Cavanaugh Standoff

“The tox screen for victim number four was positive for a date-rape drug?” she asked, unable to keep the note of hope out of her voice.

Ronan nodded. “The ME found traces of Rohypnol in the victim’s system.”

Choi looked up. “Roofies?” he questioned.

“That’s the popular name for it,” Ronan confirmed. “Maybe he couldn’t get his hands on Special K.”

“Ketamine is what vets use,” Martinez said, getting into the conversation. “My dog Ralph got attacked by this pit bull that got loose in my neighborhood early one morning. Damn dog tore holes in Ralph. I didn’t think he was going to make it when I drove him to the vet. Dr. Lai had to knock Ralph out with ketamine before she could sew him up.”

“You named your dog Ralph?” Sierra asked.

“I didn’t. His last owner did. I got Ralph from a shelter after his owner was reported for abusing him,” Martinez answered. “Poor dog shook for, like, two weeks until he got used to me and the girls,” he said, referring to his wife and daughters. “Anyway, Dr. Lai told me that Special K knocked Ralph out for four hours.”

“How big is Ralph?” Sierra asked.

“He’s a ninety-three-pound Labrador,” Martinez said proudly.

“All the killer would need would be to knock out his target for half an hour or less,” Ronan speculated. “Special K or a roofie would do the trick.”

Choi asked what everyone was thinking. “You think our serial killer might be a vet—the kind that deals with animals not battlefields?” he clarified.

“Either that, or someone with access to those kinds of drugs,” Sierra suggested.

“The question is,” Ronan said, getting up from his desk and crossing over to the bulletin board, “why would a vet—or someone with access to a vet’s drugs—” he acknowledged, glancing in Sierra’s direction, “be executing gang members?”

When no one answered, Sierra decided to give it a shot.

“Off the top of my head, maybe one or more of these guys ran up a bill with the vet and didn’t pay it and things escalated from there. Or maybe they shot up the vet’s place of business and this is his way of getting even?” Sierra proposed.

“Sounds plausible enough, except for our initial problem,” Ronan pointed out. “These are two different gangs we’re talking about. When did they ever do anything in concert?”

Choi sighed. “You really are a killjoy, you know that?” he asked.

Sierra had an idea. “Have you tried exploring social media?” Sierra asked.

He turned toward her, as did Choi and Martinez. “I know I’m going to hate myself for saying this, but would you add a few more words to that? Exactly what do you want us to do with social media?” Ronan asked.

She had a strong feeling that Ronan spent as little time on the computer as possible and had no social accounts. Even her father kept in touch with some members of the family who lived out of state that way.

She made it simple for Ronan, doing her best not to make him feel that she was talking down to him. “These guys are all under thirty. For the most part, that age group posts everything they do on their media pages. They’d certainly brag on the internet if they felt they had something to brag about. Why don’t we start looking there?” she suggested to Ronan. “Something’s got to give us a clue as to how these deaths are connected because I’m willing to bet my shield that these were not random murders.”

“You volunteering for the job?” Ronan asked her, seizing on her wording.

“Don’t we have techs in the computer lab who do that sort of thing?” she asked him.

Ronan recalled what his brother had said about his last trip to the computer research part of the CSI unit. “Last time I checked, they were backed up until the turn of the century.”

Sierra sighed. “Then I guess I’m volunteering to find out if any of these jokers posted online,” she said with resignation.

* * *

HIS CONSCIENCE GOT the better of him.

He’d done his best to ignore it. After all, it had been Carlyle’s suggestion and everyone in the department pulled their own weight, so there was no reason why she shouldn’t be the one doing the heavy lifting on this internet search she’d brought up.

But he had assumed that she would approach the job like any normal person, taking breaks and time out for meals. But the woman hadn’t budged from her desk since he’d put her on the task.

And that had been hours ago.

Choi and Martinez had left for the night a little while ago, as had a good many of the detectives in the squad room. Even Lieutenant Carver had gone home about half an hour ago.

As for him, he’d walked out as well. But he’d gotten as far as the break room and then forced himself to double back after making an all-important pit stop at the vending machine.

“You know,” Ronan said, setting a can of diet soda on Sierra’s desk, “when I told you to see what you could find on these guys from anything that they might have posted on social media pages, I didn’t mean for you to exhaust all the search engines before you could finally go home.”

Reading, Sierra didn’t immediately look up. “I know,” she answered Ronan. “I just kind of got caught up in it.”

He sat on the edge of her desk but she still didn’t look up. She was busy trying to make sense of something she was reading.

“There’s ‘caught up’ and there’s ‘obsessive,’” Ronan pointed out.

She glanced in his direction for half a minute. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to turn into one of those people who forgets to shower or change their clothes,” she promised. “It’s just that each thing I check out just feeds into something else.” It astonished her how mindless some people could be, to be proud of hurting people and getting by without doing any work. “These guys were really maniacal, crazy people.” Sierra shook her head.

“Well, at least we agree on something.”

That caught her attention and she looked up. “I’ve got a feeling that we’d probably agree on a lot of things, once you stop thinking of me as the enemy.”

“I don’t think of you as the enemy,” he told her, tamping down his temper.

“No? Try being on my side of this thing,” she told him. “The lieutenant brought me over to your team and you acted like you’d just been given an infestation of body lice.”

“That’s getting a little carried away, don’t you think?”

She raised her eyes to his. “Am I?”

“Go home, Carlyle. Get some sleep. The internet’ll still be here in the morning.”

“I know that,” she answered. “I just wanted to find something to get us a step closer to getting this guy.” She looked up at Ronan as she made her point. “So that you’d see I could be an asset.”

He frowned, debating whether or not to let that go or to say what he knew should be said. It was late, he was tired, and maybe that influenced him into deciding to give her her due.

“You came up with the idea that the victims were given drugs to keep them from fighting back. The rest of us hadn’t thought of that. That puts a gold star under your name. Now go home and get something to eat,” he ordered gruffly.

Arguing was in Sierra’s nature, but she refrained. She paused, then nodded. “I guess I am hungry.” She looked back at her monitor and something occurred to her. “Just five more minutes and I’ll close everything down.”

Ronan watched her for a long moment, knowing that if he left, there was no telling how long she would remain at her desk, going from one site to another. She had to be the most stubborn woman he had ever encountered, and that included his mother and sisters—which was saying a lot.

“Carlyle,” he said sternly, “go home.”