“Don’t flatter him. His head’s already too big to fit into the elevator car when it’s crowded,” he told the detective from the Major Crimes division.
Luke ignored his partner’s crack. “I was just telling Major Crimes here that the lieutenant walked in through the door,” he pointed out.
Frankie turned to see the man O’Bannon was referring to. Lt. Mike Handel, a tall, gaunt-looking man with a perpetual two days’ growth of beard was just entering the squad room. Because Frankie was five-one, everyone had a tendency to look tall to her.
Handel, a twenty-one-year veteran of the Aurora Police Department, looked neither to the left nor to the right as he crossed the room. He appeared focused on reaching his office, preferably without being engaged in conversation.
His scowl was meant to put people off and to guarantee swift passage across the room. To a great extent, it worked. But his ploy failed as O’Bannon rose to his feet.
“Lieutenant,” O’Bannon called out. “You got a minute?”
“No,” Handel answered curtly as he continued crossing to his office.
Not one to be brushed off, Luke told him, “You might want to hear this.”
Handel’s scowl looked as if it went clear down to the bone. He stopped, retraced the last five steps and glared at Luke as he retorted, “Fine,” then barked, “What?”
Luke gestured toward the rather petite detective who had approached him about another victim. “This is Detective DeMarco from Major Crimes,” he told his lieutenant by way of an introduction.
Handel bobbed his head in quick, dismissive acknowledgement. The scowl never lifted. “And?” he asked impatiently.
O’Bannon played out the line. “And she’s brought us something.”
Handel still seemed annoyed at being delayed. He glanced impatiently toward his office. “Like what?” he demanded. “Homemade cookies she baked?” Then, sparing the young woman under discussion a quick, appraising glance, he told her, “No offense meant.”
Frankie highly doubted that, but she needed to be part of this investigation, so, against her will she replied, “None taken. And I’m not bringing cookies, I’m bringing you another homicide.”
If possible, Handel’s scowl deepened, all but etched into his bones. “Just what I needed.” He glared at the woman. “Why is Major Crimes bringing me another homicide?”
“They’re not,” Frankie corrected. “I am. I believe that this victim was murdered by your serial killer.”
Handel looked at O’Bannon, seeking a contradiction. “Is this true?”
“I haven’t had a chance to check it out yet,” Luke answered, “but on the surface, it sounds like it might be one of his.”
“Then what are you waiting for?” Handel asked. “Go! Check it out. And then get back to me.”
“You got it,” Luke said. He pulled his jacket off the back of his chair and shrugged into it. “White Hawk, you’re with me,” he said to the imposing man he’d been partnered with for the last three years.
Frankie blinked. It felt as if everything was suddenly whirling around her and she was being left behind. That wasn’t why she had come to them with the case, and if O’Bannon and his superior thought that, then they were sadly mistaken. She had no intention of being left behind.
“Lieutenant,” she called out to the man’s back as he was walking away. “There’s one more thing.”
Exasperation etched lines into Handel’s sallow complexion as he turned to her. “What?” He all but bit off the question.
“I come with the case,” she informed him in a no-nonsense voice.
It was obvious by the look on Handel’s face that this was not something he had expected to hear. He wasn’t accustomed to being given conditions. “How’s that, again?”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that O’Bannon and his partner had stopped moving and were listening, as well. And they appeared to be amused.
They were probably curious to see if Handel was going to have her for lunch was her guess.
Not likely.
“Major Crimes wants me to follow through on this. I was the first responder on the scene,” she told the scowling lieutenant.
Frankie braced herself for an argument and she was ready to hold her own if it came to that. Instead, Handel waved her on her way.
“Sure, fine. The more the merrier. Knock yourself out,” he told the woman invading his squad room. “Whatever gets this case off my plate.”
Moving again and picking up his pace, Handel hurried across the now-short distance to his office. He quickly closed the door before anyone else had a chance to further annoy him.
“Nicely done,” Luke commented as he walked over to her side. “You do realize that we have to take you with us because you’re the one who knows where the body was found, right?” he asked her, clearly amused.
They were walking now. Frankie hurried to keep up as they entered the hallway. She had gotten so caught up in trying to convince the lieutenant to allow her to take part in the case, she’d forgotten about that small, practical matter.
“I know that,” she lied, her mind working fast. “But I thought Handel would appreciate being asked for permission.”
A glimmer of appreciation entered Luke’s green eyes. “So I take it that you’re not a newbie,” he said with an approving nod.
“No, I’m not.” Frankie answered him in no uncertain terms, insulted by the mere suggestion that she could be seen as a novice.
The elevator arrived and all three of them got in. They had the car to themselves. White Hawk took the opportunity to lean forward and whisper to her, “Don’t mind O’Bannon. He likes getting under people’s skin, but he’s not nearly as bad as he pretends to come off.” Extending his hand to her, he went on to introduce himself. “Rick White Hawk.”
“Nice to meet you, Detective White Hawk.” She shook his hand. “I’m—”
“Frankie DeMarco, yes, I heard,” White Hawk said, smiling at her.
“Okay, now that we’re all acquainted, let’s get back to the business at hand—checking out the crime scene and catching a serial killer—unless anyone has some objections,” Luke prodded just as they reached the ground floor.
“You’re the lead detective,” White Hawk told him agreeably.
Frankie suppressed the sigh that seemed to automatically rise to her lips. For the most part, she worked cases in Major Crimes on her own.
“What he said,” she murmured as agreeably as she could.
When they walked out of the rear of the building and headed for the parking lot, Frankie began to go in a different direction than the other two detectives.
Looking over his shoulder, Luke called to her, “Hey, DeMarco, where are you going?”
She assumed that the answer to that was self-explanatory. “To get my car.”
“Since we’re all going to the same place, why don’t we all go there in one car?” O’Bannon suggested.
She couldn’t shake the feeling that he was speaking to her as if he was addressing a child. Doing her best not to lose her temper, she said, “Okay, we’ll use my car since I’m the one who knows where we’re going.”
Luke gave this temporary addition to his team a tolerant look. “I’m assuming this isn’t some secret location where we’ll have to be blindfolded before we