“But if we buy a new car, we’ll have to register it.”
“True. That’s why, much as it pains me, I conclude that we should acquire a new vehicle by less than legal means.”
“Am I hearing these words spoken by Little Miss I’m an Officer of the Court?”
Cavanaugh snatched his pork rinds. “Our lives are on the line here. Legal ethics are a swell concept, but I’m not prepared to die for them.”
“And how are we going to acquire this automobile by, uh, less than legal means?”
“Leave it to me.”
“You’re the expert.” He paused, then added, “Laverne.”
She slugged him on the arm. “Byrne, if you start calling me Laverne in the courtroom, so help me—”
“Relax, relax. I wouldn’t do that. Besides, surely you realize we’re both going to be disbarred.”
“That makes me feel much better.”
“It’s not such a bad name. Laverne, I mean. Has kind of a warm … grandmotherly feel.”
“Just what I was hoping for.” Cavanaugh sighed. “I always wanted a friendly name. The kind of name people have that other people … well, like.”
“Such as what?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Daisy, maybe.”
“Daisy? Like Blondie and Dagwood’s dog?”
She cast her eyes toward the ceiling. “One year when I was in college, during spring break, I decided to drive from Dallas to San Francisco to visit an old high-school friend. A brief adventure. I drove it nonstop—just me, the radio, and lots of No Doz. Anyway, along the way, somewhere in Arizona, I think, I picked up this hitchhiker.”
Travis’s eyes widened. “You? A hitchhiker?”
“I was younger then. I didn’t know any better. He was what my parents would’ve called a hippie, even then. Long stringy unwashed hair, a guitar, fringed jacket. He was a folksinger, or wanted to be. He played a few tunes for me in the car. He wasn’t bad.” She turned away suddenly. “I’m sorry. I’m boring you.”
“No, please continue. I’m fascinated. This is so unlike the Madame Prosecutor I’ve come to know and … know.”
“Yeah, well …” She waved her hand aimlessly. “The hitchhiker asked me what my name was. I went by my initials then—L.C.—but he wouldn’t settle for that. He wanted to know what the letters stood for, and I eventually told him.”
“And then what? He left in outrage?”
“No. He grew very quiet, then said, ‘Well, I’m going to call you Daisy.’ ”
A smile played upon her lips. “And he did, for the whole drive to California. Called me Daisy. I loved that name. It was so … soft. And romantic. It was everything I had never been but always secretly wanted to be.”
“What happened?”
Cavanaugh shrugged. “He got out in Monterey. I never saw him again. And no one has called me Daisy ever since.”
“Did you ever tell your parents you wanted a name change?”
“My parents are dead. Sailboat accident off the Gulf Coast. When I was fifteen.”
“Sorry. I didn’t know.”
She nodded slightly. “Doesn’t matter.”
“Must’ve been rough on a fifteen-year-old.”
“I always wanted to go to law school, but after my parents died, I lived with an aunt who didn’t want me and couldn’t afford me. Paying for a college education was out of the question. After about six months of just bumming around, one of my low-life high-school friends got me into the skip-tracing business. Hell, at the time, I thought he was a big shot. Wore expensive shoes, jewelry. At least he could pay his bills, which was more than I could manage. He showed me the ropes. Eventually took me in as a partner.”
“You mean … in the business sense?”
Cavanaugh looked into his eyes, as if evaluating how much she could trust to tell. “I mean in every sense.”
“I see.”
“It was fine for the first two years. Then, almost all at once, it fell apart. He started saying we should take separate vacations, see other people, crap like that. He thought that was the kind approach, the sensitive guy’s way out. I think he was a coward. It would’ve hurt less if he’d just disappeared one day.”
“That’s when you left the skip-tracing racket?”
“Yup. I had made some money; he was reasonable about letting me keep most of what I earned. I finished undergrad in three years, took the LSAT, applied to South Texas, and got in. After law school, I worked for the Attorney General’s Office, then the DA, and now the U.S. Attorney’s Office. And that pretty much brings us up to date. I thought I had a promising career. Everyone seemed to like me, I got good reviews—and then one day this crazed lawyer with a roll of duct tape broke into my apartment and taped me to a chair. Now half of Dallas is gunning for me.”
“Sorry about that.”
“What about you, Byrne? You probably hail from some small farm town and have a cute little gray-haired ma who bakes you apple pies on your birthday.”
“No. My parents are gone, too. Mom when I was young. Dad when I was at the police academy.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
She paused. “At least your father got to see you on the way to becoming something. He must’ve been very proud.”
Travis laughed bitterly. “Not hardly. He thought I was throwing my life away. To use his own words, ‘chasing a childish dream of playing cops and robbers.’ ”
“What did Dad want you to be?”
“Same as him. A trial lawyer.”
Cavanaugh placed her fingers against her lips. “So he never got to see you become one of the best courtroom attorneys in the state. That’s a pity.” She was quiet for a moment. “How did he die?”
“Heart attack. Stress-induced. And yes, to answer your next questions, he was overweight, he ate too much of the wrong foods, and we’d had a big argument about my future the night before.”
Cavanaugh waited a long time before breaking the silence. “Will you tell me why you quit the police force?”
Travis’s face became stony. “Why? That was a long time ago. Before Moroconi. Before the world turned upside down.”
“I heard … I heard something horrible happened.”
“You heard right. I don’t think you want to know.”
She placed her hand carefully over his. “I do,” she said quietly. “I really do.”
It was the middle of April, over four years before, on a beautiful, sunshine-filled Dallas day. Travis was off duty, and he and Angela were enjoying a leisurely afternoon on the town, heading nowhere in particular, reveling in the luxury of one another’s company.
“I feel guilty, Angel,” Travis said, clasping her hand tightly. “In a few minutes we’ll be at Adamson Park. They have a great merry-go-round. We should have brought Staci.”
Angela tossed back her luxurious, waist-length red hair. “Staci will be fine.” She touched the ring on the fourth finger of her left hand. “Besides, after June, she’ll be seeing you every day.”
He squeezed her hand. “I guess that’s right. Any clues yet how she feels about me?”
“She adores you, Travis. Isn’t that obvious? You two are buddies.”
“Yeah, she adores me as a buddy. But what’s she going to think of me as a daddy?”
Angela poked him in the ribs. “You’ll do fine, you insecure twerp. You couldn’t be any worse than the creep who fathered her.”
“Staci may feel differently.”
“She won’t. She barely knows Alan. Neither of us have heard from him in years. You’ve been much more of a father to her than he ever was.”
Travis thought about that for a while. “Think Alan will come back?”
“No chance. Well, not unless I come into a large inheritance or win the Publishers Clearing House sweepstakes.” She threw her arm around his shoulders. “We both love you madly. So just relax, okay?”
He grinned. “Okay. You’re the boss.”
They rounded the corner and saw a crowd
of people huddled in the middle of the street. Travis slowed, holding Angela back with one hand. What was the big attraction?
As they came closer he realized it was some kind of disturbance. A man in his late thirties or early forties with a gray-flecked beard was standing in the street, shouting obscenities, grabbing at people as they passed. He was big, broad-shouldered, frightening. His tone was hostile; he seemed to be on the verge of exploding.
Angela tugged on Travis’s arm. “Let’s go back the way we came.”
Before she could steer him away, the owner of the corner pawnshop approached Travis. They recognized each other; Travis regularly patrolled this neighborhood.
“Travis!” he shouted. “Can you help?”
“What’s going on?”
“It’s that crazy bastard in the middle of the street. I don’t know if he’s drunk or high or what, but he’s driving all our customers away.”
“Probably just a vagrant who wandered over from the park,” Travis said. “He’ll likely move on in a few minutes.”
“Are you kidding? He’s been here for almost half an hour. And he gets more violent every minute. We need some help here. This part of town is dangerous enough without this kind of crap scaring everyone away.”
“Why don’t you call Morrison? He’s supposed to be cruising this beat today.”
“I called. Nobody came.”
Travis groaned. That was Morrison. He probably found a jaywalker to occupy his time so he could ignore his radio for an hour or so. “I’m really not prepared—”
“You are now.” The pawnshop owner slapped a .38 into Travis’s hand. “I took it off the top shelf. It’s loaded.”
“Great. Well, let me see what I can do.”
Angela held tight to his arm. “Travis—this is your day off.”
“I know, honey. It’ll just take a minute.”
“You promised we would spend the day together. Just you and me.”
“I know, Angel. And we will.” He removed her hand and plunged into the thick of the crowd.
The gray-bearded man was becoming increasingly abusive. “Goddamn satanistic sons of bitches!” he cried at the top of his lungs, his face upturned toward heaven. “It’s a plague. A plague on us and our children.” He pointed into the crowd. “There’s a fornicating whore. I can tell by the way she stands! And there’s another!” He rushed into the crowd, sending a teenage girl running. “Repent, sinner! Jee-sus God Almighty!”
Travis reluctantly approached the man. “Okay, padre. Show’s over. Why don’t you come with me?”
The man’s eyes opened wider than Travis would’ve thought possible. He flung himself at a young woman, ignoring Travis completely. “God is coming for you, whore of Babylon! He’s coming for all of you!”
Travis steeled himself. Of all the loonies he came into contact with on a regular basis, he hated the religious loonies worst of all. “It’s time for you to go to confessional, your holiness. At the county drunk tank, most likely. Come along.”
Suddenly the man reared up, raising his hands clawlike above his head, like some kind of wild beast. He glared at Travis, literally snarling. “Get thee behind me, Satan!”
Travis blanched. The man’s distorted visage was horrifying. “Look, don’t try to get rough—”
The man growled at him. “Get away from me!”
Travis drew his gun. Technically, this was a violation of regulations—his life wasn’t in immediate danger. But it wasn’t his gun anyway and he wasn’t taking any chances with this nut. He leveled the gun, chest-high.
The man’s eyes blazed; his teeth bared. He looked as if he were suddenly possessed with a demonic fury. “Would you threaten me, pimp of Satan?” He crouched low and rushed toward Travis.
Travis fired into the air, but it had no effect. The man slammed into him like a bull hitting a matador, sending Travis careening across the street. Several people screamed; most of the crowd scrambled to get out of the way.
Travis tried to grab the madman by the neck. He was strong, almost inhumanly so. Travis could feel his breath on his shoulder. The man was trying to bite him! His teeth were extended like fangs; drool dripped from his mouth. Either this man was insane, or he was doing a hell of an imitation.
Bringing his right hand around, Travis clubbed the man on the top of the head with the butt of his gun. The man grunted, wavered. Travis hit him again. He fell to his knees.
The man’s entire body relaxed, as if the demon had been exorcised. His eyes receded; his expression became flat, placid. Travis grabbed his arms and twisted them behind his back. The man from the pawnshop brought him a pair of handcuffs. Travis snapped me cuffs over the lunatic’s wrists.
The man shrieked at the restraints. “You’re hurting me!”
“You should’ve thought of that before you decided to sample this week’s designer drug, asshole.”
“I mean it. You’re killing me! I got a pin.”
Travis frowned. “A pin?”
“Yeah, a pin. A big one. In my arm. Got it in Vietnam. I can’t stand to have my arm twisted back like that. Feels like it’s gonna snap.”
Travis grabbed his wrists and pulled the man to his feet. “Sorry, jerkface. Protocol.”
“Cuff me in the front, man. I ain’t goin’ anywhere.”
That was contrary to standard procedure. But the man did appear to be in extreme agony.
“All right, you whiny little perp.” Travis brought the man’s arms around and snapped the cuffs in the front. He grabbed the chain between the cuffs and began to lead him away.
They had barely traveled ten feet when Travis heard a tremendous clanging noise, followed by what sounded like a round of gunfire. It seemed to be coming from the warehouse across the street, the building the crowd had been blocking for the last half hour. Before he had a chance to investigate the shots, he heard a scream from behind.
“Travis!”
It was Angela. She was at the front of the crowd, waving her arms desperately. “Look out!”
Travis turned too late. Before he could stop him, the man had reached under Travis’s jacket with his cuffed hands and snatched his gun.
“Sinful sons of bitches!” the man bellowed, waving the gun wildly in the air. “Hellspawn of Satan!” The crowd scattered.
“Put that down!” Travis commanded.
“Yes, Jesus! I will slay thy enemies!” His voice rose in pitch to a crazed squeal.
“Give me the gun!” Travis shouted.
“I’ll fucking give it to you.” The man brought the gun back down and aimed it at Travis’s head.
Travis grabbed the man’s wrist. The gun fired; the bullet went over Travis’s shoulder. He tackled the man and brought him down hard. The man’s head thudded on the concrete. His eyes fluttered, then he seemed to drift into unconsciousness.
This time Travis took no chances. He rolled the man over and pinned his head down with his knee.
“Someone call the police,” Travis shouted. “Someone call—”
He stopped short. Few if any of the crowd were watching him. They were huddled about ten feet behind him. Travis could see two feet protruding from the circle, two feet in red lace sandals.
He felt a dry catching in his throat. Steadying himself, he advanced toward the new center of attention. The crowd, now deathly silent, parted and let him pass. Don’t let it be. Don’t let it …!
It was Angela. She was lying on the sidewalk, her eyes dark, blood streaming from the opening in her chest where the bullet had struck. The red blood matted her red hair.
Travis grabbed her hand and called her name, but she didn’t respond. He called louder and louder, screaming, but it was no use. He felt for a pulse, but there was nothing there.
He pushed himself away, horrified. He knew that he should do something—get a doctor, or call an ambulance—but it was too late. Much too late.
For both of them.
Cavanaugh didn’t speak for a long time. Travis couldn’t. He was exhaust
ed, in every way a man could be. It was too painful—the recollection of that hideous day.
Cavanaugh’s hand never left his.
“What was it?” she asked finally. “Crack?”
Travis’s voice was hollow. “I never heard. Turned out there was a robbery going on in the warehouse across the street, which explained the loud noises and the gunfire. The man was a diversion—a way of luring employees out of the building and keeping them occupied. And keeping other people out.”
“So that horrible man—it was all an act?”
“Oh, I don’t think so. He was high as a kite. Probably thought it would give him strength, help him do his miserable little job.” His head shook. “He cut a deal with the prosecutor. I never saw him again. I heard he got twenty years for felony murder.”
“Then—”
“She was dead,” Travis said flatly. “Long before the paramedics arrived.”
“Oh … God, Travis. I—I’m—”
“Staci was taken in by Angela’s sister, Marnie. She didn’t really want Staci, as Staci well knows, but she had little choice. I still see Staci whenever I can, but it isn’t the same. We were almost a family. Now …” His voice trailed off.
“I—I don’t know—” Cavanaugh took a deep breath, tried again. “I don’t know how you—” She couldn’t seem to make herself talk coherently, so she stopped trying. Instead she leaned over and pressed her lips against his.
Travis was startled. He flinched instinctively, then gradually relaxed. It was a slow, tentative kiss, but it soon became something more, as caution gave way to arousal.
The first kiss was followed by another, then another. His hand slipped behind her neck; his fingers stroked her hair. Neither of them said a word; it was as if speaking would break the spell—make them acknowledge what they were doing.
After a moment they broke apart, gasping, and then, just as suddenly, he was on top of her, horizontal on the bed. Her hands roamed through his hair, around his neck, under his shirt. His mouth nibbled her earlobe.
He suddenly realized her fingers were moving down his shirt, releasing each button in turn. Just as smoothly, she removed her own blouse. Travis pulled away, but she drew him closer and held him there, refusing to let him withdraw.
Double Jeopardy Page 19