Cavanaugh on Duty - By Marie Ferrarella Page 0,45
was hoping the murder wouldn’t wind up on his doorstep.” As he spoke, another idea occurred to him. “Or the other two murders he committed could have been done to provide his cover and his real intended victim was Ron Hays all along,” he suggested.
He watched her face to see her reaction, not quite sure just what to expect. What he saw was an amused, nonjudgmental smile. A smile that caught him a little off guard. “What?” he demanded.
She would have never believed it. “You were a fan of Agatha Christie mysteries when you were a kid, weren’t you?”
Defensiveness had always been second nature to him. Now was no different. “What makes you say that?” he wanted to know.
“Because you just described the setup behind one of her classic stories. I think it was called The ABC Murders. A killer murders three people in order to ‘hide in plain sight’ his intended victim.”
Esteban frowned. “I take it you don’t agree with the last theory.”
“I didn’t say that,” she pointed out. “I don’t have enough information on the third victim to rule that ‘hide in plain sight’ theory in or out right now.” She took a breath. “What I am saying is that the only thing that we know for certain that victim number three has in common with numbers one and two is that slashed throat.”
“Not the only thing.”
Kari and Esteban turned around in unison and looked toward the doorway at the woman who’d just spoken. Sean’s senior assistant, Destiny, was standing in the room.
“Okay,” Esteban said gamely, recognizing the woman from the last crime scene. She’d been one of the investigators there. “What else is there?”
Kari looked at her hopefully. “You found something,” she added, mentally crossing her fingers.
Destiny didn’t answer either one of them. “The boss wants to see the two of you in his lab.”
Kari knew better than to try to badger an answer out of Destiny. The woman could give lessons to clams when it came to being closemouthed.
“Lead the way,” Kari told the other woman, gesturing toward the door.
Destiny wordlessly turned on her heel and did just that.
* * *
“You know, I don’t recall you ever being this dramatic,” Kari told her father as she and Esteban filed into the main lab directly behind Destiny.
Her father was there, along with his array of the latest state-of-the-art equipment, all of which was lined up along the dark blue granite counter within easy reach. When she spoke, Sean Cavanaugh looked up from the microscope he’d been using.
“Must have something to do with my renewed lease on life,” her father speculated. He was all but beaming.
She noted that he’d been that way for weeks, ever since Deirdre Callaghan had accepted his marriage proposal.
“Remind me to thank your fiancée the next time I see her,” Kari told him, doing her best to look serious. About to say something else, she abruptly stopped as she remembered. “That’ll be a week from Saturday, won’t it? Boy, that came fast. I’m still trying to get used to the idea.”
Because she could see from the slightly puzzled frown on Esteban’s face that he wasn’t following any of this, she told him, “My father’s getting married next Saturday. To Detective Matt Callaghan’s mother.”
He was only vaguely aware of who Matt Callaghan was. He was still trying to become familiar with the names of various police detectives.
“Congratulations,” Esteban said.
“Thanks.” For a moment, Sean stepped outside his position as head of the lab and smiled at Esteban. “Why don’t you come to the ceremony? Everyone’s invited.”
“I doubt if everyone’s invited,” Esteban responded, then saw by the expression on Kari’s face that, just possibly, his assumption was inaccurate.
That seemed impossible...and yet, from what he’d picked up around town, the Cavanaughs were an extremely outgoing family—
Kari laughed at her partner. “Obviously, you haven’t heard about the famous Andrew Cavanaugh get-togethers. I’m beginning to think the man is a direct descendent of one of those characters out of Aesop’s fables, the one who had a jug that was never empty, no matter how much you poured out of it, and a basket that never ran out of bread, no matter how many loaves you removed from it.”
Totally confused now, he looked at Sean for some sort of an explanation. “Is she going to start making sense soon?”
“Actually, she is making sense in her own way,” Sean replied with a laugh. “It seems that for some reason, my brother knows how to whip up food for the masses without breaking