Cavanaugh Hero by Marie Ferrarella

that to me,” he said.
    Charley nodded her head grimly. “Then, barring a weird coincidence—” and she really didn’t believe in those “—it looks like we’ve got a serial killer on our hands.”
    “That would be my call.” Declan’s statement was completely devoid of emotion.
    “How can you be that calm?” she demanded. What was he made of, ice?
    When he turned his eyes in her direction, Charley could almost feel his eyes boring right through her. “Who says I’m calm?”
    Maybe there’d been a hint of something else in his voice as well, she reconsidered. Still. “You certainly sound calm.”
    “Because yelling and screaming isn’t going to solve the case any faster or accomplish one damn thing. If it did, I’d be the first one screaming my head off.”
    Declan looked at her thoughtfully and she could see that he was weighing the pros and cons of an issue. Her instinct told her to leave it alone, that maybe it was better not to poke a beehive with a stick, but she had never been one to ignore what was right in front of her. Never been one to let sleeping dogs lie.
    “What else is on your mind?” Charley asked, prodding him.
    “What makes you think there’s something else on my mind?” Declan asked her innocently. “For all you know, I could be reviewing baseball stats.”
    “Could be,” she allowed as they rushed outside to his car, “but you’re not. C’mon, out with it.” Even as she coaxed, she braced herself, knowing that whatever was on Declan’s mind, it probably had to do with her. Otherwise, he would have just said it straight out, wouldn’t he?
    Declan stopped before his car and looked at her for a long, thoughtful moment. “If you want to sit this out, you can.”
    She deliberately got into the car. He had to take her along, she wasn’t about to be kicked to the curb now. “Sit what out? I wasn’t aware that we were dancing.”
    “Sit out getting involved with whatever this is turning into. It’s not just a simple murder anymore and I’m thinking that right about now, you probably feel you’ve bitten off more than you can chew.”
    Her eyes narrowed as she regarded him. “Well, if you had put any money on that supposition, you would have lost it. Don’t worry about my chewing,” she said, tossing his metaphor right back at him. “I can ‘chew’ just fine. And for the record,” she continued, her smile vanishing, “just because I haven’t worked a homicide—or homicides—before doesn’t mean I can’t. A decent detective is a decent detective, no matter what, and I don’t have tunnel vision, I don’t know how to do just one thing and nothing else.” Finished, she asked, “Anything else?”
    “Yeah,” he replied, starting up the engine, “let’s get going.”
    “You took the words right out of my mouth,” she told him with a grim cheerfulness.
    * * *
    Victim number two turned out to be an eighteen-year veteran of the Aurora Police Department, a police officer just like her brother.
    Officer Gerald Fitzpatrick enjoyed what he did and had no desire to take on the extra headaches that went along with becoming a detective. Being a patrolman suited him to a T. Of medium height and trim build, Fitzpatrick had been shot while still in uniform. He had put in extra hours in order to address a local elementary school assembly. Fitzpatrick had been one of the first to volunteer when the mayor had pushed for a program where police officers came to local schools and educated students of all ages about the dangers of drugs and alcohol.
    Widowed and childless, Fitzpatrick had married again five years ago and was the father of a three-year-old son he doted on.
    Because they were in charge of the investigation, it was up to either Charley or him to break the news to Officer Fitzpatrick’s wife.
    “You can sit this out if you want,” Declan told her as they pulled up in front of the late officer’s modest one-story house.
    “Why do you keep trying to get rid of