Cavanaugh Encounter. Marie Ferrarella

       Chapter 4

      It was immediately obvious that the distraught-looking older woman who answered the front door had been crying. Holding on to the door almost for support, she appeared to be struggling to keep from falling apart.

      Standing on the other side of the threshold, Luke politely asked, “Mrs. O’Keefe?”

      “Yes?” the woman responded hoarsely.

      Luke held up his credentials for the woman’s benefit. “I’m Detective O’Bannon. This is Detective DeMarco.” He nodded toward the woman on his left. “And that’s Detective White Hawk.”

      Both Frankie and the other detective quietly displayed their IDs as well as their shields.

      Mrs. O’Keefe’s red-rimmed eyes barely turned in their direction.

      She addressed her words to Luke. “If you’re here to tell me about Ellen, I already know,” she told him, her voice breaking at the end of her sentence.

      Frankie’s heart ached. She felt for the woman. More than that, she could easily relate to what Mrs. O’Keefe was going through. Without thinking, she stepped forward and took the grieving woman’s hands in hers.

      “We’re very sorry for your loss, ma’am,” Frankie told her with genuine feeling. “Detectives O’Bannon, White Hawk and I are here to ask you a few questions so that we can find whoever did this to your daughter and make him pay for it.”

      Mrs. O’Keefe pressed her lips together to suppress the sob that rose to her lips and threatened to burst out. When she spoke, her voice was hardly above a whisper.

      “Please come in.”

      Turning, the woman, bent with grief, led the way into her small, two-bedroom house.

      Deferring to the lead detective, Frankie waited for Luke to follow the woman, but he surprised her by waving her in first.

      “Not bad,” he mouthed to her as she passed him.

      Frankie assumed he was referring to the fact that she had managed to get a sliver of the woman’s trust.

      Mrs. O’Keefe brought them into her living room. Despite the fact that it was a little past noon, the room was shrouded in darkness. The house’s orientation kept the sun from coming in.

      The victim’s mother turned on a lamp as an afterthought.

      “Please sit,” she said, gesturing toward the sofa. And then, as if suddenly remembering the rules of etiquette, she asked, “Can I get any of you anything?”

      “No, we’re fine, ma’am,” Luke assured her. There was a kind expression on his face as he asked, “Can you tell us about your daughter?”

      Clutching a worn handkerchief, Mrs. O’Keefe knotted her long, thin fingers together in her lap. “Ellen was a wonderful girl. She was smart, kind, thoughtful. She was a kindergarten teacher, you know,” she told them with pride. “The children all loved her. She just graduated from college last year.” A small sigh escaped her lips. “She’d had a setback a while ago, but my daughter had finally gotten her life on track.”

      “What do you mean by a setback?” Luke asked the woman gently.

      Mrs. O’Keefe’s shoulders stiffened, as if she was bracing herself for an ordeal. “Ellen had an addiction problem, but she conquered that. It was all behind her,” she told them with finality. “Everything was fine. Everything was fine,” she repeated, her voice coming very close to cracking again.

      Luke noticed the way DeMarco looked up, alert, when Ellen O’Keefe’s mother mentioned that the victim had been an addict.

      Pulling herself together, Mrs. O’Keefe told them, “She was even beginning to date again.”

      “Was that unusual for her?” Luke asked.

      Mrs. O’Keefe offered them a small smile. “Ellen was very shy. She always had been. Getting addicted to painkillers had only added to her sense of being worthless. It made her feel that she had nothing to bring to a relationship. But getting her teaching degree and working with all those children changed all that.” Mrs. O’Keefe’s eyes shone briefly. And then she clutched the handkerchief she was holding. “I was so hopeful...”

      “Would you happen to know the name of the person your daughter was dating?” Luke asked. He knew that this was too much of a break to hope for, but he still had to ask.

      Mrs. O’Keefe shook her head. “Ellen wouldn’t tell me. She was afraid that she’d wind up jinxing it if she said his name out loud.”

      Luke tried another approach. “Did your daughter happen to say if she met this man at school? Was he another teacher?”

      Mrs. O’Keefe shook her head. “I’m sorry, I really don’t know. Wait,” she said suddenly, as a memory returned to her. “I think she met him on one of those online dating services.”

      These days, there was no end to dating sites, Luke thought. He had a friend who was extolling the benefits of online sites for anonymity. Luke preferred finding his dates the old-fashioned way—face-to-face.

      “Would you mind if we took a look at Ellen’s computer?” White Hawk asked the woman.

      Mrs. O’Keefe nodded numbly. “She had a laptop. Do what you want with it. It’s in her room,” she told the detective. “Ellen moved back here after rehab. She said living at home would help her keep from relapsing—and she couldn’t afford to rent a place of her own because she needed the money to finish up and get her college degree. She dropped out when she was taking drugs.” Mrs. O’Keefe’s eyes filled with tears. “How could anyone do something so horrible to her?” she asked all three of the people in her house.

      Frankie was the one to step forward again. “I’m afraid that there are terrible people in the world that do unspeakable things that we can’t begin to understand. Is there anyone who we can call to come stay with you?” she asked.

      The older woman took a shaky breath. “My sister said she would be here as soon as she could.”

      “Does she live around here?” Luke asked. “We could send someone to bring her.”

      Mrs. O’Keefe shook her head. “No, my sister wouldn’t like that. She’s very independent, but thank you,” she said, doing her best to smile. She placed a hand on Frankie’s arm. “When I found my little girl lying on the floor, there was a syringe in her arm. I don’t care what it looked like, or what your fancy medical examiner says he found in Ellen’s—Ellen’s autopsy.” Mrs. O’Keefe nearly choked on the word. It took her a moment to pull herself together so that she could continue. “My Ellen was clean. She was very proud of that fact. Proud that she had managed to kick her drug addiction,” Mrs. O’Keefe told them with the fierceness of a mother lion protecting her cub. “And she had,” the woman insisted. “I would bet my life on that.” Again, her eyes filled with tears that spilled out onto her cheeks.

      White Hawk was about to tell the woman that it wasn’t uncommon