Cavanaugh on Duty (7 page)

The man who had also briefly set fire to her world, she caught herself thinking with no small longing right now.

She’d promised herself not to dwell on that, Kari reminded herself sternly. However, the memory refused to fade. Exerting something akin to a superhuman effort, she managed to push all thoughts concerning Fernandez into a nether region, hoping that would free up the working part of her brain for more important things.

“You’re staring at me,” Esteban said abruptly just as the elevator arrived. The stainless-steel doors yawned open, temporarily awaiting their pleasure. “My shirt inside out or something?”

As he asked the question, he looked down to check himself out. Nothing appeared to be out of order to him, but he couldn’t see the total picture.

“Your clothes are just fine,” she told him, confident that he was already aware of that small fact.

His attitude might have sounded careless to the undiscerning ear, but her gut told her that Esteban Fernandez was far from a careless man. For one thing, he wouldn’t have been able to survive in the world he’d previously chosen to descend into if he’d been cavalier by nature.

“I was just thinking that you clean up nicely,” she finally told him.

Compliments, when they were intended for him rather than the persona he’d assumed these past three years, made Esteban uncomfortable. He had absolutely no idea how to accept them or what was expected from him by way of a response.

So he shrugged, trying to appear unfazed—something he had gotten exceedingly good at—and mumbled, “Thanks, you too.”

To Kari’s knowledge, yesterday she hadn’t exactly looked like something the cat had dragged in—the way he most definitely had—but rather than begin a debate and possibly set him off, she decided to ignore the comment. “Okay. Moving on now.”

They got out on the first floor, and she led the way to the rear of the building rather than to the front of it. The back was where the department vehicles were all kept parked.

“You okay with my driving?” she asked, turning toward him suddenly. At least one of her brothers and two of her old partners had never felt comfortable when she was behind the wheel. She came to the conclusion that they all had issues that had nothing to do with her. She, on the other hand, was secure enough to have someone else drive if that was what kept them happy.

“Why?’ he asked suspiciously. “Something wrong with your driving?”

It amused her that
that
was the first thing that occurred to him. “No, it’s just that most males prefer to be the ones behind the wheel.”

He shrugged again. “Well, not this male. You’re the one with the address, right?”

“Right.” She was still just a tad wary of his motives. That it might just be a simple matter seemed
too
simple. For now, she reserved her judgment.

“So, you drive.”

To him, it seemed like the logical, not to mention simple, approach. He only cared about being the one behind the wheel when he didn’t trust the other people in the car.

But he wasn’t part of that world anymore, he reminded himself for possibly the dozenth time since yesterday. Having someone else behind the wheel was the least of the things he was going to need to get accustomed to with this new job that had been thrust on him.

Provided he stuck around.

“Okay, then,” Kari declared, pushing open one of the glass double doors and walking out. “The car’s parked right over there.”

Pointing for form’s sake, she led the way down the steps and through the lot. Her route formed a rather zigzag pattern.

Esteban remained at her side, matching her step for step without offering a single word, like a tall, unobtrusive shadow.

That, Kari silently promised herself, was going to have to change.

And soon.

Chapter 5

“W
hat the hell kept you?” were the first words out of the storage-utility manager’s lips when Kari identified herself and her silent partner some fifteen minutes later.

There was a look of contempt on his pockmarked face as he eyed the IDs that were held up for him. “I was just about to use the bolt cutters on the lock and open the unit myself.”

Rather than risk further undermining their authority by making excuses to the already hostile man, Kari deftly changed the subject, “Then you don’t have keys to the unit?”

The manager—Alfred Jennings, according to the sun-bleached stencil on the door of his closetlike office—looked annoyed that the female detective should even ask that question.

“Can’t you read?” he demanded, every syllable dripping with sarcasm. “Didn’t you see the words
Self-Storage
outside? That means the renter provides his or her own lock with its own key. Gives them privacy,” he added with a condescending snort.

“It also costs you less if they provide their own lock,” Esteban pointed out somberly. The manager began to scowl but confronted by the dark look on Esteban’s face, he quickly backed off.

“Take us to the unit,” she instructed. “And bring along your bolt cutters, please.”

“Sure thing,” Jennings bit off. Circumventing the two detectives, he got out in front of them and led the way to the storage unit in question, which was located at the rear of the facility.

Kari made a quick assessment of her surroundings as she and Esteban followed the manager.

At first glance, the facility looked like a mock-up movie set that had been abandoned before the designers could decide what it was supposed to look like. A haphazard collection of attached, short, single-story gray structures occupied the small lot.

At this hour of the morning, there were no other people about, taking inventory of their possessions or searching for that one elusive thing they were certain had to be in the storage unit because it hadn’t shown up anywhere else. As Kari and her partner walked behind Jennings, a sickening, somewhat putrid smell started to become evident. Once noted, it seemed to swiftly increase in intensity.

There was no breeze this morning and, unimpeded, the smell seemed to fill up every square inch of available air, hovering over them like an ominous, thick cloud.

Fighting back a gagging reflex, Kari automatically covered her nose and mouth with her hand.

He’d stopped before the offending unit. “You see? You see what I mean?” Jennings demanded, his tone of voice bordering on hysteria. “It wasn’t like this yesterday.”

Kari sincerely doubted that, unless whatever it was that was causing this smell had been deposited in the unit sometime during the night. “Were you here yesterday?” she asked Jennings.

“No,” he snapped, “but the guy who was here didn’t say anything about this stink to me.”

“He probably never left the office,” Esteban theorized, his deep, monotone voice rumbling across the surface of the would-be dispute.

Surprised that Esteban had actually offered an opinion, Kari bit back the desire to cry out, “He speaks.” She didn’t have to be a genius to know that Fernandez would be less than thrilled to be teased in front of a third party, but she did flash him a look of feigned shock at the two cents he’d inserted into the verbal exchange.

The storage-utility manager said nothing in response. Instead, he muttered something under his breath that was surely less than flattering.

“This is it,” Jennings said needlessly, gesturing toward the padlocked door of unit number 2041 as he choked out the words.

Kari nodded at the lock. “Go ahead, cut off the lock,” she ordered, uttering the words on a single breath. She was struggling to inhale as little as possible. Jennings raised the bolt cutters he’d brought with him. Opening the jaws, his biceps shook as he applied the cutters to the lock.

The pressure he exerted was not enough. The lock remained intact. A second attempt was as futile as the first.

Disgusted, Kari was about to take the tool from Jennings and attempt to cut the lock herself when she found her way blocked. To her surprise, Esteban commandeered the tool with the authority of someone who was accustomed to having no opposition—and not tolerating any if he did.

Taking the bolt cutters in his big, manly hands, he opened the tool as far as it would go, securely fitted the cutting edge around the lock and, with one quick, reverberating snap of his forearms, cut the lock clean off.

Useless, the heavy metal object fell to the floor with a solid thud.

Stepping back from the defunct lock, Esteban handed the bolt cutters back to Jennings with one hand while raising up the dull red corrugated door with the other.

The putrid smell of something rotting had been strong before. Without the door in the way to mute it somewhat, it assaulted them with a one-two punch that was almost unbearable.

Kari could feel her eyes begin to sting and threaten to water. The sooner they got this over with, the better, she silently told herself.

But before she could make a move to try to hone in on the origin of the smell, Esteban strode into the small, cluttered rectangular unit ahead of her.

He used the daylight that was streaming in behind him as illumination to help him carefully look around.

Rather than say anything or make a guess at the source of the awful odor, Kari watched as Esteban made his way to the back, moving through the piles of cartons and boxes that stood between him and the far wall.

Reaching the back, he started to push aside the obstacles he encountered, working his way down to the bottom of an exceptionally large pile comprised of half a dozen different things that were indiscriminately tossed on top of one another. At the end of his search, Esteban found himself looking at what appeared to be a rolled-up Persian rug.

Appearing unfazed by the pungent odor, he looked over his shoulder at Kari.

“There’s your smell,” he concluded with finality, not even bothering to first investigate whether or not the rug actually contained anything.

He didn’t have to.

He knew that smell, had come in contact with it more than once. Members of the cartel didn’t consider an argument actually won until the opposing side was tucked away in a fashion closely resembling this one. The rugs they used weren’t Persian, but the concept and execution were the same.

Not to be left out, Kari took it from there. She squatted down beside one end and, drawing in a deep breath that she fully intended to hold on to as long as humanly possible, she started to push aside as many layers of the rug as she feasibly could.

The unit was far too crowded for her to attempt to unfurl the rug—even if she could, which, at this point, she really couldn’t. There were protocols to follow.

The rug was fairly stiff and it offered a lot of resistance, but she refused to be defeated and kept at it.

Standing back, Esteban watched her for a few moments, amused by her efforts as well as somewhat impressed by them. He let her continue for a little while, then put his hand over hers, a silent indication for her to stop.

“What are you doing?” she asked in confusion.

“Keeping you from wearing yourself out.” With the ease of someone who was accustomed to strong resistance, he completed the job that would have taken her three times as long to finish—if at all. He pushed aside enough of the rug to expose what was housed inside. They were both looking down at an older, gray-haired man, who from all indications, had to have been dead for at least several days. Possibly even a week.

Eager to see just how ghoulish this sight actually was, the storage-facility manager pushed his way forward to get a better look at who—or what—was wrapped up in the rug.

When he saw who it was, his eagerness instantly faded. “Oh, hell,” he moaned. “I know him.”

Kari looked at Jennings, her interest piqued. “Who is he?” she wanted to know.

He frowned, but this time the frown was because of the situation, not because of her or her partner. “Don’t remember his name offhand, but that’s the guy who rents the unit.”

It was Kari’s turn to frown. “Congratulations, Fernandez.”

“For what?” he wanted to know.

“On the job less than two hours and you’ve already caught your first homicide,” she told him.

Esteban said nothing in acknowledgment of the dubious so-called “honor.” Instead, she saw him begin to clear away the piles of boxes and other various possessions that were surrounding the rug.

Kari shifted so that she managed to block his access to the closest pile of clutter. “Hold it,” she cried. “What are you doing?”

He would have thought that was self-evident, but maybe she wasn’t as savvy as he’d thought. “Pushing things aside so that we can unfurl this damn rug and take a closer look at the victim.”

But as he turned to get back to what he was doing, Kari caught his arm by the sleeve and tried to hold him back. Even though she’d managed to catch him off guard, holding his arm still took more effort than she’d anticipated.

“You can’t do that,” she told him.

The look he gave her clearly said he thought she’d lost her mind. “Why not?”

Rather than answer him, Kari glanced at Jennings. The storage-facility manager looked as if he had become one giant set of ears.

“You can go now,” she said, dismissing the man. “We’ll call you if we need anything else.”

“I got no place else to be,” Jennings said, remaining firmly planted where he was and intently staring at the rolled-up rug.

“Yes,” she informed him firmly, “you do.”

The man’s squinty eyes narrowed even more. “Where?” he challenged.

“Anywhere but here.” Kari’s tone left no room for argument. Having no choice, Jennings was forced to withdraw, and she heard him grumbling to himself as he stomped away.

Kari waited until the man was completely out of the storage unit before she turned back to look at Esteban. He was still waiting for his answer.

“We have to wait for the CSI unit to get here and process this crime scene before we can actually touch anything in it.”

Following protocol, she knew that she shouldn’t have even pulled back the rug the way she had, but if she hadn’t, they wouldn’t have been able to actually label this a crime scene, so she supposed she could be forgiven in that instance.