Internal Affair

“Yeah, well, my father wasn’t exactly your average guy. He wanted me to have a healthy respect for guns and to know what one could or couldn’t do.”

Patrick heard the pride in her voice, and the affection. It was the same tone he heard in his cousins’ voices when they talked about their fathers. He wondered what that was like, having a father you were close to, you were proud of. It seemed like such a foreign concept to him.

“A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing,” he pointed out.

Her father had taught her how to take a gun apart first, piece by piece, and then clean it before reassembling it. She’d had to wait a long time before he allowed her to handle cartridges.

“Maybe, but enough of it sets you free,” she countered.

“Whatever.” Getting into the car, he waited until she buckled up. “So, how does your father feel about you being on the police force?”

“He worries.” Maggi slid the metal tongue into the groove, snapping the belt into place. “He’s a father first, a police officer second. But he’s proud of me.” She knew that without asking. It made her determined never to let him down. “He’s the reason I joined up.” She thought of the upbringing she’d had. Blue uniforms populated her everyday world. “I never knew anything else.”

Starting the car, he backed out of his space. “What’s your mother got to say about it?”

Maggi kept her face forward. “Nothing. She died when I was nine. He and his buddies raised me.”

Her profile had gotten a little rigid. He’d hit a nerve, he thought. Miss Sunshine had a cloud on her horizon. Interesting. “His buddies?”

Maggi nodded. Her profile was relaxed again and she was as animated as before. Just his luck. “The other police officers. I was their mascot.”

He laughed to himself, taking a hard right. “That would explain it.”

Maggi found she had to brace herself to keep from leaning toward the window. “Explain what?”

“The cocky attitude.”

“I don’t have a cocky attitude,” she informed him. “I just know what I’m capable of and, since you’re my partner, I wanted you to know, too,” she added quickly before he could accuse her of showing off.

“You shouldn’t have put yourself out.”

Turning her head, she caught him sparing her a glance. She couldn’t fathom what was in his eyes. “Why?”

“Because you’re not going to be my partner for that long.”

Guess again, Cavanaugh. “You know something I don’t?”

Arriving at the station, he pulled into his spot and stopped the car. Sure shot or not, someone who looked like her didn’t belong out in the field. It was like waving a red flag in front of every nut case in the area who wanted to get his rocks off. The sooner she wasn’t his responsibility, the better.

Patrick got out, slamming the door. “Yeah, I know how long people in your position last, on the average.” He took the front stairs to the entrance quickly, then paused at the door. She was right behind him.

Maggi grinned up at him as she walked through the door he held open for her. “Haven’t you noticed, Cavanaugh? I’m not average.”

Yeah, he thought as he followed her inside the building, that’s just the trouble, I’ve noticed.

“Definitely died before she went into the water,” the medical examiner, Dr. Stanley Ochoa, informed them with the slightly monotonous voice of a man who had been at his job too long.

Maggi couldn’t help looking at the young woman on the table, stripped of her dignity and her clothes, every secret exposed except her identity and why she’d died.

Poor baby, you look like a kid. Maggi raised her eyes to the M.E. “And we know this how?”

Instead of answering immediately, Ochoa turned to Patrick. A hint of amusement flickered beneath his drooping mustache. “Eager little thing, isn’t she?”

“And, oddly enough, not deaf or invisible,” Maggi cheerfully informed the M.E. as she placed herself between the two men, both of whom towered over her. She missed the glimmer of a smile on Patrick’s face. “Now, how do you know she didn’t drown?”

“Simple. No water in the lungs. She wasn’t breathing when she went over the side.”

“Because she was already dead. Makes sense.” Maggi looked at the gash on the woman’s forehead. It looked as if there’d been a line of blood at one point. If she’d bled, that meant she’d still been alive when she’d sustained the blow. “That bump on her head—did she get it hitting her forehead against the steering wheel when she went over the railing?”

Ochoa dismissed the guess. “Might have, but at first glance it looks deeper than something she could have sustained from that kind of impact.”

Patrick’s face was expressionless. “The air bag was deployed.”

Maggi bit the inside of her lip. She’d forgotten that detail and knew it made her look bad in his eyes. She regarded the victim again. “Could the air bag have suffocated her? She’s a small woman.”

Again the M.E. shook his head. “No, suffocation has different signs. This was a blunt force trauma to the head. Something heavy.”

Because Cavanaugh wasn’t saying anything, Maggi summarized what they’d just ascertained. “So someone killed her, then put her into the sports car and drove her into the river to make it look like an accident.”

Ochoa nodded. The overhead light shone brightly on his forehead, accentuating his receding hairline. “Looks like.”

Patrick had been regarding the victim in silence, as if he was conducting his own séance with her. He raised his eyes to look at the overweight medical examiner. “Anything else?”

“Not yet. I’m waiting on the blood work results and I haven’t conducted the autopsy. Check back with me tomorrow.”

Patrick was aware that Maggi wasn’t beside him as he reached the door. Turning around, he saw her still standing by the table. He thought she was studying the victim for enlightenment until he saw the expression on her face.

With an annoyed sigh, he retraced his steps. “We don’t mourn them, Mary Margaret, we just make sure whoever did this to them pays the price.”

He probably thought she was weak, Maggi thought. The woman’s death just seemed like such a sad waste. “Yeah, right.” Squaring her shoulders, she walked out of the room.

The moment they were in the corridor, Patrick’s cell phone rang. He had it out before it could ring a second time.

“Cavanaugh.”

Curiosity ricocheted through her as she walked beside him, waiting for Cavanaugh to say something to the voice talking in his ear. She wanted to figure out the nature of his call. Her real assignment was still foremost in her mind, but she wanted to find the person who’d wantonly ended the life of the young woman on the table in the morgue.

If she was hoping for clues, she was disappointed. All Cavanaugh said before disconnecting was “Thanks.”

Impatient, she tried not to sound it as she asked, “Well?”

He wasn’t accustomed to answering to anyone. The only partner he’d ever gotten along with had always given him his space, waiting for him to say something but never really pressing him. But then, this woman wasn’t Ramirez. What she was was a royal pain in the butt. “That was Goldsmith.”

Maggi knew Goldsmith was the officer he’d asked to track down the sports car license. She was surprised that Cavanaugh recalled the man’s name. He didn’t strike her as the type to put names to people; he seemed more likely to just label everyone “them” and “me.” “And?”

The more she pushed, the more he felt like resisting. It wasn’t a logical reaction, but this woman was pressing all the wrong buttons. Buttons that weren’t supposed to be being pressed.

“C’mon, Cavanaugh, stop making me play twenty questions. Who does the car belong to?”

“Congressman Jacob Wiley.”

She vaguely remembered the last election. Mind-numbing slogans had littered the airwaves, as well as most available and not-so-available spaces. But one of the few people she’d genuinely liked was Congressman Jake Wiley, “the people’s candidate,” according to the literature his people distributed.

“The family values man?” She glanced over her shoulder toward the morgue, reluctant to make the connection. Her father had taught her long ago not to jump to conclusions. There could be a great many explanations as to what a young, pretty girl was doing dead in a car that belonged to the congressman.

“One and the same,” Patrick confirmed. He was already heading out the door again.

Maggi had to lengthen her stride to catch up.

Congressman Jacob Wiley had a build reminiscent of the quarterback he’d once been. Blessed with an engaging smile that instantly put its recipient at ease, he flashed it now at the two people his secretary ushered in. He’d been informed that they were from the local police and there was a hint of confusion in the way he raised his eyebrows as he rose from his cluttered desk to greet them.

Wiley extended his hand first to Maggi, then to Patrick. “Always glad to meet my constituents so I can thank them in person for their vote.” His tone was affable.

Patrick’s eyes were flat as he took full measure of the man before him. He found the smile a little too quick, the manner a little too innocent. “To set the record straight, I didn’t vote for you.”

“But I did,” Maggi said to cut the potentially awkward moment. “You’ll have to forgive my partner, Congressman. He left his manners in his other squad car. I’m afraid this is official business. We need to ask you a question.”

“Ask away.” Lacing his hands together, Wiley sat on the edge of his desk as if he was about to enter into a conversation with lifelong friends. “I believe in fully cooperating with the police.”

She held up the digital photograph that had been printed less than half an hour ago. “Do you know this woman?”

Patrick watched the congressman’s eyes as he took the photograph in his hands. There was horror on his face as he looked at the dead woman. “Oh, God, no.” He turned his head away.

“Are you sure?” Patrick pressed, his voice low, steely. “She was found in your car.”

Light eyebrows drew together in mounting confusion. “My car? My car’s right outside.” He pointed toward the window and the parking lot beyond.

Patrick’s expression didn’t change. “Navy blue sports car. Registered to you.”

A light seemed to dawn in the older man’s face. “Oh, right.” As if to dissuade any rising suspicion, the man explained, “I have more than one car, detectives. I’ve got five kids, three of them drive. Of course, there’s my wife,” he tagged on. “But she prefers the Lincoln.” He paused, sorting out his thoughts. “And then, sometimes I let one of my people borrow a car when they’re running an errand for me.”

Patrick made a notation in his notepad, deliberately making the congressman wait. “So at any given time of the day or night, you don’t know where your cars are.”

Wide, muscular shoulders rose and fell beneath a handmade suit. “I’m afraid not.” Maggi began to take the photograph back, but Wiley stopped her at the last moment. “Wait, let me look at that again.” The air was still as he studied the face in the photograph more closely. After a beat, the impact of death seemed to fade into the background. And then recognition filtered into his eyes. “This is Joan, no, Joanne, that’s it. Joanne Styles.” Wiley looked first at Maggi, then Patrick. “She works for me.”

“Worked,” Patrick corrected, taking the photograph back.

Disbelief was beginning to etch itself into the congressman’s handsome face. “What happened to her?”

Patrick gave him just the minimal details. “She was found in the river this morning, in your sports car. It appears she went over the side of the road sometime last night.”

Veering to the more sympathetic audience, Wiley looked at Maggi. “She drowned?”

“Someone would like to have us believe that,” Patrick interjected, his eyes never leaving the man’s face.

Confusion returned. “Then she didn’t drown? She’s alive?”

“Oh, she’s dead all right,” Patrick confirmed emotionlessly. “But she didn’t die in the river. She died sometime before that.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Neither do we. For the moment.” Patrick pinned him with a look. “Where were you last night, Congressman, if you don’t mind my asking?”

The congressman’s friendly expression faded. “If you’re suggesting what I think you’re suggesting, I do mind your asking.”

“Just doing our job, Congressman,” Maggi interjected smoothly, her manner respectful. “Pulling together pieces of a puzzle. It might help us find Ms. Styles’s killer if we could reconstruct the evening.”

“Yes, of course. Sorry,” he apologized to Patrick. “This has me a little rattled. I never knew anyone who was a murder victim before. I was at a political fund-raiser at the Hyatt Hotel.” He looked at Patrick and added, “With several hundred other people.”

“Was Ms. Styles there?” Maggi prodded gently.

“I imagine so, although I really couldn’t say for certain. All of my staff was invited,” he explained.

“Looks like those several hundred people certainly didn’t help keep her alive, did they?” Patrick asked.

“If we could get a guest list, that would be very helpful. Could you tell us who was in charge of putting the fund-raiser together?” Maggi felt as if she was tap-dancing madly to exercise damage control.

“Of course. That would be Leticia Babcock.” Picking up a pen, Wiley wrote down the name of the organization the woman worked for. Finished, he handed the paper to Maggi. He glanced at Patrick, but his words were directed to the woman before him. “Anything I can do, you only have to ask.”

Patrick took the slip of paper from Maggi and tucked it into his pocket. His eyes never left the congressman’s face. “Count on it.”

Chapter 5

Hurrying to catch up to her partner, Maggi pulled the collar of her jacket up. It began to mist. The weather lately had been anything but ideal.

“You get more flies with honey than with vinegar, Cavanaugh.”

Patrick reached his car and unlocked the driver’s side. He looked at her over the roof. “I’m not interested in getting flies, Mary Margaret, I’m interested in getting a killer.”

She blew out a breath as she got in on her side. “I wish you’d stop calling me that.”

Patrick closed the door and flipped on the headlights. The sun had decided to hide behind dark clouds. They were in for a storm. “It’s your name, isn’t it?”

Her father had named her after his two sisters. She wished he’d been born an only child. “Yes it is. That doesn’t mean I like hearing it—” Maggi turned in her seat to glare at him as she delivered the last word “—Pat.”

The nickname she tossed at him was fraught with bad memories. Only his father had ever called him that, when the old man was especially drunk and reveling in the whole myth of “Pat and Mike,” something Patrick gathered had come by way of a collection of Irish stories about two best friends. According to Uncle Andrew, a number of Irish-flavored jokes began that way, as well. In any case, he and his father didn’t remotely fit the description of two friends, and it was only when he was in a drunken haze that his father could pretend that he’d created a home life for his family. In reality, home life was just barely short of a minefield, ready to go off at the slightest misstep.

Maggi sighed, trying to regain some ground. “All I’m saying is that the congressman was a great deal more cooperative when you weren’t glaring at him.”

He started up the car and got back on the road. “That’s what you’re here for, right? To win him over with your sunny disposition.”

“Attila the Hun’s disposition could be called sunny compared to yours.”

To her surprise, she heard Patrick laugh softly to himself. “Looks like our first day isn’t going very well, is it?”

She trod warily, afraid of being set up. “Could be better,” she allowed. Maggi caught his grin out of the side of her eye.

“It’ll get worse.”

“If you’re trying to get me to bail out, you’re wasting your time.”

“And why is that? Why are you so determined to work with me?” he wanted to know.

“You mean other than your sparkling personality, charm and wit?” She saw his expression darken another shade. The man could have posed for some kind of gothic novel, the kind given to sensuality. He’d be damn good-looking if he wasn’t into scaring people off. Upbraiding herself, she curtailed her own impulse toward sarcasm. “I was assigned to you, Cavanaugh, and I don’t back away from my assignments, no matter how much of a pain in the butt they might be.”

Maggi watched his eyes in the rearview mirror. Instead of becoming incensed, he looked as if he was considering her words. “Fair enough.”

She knew she should let it go, but she couldn’t. A door had opened, and she didn’t know when it could be opened again. She needed to move as much as she could through it.

“No, what’s fair is if you give me a chance here,” she told him tersely. “I’ve shown you that I don’t fall apart in tense situations and that I’m a dead shot and all in under eight hours. If you were anyone else, that would definitely tip the scales way in my favor.”

The woman could get impassioned when she wanted to. That was a minus. He’d always found that emotion got in the way of things. “I’m not anyone else.”

She sank into her seat. “So I’ve been told.”

Something in her tone worked its way under his skin, made half thoughts begin to form. It took a little effort on his part to ignore them. He had no idea why. “Make the best of it, Mary Margaret. What you see is what you get.”

Not hardly. If that were the case, then there would be no need for her to go undercover to investigate the allegations Halliday had received from an anonymous source. The allegations that made Cavanaugh out to be a dirty cop on the take.

Even if she wasn’t on the job, just one look would have told her that what you saw was definitely not what you got when it came to Patrick Cavanaugh.

Their next stop was the offices of Babcock and Anderson, which organized and handled the arrangements for fund-raisers of all types. The professional firm was run by Leticia Babcock, president and sole owner. There was no Anderson.

“I thought it sounded more aesthetically pleasing to have two names on the card,” Leticia Babcock, a tall, slim woman in her mid-thirties informed them when they asked after the whereabouts of her partner. “Makes it sound as if the company has been around for ages.” Because they’d requested to see the guest list, she scrolled through her records as she spoke to them. “Ah, here it is.” She beamed. Stopping, she tapped the screen with a curved, flame-red nail. “We raised more than was originally hoped for. The gala was an amazingly rousing success. The congressman was very pleased.”

Maggi could all but see the dollar signs in the other woman’s eyes. “Congressman Wiley?”

“Yes.” The dark-haired woman sat back in her chair, sizing up her visitors. “He was the one who came to me to organize it. Very generous man. Not bad-looking, either.” Momentarily ignoring the tall, somber man standing beside her, she winked broadly at Maggi. “Too bad he’s married.” With a careful movement orchestrated to avoid chipping a nail, Leticia hit the Print key. The printer to the left of the highly polished teak desk came to life and began printing the list.

“That doesn’t stop some men,” Patrick indicated.

Leticia laughed. The sound carried no mirth. “Didn’t stop my third husband, that was for sure. But I hear the congressman’s a straight arrow.” She sighed again and shook her head, as if lamenting the missed opportunity. She held out the pages to them. “Believe me, I left him enough of an opening.”

Patrick glanced at down at the list the woman had provided for them. The names went on for several pages. And everyone was going to have to be checked out. He debated giving that assignment to McKenna, let her run solo with it.

“Five hundred guests,” Maggi told him. “Don’t bother counting them.”

She was quick with numbers, he thought. Handy trait to have around. He looked at Leticia as he tapped the list. “He said his staff was there.”

A small, slightly superior smile twisted her lips. “Yes, they were.”

He watched the woman’s eyes, looking for some tell-tale flicker. “Is that normal, to invite your reelection staff?”

“Not really, but like I said, the congressman’s a very generous man.” She ran down the benefits of attending. “There was a great deal of good food to eat. Some of those staff members probably ate better than they ever have in their lives. Not to mention networking.”

“Networking?” Maggi asked before Patrick had a chance to.

“Yes, there are a lot of important, influential people attending these things. Everyone likes to be seen ‘caring’ about a popular cause. Doesn’t hurt to be around them. You never know where your next big break is coming from.” She looked from Maggi to Patrick, her manner terminating the session. “If there’s anything else I can do for you, let me know.”

He wasn’t ready to leave just yet. Patrick took out the photograph of the dead woman and held it up to the organizer’s face. “Did you see this woman at the party last night?”

Leticia shivered, making no move to take the photograph in her own hand.

“Not that I remember.”

The very air had climbed up inside their lungs as they waited for her to go on.

“Is she…dead?”

“Very,” he replied grimly, tucking the photograph away again.

“Thanks for your help,” Maggi told the woman as they walked out. Patrick made an inaudible sound that could have passed for “Goodbye.”

Outside the window, Maggi could see that the mist was getting heavier. She hoped it would hold off until she got home for the night.

She glanced at the papers he was holding. “Looks a little daunting.”

“Looks can be deceiving.”

Part of her wanted to ask if Patrick was on to something, but she knew he was just pulling her chain or maybe giving her some kind of encoded message. She wanted no part of either. As he pressed for the elevator, she looked at the list over his shoulder. “So, where do you want to start?”

He folded the list in half twice before lodging it beside the photograph. He never even looked at her. “At her apartment.”

When she wasn’t busy working or partying, Joanne Styles had spent her time in a tiny, cluttered studio apartment about two-thirds the size of the one Maggi had lived in when she was in San Francisco.

Standing in it now made Maggi entertain a very odd sense of déjà vu coupled with the thought “there but for the grace of God…”

Except that she would have never let her guard down enough to have someone do to her what had been done to Joanne.

Maggi supposed that was her inbred leeriness. It came from being raised in an atmosphere of law enforcement agents. Looking back, she knew that it was her leeriness that had gotten in her way with Tyler, urging her on to keep a part of herself in reserve, not allowing him to see all of her.

Lucky thing, too, considering the way that had turned out, she mused.

Patrick noticed the expression on his partner’s face as she stood looking around. She seemed a million miles away. He ignored her for a moment, then heard himself asking, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Maggi took a moment to rouse herself before turning to squarely face him. “Just trying to put myself in her shoes, that’s all.”

He supposed there was nothing wrong in getting a female’s perspective on all this. “Can’t hurt.”

She raised her eyes to his, humor playing along her lips. “Mellowing?”

She wore some kind of gloss, he realized, something that caught the overhead light and made her lips shimmer.

He was noticing the wrong things, Patrick told himself.

Not bothering to answer her, he nodded toward the laptop that stood open on the small, pressboard desk. There was every indication within the room that Joanne would have been returning to her apartment.