Kovacliska - Ashes To Ashes Part 52

"Vanlees's apartment on Lyndale is just a few blocks south of here," shesaid as they picked their way up the sidewalk, stepping in the rutothers had stomped into the wet snow. "Don't you just love a coincidencelike that?"

"But they seemed not to know each other when you were at theapartment')" She thought back to the scene, furrowing her brow. "Notmore than in pa.s.sing. They didn't speak. Do you really think she mighthave caught him looking in Jillian's windows?"

"That was a shot in the dark, but it sure got a rise out of your boy.

The thing I'm wondering is, if she caught him doing something like that,why wouldn't she have told you about it?"

"Good question." Liska tried the building's security door, finding itunlocked. "Let's go get an answer."

The elevator smelled of bad Chinese takeout. They rode up to the fourthfloor with an emaciated hype who huddled into one corner, trying to lookinconspicuous and eye Quinn's expensive trench coat at the same time.

Quinn gave him a flat stare and watched the sweat instantly bead on theman's pasty forehead. When the doors opened, the hype hung back in theelevator and rode it back down.

"You must be something at a poker table," Liska said.

"No time for it."

She arched a brow, blue eyes shining invitingly. "Better watch out.

All work and no play makes John a dull boy."

Quinn ducked her gaze, mustering a sheepish smile. "I'd put you tosleep, Tinks."

"Well, I doubt that, but if you need to prove it scientifically Shestopped in front of Fine's door and looked at him. "I'm just giving youa hard time, you know. The sad truth is, you strike me as a man who ha.s.someone on his mind."

Quinn rang the bell and stared at the door. "Yeah. A killer."

Though for the first time in a very long time, his thoughts were notentirely on his work.

As if Liska had given him permission, he flashed on Kate. Wondered howshe was doing, what she was thinking. He wondered if she had yet gottenhis message that the victim in the car had not been her witness. Hehated the idea of her blaming herself for what had happened, and hehated even more the idea of her boss blaming her. It made his protectiveinstincts rise up, made him want to do something more violent to RobMarshall than knock him on his a.s.s. He wondered if Kate would be amused or annoyed to know that.

He rang the bell again.

"Who is it?" a voice demanded from inside the apartment.

Liska stood in view of the peephole. "Sergeant Liska, Michele. I need toask you a couple more questions about Jillian."

"I'm sick."

"It'll only take a minute. It's very important. There's been anothermurder, you know."

The door opened a crack, and Fine peered out at them from the other sideof the safety chain. The wedge of s.p.a.ce framed the scarred portion ofher narrow, angular face. "That's got nothing to do with me. I can'thelp you."

She saw Quinn then, and her gaze hardened with suspicion. "Who's he?"

"John Quinn, FBI," Quinn said. "I'd like to talk with you a little aboutJillian, Ms. Fine. I'm trying to get a better idea of who she was. Iunderstand you and she were close friends."

The seconds ticked past as she stared at him, sizing him up in a waythat seemed odd for a waitress in a trendy coffee bar. It was more thelook of someone who had seen too much of the streets. As she raised her hand to undo the safety chain, he caught a glimpse of the snake tattooedaround her wrist.

She opened the door and stepped back reluctantly.

"You haven't heard from her since Friday?" Quinn asked.

Fine gave him a look of suspicion and dislike. "How could I hear fromher?" she asked bitterly, her eyes filling. "She's dead. Why would youask me something like that?"

"Because I'm not as certain about it as you seem to be."

"What the h.e.l.l are you talking about?" she demanded, looking frustratedand confused. "It's all over the news. Her father is offering a reward.

What kind of game are you trying to play?"

Quinn let her hang as he looked around the room. The apartment wasvintage seventies-original, not retro-and he figured nothing had beenchanged or dusted since. The woven drapes looked ready to rot off their hooks. The couch and matching chair in the small living room weresquare, brown and orange plaid, and worn nubby. Dogeared travelmagazines lay on the cheap coffee table like abandoned dreams beside anashtray br.i.m.m.i.n.g with b.u.t.ts. Everything had been permeated by the smellof cigarette and pot smoke.

"I don't need you trying to f.u.c.k with my mind," Fine said. "I'm sick.

I'm sick about Jillian. She was my friend-" Her voice broke and shelooked away, her mouth tightening in a way that emphasized the scarhooking down from the one corner. "I'm-I'm just sick. So, whatever youwant, ask for it and get the h.e.l.l out of my life."

She plucked up her smoke and sidestepped away, hugging her free armacross her middle. She was an unhealthy kind of thin, Quinn thought,pale and bony. Maybe she really was sick. She wore a huge, ratty blackcardigan sweater, and beneath it a grimy white T-shirt, so small itlooked as if it had been intended for a child. Her legs looked as skinnyas pegs in worn black leggings. Her feet were bare on the filthy carpet.

"So, what have you got?" Liska asked.

"Huh?"

"You said you were sick. What have you got?"

"Uhhh .. . the flu," she said absently, looking at the television, wherea grotesquely obese woman appeared to be telling Jerry Springer allabout her relationships with the pockmarked dwarf and the blacktranss.e.xual sitting on either side of her. Fine picked a fleck oftobacco off her tongue and flicked it in the direction of the screen.

"Stomach flu."

"You know what I hear is good for nausea?" Liska said, deadpan.

"Marijuana. They're using it for chemotherapy patients. Of course, it'sotherwise illegal .. ."

The threat was subtle. Maybe just enough to weigh in their favor if Finefound herself struggling with the idea of cooperation.

Fine stared at her with flat eyes.

"The other day-when we ran into the caretaker at Jillian's place," Liskasaid. "You didn't have much to say about him."

"What's to say?"

"How well did Jillian know him? Were they friends?"

"No. She knew him enough to call him by name." She went to thepostage-stamp-sized dining table, sat down, and propped herself against.i.t as if she didn't have enough strength to sit up on her own.

"He had his eye on her."

"In what way?"

Fine looked at Quinn. "In the way men do."

"Did Jillian ever say he was. .h.i.tting on her, watching her, anything likethat?" Liska asked.

"You think he killed her."

"What do you think, Michele?" Quinn asked. "What's your take on the guy?"

"He's a loser."

"Did you ever have any kind of run-in with him?"

She lifted a shoulder as thin as a bird's wing. "Maybe I told him to

f.u.c.k off once or twice."

"Why?"

"Because he was staring at us. Like maybe he was picturing us naked

together. Fat b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

"And what did Jillian say about it?" Another shrug. "She said once if that was the biggest thrill of his life, let him stare."

"She never said anything to you about him bothering her."

"No.

"She ever mention anything to you about feeling like she was being

watched or followed, anything like that?"

"No. Even though she was."

Liska looked at her sharply. "How's that?"

"Her father and that n.a.z.i shrink of hers watched her like hawks.

Her father had a key to her apartment. Sometimes we'd get to her place

and he'd be waiting for her inside. Talk about invasion of privacy."

"Did it bother Jillian when he did that?"

Michele Fine's mouth twisted in a strange little bitter smile, and she

looked at the ashtray as she stubbed out her cigarette. "No. She was Daddy's girl, after all."

"What's that mean?"

"Nothing. She just let him pull her strings, that's all."

"She told you about her relationship with her stepfather. Did she ever say anything to you about her relationship with her father?"

"We didn't talk about him. She knew what I thought about him trying to control her. The subject was out of bounds. Why?" she asked matter-of-factly. "Do you think he was trying to f.u.c.k her too?"

"I don't know," Quinn said. "What do you think?"

"I think I never met a man who wouldn't take a piece of a.s.s if he got

the chance," she said, deliberately brazen, her gaze sliding downQuinn's body to his groin. He let her look, waited her out. Finally hereyes returned to his, "If he was, she never said it in so many words."

Quinn helped himself to the chair at the end of the small table, sittingdown and settling in as if he meant to stay for supper. He looked againaround the apartment, noting that there was very little in the way ofornamentation, nothing homey, nothing personal. No photos. The onlything that appeared to be well taken care of was the small stack ofstereo and recording equipment in the far corner of the living room. Aguitar was propped nearby.

"I understand you and Jillian wrote music together," he said.

"What was Jillian's part of that?"

Fine lit another cigarette and blew smoke at the cheap chandelier.

Quinn's gaze caught again on the snake tattooed around her wrist,

twisting around the scars that had been seared into the flesh there longago. The serpent from the Garden of Eden, a small red apple in itsmouth.

"Sometimes lyrics," she said, smoke drifting through the gap between her front teeth. "Sometimes music. Whatever she felt like.