Murder on Lovers' Lane (Brody and Hannigan Mysteries) (2 page)

She smiled bleakly, knowing he did, indeed, have a way with women.  He'd certainly wrapped her around his finger with alarming speed.

If they weren't partners—

She stopped herself right there.  Even if they weren't partners, she was not the kind of tall, leggy, socially sophisticated woman she'd seen on Brody's arm the handful of times she'd met his dates. 

He came from money, from a family well placed in what passed for good society in these parts.  He never seemed to give a thought to how privileged he was.  How he could have chosen almost any other job besides law enforcement.  His law degree made him overqualified and his family money made him underpaid.

She might be the perfect partner for him at work, but little Estella Hannigan, whose daddy was from Sand Mountain and whose mother grew up dirt poor on the seedy side of Chickasaw County, was no match for Lee Brody in any other way.

"Isn't there a make out spot over near Buck's Bluff?"

"I think so."  She frowned, annoyed by her wandering thoughts.  "I think it's near the playground."

"Apt," he murmured, a hint of amusement in his voice. 

As usual, most of his gloom fled with his renewed sense of purpose.  She'd been filing away mental notes on him for four years now, locking them up in a little file cabinet in the back of her mind labeled Leland Stafford Brody, III.  She could almost predict his every move, despite his certainty that he was utterly unpredictable.

Was it possible to know a person too well?  She'd always heard that familiarity bred contempt, but her increasing understanding of her partner had only bred—

What?  Desire?

She attacked that thought with the ruthless ferocity she normally saved for vicious perps and meddling brothers.  She did not desire Brody.  There was no room in their relationship for the distraction of attraction.

His perfect, perfect lips were not eminently kissable....

The sound of a siren rose in the distance.  Brody's forehead creased again, not with his "I have a wild idea" expression but his "I have a sick feeling I know what this is about," grimace.  She found herself sharing his sense of foreboding, especially as the sirens grew louder the nearer they drew to Buck's Bluff.

They reached the entrance to the small park just as the patrol car, with its flashing blue lights and wailing sirens, pulled onto the narrow service road that led up the hill into the park. 

Brody reeled off a series of bleak curses as he steered the Ford uphill in the patrol unit's wake.  They wound through scrubby brush to a bluff overlooking Cherokee Valley to the east.

  "It may not be connected," Hannigan said, though she couldn't muster much conviction.   They should have backtracked in search of Morehead as Brody had suggested instead of continuing on to Parkwood.

She should have listened to her partner's instincts.

"I should have listened to you," he murmured.

She looked at him in surprise.  "What?"

His gaze pointed forward, toward the blue-lit scene at the top of the bluff.  Two uniformed officers had already emerged from the cruiser, approaching a lone car that sat at the edge of the bluff, its driver and passenger doors open.  Two bodies spilled out, one on either side, their clothing dark with blood.  It was a familiar sight now, after four identical crime scenes. 

It took a second for Hannigan to register the make and color of the vehicle.

"Alvin Morehead isn't the killer," Brody said morosely as Hannigan stared at the tan Chevrolet Malibu and its bloody former occupants. 

"He's the victim," she finished for him.

Chapter Two

"You weren't entirely wrong."  Lieutenant Crane settled his big frame into the small steel and vinyl chair across from Brody's desk, the expression on his craggy face incongruently gentle.  "Your basic victimology was correct."

Brody shook his head.  "The other six victims were years younger than Morehead and his companion."

The lieutenant threw a look at Hannigan, who sat quietly at the desk next to Brody's, typing up a report.  Her fingers flew like the wind across the keyboard, though her gaze focused squarely on Brody and the lieutenant.

She was his personal paladin, he knew.  Always at the alert, ready to watch his back or defend his honor, whichever he required at the moment.

He didn't deserve her.  He was a nightmare to work with, excitability and moroseness rolled into one unmanageable son of a bitch nobody else in the world would put up with.

Nobody should
have t
o put up with him.

"Stop feeling sorry for yourself," she muttered once the lieutenant wandered off to handle paperwork on the new case.

"We were so busy trying to catch him—on my word alone—that we didn't realize we needed to save him."

"We're ahead of where we were." She pretended to look at the report she was typing on her desktop unit.  But he knew she was secretly gauging his mood.  She would intervene if his growing sense of despair became too oppressive.

He forced himself out of his navel-gazing and tried to see the evening's events from her more practical perspective.  "We certainly know more about this victim than we knew about the previous victims at the time of the murders."

"Gives us a head start, don't you think?"  She sounded nonchalant, but he heard the irrepressible optimism lurking behind her neutral tone.  Though she prided herself on being a cynical realist, she had the delightfully quaint notion that any problem could be solved if you applied enough study and legwork. 

"I guess it does," he conceded, not certain he believed what he was saying but filled with a burning desire to make his serious little partner smile.

And smile she did, a quirk of her pink lips guaranteed to make his heart skip a beat, even when his mood was as black as a coal mine.

He wondered if she knew he found her deliciously sexy in her neat, understated way.

He wondered what she'd be like in bed.

He jerked the leash on his libido, briefly amused at how even a double murder and a crushing amount of guilt couldn't keep his male desires in check.  But the amusement fled as he concentrated on the new set of facts that had thrown a kink into his developing profile of the Lovers' Lane killer.

"I thought Morehead was our suspect because he worked at the community college where our other victims went," he mused aloud.  "He was a loner, according to the people who worked with him.  Showed a creepy amount of interest in the pretty coeds wandering around the campus."

"It sounded reasonable," Hannigan conceded, her placid face showing no signs of deceit, even though he knew very well—because she'd spent quite a bit of time telling him so—that she'd thought his profile needed refinement before they hared off after a maintenance man who might just be your average shy guy who enjoyed looking at nubile young women.

"The question is, what did Morehead have in common with our other victims?"

"They were all connected to Weatherford Community College," she pointed out.  "Morehead was only twenty-eight himself, and he didn't even look that old."

"What do we have on his female companion?"

"She didn't have any ID on her.  Based on what she was wearing, she might have been a prostitute."

Which would fit the profile of the shy loner who worked around a bunch of young, tight-bodied women but didn't have an outlet for his natural inclinations.  "Vice might know—"

"The two guys on night duty are out on a sting," Hannigan said.  "I sent an email and copied the whole unit.  Someone will get back to us."

"Prints?"

"The M.E. should have some for us soon.  We'll run them through AFIS, see if she has a record." 

Hannigan was, as always, the model of efficiency.  Even now, after a late night and hours of dealing with new information to add to their investigation notes, she looked as neat and put-together as usual.  Her chin-length dark hair was neatly brushed and shining, and the only sign that she'd been up for hours was the faintest hint of pale purple bruising the skin beneath her clear gray eyes.

He felt a tug in the center of his chest and dragged his gaze away before she caught him looking.

"Hmm," she said a few minutes later.  He looked up and found her peering at the computer screen, her placid features flushed with interest. 

"What is it?"

"Alvin Morehead didn't just work at the college."  She met his gaze across the desk.  "He was taking a night course."

"What topic?"

She checked the screen again, her brow lifting with interest.  "Introduction to American Literature."

Brody checked his notes.  "Alice Donnelly was an English major—she had that same evening course."

"But Sadie Linderman didn't."

"Her date did," Brody ran his finger over the notation.  "David Shubert."

Hannigan's frown deepened.  "But Hillary Gaines didn't have that class on her schedule.  And her boyfriend didn't attend Weatherford Community College."

"But Hillary Gaines worked part time as an assistant to Dr. Sydney Flanders."  Hannigan smiled.  "Who teaches that American Lit night course."

Brody nodded, smiling back at her.

"We'll call the college Monday and see if Hillary ever assisted Dr. Flanders during his evening classes," Hannigan said, stifling a yawn. 

"Why don't you go on home and get some sleep?" Brody suggested.  "I'll finish up the paperwork."

She shook her head.  "You know I prefer to do the paperwork.  I'm better at it."

He couldn't argue with that.  "I'm sorry."

She looked up, her expression puzzled.  "For what?"

"For messing up a perfectly good Friday night for you.  You could have gone out, had a little fun—"

The indulgent smile she flashed his way made his heart hurt a little.  "I wouldn't have gone with you last night if I didn't want to be there."

He supposed that was true.  He just didn't quite know why.

Why did a smart, ambitious woman like Stella Hannigan stick around mopping up after his messes?  She could be abrupt and plainspoken, which might make her a bad partner for a cheerful guy like Walt Billings.  And she was too quick-minded to put up with Don Perry's occasional thick-headedness.  But the other guys on the detective's bureau seemed to tolerate her well enough.

Hell, she was sharp enough to be lieutenant by now herself, when Crane inevitably made captain in a year or two.

Would she leave him then?

"What are the odds that all eight of our victim pairs would share a college course?" Hannigan asked, her gray eyes suddenly bright with inspiration.

"Not good," he admitted.

Her lips curved in one of those heart-stopping smiles she graced him with now and then.  "You must be rubbing off on me, Brody, because I think I've just had a brilliant idea."

She was smiling so broadly now the sight was damned near blinding.  His heart stuttered again, and he felt his tight rein on his self-control slip a little.  "What's that?"

She laughed as she said the words.  "Brody, you and I are going back to college."

"Weatherford Community College was once a hospital."  Dr. Raymond Silor, Dean of Students, met with Hannigan and Brody on Monday morning in his large, neat office on the second floor.  "This very room was once the morgue," he added with a hint of relish. 

Next to Hannigan, Brody grimaced.  He was mildly superstitious, and she could tell he was already eager to leave the dean's office.

Before she could cut the dean short, he continued with the history lecture, explaining how the one-time tuberculosis sanatorium had been converted in the 1950s, first to a hotel, then an apartment building, and finally reimagined in the mid-1970s as Weatherford Community College.

"The students believe we have ghosts," Dr. Silor intoned with a laugh.  "I believe the students have wild imaginations to go along with their wild libidos."

"Is that a particular problem?" Brody asked.  "Wild libidos, I mean."

"Students seem to believe the time they should spend matriculating is better spent fornicating."  Dr. Silor smiled bleakly.  "Educational opportunities are so often wasted on the young."

Hannigan steered the conversation back to the immediate issue.  "It's important that no one else knows who we are or why we're here, Dr. Silor."

His smile faded.  "Do you believe there is a predator loose on this campus, Detective?"

"That's what we're here to find out," Brody said, impressing Hannigan with his unexpected show of prudence.  She knew he was convinced the Lover's Lane killer was connected to this campus, eagerly taking her up on her suggestion that they should go undercover as students in Dr. Flanders' evening literature course.

She was beginning to doubt her moment of inspiration, however.  She and Brody were both in their early thirties, though she'd been told she could pass for twenty-five.  Wouldn't the sudden arrival of two new adult students to the class at the same time look suspicious?

Dr. Silor seemed to share her doubts.  "We don't have that many adults taking entry level courses to begin with. I'm not sure you can avoid scrutiny if two adults join the class on the same evening."

"Even if we join the class as a pair?" Brody asked.

Hannigan shot him a questioning look, but he just smiled placidly.

Dr. Silor's brow furrowed.  "You mean, as a couple?"

Hannigan's heart skipped a beat.

"Yes," Brody agreed.  "That's what I mean."

Hannigan smiled at Dr. Silor.  "Excuse us a moment."  She caught Brody's arm and tugged him with her to the corner of the dean's office.  Lowering her voice, she whispered, "We didn't discuss this."

"Sometimes I just get flashes of inspiration, Hannigan.  You know that."

She got the feeling this particular idea wasn't something he'd pulled out of thin air.  There was too much laughter in his dark eyes for her comfort. 

"What are you up to?" she asked, wishing she didn't so desperately want his answer to involve getting horizontal with her at the earliest possible moment.