Prior Bad Acts

by Tami Hoag

  It was only when he got a little too close to other people’s happy lives that he acknowledged the emptiness of his own.

  His thoughts drifted to Carey. To Carey and Lucy, and what it would be like to be a family with them-something David Moore had stupidly thrown away with both hands. But he cut the thought short, because that wasn’t his reality.

  Around nine in the evening, he dragged himself from bed, showered, put on some old sweats, and went downstairs to forage for something to eat. He sat down in the living room with nuked leftover pizza and turned on the Travel Channel so he could take a vacation without leaving his sofa.

  Cabo San Lucas was looking pretty good. Of course, the show had been shot at a fabulous five-star resort. Kovac pictured himself crashed in a chair on the beach under a big umbrella, listening to the surf, bikini-clad señoritas bringing him exotic drinks all day long.

  He had turned off his cell phone as soon as he had arrived home that afternoon, so as not to be disturbed. According to the voice mail woman, he had twelve new messages. He started to play each, deleting most of them before the message ended. Reporter, reporter, reporter. How they always managed to weasel out his phone number was beyond him. He had the number changed after every high-profile case, and still they managed to find him.

  The PR person from the chief’s office called to tell him how he should dress while the world had its cameras trained on the department.

  Note to self: Sell car. Buy Armani suit.

  Jesus.

  “Sam, it’s Carey.”

  The final message. Kovac sat up straighter. Cabo faded into the background.

  “I just wanted to check in with you.”

  She sounded tired and sad.

  “I saw the news… Just when I think this sordid case can’t get any worse, it does.

  “Anyway… I’m home,” she said. “And I don’t know what to do with myself. Are you sure there isn’t aVictim for Dummies book out there somewhere?”

  She tried to laugh, but failed miserably.

  He played the message three times.

  Just to hear the sound of her voice.

  69

  IT SEEMED STRANGE to be in the house. David was gone. Anka was gone. Carey felt their absence, listened to the silences where their voices should have been. With just Lucy in the house with her, she felt as if they were the last two people on earth.

  She wouldn’t be able to sleep in her bed, the bed she had been dragged from in the middle of the night by Karl Dahl, the bed she had shared with a man she didn’t know. Lucy wouldn’t want to sleep in her own bed either. She had clung to Carey like a piece of Velcro since Kate had brought her home.

  Carey had dragged pillows and blankets into the family room. Lucy liked to pretend she was having a sleepover or going camping. Playing pretend didn’t sound like a bad idea to Carey either.

  Her daughter had yet to talk about what she had seen that night. Usually a chatterbox, Lucy hadn’t had much to say at all. Kate told Carey not to worry, but she worried anyway.

  Carey knew how what had happened would affect her own life, make her see things through a different filter, temper her feelings. Her sense of safety and security had been blown out of the water. So many things about her life she had once believed in so strongly had dissolved beneath her feet.

  If she felt that way, she could only imagine how helpless a child would feel.

  And Lucy had the added upset of not having her father there, and not understanding why.

  How was she supposed to tackle those questions? Carey wondered.Daddy doesn’t live here now because he frequents prostitutes. Daddy doesn’t live here because he’s secretly a pornographer.

  What was she supposed to say? And how would any part of this make sense to a little girl who only wanted her mommy and daddy, and for her world to be safe and secure?

  Lucy slept now, curled up on the couch in the family room, a blanket covering her, her thumb in her mouth. She hadn’t sucked her thumb in two years.

  Carey touched her daughter’s dark hair and hoped she was having good dreams.

  Restless, she went to the window seat that looked out on the front yard, sat down, and curled her legs beneath her like a cat. A police cruiser still sat at the curb, watching.

  The police wouldn’t be able to give her this kind of special treatment for long. Even though she knew the three people she had reason to fear-Karl Dahl, Stan Dempsey, and Bobby Haas-would never be a threat to her again, she still felt afraid. She felt exposed. All the world knew where she lived now. Her sense of privacy was gone.

  Maybe she would sell the house. Too many unhappy things had happened here. The good memories had been pushed out by the bad. Making a fresh start sounded like a smart thing to do. She wanted to feel anonymous. She didn’t want to turn on the news and see her own home fill the screen.

  She wanted to be nobody, wanted no one to need anything from her. And she wished very much she had someone to understand those needs in her.

  Out on the street, a car pulled up in front of the police cruiser, and the driver climbed out. Kovac.

  Carey opened the door before he was halfway up the sidewalk.

  “This is a surprise,” she said. “I figured you would have been catching up on your sleep.”

  He shrugged it off as he came inside. “Nah. Sleep is highly overrated. And I would have figured you would be staying someplace else.”

  “Kate and John offered, but I just didn’t want to be with people,” she said. “Turns out I don’t want to be alone either. And I didn’t want to drag Lucy to a hotel…”

  Kovac scrutinized her appearance from head to toe. Messy hair, battered face, a T-shirt and red plaid flannel pajama bottoms. She felt like a grubby-faced waif.

  “You’ve certainly seen me in my finest moments, Detective,” she said dryly.

  “Have you eaten anything?” he asked, and answered himself. “No, of course not. Why would you eat anything? You’d only get blown over by a stiff wind. I brought food.”

  He held up a bakery bag, then set it aside on the hall table so he could take his coat off.

  “What is it?”

  “Doughnuts,” he said with that crooked fraction of a smile. “What else would a cop bring?”

  “You’re perpetuating the stereotype,” Carey said, finding a smile of her own, chuckling a little.

  “Somebody has to uphold tradition. You got coffee?” he asked, heading for the kitchen.

  “You know where it is.”

  Carey followed him down the hall, bringing the bag of doughnuts. She watched him find everything he needed to make a pot of coffee. As the machine began to gurgle and spit, he turned around to face her.

  He looked different in jeans and a sweater. Younger, she thought. Less like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders.

  “So, Bobby Haas, huh?” she said.

  “Yeah. Bobby Haas.”

  Carey shook her head. “Who would ever look at that boy and believe he could do the things he did to Marlene Haas and those children? It’s like something out of a horror movie. That he would even have those thoughts in his head makes me feel sick.”

  “What can you say?” Kovac shrugged. “Some of them just don’t hatch right.”

  “Do you believe that? That evil is born, not made?”

  “Honey, I’ve seen the worst things humans can do to one another,” he said. “Bobby Haas didn’t rape and torture and mutilate his victims because he wet his pants when he was twelve.

  “He had those thoughts brewing in his head for a long time. He had that fantasy honed like a knife by the time he acted it out.”

  “And he almost got away with it,” Carey murmured. “You know if Dahl had gone to trial, he would have been convicted.”

  “Did you think he did it?” Kovac asked. “Dahl?”

  “I should decline to answer that,” she said. “But yes. Yes, I did. Everyone did.”

  “Yet you seemed to bend over backward to cut the defense a break
. Why?”

  “Because what if he was innocent?” she said. “And as it turned out, he was.”

  “I couldn’t have your job,” Kovac said. “I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t be impartial.”

  “And that’s why you’re a cop and I’m not.”

  He poured them each a mug of coffee. Carey reached into a cupboard, pulled out a plate, and arranged the doughnuts. The domesticity of what they were doing gave her comfort in some way. A simple, everyday kind of routine.

  “Where’s Lucy?” Kovac asked.

  “Asleep in the family room. Let’s go back. I don’t want her to wake up and not have me there.”

  “How’s she doing with all this?” Kovac lowered his voice as they went into the room.

  Lucy hadn’t moved, nor had her thumb.

  “Her whole world has turned upside down… and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

  Carey closed her eyes and put a hand across her mouth, trying to hold back tears that wanted to drown her. She had done a fair job of keeping herself together when Lucy had been awake and watching her. But her defenses were down; she was exhausted and overwhelmed.

  Without even thinking, she turned to Kovac and pressed her face into his shoulder.

  Without even thinking, he put his arms around her, and held her, and stroked her hair, and told her everything would be all right. Whether it would be or not didn’t matter. What mattered was that someone strong was there to take the weight for a few moments.

  Sniffing, wiping the tears from her face with her hands, Carey stepped back.

  “All I ever seem to do is cry in front of you,” she said.

  Kovac handed her a napkin from the plate with the doughnuts. “That’s okay. At least you have good reason. Unlike my first wife, who would just burst into tears at the sight of me.”

  She managed a laugh as she curled into the corner of the couch where Lucy was sleeping. “No, she didn’t.”

  Kovac sat down directly across from her on the big leather ottoman that served as seating and coffee table, and leaned his elbows on his knees.

  “Have you heard from David?” he asked.

  “No, I haven’t.”

  Kovac shook his head. Carey held up a hand. “Let’s not.”

  That the man with whom she had spent a decade of her life sharing intimacy, having a child, couldn’t bring himself to call her and ask after her. What was there to say about that?

  “I’m sorry he turned out to be what he is,” Kovac said.

  “Me too.”

  Lucy stirred and sat up, blinking and rubbing at her big blue eyes. She looked directly at Kovac, imperious, as if she was offended by his presence.

  “Hello, Princess Lucy,” he said.

  “I’m not a princess anymore,” she announced, clearly unhappy at her fall in status.

  “Why aren’t you a princess?” Kovac asked. “You look like a princess to me.”

  She shook her head and cuddled against her mother. Carey stroked her hair. “Say hello to Detective Kovac, sweetie. Be polite.”

  Lucy looked up at him from under her lowered brow. “Hello, Detective Sam.”

  “Hello.” He had that look again, like he half thought the child would leap out and bite him. “How come you’re not a princess anymore?”

  “Because.” Lucy looked away.

  “Did something happen, and you decided not to be a princess anymore?”

  Lucy nodded and tucked herself tighter against Carey. “I got afraid,” she said in the tiniest of voices.

  “You got afraid,” Kovac repeated, as serious as if he were interviewing a witness. “It’s okay to be afraid. Your mom gets afraid. I get afraid.”

  “You get afraid?” Lucy asked, looking dubious. She thought about it and finally pronounced: “Then you’re not a princess either.”

  “Well, no, I’m not.”

  “We’re pretending we’re having a sleepover,” Lucy told him. “You can stay with us if you want.”

  Kovac hid his laugh behind his hand. “No, I can’t,” he said. “But thanks for asking. I really should be going. I just came over to check up on you and your mom. And to bring you some doughnuts.”

  Lucy caught sight of the plate and lit up. “Doughnuts!”

  “One,” Carey instructed. She unfolded herself from the couch and followed Kovac back out to the hall.

  “Thank you, Sam,” she said quietly. “For coming over. For the doughnuts. For everything.”

  Kovac shrugged into his coat. “All in a day’s…”

  “No. Above and beyond.”

  “You’ve got my numbers,” he said. “If you need me, call me. I’ll be here before you can hang up the phone.”

  Carey nodded.

  He turned toward the door and started to open it.

  “And what if I don’t need you?” she asked. “Can I call you anyway?”

  Kovac blushed a little, looked everywhere but at her, struggled to fight off a smile.

  “Yeah,” he said at last. “Like I said-I’ll be here before you can hang up the phone.”

  70

  THE TASK FORCE met the following day just before the change of shift to go over the case, which had become multiple cases. Like cancer, the evil had grown, metastasized, and touched too many lives.

  “We’ve cleared the death of Stan Dempsey,” Lieutenant Dawes said. “There will be no further action with that.”

  “What’s going to happen with his body?” Kovac asked. “Is his daughter coming back to make arrangements?”

  “No. She said to take money from Stan’s bank account to-her words-take care of it.”

  Tippen gave a low whistle. “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have an ungrateful child.”

  “Hey, that was my line!” Elwood complained.

  “The Bard is part of the public domain, my friend. Free to one and all.”

  “That’s not right,” Kovac said, ignoring them. “Dempsey was one of us. Sure, he went nuts in the end, but he was one of us. We should take care of him. We were his family.”

  Dawes nodded. “I agree. I’ll see what we can do. I can tell you the brass isn’t going to authorize anything, in light of what happened. Talk to your PBA rep. Maybe the union can help out.”

  “We’ll pass the hat,” Kovac said. “Leave the union out of it. We’ll do this for Stan like the friends we never were.”

  Nods and murmurs went around the table. Kovac figured everyone who had ever worked with Stan Dempsey or ignored Stan Dempsey or made fun of Stan Dempsey observed a moment of guilty silence.

  Dawes then said, “Nikki, have you heard anything on Wayne Haas regarding the official cause of death?”

  “Toxicology hasn’t come back yet,” Liska said. “The tentative COD is heart failure, but Bobby Haas goes into quite a lot of detail in his journal about poisoning his dad with selenium. Imagine he was going to be a doctor. Yikes.”

  “Imagine how many Bobby Haases have already graduated from med school,” Tippen said. “And law school, and business school. Studies have shown that many heads of Fortune Five Hundred companies are sociopaths.”

  “This kid almost pulled off the perfect murders,” Kovac said. “Karl Dahl would have gone to prison for crimes he didn’t actually commit. And the kid would have gone on his merry way.”

  “Nikki, have you gone back in the case file to see what Stan Dempsey had to say about Bobby Haas?” Dawes asked.

  “Bobby Haas was interviewed. He gave an alibi. It looks to me like nobody followed up,” Liska said. “Stan was hot on Karl Dahl. Bobby was just sixteen, a good student, polite kid, never in trouble, seemingly despondent over the deaths…”

  “He slipped through the cracks,” Dawes said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Where are we with David Moore?” Kovac asked.

  Dawes shrugged. “We’re nowhere. He’s been cleared of his wife’s assault. He had nothing to do with her abduction. I’m sure a forensic accountant will have a field day digging through Moore
’s financial records for the divorce proceedings, but he’s off the hook otherwise. We don’t have anything to hold him for or charge him with.”

  Kovac scowled. “I don’t get it. If he’s so innocent, why did he lawyer up so fast?”

  “Well, it might have had something to do with the way you and Chris Logan were trying to railroad him into jail,” the lieutenant said dryly.

  Still, Kovac didn’t like it. “I want to know about the mysterious twenty-five grand, and why it had looked so clearly like Moore was up to something with Ginnie Bird’s brother.”

  “Maybe he had been,” Elwood said. “Maybe they had a plan to get Judge Moore out of the way, but Bobby Haas beat Bergen to the punch.”

  “Even if that was the case,” Dawes said, “conspiracy charges are a tough sell. If there’s no underlying felony charge, the case will never make it off the ground. And the fact remains, David Moore hasn’t done anything illegal-that we know of.”

  Liska gave him an elbow. “We can’t just throw him in the clink because you think he’s an asshole, Kojak.”

  “The world would be a better place,” he grumbled.

  Whether David Moore had committed a crime or not, Kovac was going to get to the bottom of that cesspool, if for no other reason than the personal satisfaction of making Moore ’s life a misery. He suspected Moore had a ton of money stashed somewhere from his sojourn into the hard-core porn business. Maybe he could find a charge in there somewhere. Like Logan said: Follow the money.

  “What do you know about his movies, Tip?” he asked.

  Liska put her hands over her ears and began to hum.

  “They’re too hard-core for me,” Tippen said. “Violent. Sadomasochistic. If his films are anything to judge him by, David Moore aka David M. Greer is one sick puppy, a puppy protected by the First Amendment. We might find his work socially and morally reprehensible, but he’s not breaking any laws.”

  Kovac frowned heavily.

  “All right, people,” Dawes said on a long, end-of-the-day sigh. “Let’s wrap it up and move on. If nobody has anything else-”

  They were all half out of their chairs when Liska spoke up.