Kovac And Liska: Prior Bad Acts Part 21

"I'm at my office. Do you have the address?"

"I'll be there in half an hour."

Edmund Ivors's downtown offices were sleek, modern, expensively decorated, as was the man himself. A small, immaculate man with a closely trimmed salt-and-pepper beard and a navy blue pin-striped suit that would have set Kovac back a month's pay. A subtly striped shirt, a purple tie and pocket square. Kovac never trusted a guy with a matching pocket square--they always thought too much of themselves. The shoes were probably handmade by blind monks in the Italian Alps.

Kovac took one look at him and thought: a.s.shole.

Ivors met him in the reception area with a too-friendly smile and a strong shake with a soft hand. This was the kind of guy who got manicures every week.

"Detective," Ivors said, "I'm glad I was able to get hold of you."

"Why is that?" Kovac asked. "Most people try to avoid me."

"I wanted to be able to put to rest any suspicion you might have regarding David."

Kovac raised a brow. "You're tight, you and Dave?"

Ivors smiled like a politician. "I've known David for a couple of years. He's a nice man. Couldn't possibly do anything along the lines of what happened to his wife last night."

"He was with you."

"Yes. We met for drinks in the lobby bar of the Marquette. Sevenish."

"How did he seem? Nervous, anxious, relaxed . . ."

"He seemed perfectly normal."

"Did he say anything about his wife?"

"Not that I recall. We were discussing business." Ivors gestured toward a hall. "Let's go into my office, Detective. We can be comfortable. Is there anything I can get you? Water? A soft drink? I'd offer you coffee, but I'm completely inept at making it. If it weren't for my staff, I would have to take up drinking tea. I can manage to boil water, but that's about it."

"Nothing for me, thanks."

The office at the end of the hall had a stunning view of the city. Two walls of floor-to-ceiling gla.s.s. There was a huge art deco-style mahogany desk, and a visitor's chair with a woman in it.

Kovac gave her the once-over. Ginnie Bird, he presumed. Another preemptive strike. He liked this less and less. It was a setup, and so obvious they had to think he was as dumb as a post.

She didn't look like she would hold up to much. She was pet.i.te--thin, really, except for the store-bought b.r.e.a.s.t.s; attractive, but in a way that didn't appeal to him. It wasn't any one thing. She was dressed well in camel slacks and a rust-colored silk blouse. She was nicely made-up. But there was something about her that made him thinkcheap . Something in the gaunt hollows of her long face, the shape and set of her eyes, the limp blond hair s.h.a.gged off at shoulder length.

Or maybe it was just that Kovac had taken an instant hatred to her because he had it in his head that this was the woman David Moore had been s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g while his wife was lying in a hospital bed.

"Detective Kovac," Ivors said, "this is Ginnie Bird. Ginnie was there last night."

"Ms. Bird."

The woman didn't move other than to offer Kovac a limp hand when he reached out to her. She didn't want to be here, and she certainly didn't want anything to do with a police detective.

The end of her nose was red as if she had a cold or had been crying.

Junkie, Kovac thought. The pallor, the thinness . . . That was it, he thought. She looked like a junkie wh.o.r.e someone had tried to pa.s.s off as something better, something legitimate.

"So the three of you were out on the town until two in the morning," Kovac said. "That's a long evening."

"We were talking about David's new project," Ivors said, walking over to a credenza to pour himself a gla.s.s of water from a clear pitcher with a dozen lemon slices floating inside. "He's putting together a doc.u.mentary juxtaposing--"

"I don't care what it's about," Kovac said bluntly. "Are you backing it?"

"Yes."

"And, Ms. Bird, what's your part in all of this?"

She looked startled to have him turn his attention on her. As she opened her mouth to answer, Ivors said, "Ginnie is a casting director. She'll be casting the actors for the reenactment segments of the film."

"And this gets you in on the deal making?" Kovac asked, openly dubious.

"Ginnie's very talented, great instincts. I wanted her insights on the project."

Kovac stared directly at the woman. "Do her talents include the ability to speak?"

Ivors laughed, the jovial host. "I'm sorry, Ginnie. My wife always tells me I won't let anyone else get a word in sideways. I'm afraid I can't help myself."

"Try," Kovac said, unamused. He turned back to the Bird woman. "Are you new to the area, Ms. Bird?"

"No," she said, brow knitting. Her voice was as strong as her handshake.

"Newly married?"

"No. Why?"

"Well, you know, I was looking you up this morning, trying to find a phone number for you, but I couldn't find you anywhere. The State of Minnesota doesn't seem to know you exist."

"I'm from Wisconsin," she said quickly. "I live in Hudson."

Just across the St. Croix River from the easternmost commuter towns to the Twin Cities.

"Really?" Kovac said. "Nice place. I have a buddy in Hudson. Ray Farmer. He's chief of police there. Maybe you know him?"

"No, I don't," Ginnie Bird said, glancing at Ivors. "I haven't lived there very long."

And yet she wasn't new to the area. Whatever else she was, she was a poor liar.

"Where are you from originally?"

"Illinois."

Kovac raised his brows as if he thought people from Illinois to be particularly suspect.

"You know, I checked with the restaurant," he said. "They told me they close at eleven-thirty Friday nights."

"Yes," Ivors said. "We took our conversation to their bar."

"So if I ask someone working in the bar, they'll tell me the three of you were there until closing?"

Ivors's gracious mood was starting to fray around the edges. "And why would you do that, Detective? Did we break a law I don't know about? I thought you were interested in where David Moore was at the time of his wife's attack. What does it matter to you that we were sitting in a bar until two o'clock?"

"Just covering all my bases, Mr. Ivors," Kovac said. "Let's say--hypothetically--that someone paid someone else to attack Judge Moore. The first guy might meet the second guy later on to pay him off."

"David would never do that." Ginnie spoke up, angry on Moore's behalf.

Kovac gave her the eye. "You know him that well?"

"He's just not that kind of person."

"I've been a cop a long time, Ms. Bird. I can tell you, I've seen people do the G.o.dd.a.m.nedest things. People you would never imagine. Someone gets pushed far enough, gets backed into a corner, you can't say what they might do. Some guys, they see someone standing between them and freedom, or them and a lot of money, they'll take the shortest route between two points and to h.e.l.l with who's standing in the way."

"You're talking about David like he's a criminal," she said, incensed.

"I don't know that he's not," Kovac said. "I don't know that you're not. That's the whole point of an investigation, isn't it? To pry open the closet door and take a look at the skeletons. Everybody has at least one."

"This is ridiculous," Ivors said, openly irritated. "Carey Moore was mugged in a parking ramp. Her husband was with us from seven o'clock on. That's what you needed to know, Detective Kovac?"

"Yes."

"Fine. Now you know it."

"I guess I'm being asked to leave," Kovac said.

"There's a triple murderer running loose in the streets," Ivors said. "I'm sure you have better things to do than stand around asking pointless questions."

Kovac smiled a little as he backed toward the door. "But you see, Mr. Ivors, that's the beauty of my job. No question is ever pointless.

"Thank you for your time," he said, and gave a little nod toward the Bird woman. "You've been very helpful."

25.

KARL HAD NO DIFFICULTYfinding Judge Moore's house. He recognized it from what he'd seen on the news. It was a fine redbrick house with white trim and black shutters. The kind of house where well-off, respectable folk would want to raise their families and host dinner parties.

He could imagine what it would look like at the holidays, like something from a Hallmark Christmas card. There would be candles in all the windows, a big wreath on the shiny black front door, evergreen garland wound around the pair of white columns. Inside there would be a very tall, n.o.ble fir hung with colored lights and every kind of ornament.

Now it was the perfect picture of fall, with big maple trees shedding their leaves onto the lawn. Pumpkins on the front step.

This was exactly the kind of house he would have imagined for Carey Moore. A fine house for a fine lady.

Karl drove past in the Volvo, noting the police car sitting at the curb in front of the house. He drove around the block, looking for more cops, but he didn't see any. No radio cars, no unmarked cars with men sitting in them, pretending to be waiting for someone.

There was an alley, but he didn't dare go down it. There could have been police sitting in Carey Moore's backyard. Maybe when it got dark he would park the Volvo on the street and slip down the alley on foot.

For now Karl drove to the parking lot on the north end of Lake Calhoun, which was connected to Lake of the Isles by a ca.n.a.l. Lake Calhoun was bobbing with sailboats, bright white against the gleaming blue water. Calhoun was huge, hundreds of acres wide between its sh.o.r.es. Lake of the Isles was much smaller, but very scenic, with its small islands and abundance of waterfowl, which cartwheeled in the sky above and used the lake's gla.s.sy surface as a landing pad.

Karl walked north along the paved path that followed the sh.o.r.eline. Minnesotans had spilled out of their homes in droves to take in the warm sun and blue skies. The walking path was busy with people of all ages, from babies in strollers to white-haired elderly men and women. Bikers and people on in-line skates whizzed past on the outer paved path.

Karl breathed deep of the fresh air, feeling thankful and optimistic. When he could see Judge Moore's home, he found a park bench and sat down. He had stopped at a busy deli on his way over and gotten himself a roast beef sandwich with mustard, and a bottle of Coca-Cola. Now he took his lunch out of the bag and began to eat.

All around him, he could hear s.n.a.t.c.hes of conversation. A woman complaining about her daughter-in-law, a woman complaining about her lumbago, a woman complaining about her husband, two men brainstorming some kind of a business deal, a young couple in a serious discussion about the future of their relationship.

Everyday life was walking past him, he thought. People caught up in their own little dramas, unaware that the woman on the park bench they walked past was, in fact, the most wanted man in the city. Maybe in the whole country.

Karl enjoyed the joke that he was hiding in plain sight. It gave him a sense of accomplishment. As Karla Neal (Neal, after Christine Neal, as a little tribute to the woman who had supplied him with his new ident.i.ty), he was viewed as harmless, just another person going about her life on a lazy Sat.u.r.day afternoon. Not worth taking notice of.

As he watched the people around him--children feeding the ducks and Canada geese at the water's edge, mothers chitchatting, lovers fighting, old men talking about the escaped murderer, old women going on about whatever old women went on about--Karl imagined standing up in the midst of them, peeling off the wig, and revealing the monster they all believed he was.

He could imagine the sense of horror as something palpable in the air, brushing against him, washing over him. He would breathe it in and convert it to power. The power would make him feel like a giant. Invincible.

Of course, that would never happen. He would remain as he was: a quiet woman enjoying the lovely day, looking at the lovely home across the way, thinking of the lovely woman inside.

26.

STAN DROVE CAREFULLY,observing the speed limit and all traffic laws. The fact that what he was planning in his head was against the laws of G.o.d and man registered in his mind in only an abstract way. The only law he was operating under was an eye for an eye.

That was his job now, his mission. To take the guilty parties and make them pay for what had been done to Marlene Haas and those two little children, for what they were allowing Karl Dahl to get away with. As if a piece of c.r.a.p like Karl Dahl should have rights. What about the rights of the victims?

If the system wouldn't give them justice, then that was Stan's purpose. That would be his last job here on earth. He had no other reason to be here. His career was gone, and he had nothing else. If he ceased to be a cop, then he ceased to be at all.

In a way, that had already happened. The Stan Dempsey people thought they had known was gone, not that anyone had ever really made an attempt to know him. That part of his being had shut down, leaving him numb in some ways, but more alive than ever in other ways.