But even as he wished it, he knew it was nothing more than pure fantasy.
He could feel her heart hammering against him and the very fact filled him with what he eventually identified as tenderness—something he hadn’t experienced in so long, he had forgotten how it felt.
Again he wondered about the transformation she had caused him to undergo—and if there was a cure for it. It was something definitely to look into. Later.
When Moira finally raised her head to look at him, he hadn’t a clue what would come out of her mouth, which in turn left him utterly at a loss as to how he would respond.
He didn’t have long to wait.
“Now will you admit you had fun?”
That was the last thing he had expected Moira to say.
Davis started to laugh. Laugh so hard that for a couple of seconds, he had trouble catching his breath.
At the very least, he was unable to answer her.
So Moira answered for him. “I guess that’s a yes,” she decided. “I should have made you attend one of Uncle Andrew’s parties the first moment I laid eyes on you.”
The woman was impossibly crazy, Davis thought. How did someone reason with a person who was impossibly crazy? The answer left him at a loss, so he didn’t even bother trying to form it.
Instead he lay there, in his bed, in the dark bedroom, stroking Moira’s silky hair as she lay curled up against him, her face pressed to his chest.
Eventually he collected his thoughts and common sense made a momentary reappearance. “The party was today, how could you have invited me two weeks ago?”
She raised her head ever so slightly, her mouth less than a hairbreadth from his. As she spoke, her lips kept brushing his.
“The man has his doors open to friends and family twenty-four-seven. There’s always something ready to eat, always a place at the table to sit and always, always, a welcome in that house.”
“Seems impossible,” Davis replied, trying to cling to logic even as his eyes began feeling progressively heavier with each passing moment.
“The best things usually are,” Moira replied. She punctuated her sentence with a quick, deep kiss.
Less than half a second ago he was falling asleep. But that wasn’t the case any longer. As passion made a sudden, strong reappearance in his veins, Davis discovered a hidden cache of energy that allowed him to make love with the woman in his bed all over again.
So he did.
Chapter 18
When Davis looked back on it the following Monday morning, Sunday seemed like a complete haze. More to the point, it felt as if a page had been torn out of someone else’s life story.
A person who actually had a life instead of an existence. And while that didn’t describe what he actually had, Davis had to admit that while it lasted, it had been very, very nice.
Sunday had been spent, for the most part, in bed, with only occasional side trips to the kitchen for food to feed the body. Food to feed the soul, however, was obtained entirely within the very limited parameters of his bed.
Because of Moira.
Moira, to his never-ending surprise, turned out to be nothing short of a wonder with a whole host of hidden talents. Until he had made love with her, he’d had no idea that the human body could flex that way or assume that many different positions.
But not only did she astonish him in his bed, Moira also managed to amaze him in his kitchen, as well. She worked nothing short of magic with the limited amount of things he had available in his refrigerator and in his small pantry.
“You’re going to have to go shopping for food,” she’d told him late Sunday night as she’d used the last of his eggs to create something that was half an omelet, half a frittata. He’d watched, mesmerized, as she’d thrown together bits and pieces of ingredients he would have never thought to put even near one another, much less combine.
“I might also have to go shopping for a new body,” he’d countered, allowing himself, in a moment of weakness, to kiss the top of her head. He’d promised himself that, come morning, everything would go back to business as usual. But for that isolated point in time, he was going to enjoy this parallel life he had stumbled into. “I think mine’s about worn out.”
She’d smiled up at him then, that wicked smile that seemed to go straight to his gut, making him want her more than the very air he breathed.
“Oh, I think the warranty on it might still be good for a few more rounds.”
And then, right there in his crammed, minuscule kitchen, just to prove she was right, she’d put her theory to the test.
He’d remembered thinking that he had definitely slipped into a parallel universe, one he really didn’t want to leave.
* * *
Davis doubted that he’d gotten more than a couple of hours sleep from Saturday night to Monday morning.
Walking into the robbery squad room, he was definitely not operating on a full head of steam.
She, however, he’d noted when she came in afterward, seemed to be no different this morning than she was on any other morning.
That settled it, Davis decided as he filled his cup with the black goo the precinct passed off as coffee. The woman was definitely a witch. There was no other explanation for any of the things that had happened in the past forty-eight hours.
She was a witch and she’d cast her spell on him.
“Here,” Moira declared quietly, putting a silver thermos on the table they were sharing.
“What’s that?” Davis nodded toward the thermos, leaving it where it was.
“It’s coffee, not poison,” she told him. “I fixed you a couple of cups’ worth when I swung by my place and got coffee before coming here. I had a feeling you’d need it,” she told him, flashing a knowing smile.
Leaving his apartment early, she’d taken her coffeemaker with her, gone home to shower and change. She’d needed to put on clothes that were more appropriate for the precinct than the dress she had worn to the christening—and taken off at his place.
Personally, Davis thought, taking a long, appreciative sip of the black coffee she’d brought in, he preferred seeing Moira padding around in his undershirt and wearing nothing else.
This has to stop, he upbraided himself in the next moment as he banished images of the way she’d looked yesterday. He couldn’t allow himself to think like that.
He was a professional, not some love-struck adolescent.
If he lost sight of the structure he’d put in place for himself, it would ultimately put everything else into jeopardy.
His hand tightened on the thermos. “This doesn’t change anything,” he told her in a low, gravelly voice that was only audible for the couple of feet that existed between them.
“Oh, I don’t know. A good, strong cup of coffee has been known to make the future look a lot better.”
“I don’t mean the coffee,” he fairly snarled. “I mean—everything else,” he finally managed to say, refusing to resort to labels. They both knew what had gone on this weekend after the christening.
To his surprise Moira shrugged almost indifferently. “What’s to change?” she asked him innocently. “Everything’s just the way it was.” And then she turned her attention to the board. “What’s important is that we’re running out of our grace period and we still really haven’t got a clue why someone’s messing with these graves.”
Davis didn’t know whether to be relieved or disturbed by her indifferent manner regarding the weekend they had just spent together. His ambivalent feelings alone told him he wasn’t firing on all four cylinders. She had definitely messed up his head and he couldn’t allow that to happen.
With effort, he forced himself to focus on the case. She was right. Everything else had to be put on hold for now.
Maybe by the time he
could revisit the subject, it would have taken care of itself.
Leaning back in his chair, Davis stared into the inky liquid within the thermos for a moment. “Maybe we’re going about this the wrong way,” he suggested when he looked up again.
Moira moved closer, ready to go with anything. “I’m listening.”
Davis looked over at the photos on the bulletin board. There were short histories beneath each woman’s photograph, which Moira had managed to scrounge up. “Maybe these five women have something in common that links them together, something that might finally lead us to an answer.”
Because she had trouble sitting still, Moira rose and walked over to the board. She surveyed the photos as she moved from one end of it to the other. As she spoke, she reviewed all the things they had already discounted earlier.
“Well, they weren’t related, weren’t friends, weren’t all in approximately the same age bracket and, while they all lived in Aurora, didn’t live that close to one another. They also didn’t work for the same company or even in the same building. And they all died on different dates.” That, in turn, ruled out a common disaster, she thought. Bedeviled, she looked at Davis. “They weren’t even all buried in the same cemetery, so what am I missing?”
Davis blew out a breath as he shook his head. He was as stumped as she was. He’d hoped that verbalizing what they already knew would trigger something.
And then, suddenly, it did. Sort of. “Who handled the funeral arrangements?” he asked.
“You mean the next of kin?” she asked, not sure what he was driving at.
“No.” Davis shook his head. “I mean the funeral parlor. Do we know which funeral parlor held the viewing for all these women?”
Offhand, Moira had no idea. “How would that tie in?”
“I’m not sure yet,” Davis admitted. That didn’t change the fact that he had a feeling that just maybe they were onto something. “But let’s tackle one question at a time.”
Moira grabbed her jacket off the back of her chair, ready to roll. “Sounds good to me,” she said, preceding Davis out the door.
* * *
Because neither one of them knew the name—or names—of the funeral parlors where the bodies of the five deceased had been prepared for viewing, they were forced to go first to St. Joseph’s Cemetery to talk to Weaver and then to Aurora’s First Cemetery to see Campbell. Both had to have—or know where they could obtain—the necessary information.
First on their list, Weaver looked less than happy to see them again. Resentful fear was very evident in the groundskeeper’s demeanor. When the man discovered that all they wanted was the name of the funeral parlor that had handled the arrangements for the four dead women whose graves had been disturbed, he was more than happy to provide the information.
A quick search turned up the names of three different funeral parlors. Handing over the names and addresses—all three were still in business—Weaver quickly and joyfully ushered the two detectives out of the cemetery’s business office.
Davis glanced over his shoulder at the departing lumbering figure. “You know, if I was inclined to be sensitive, I’d say that Weaver was trying to get rid of us,” he told Moira as they got back to his car.
“Lucky for you that you’ve got a heart made of stone,” Moira responded with a straight face.
“Lucky,” Davis echoed, silently wondering if that was the word or even the case. His heart certainly hadn’t felt all that solid during the weekend they had spent together.
* * *
Campbell, the second groundskeeper, provided them with the name of the funeral parlor that had been used for the deceased in his cemetery. It matched one of the names Weaver had given them.
So much for hoping the deceased had a funeral parlor in common, Davis thought. “Okay, I guess that didn’t exactly pan out,” he commented dourly as he got into his car again.
Moira slid in on the passenger side, chewing on her lower lip and thinking. “Wait, don’t rule it out yet. Maybe you were onto something, after all.”
He didn’t see how. “What are you getting at?” he asked. “They don’t have a funeral parlor in common. There’re three different ones.”
“Agreed,” she conceded. “But there still might be something that they did have in common.”
Maybe it was his lack of sleep, but he wasn’t following her. “Does this get any clearer?” he asked.
Her mind was going a mile a minute. “We need to go to these funeral homes and get a list of their employees for the last twenty years.”
She was obviously onto something even if she wasn’t being very clear about it.
He curbed his impatience. “What are you thinking?”
She looked up from the pages in her hand. He would have had to have been blind to have missed the excitement in her eyes. They were literally sparkling—and completely compelling, he couldn’t help thinking.
He really needed to get his sleep.
“That maybe there was someone. A part-time employee...I don’t know, maybe a salesclerk or a janitor—” Moira cast around, trying to solidify her thoughts, which were all over the board. “Just someone who worked in all three funeral homes that might be our connection.”
It was obvious that she knew there was still a piece missing. “What are you not telling me?” he asked.
Still trying to organize her thoughts, she looked at Davis. “What makes you think I’m holding something back?”
He laughed shortly, finally starting up the vehicle. He assumed that they were returning to the precinct. If they weren’t, she’d tell him fast enough. “Because you look like a cat who’s just found out about a train full of cream that’s being shipped cross-country right through its backyard. Now talk.”
“This isn’t a competition,” she pointed out, not wanting him to think she was deliberately withholding information.
“Everything’s a competition with you.”
Busted, Moira blew out a breath. “I just don’t want to look like an idiot if I’m wrong.”
“The idiot card is off the table,” he promised her. “Now, what do you know?” Davis repeated.
Moira shifted in her seat, excitement slipping through her body as she spoke. “I did some background research into twenty-year-old news stories... Twenty-one years ago, Aurora had its biggest bank robbery on record. They caught one of the guys responsible, the other guy was killed,” she recounted. “The money, however, was never found.
“Think about it,” she urged, talking increasingly faster. “What better way to hide the money than to split it up and hide it in the coffins of five different people? All you need is a man on the inside to hide it under the lining.”
Making a right at the next corner, Davis rolled the idea around for a moment. “Interesting theory,” he agreed then spared her a quick glance. “How do we go about proving it?”
“Old-fashioned police legwork,” she told him.
Davis pressed his lips together, stifling a yawn. “Give me the address of the first funeral home and let’s go for it.”
* * *
The directors at two of the funeral homes were very willing to comply with Moira’s request. The third director offered his apologies, but insisted on a search warrant all the same.
Several hours passed before they returned, armed with the necessary paperwork. The director dutifully surrendered copies of the funeral home’s personnel records.
Armed with the list of employees from all three, they finally returned to the precinct and went over all the names and other pertinent information in the files.
There was no match. All the employee names differed from one another.
Frustrated, wanting to throw something against a wall just to hear it smash, Moira angrily pushed the papers aside on her desk and banged her fist on the
table. Her coffee cup fell over. Luckily, it was empty.
“Damn it,” she cried. “I was so sure...”
“Maybe there’s something else,” Davis said, trying to stem her flash of temper despite the fact that he was experiencing a great deal of frustration himself.
“Like what?” she demanded hotly. “We’ve gone over everything that’s possible!”
Moira scooped the employee lists up off the table, fighting the urge to rip the pages in two. Instead, they slipped out of her hands, falling to the floor.
Muttering under her breath, she bent to pick them up.
That was when she saw it.
“Davis, look at this,” she cried, almost jumping to her feet.
She poked a finger at the crucial fact that had caught her eye. Moira was almost afraid to hope, but this very well could be the break she and Davis were searching for.
Getting up, he came over to join her, looking at the paper she was holding. “Look at what?”
“Look at the makeup artists the funeral parlors use.”
Davis examined the names she was singling out. All three funeral parlors used women, which in itself, he knew, didn’t seem unusual.
“What about them?” he asked. “The names are all different.”
It stunned her how stupid, or careless, criminals could actually be—and she almost hadn’t noticed.
“Yes,” she agreed, “the names aren’t the same—but the social security numbers are.” The next moment she was on the phone to Valri. The second her sister picked up on the other end, Moira started talking. “Last favor, I promise.”
Davis could hear her sister answer. “Moira, I’m in the middle of something,” the younger Cavanaugh protested wearily.
“I know, but this could be the break we’ve been looking for in the cemetery case,” Moira stressed. “Nine numbers. That’s all I need you to look up. Just nine numbers. And I’ll never bother you again.”
Valri laughed. “Right. Until the next time,” she said knowingly. “Okay, give them to me quickly,” she ordered.
Once Moira read them to her, Valri hung up.
Cavanaugh or Death Page 17