unsteady Weaver had seemed. “I doubt if he’s able. You made him weak in the knees—and definitely not in a good way.”

  Davis frowned at her, obviously confused by what she was telling him. “Just what’s that supposed to mean, Cavanaugh?”

  Moira stared at him. “Oh c’mon, anyone who looks the way you do has got to be familiar with that expression. Think about it. ‘Making someone weak in the knees’ usually goes right along with a racing pulse and a pounding heart.”

  His scowl deepened as her message registered. “You have got one hell of an imagination, Cavanaugh,” he told her, marveling at her.

  Moira caught him completely off guard when she winked at him. “Maybe I just have one hell of a love life,” she countered.

  Davis looked at her for a long moment, his gaze almost penetrating.

  She had no way of knowing what he was thinking or if she had managed to stir his curiosity—as well as his imagination—with that one seemingly harmless, throwaway line.