Part 3 (1/2)
”Yeah, but gimme a sec.”
Angel talked to Schumacher and the ME's a.s.sistant one last time before she joined him again. They shoved through the media line without incident, and as they walked back to their vehicles, his partner didn't say much until- ”Why do you talk to them?” she asked.
”Schumacher and O'Brien? Good question.”
Angel stifled a smile. ”You know what I mean. You talk to dead people, Gabe. That doesn't exactly make you a spokesperson for the Mental Health a.s.sociation. Do the dead ever have anything worthwhile to say?”
”More than Schumacher and O'Brien. Trust me.” He shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans and kept walking. He felt comfortable in the silence between them. ”Talking to the dead reminds me they were a daughter or a son. Or someone made love to them, or they had childhood fights with a sister or brother. They aren't just stiffs, you know?”
”Yeah, I can see that.”
When she got to her ride, Angel didn't get in right away. She leaned against her vehicle and waited for him to say more. Like a good cop-and an even better partner-she knew he hadn't told her everything.
”You're not letting me off the hook, are you?”
”Would you?” She c.o.c.ked her head and smiled.
”Good point.”
He looked down and kicked a stone, unsure what he'd say. Lying about his past came too easily. With most people he didn't care, but lying to Angel felt wrong, like Manny would look over her shoulder and call him on his bulls.h.i.+t. He couldn't see staring into her eyes and yanking her chain, not about this. He'd felt closer to Angel after she married Manny, as if she were family.
In the end, he resorted to the truth.
”When I was eight, my parents were murdered. I came home from school and found them. It was brutal, Angel. One of the bloodiest crime scenes I've ever seen, and that's sayin' something.”
No matter how straightforward he made it sound, the words had always been hard to hear, especially coming from his own mouth. The anger he felt was never far from the surface, even though he'd worked hard to disguise it. He'd certainly found ways to release the rage. The fight club was only one. His life had stopped that day, and the stigma had always been a part of him. There was no getting around that.
”After my family was butchered, I learned not to get too attached to anything, especially people.” He stared into the dark, unable to look at her. ”Whatever life a kid is supposed to have, I got that taken away, and the system never helped.”
His mind flashed back to when his world had been ripped apart. What had happened to his mother and father had been vicious and perverted. The suffocating stench of their crime scene and the horrified looks on their faces had ripped his heart out. The torture they had endured before they died enraged him, even now. No human being deserved to die like that. When he worked crime scenes as a cop, some murders were worse than others for him, but he had never told a partner about his family until now. Telling his story to Angel made it different.
”You know...I want to believe there's more to all this,” he said. ”I wake up some nights with a knot in my belly, thinking *what if this is all there is.' My parents were cheated of their one chance. Some animal stole their lives, and the b.a.s.t.a.r.d got away with it, but that wasn't good enough. He took me down too. I got a life's sentence.”
It never took much to tip him over the edge when he talked about what had happened. His breathing went out of control, and his heart thumped harder like on those awful nights when he'd wake up in a cold sweat. But when he looked at Angel, he suddenly remembered where he was and knew he'd been an inconsiderate moron. He hadn't given one thought to what she'd been through with Manny until he saw the tear run down her cheek, and the urge to apologize hit him hard.
”I'm sorry. I should never have-”
”No, I'm the one who brought it up. I had no idea. That must have been terrible.” She reached out to touch his arm. ”I'm sorry, Gabe.”
The intimacy shocked him, especially coming from her. If he were a better man, he wouldn't have wanted more.
”I don't know about life after death, but I do feel Manny with me,” she confided. ”In the little things. I'll do laundry and start to hum a song that we used to like, out of the blue. Or when I've turned out the lights and am lying in bed, waiting to fall asleep, I can sometimes smell his skin. Is that weird?”
”No, you miss him.” He shrugged. ”It's natural.”
Although he missed Manny too, his cynical side didn't believe the dead truly communicated with the living. His parents never did, or at least he never opened his mind to the possibility. As a kid, he felt detached from everything and everyone. All he had was the shock of his profound loss and a deep-rooted rage that never went away. If that was the dead reaching out to the living, he could do without the constant reminder.
”They never caught who killed your parents?”
”No. It's a cold case.” He shook his head. ”I didn't have any other relatives, so I was raised by the state. That's where I met Manny. He got me through a really dark time. He became like family to me. I miss him, too.”
”Yeah, he told me about how you two met. He said it took a while for that chip you had on your shoulder to drop off.” She smiled.
”No, he knocked it off. We didn't exactly see eye to eye at first.”
”But it didn't take long for you two to become inseparable.”
”More like insufferable.” He grinned.
”But just so you know, he never told me anything about your parents. Guess he took that as private between you.”
Cronan nodded. ”Yeah, Manny was good at keeping secrets. But after what happened to my folks, I take each murder case real personal, probably more than I should. That's why I don't talk about it.”
”Is that your subtle way of telling me to keep my mouth shut?” She didn't wait for his answer. ”Don't worry, partner. This Ramirez knows how to keep a secret too. No one will hear your story from me.”
He stood on the curb under a streetlight and waited for her to get into her vehicle, but Angel had something more to say.
”Thanks for confiding in me, Gabe. I know that wasn't easy.”
Cronan shrugged and forced a smile. ”You're my partner, Angel.”
”For better or worse.” She waved and got in. ”See you at the station.”
After she pulled from the curb, he said, ”Yeah, better for me. For you? Not so much.”
Cronan headed for his vehicle and stuck to the shadows. The darkness helped him think-and remember.
Early Morning a Grand Central Police Station With the first forty-eight hours of any murder case being critical, other open cases took a backseat faster than a cheerleader did at prom. Cronan was hard at work after he'd made a quick run home to change, grab a bite to eat, and dose up with aspirin after pulling the first all-nighter in the new investigation.
His DMV search for Olivia Davenport had turned up her current address. He posted the details on a white board he'd started to doc.u.ment the steps in their investigation. The board was positioned near his and Angel's desk. An enlarged reproduction of Olivia Davenport's DMV photo was clipped to the white board, and he'd started a timeline, using the time stamps for the messages left on Olivia's cell phone yesterday, in an effort to retrace her steps.
If Olivia had indeed missed a dinner date, they could use her DMV photo at restaurants and shops in the area to see if anyone recognized the blonde beauty. He had a feeling people would have remembered her if they saw her.
Gabe had fielded a call from Schumacher. They still hadn't found Olivia's vehicle and had issued a BOLO alert. They'd done a search near Oz Park and at her residence, and her silver BMW 650i Convertible was missing. It made him wonder if she'd been killed as part of a carjacking, but why would a carjacker take the risk of accosting her in the middle of the park and not in the street near her vehicle? Stealing a car was a grab-and-go crime of opportunity. He couldn't see a thief take the time to hunt for her vehicle after killing a woman to steal her purse. The whole thing felt staged.
Cronan had written his questions on the white board.
He'd found an online newspaper link to a photo where Olivia stood alongside her parents at a local charity event. Olivia looked stunning in a black c.o.c.ktail dress, smiling for the camera. She'd organized the event as a benefit for the arts, and her parents were mentioned in the article as being generous supporters. Her father had his arm around his daughter. Both of them were grinning, but Mrs. Davenport stood near them and looked as if she'd been caught unaware of the camera. She'd forgotten to smile.
Seeing Olivia in the photo made it hard to imagine how she ended up in Oz Park. Flashes of her violent death stirred his anger, even this early in the morning.
”Hey, you've been busy.”
When he heard Angel's voice, he looked up from his computer.
”Yeah, caffeine helps.” He raised his coffee mug in greeting.
Angel headed toward her desk across from his. They were located in the far corner of the detectives' bullpen. His partner had gone to obtain the warrant for phone records. She'd also been with forensics to get more information on the mysterious Ethan. Angel had a smile on her face, always good to see.