Ashes to Ashes

by Tami Hoag

  “Now, Sam, I told you it was a work in progress,” Oscar said in that low, slow voice.

  “He's wearing sunglasses! It was fucking midnight and she's got him wearing sunglasses!” Sam ranted. “Judas fucking priest! This could be anyone. This could be no one. This could be me, for godsake!”

  “I'm hoping to work with Angie a little more,” the artist said, unperturbed by Kovac's temper. “She doesn't believe she has the details in her memory, but I believe she does. She has only to release her fear and clarity will come. Eventually.”

  “I don't have eventually, Oscar! I've got a goddamn press conference at five o'clock!”

  He blew out a breath and turned a circuit around the artist's small, cramped, cluttered workspace, looking around as if he wanted to find something to throw. Christ, he sounded like Sabin, wanting evidence on demand. He had been telling himself all day not to count on that lying, thieving little piece of baggage he had to call a witness, but beneath the cynicism, he'd been praying for a dead-on, got-you-by-the-balls-now composite. Twenty-two years on the job and the optimist in him still lived. Amazing.

  “I'm working on a version without the mustache,” Oscar said. “She seemed uncertain about the mustache.”

  “How can she be uncertain about a mustache! He either had one or he didn't! Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck!

  “I won't release it today, that's all,” he said mostly to himself. “We'll hold off, get the girl back in here tomorrow, and try to get some better detail.”

  From the corner of his eyes, he could see Oscar drop his head a little. He looked to be retreating into his beard. Kovac stopped his pacing and looked at him square.

  “We can do that, can't we, Oscar?”

  “I'll be pleased to work with Angie again tomorrow. I'd like nothing better than to help her unblock her memory flow. Confronting memory is the first step to neutralizing its negative power. As for the other, you'll have to take it up with Chief Greer. He was in here an hour ago to get a copy.”

  “SHE SAW HIS face for two minutes in the light of a burning corpse, Sam,” Kate said, leading him into her office, not sure the small space would hold him. When he was wound, Kovac was a barely contained column of energy that required perpetual motion.

  “She looked directly at the face of a murderer in bright light. Come on, Red. Wouldn't you think the details would be branded, so to speak, in her memory?”

  Kate sat back against her desk, crossing her ankles, careful to keep her toes out of Kovac's way. “I think her memory might improve dramatically with the application of a little cash,” she said dryly.

  “What!”

  “She got wind of Bondurant's reward and wants a chunk. Can you blame her, Sam? The kid's got nothing. She's got no one. She's been living on the street, doing God knows what to survive.”

  “Did you explain to her that rewards go out on conviction? We can't convict somebody we can't catch. We can't catch somebody we don't have a clue what the hell he looks like.”

  “I know. Hey, you don't have to preach to me. And—word of warning—don't preach to Angie either,” Kate said. “She's on the fence, Sam. We could lose her. Figuratively and literally. You think life's a bitch now, imagine what'll happen if your only witness skips.”

  “What are you saying? Are you saying we should stick someone on her?”

  “Unmarked, low-key, and well back. You set a uniform on the curb in front of the Phoenix, it's only going to make matters worse. She already thinks we're treating her like a criminal.”

  “Lovely,” Kovac drawled. “And what else would her highness require?”

  “Don't bust my chops,” Kate ordered. “I'm on your side. And stop pacing, you'll make yourself dizzy. You're making me dizzy.”

  Kovac pulled in a deep breath and leaned back against the wall, directly across from Kate.

  “You knew what to expect from this girl, Sam. Why are you surprised by this? Or did you just want that composite to be a dead ringer for one of your exes?”

  His mouth twisted with chagrin. He rubbed a hand across his face and wished for a cigarette. “I got a bad feeling about this deal, Kate,” he admitted. “I guess I was hoping for the witness fairy to touch our little Miss Daisy with her wand. Or poke her with it. Or hold it to her head like a gun. I hoped that maybe the kid would be scared enough to tell the truth. Oscar tells me fear precipitates prevarication.”

  “He's been reading those pop psychology books again, hasn't he?”

  “Or something.” He heaved a sigh. “Bottom line: I need something to kick-start this investigation or I'll have to go digging in some nasty shitholes. I guess I was hoping this was it.”

  “Hold the sketch back a day. I'll bring her in again tomorrow. See if Oscar can apply his mystic powers and draw something out of her—no pun intended.”

  “I don't think I'll be able to hold it back. Big Chief Little Dick got his hands on the sketch before me. He'll want to run with it. He'll want to present it at the press conference himself.

  “Goddamn brass,” he grumbled. “They're worse than kids with a case like this. Everybody wants the credit. Everybody wants their face on the news. They all have to look important—like they've got shit to do with the investigation besides get in the way of the real cops.”

  “That's what's really grating on you, Sam,” Kate pointed out. “It's not the sketch, it's your natural resistance to working under supervision.”

  He scowled at her. “You been reading Oscar's books too?”

  “I have a college degree in brain picking,” she reminded him. “What's the worst that happens if the sketch goes out and it isn't totally accurate?”

  “I don't know, Kate. This mope barbecues women and cuts their heads off. What's the worst that could happen?”

  “He won't be offended by the sketch,” Kate said. “He's more likely to be amused, to think he's outsmarted you again.”

  “Ahh, so then he'll feel more invincible and be empowered to go out and whack another one! Swell!”

  “Don't be such a fatalist. You can use this to your advantage. Ask Quinn. Besides, if the sketch is even partially accurate, you might get something off it. Maybe someone out there will remember seeing a similar individual near a truck. Maybe they'll remember a partial license plate, a dent in a fender, a guy with a limp. You know as well as I do, luck plays into an investigation like this in a big way.”

  “Yeah, well,” Kovac said, reluctantly pushing himself away from the wall. “We could use a truckload. Soon. So where's the sunshine girl now?”

  “I had someone take her back to the Phoenix. She's not happy about that.”

  “Tough.”

  “Ditto,” Kate said. “She wants a hotel room or an apartment or something. I want her with people. Isolation isn't going to open her up. Plus, I'd like someone keeping an eye on her. Did you go through that backpack she carries around?”

  “Liska checked it out. Angie was steamed, but, hey, she came running away from a headless corpse. We couldn't risk her going psycho and pulling a knife on us. The uniform picked her up should have done it at the scene, but he was all shook up thinking about Smokey Joe. Stupid rookie. He screws up that way with the wrong mutt, he'll get himself whacked.”

  “Did Nikki find anything?”

  He pursed his lips and shook his head. “What are you thinking? Drugs?”

  “I don't know. Maybe. Her behavior is all over the map. She's up, she's down, she's tough, she's on the verge of tears. I start to think something's off about her, then I stop and think: My God, look what she's been through. Maybe she's remarkably stable and sane, all things considered.”

  “Or maybe she needs a score,” Kovac speculated, moving toward the door. “Maybe that's what she was doing in that park at midnight. I know some guys in narcotics. I'll reach out, see if maybe they know this kid. We got nothing else on her yet. Wisconsin had nothing.”

  “I talked to a Susan Frye in our juvenile division,” Kate said. “She's been at this forever. She's got
a great network. Rob is checking his contacts in Wisconsin. In the meantime, I need to get Angie some kind of perk, Sam. A show of appreciation. Can you kick her something out of petty cash as an informant?”

  “I'll see what I can do.”

  Another duty to add to his long list. Poor guy, Kate thought. The lines in his face seemed deeper today. He had the weight of the city on those sturdy shoulders. His suit jacket hung limp on him, as if he had somehow drawn the starch out of it to supplement his draining energy.

  “Listen, don't worry about it,” she said as she pulled the door open. “I can weasel it out of your lieutenant myself. You've got better things to do.”

  Halfway out the door, he turned and gave her a lopsided smile. “What gave you that idea?”

  “Just a hunch.”

  “Thanks. You're sure you're not too busy tackling armed gunmen?”

  “Heard about that, did you?” Kate made a face, not comfortable with the attention yesterday's incident had gotten her. She'd turned down half a dozen requests for interviews and made too many trips to the ladies' room to dab makeup over the bruises.

  “Wrong place, wrong time, that's all. The story of my life,” she said dryly.

  Kovac looked thoughtful, as if he were considering saying something profound, then shook his head a little. “You're a wonder, Red.”

  “Hardly. I've just got a guardian angel with a sick sense of humor. Go fight the fight, Sergeant. I'll take care of the witness.”

  12

  CHAPTER

  THE TRAFFIC ANNOYS him. He takes 35W south out of downtown to avoid traffic lights and the tedious twists and turns of the alternate route. Stop-and-go traffic until he wants to abandon the car and walk down the shoulder, randomly pulling people out of their vehicles and beating their heads in with a tire iron. It amuses him that other motorists are likely entertaining the same fantasy. They have no idea that the man sitting in the dark sedan behind them, beside them, in front of them, could act on that fantasy without turning a hair.

  He looks at the woman in the red Saturn beside him. She is pretty, with Nordic features and white-blond hair done in a voluminous, airy, tousled style that has been sprayed into place. She catches him looking, and he smiles and waves. She smiles back, then makes a gesture and a funny face at the traffic snarled ahead of them. He shrugs and grins, mouths “What can you do?”

  He imagines that face drawn tight and pale with terror as he leans down over her with a knife. He can see her bare chest rise and fall in time with her shallow breathing. He can hear the tremor in her voice as she begs him for her life. He can hear her screams as he cuts her breasts.

  Desire stirs deep in his groin.

  “Probably the most crucial factor in the development of a serial rapist or killer is the role of fantasy.”—John Douglas, Mindhunter.

  His fantasies have never shocked him. Not in childhood, when he would think of what it might be like to watch a living thing die, what it would be like to close his hands around the throat of a cat or the kid down the block and hold the power of life and death literally within his grasp. Not in adolescence, when he would think of cutting the nipples from his mother's breasts, or cutting out her larynx and smashing it with a hammer, or cutting out her uterus and throwing it into the furnace.

  He knows that for killers such as himself, these thoughts are a sustained part of the internal processing and cognitive operations. They are, in effect, natural for him. Natural, and, therefore, not deviant.

  He exits on 36th and drives west on tree-lined side streets toward Lake Calhoun. The blonde is gone and the fantasy with her. He thinks again of the afternoon press briefing, both amused and frustrated. The police had a sketch—this amused him. He stood there in the crowd as Chief Greer held up the drawing that was supposed to be a rendition of him so accurate that people would recognize him at a glance on the street. And when the briefing had ended, all those reporters had walked right past him.

  The frustration has its source in John Quinn. Quinn made no appearance at the briefing, and has made no official statement, which seems a deliberate slight. Quinn is too wrapped up in his deduction and speculation. He is probably focusing all his attention on the victims. Who they were and what they were, wondering why they were chosen.

  “In a sense the victim shapes and molds the criminal . . . To know one we must be acquainted with the complementary partner.”—Hans von Hentig.

  Quinn believes this too. Quinn's textbook on sexual homicide is among many on his shelf. Seductions of Crime by Katz, Inside the Criminal Mind by Samenow, Without Conscience by Hare, Sexual Homicide: Patterns and Motives by Ressler, Burgess, and Douglas. He has studied all of them and more. A voyage of self-exploration.

  He turns onto his block. Because of the way the lakes lie in this part of town, the streets immediately around them are often irregular. This one has a bend in it that gives the houses larger lots than usual. More privacy. He parks the car on the concrete apron outside the garage and gets out.

  Night has inked out what meager daylight there had been earlier. The wind is blowing out of the west and bringing with it the scent of fresh dog shit. The smell hits his nostrils a split second before the sound of rapid-fire toy-dog barking.

  Out of the darkness of the neighbor's yard darts Mrs. Vetter's bichon frise, a creature that looks like a collection of white pompoms sewn loosely together. The dog runs to within five feet of him, then stops and stands its ground, barking, snarling like a rabid squirrel.

  The noise instantly sets off his temper. He hates the dog. He especially hates the dog now because it has triggered the return of his foul mood from the traffic jam. He wants to kick the dog as hard as he can. He can imagine the high-pitched yip, the animal's limp body as he picks it up by the throat and crushes its windpipe.

  “Bitsy!” Mrs. Vetter shrieks from her front step. “Bitsy, come here!”

  Yvonne Vetter is in her sixties, a widow, an unpleasant woman with a round, sour face and a shrill voice. He hates her in a deeply visceral way, and thinks of killing her every time he sees her, but something equally deep and fundamental holds him back. He refuses to examine what that feeling is, and becomes angrier imagining what John Quinn would make of it.

  “Bitsy! Come here!”

  The dog snarls at him, then turns and runs up and down the length of the garage, stopping to pee on the corners of the building.

  “Bit-sy!!”

  A pulse begins to throb in his head and warmth floods his brain and washes down through his body. If Yvonne Vetter were to cross the lawn now, he will kill her. He will grab her and smother her screams with the newspapers he holds. He will quickly pull her into the garage, smash her head against the wall to knock her out, then kill the dog first to stop its infernal barking. Then he will let loose his temper and kill Yvonne Vetter in a way that will satiate a vicious hunger buried deep within him.

  She begins to descend the front steps of her house.

  The muscles across his back and shoulders tighten. His pulse quickens.

  “Bit-sy!! Come now!!”

  His lungs fill. His fingers flex on the edge of the newspapers.

  The dog barks at him one last time, then darts back to its mistress. Fifteen feet away, Vetter bends down and scoops the dog into her arms as if he were a child.

  Opportunity dies like an unsung song.

  “He's excited tonight,” he says, smiling.

  “He gets that way when he's inside too much. He doesn't like you either,” Mrs. Vetter says defensively, and takes the dog back to her house.

  “Fucking bitch,” he whispers. The anger will vibrate within him for a long while, like a tuning fork still trembling long after it's been struck. He will play through the fantasy of killing Yvonne Vetter again and again and again.

  He goes into the garage, where the Blazer and a red Saab sit, and enters the house through a side door, eager to read about the Cremator in the two newspapers. He will cut out all stories pertaining to the investigation and m
ake photocopies of them, because newsprint is cheap and doesn't hold up over time. He has taped both the network evening news and the local evening news, and will watch for any mention of the Cremator.

  The Cremator. The name amuses him. It sounds like something from a comic book. It conjures images of Nazi war criminals or B-movie monsters. The stuff of nightmares.

  He is the stuff of nightmares.

  And like the creatures of childhood nightmares, he goes to the basement. The basement is his personal space, his ideal sanctuary. The main room is outfitted with an amateur sound studio. Walls and ceiling of sound-absorbing acoustic tile. Flat carpet the color of slate. He likes the low ceiling, the lack of natural light, the sensation of being in the earth with thick concrete walls around him. His own safe world. Just like when he was a boy.

  He goes down the hall and into the game room, holding the newspapers out in front of him to admire the headlines.

  “Yes, I am famous,” he says, smiling. “But don't feel bad. You'll be famous soon too. There's nothing quite like it.”

  He turns toward the pool table, holding the newspapers at an angle so that the naked woman bound spread-eagle on it can glance at the headlines if she wants to. She stares, instead, at him, her eyes glassy with terror and tears. The sounds she makes are not words, but the most basic vocalizations of that most basic emotion—fear.

  The sounds touch him like electrical currents, energizing him. Her fear gives him control of her. Control is power. Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.

  “Soon you'll be a part of this headline,” he says, running a finger beneath the bold black print on page one of the Star Tribune. “Ashes to Ashes.”

  DAY SLIPPED INTO evening, into night. Quinn's only indicator was his watch, which he seldom checked. There were no windows in the office he'd been given, only walls, which he'd spent the day papering with notes, often with the telephone receiver sandwiched between ear and shoulder, consulting on the Blacksburg case, where the suspect seemed on the brink of confession. He should have been there. His need for control fostered the conceit that he could prevent all mistakes, even though he knew that wasn't true.