by Tami Hoag
“You’ve met him?”
“No.” She swiped a second fry through the puddle of ketchup on his plate. “They’re all lying sacks of shit. That’s my sweeping generalization of the day.”
“You want something?” he asked, hailing the waitress.
“No. I’ll just eat yours.”
“The hell you will. You owe me ninety-two thousand french fries as it is. You never get your own.”
“They’re too fattening.”
“What? They’re less fattening if I order them?”
She flashed him a grin. “That’s right. And besides, you’re gonna gain weight ’cause you’re quitting smoking. I’m doing you a favor. Why’d you go to Verma?”
Kovac sat back from the burger, his appetite souring. He’d chosen Patrick’s out of habit, and regretted it. As always, the place was populated by cops. He had claimed a booth in the rear and put his back to the corner. He felt a little that way—cornered. He didn’t like what Verma had told him or what Logan had alluded to; didn’t like the knowledge that if he were to pursue this look into Andy Fallon’s life, most of the other players would be cops, and there was a fair chance not all of them would be good.
“Because if IA was involved in the Curtis thing, I can’t say why. Savard wouldn’t tell me,” he said, keeping his voice in the low register of confidences. “Maybe they were looking into the actual murder, like your guy said. Or maybe they were looking at the investigation. I wanted a feel for it before I went to Springer for answers.”
“Cal Springer couldn’t find shit in a cow pasture,” Liska proclaimed, then ordered a Coke from a slouchy waitress. “But I’ve never heard anyone say he’s rotten.”
“He’s an idiot,” Kovac declared. “Pompous prick. He spends more time trying to organize union socials than he does on his caseload. Still, this Curtis thing looked like a slam-dunk. Even Springer shouldn’t have been able to screw it up. But Verma says he didn’t do it.”
Liska made her eyes and mouth round. “No! An innocent man in jail!”
“Yeah, he’s pure as the driven snow,” Kovac said with heavy sarcasm. “But here’s the deal. He claims a cop threw down Eric Curtis’s watch in his place. Ogden.”
Liska’s brow furrowed. “Ogden? From yesterday?”
“The one and only. An allegation like that would bring IA in. Logan told me the situation smelled so bad, Sabin didn’t want to touch it. And Ted Sabin doesn’t smell blood in the water, then climb out of the pool. Especially considering Curtis was a cop.”
“Curtis was a gay cop,” Liska reminded him. “Who was a victim of a criminal targeting openly gay men. You think the mayor and her stooges want a media spotlight on that?”
Kovac conceded the point with a shift of his eyebrows.
“Verma also claims it was a cop did Curtis.”
“So why didn’t we ever hear about any of this?” Liska asked, clearly perturbed to have been left out of the loop.
“That’s a good question. IA only got involved within the last month or so. Verma’s been in the can at least two. Maybe no one knew IA was looking. Springer sure as hell wouldn’t broadcast the news if he knew about it. The ass-pucker factor would be so extreme as to render him incapable of speech.” He actually found a chuckle for the thought. “Ha! IA after Cal Springer. That’s funny.”
Liska didn’t join in the merriment, but Kovac didn’t notice.
“Maybe no one knew until Andy Fallon told them,” she said.
“Can you set up a meeting with your mystery man and get us some details?”
Liska pulled a face. “He has to call me. He wouldn’t give me his number this morning. He seemed nervous.”
“They’d have his name and number in IA, by the sound of what you heard in there yesterday.”
“But IA won’t give it to us. We can’t even ask. Our case is officially closed.”
“It’s closed when I sign off on it,” Kovac said, realizing with no great enthusiasm that he had gone territorial. The case was his. He didn’t want anyone telling him how to run it or when to stop it or anything else. He ran a case until he was satisfied. He was a long way from being satisfied.
“It won’t be that simple this time,” Liska said. “Guess who made Andy Fallon’s corpse leapfrog the line waiting at the morgue?”
Kovac scowled. “I’m not gonna like this, am I?”
“Guaranteed.”
He heaved a sigh and shoved his plate across the table to her. “Ah, shit. Who?”
Liska cut away the chewed-on part of the burger, then picked up the sandwich and took a big bite, ketchup oozing at the corner of her mouth. She wiped it away with a napkin and looked him in the eye.
“Ace Wyatt.”
Kovac growled. “That cocksucker.”
“Doing a favor for Mike.”
“Yeah. Throwing his weight around. He sure as hell didn’t do us a favor.”
He took a pull on his beer and looked around the room, remembering it as it had been the night of Ace Wyatt’s retirement party: over-festive, crowded, hot, smoky. He saw Mike Fallon on the floor, the tight expression on Ace Wyatt’s face.
He considered the burden of having a man owe you his life, and having that man never let you forget it. The obligation never ended. Ace Wyatt was still saving Mike Fallon, calling in favors. It was likely Wyatt’s influence that had gotten Andy Fallon’s death ruled accidental rather than a straight-out suicide, sparing Mike that burden and freeing up Andy’s life insurance.
“Did you get the reports?” he asked. “Did Stone have them done?”
“Stone didn’t do the autopsy. Upshaw did.”
“Upshaw? Who the hell is Upshaw?”
“Some new guy. Kinda cute, if you go for the type who has his hands in a dead body all day. I’ll pass, thanks,” Liska said, then polished off the last of the burger.
“Did you notice anything else about him? Like if he has half a brain?”
“At least half, I’d say. He wasn’t drooling. Whether or not he knows his shit—too soon to tell.”
“Great.”
“The preliminary report says Fallon died of asphyxia. No other significant wounds to the body. No signs of a struggle.”
“Had he had sex?”
“Upshaw said he didn’t find any seminal fluid where it shouldn’t have been. So if it was a game gone wrong, they were practicing safe sex or saving the main event for last. Or it wasn’t about sex at all.”
“Tox screens in?”
“No paperwork yet, but I called and talked to Barkin. He says Fallon had a low level of alcohol in his bloodstream: point oh-four. And a barbiturate, something called zolpidem, which is a sleeping pill also known by the brand name Ambien. That would be more consistent with suicide than a sex game, although the amounts were by no means lethal, even in combination. Plenty of people dope themselves up for the big deed. Now, if they’d found Rohypnol or something, that would be a different story. No one plans to date-rape themselves, except maybe a lonely masochist.”
Kovac frowned at a memory that wouldn’t quite come clear. “Did anyone check out what was in Andy Fallon’s medicine cabinet?”
“No reason to at the time.”
“I want to know.”
“You won’t get a warrant.”
“What do I need with a warrant? Who’s going to object?”
Liska shrugged and sucked on the straw of her Coke, her gaze scanning the room. She sat back, face impassive, but eyes suddenly hard and sharp.
“What?” Kovac asked.
“Here comes Cal Springer. Looks like he ate too many jalapeños and can’t fart.”
Springer moved through the crowd like a wooden figure, muscles taut with anger, face pink with temper or cold or both. He had a long, flat face with a long, hooked nose, the look crowned by a mop of unruly brown-gray curls. His gaze lit on Kovac and he rushed forward, barreling into the slouchy waitress. She spilled a beer and swore, and Springer ruined his entrance with awkward apologies.
> Kovac shook his head. “Hey, Cal, I heard you knock the ladies out. I didn’t know they meant it literally.”
Springer jabbed a finger at him. “What were you doing with Renaldo Verma?”
“We did the tango and had a cigarette.”
“His lawyer was all over me this afternoon. No one cleared that meeting with him. Or with me.”
“No one had to clear it with him. Verma agreed to see me. He could have called the lawyer if he wanted. And since when do I have to ask you for permission to wipe my ass?”
“That’s my case.”
“And it’s over. You’re out. What’s the big deal?”
Springer glanced around like a man about to disclose sensitive state secrets. “It’s not over.”
“Oh, on account of IA?” Kovac asked loudly.
Springer looked sick.
“They don’t have a case against you, do they?” Liska asked. “I mean, you’re not the one who threw down the watch, are you, Cal?”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“Consistent with your usual investigative techniques,” Kovac said. “If that’s a crime, you’d better bend over and kiss your ass good-bye.”
Springer glared at him. “I ran a clean investigation. I worked that case by the book. Verma has no call coming after me. IA either.”
“Then why are you wasting your time trying to ream me a new one?” Kovac asked.
Springer took a breath and held it tight for a couple of seconds, like a man trying to force something from his body by straining. “Stay out of it, Kovac. It’s over. The case is closed and everything with it.”
“Well, make up your mind, Cal. Is it over or isn’t it?” Kovac said, watching him, wondering. He could see Liska watching Springer too, though her expression held a certain tension, as if it caused her distress to watch Cal Springer battle his nerves.
“The IA lieutenant told me there’s nothing ongoing with the Curtis murder,” Kovac said. “Not today, anyway. Her investigator’s dead.”
“I know,” Springer murmured, glancing away, the red draining from his face. “I heard. Suicide. Too bad.”
“So they say.”
Springer looked at him again. “What’s that mean?”
Kovac shrugged. “Nothing. Figure of speech.”
Springer weighed that for a moment, weighed his options. In the end, his shoulders sagged and the air leaked out of his lungs.
“Look,” he said. “I can’t have IA on my ass. I’m running for union delegate.”
“Having IA on you oughta make you a shoo-in.”
“Only if guys like you bothered to vote. I’ve got bigger plans for my life than you do, Kovac. I care about what goes in my jacket. Please don’t fuck that up for me.”
Kovac watched him walk away, watched him bang into the same waitress he’d run into on his entrance, his mind clearly not in Patrick’s bar.
“By the book,” Kovac scoffed. “What book do you suppose that is? Practical Homicide Investigation for Dummies?”
Liska didn’t answer him. She had turned sideways in the booth to watch Springer go, but she seemed to be looking at something a whole lot farther away. Maybe light-years, he thought. He reached across the table and poked her shoulder.
“Hey, that was a good one,” he said. “Deserving of recognition.”
“Lay off him, Sam,” she said, turning back around. “Springer’s square. He doesn’t deserve what IA might do to him for no good reason.”
“If he knows something, I want it.”
“I’ll get it.”
Kovac watched her. She dodged his gaze. She looked fourteen and in possession of a burdensome secret. Knowledge of the football captain drinking beer and smoking cigarettes. She reached tentatively for the last french fry and traced the end of it through the coagulating glob of ketchup.
“Is something up with you?” he asked quietly.
Her mouth twisted into a semblance of her smart-ass smirk. “Sure,” she said. “My hormones. Wanna do something about that?”
“If your hormones are up because of Cal Springer, I want to hose you down with ice water.”
“Please. I just ate,” she said with disgust. “It’s been a long day. On top of a long night. I should go home.”
“I thought you didn’t want anything to do with IA.”
“I don’t,” she said, busying herself gathering her things. “How’s that stop me from getting what Springer has? He doesn’t want anything to do with them either.”
“Suit yourself.” Liska was entitled to a mystery or two, he supposed, though he didn’t like the idea.
He got up and tossed some bills on the table, then grabbed his coat off the hook on the end of the booth. “I’m going to go see what Andy Fallon kept in his medicine chest.”
“Sam Kovac, Round-the-Clock Detective.”
“What else have I got to do with my time?”
“Nothing, apparently. Don’t you ever want something more?” she asked, sliding out of the booth.
“Naw.” He ignored the image of Amanda Savard that came to mind. That was too ludicrous to even consider as a fantasy. “If you never want anything, then you can’t be disappointed when you don’t get it.”
11
CHAPTER
THE PARKING GARAGE had been named for a cop who had been murdered in cold blood in a pizza place on Lake Street. This thought always came to Liska when it was late and she was going in alone to find her car, or when she was tired and looking at the future with a jaundiced eye. She scored on all counts tonight. Rush hour had passed, the ramp seemed deserted, and her mood was dark. Kovac had gone back to the office to get the key to Fallon’s house. She had blown off his offer to walk her to her car.
The hair prickled on the back of her neck. She stopped abruptly and turned around, glaring into the gloom. Sound bounced around and echoed in the concrete labyrinth, making it difficult to identify the source. The slam of a car door could be a level above or below. The scrape of a foot could be at the end of the row. Or right behind you. Parking ramps were a favorite of muggers and rapists. Vagrants, most of them drunk or mentally ill, liked the ramps for shelter and to use as public toilets when they got kicked out of places like the downtown public library.
Liska’s breath burned in her lungs as she waited and watched, turning slowly, one hand slipping inside her coat and finding the butt of her gun at her waist.
She saw no one, heard nothing of any significance. Maybe she was just being edgy, but she had just cause. She had spent her day inquiring about the deaths of two cops. She felt as if someone had put a pillow over her head and beat her with a tire iron. She wanted her home, her sweats, her boys, a few hours to ignore the fact that she had volunteered to dig around in an IA shitpile.
“That was a blond moment,” she muttered, releasing the gun and digging her keys out of her coat pocket.
Now she had to figure a way to sweet-talk information out of Cal Springer. Christ. Without barfing. Tall order.
It was hard to figure Springer for being in on anything dirty. He was seldom allowed in on lunch, let alone a conspiracy, but there was no denying the smell of fear on him. It was a scent memory that tumbled her all the way back to her father. She hated it.
“Why couldn’t I have listened to my mother?” she muttered. “Learn a trade, Nikki. Cosmetology. Food service. Aim high. Get a job you can wear a nice skirt for. Meet the man of your dreams.”
The dark blue Saturn that served as traveling office and taxi sat at the end of the row, next to the wall, in a spot too dark for her liking now that night had fallen. Nose out, poised for a quick getaway. She hit the button on the keyless remote and swore under her breath. Nothing happened. No click of locks releasing. No flash of lights. The thing had been on the fritz for weeks, sometimes working, sometimes not. Liska, on the other hand, seemed always to be working and never had the time to take it in. It seemed too small an inconvenience to bother with. Until she was alone in a dark parking ramp.
&nb
sp; A thump and a scrape froze her in her tracks a second time. On another level of the ramp she could hear the squeal of protest from a steering column being cranked too far in one direction. On this level, she could feel a presence. Another human. The awareness vibrated in her nerve endings. She didn’t go through the bullshit rationalization most women did in a situation where they felt unease. Instincts were to be trusted above the teachings of an allegedly polite society. If she felt something was wrong, then something was probably wrong.
“Hey! Who’s there?” she demanded, turning slowly. The tough chick. The come-over-here-and-I’ll-kick-your-ass voice. Her heart rate had picked up fifteen extra beats per minute.
She sidled toward the car, key in her left hand, the right one reaching again for the gun, slipping it from the belt holster. With the tip of the key, she felt for the lock, missing once, twice. Her gaze remained up, scanning left to right, right to left, catching— Something. Someone. The shadowed side of a concrete column that seemed a bit too thick, a little distorted.
Liska blinked and tried to refocus. Too dark. It might have been something or nothing.
The key found the lock. She eased down into the Saturn, shut the door, hit the power lock button, and got no response. She cursed the car and started the engine, hit the lock button again, and this time was rewarded by the thump of locks engaging. Her gaze was still on the column fifty feet away. She could detect no motion, but the feeling of another living creature being there, watching her, lingered.
Time to go.
She tossed her briefcase on the passenger side, amid the debris of working motherhood, a mess that looked even worse than usual and spilled from the seat to the floor. Junk mail, a Burger King bag, a couple of magazines, one of the boys’ stray sneakers, some plastic action figures. And a whole lot of broken glass.
Nine more extra beats a minute.
The passenger’s side window was gone, reduced to a thousand bits that lay scattered on the seat and floor, mixed in with the junk mail and the Burger King bag, and the magazines and R.J.’s stray sneaker and the plastic action figures. It was probably the work of some junkie, Liska told herself. Probably her phantom in the shadows, who was now hiding, waiting for her to go so he could knock in someone else’s window in search of valuables to hock. That was the likely explanation.