Kovacliska - Ashes To Ashes Part 53

Whatever I felt like."

"Have you published anything?"

"Not yet."

"What did she like to write about?"

"Life. People. Relationships."

"Bad relationships?"

"Is there another kind?"

"Did she keep copies of the stuff you'd written?"

"Sure. "Where?" Liska asked.

"In her apartment. In the piano bench and the bookcase."

"I didn't find anything there the other day."

"Well, that's where it was," Fine said defensively, blowing another stream of smoke.

"Do you have any copies I could look at?" Quinn asked. "I'd like to read her lyrics, see what they have to say about her."

"Poetry is a window to the soul," Fine said in an odd, dreamy tone.

Her gaze drifted away again, and Quinn wondered just what she was on and why. Had the alleged murder of Jillian Bondurant pushed her over some mental edge? It seemed she had been Jillian's only friend.

Perhaps Jillian had been hers. And now there was no one-no friend, no writing partner, nothing but this c.r.a.ppy apartment and a dead-end job.

"That's what I'm counting on," he said.

She looked right at him then, homely and slightly exotic, greasy dark hair sc.r.a.ped back from her face, vaguely familiar-as every face in the world seemed to be to him after so many cases. Her small eyes seemed suddenly very clear as she said, "But does it reflect who we are or what we want?"

She got up and went across the room to a set of shelves made from cinder blocks and wood planks, and came back sorting through a file folder.

Quinn rose and reached out for it, and Fine twisted away, giving him a look from beneath her lashes that was almost coquettish.

"It's the window to my soul too, Mr. Fed. Maybe I don't want you

peeking."

She held out half a dozen pieces of sheet music. Her fingernails had been bitten to the quick. Then she hugged the folder to her belly, an action that emphasized her small b.r.e.a.s.t.s beneath the tight T-shirt.

She wasn't wearing a bra.

Liska put her briefcase on the table, popped it open, and produced a fingerprint kit. "We still need your prints, Michele. So we can

eliminate them from all the prints taken in Jillian's town house. I knew you hadn't made it in to do that, busy as you are and all."

Fine stared at the ink pad and print card, wary and unhappy.

"It'll take only a minute," Liska said. "Have a seat."

Fine fell down on her chair and offered her hand reluctantly.

"When was the last time you heard from Jillian?" Quinn asked.

"I saw her Friday before her session with the mind f.u.c.ker," Michele said

as Liska rolled her thumb across the ink pad and pressed it to a card.

"She didn't call you Friday night?"

No.

"She didn't come to see you?"

"No.

"Where were you around midnight, one o'clock?"

"In bed. Naked and alone." She looked up at him from under her lashes.

Sultry.

"Seems odd, don't you think?" Quinn asked. "She'd had a fight with her

father. She was upset enough to run out of his house. But she didn't try to contact her best friend."

"Well, Agent Quinn," she said, the voice of sad experience. "I learned a

long time ago, you can never really know what's in another person'sheart.

And sometimes that's just as well." KOVAC JAMMED THE Caprice into a Police Vehicles Only slot on the FifthStreet side of City Hall and abandoned it. Swearing a blue streak, hetried to run through the plow-made snowdrift covering the curb, sinkingto his knee in one spot. Stumbling, staggering, he got over the hump andhurried up the steps and into the building. Breathing like a bellows.Heart working too hard to pump blood and adrenaline through arteriesthat probably looked like the inside of bad plumbing pipes.

Christ, he was going to have to get himself in shape if he wanted tosurvive another case like this one. Then again, his career wasn't Relyto survive this one.

The hall was full of angry women who turned on him in a tide as he triedto negotiate his way to the criminal investigative division. It wasn'tuntil he was swamped in the middle of them that he saw the protest signs...o...b..ng above their heads: OUR LIVES MATMR TOO! JUSTICE: A PHOENIXRISING.

Their voices came at him in a barrage, like two dozen shotguns going off at once.

"Police hara.s.sment!"

"Only the Urskines want true justice!"

"Why don't you find the real killer!"

"That's what I'm trying to do, sister," Kovac snapped at the woman blocking his path with a bitter scowl and a belly the size of a beer keg.

"So why don't you move the wide load and let me get on with it?"

That was when he noticed the media. Flashes went off left and right.

s.h.i.t.

Kovac kept moving. The only rule of survival in a situation like this:

Shut your mouth and keep moving.

"Sergeant Kovac, is it true you ordered Gregg Urskine's arrest?"

"No one is under arrest!" he shouted, forging through the mob.

"Kovac, has he confessed?"

"Was Melanie Hessler your mystery witness?"

Leak in the ME's office, he thought, shaking his head. That was what was

wrong with this country-people would sell their mothers for the right money, and never think twice about the consequences to anyone else.

"No comment," he barked, and pushed his way past the last of them.

He negotiated the clutter of boxes and file cabinets into homicide,

hanging a right at Lieutenant Fowler's makeshift office. Toni Urskine'svoice raked over his nerve endings like a serrated knife on raw meat.

".. . And you can rest a.s.sured every station, every paper, everyreporter who will listen to me, will hear about it! This is an absoluteoutrage! We have been victimized by these crimes. We have lost friends.

We have suffered. And this is how we're treated by the MinneapolisPolice Department after we've bent over backward to cooperate!"

Kovac ducked through the door into the offices. Yurek jumped up from hisdesk, telephone receiver stuck to the side of his facace, and made wildeye contact with Kovac, holding up a hand to keep him in the generalvicinity.

Kovac held up for five seconds, motor running, the excitement he hadbrought with him into the building like currents of energy hummingthrough his arms, his legs, his veins and arteries.

He bounced up and down on the b.a.l.l.s of his feet like a boy who had to pee.

"I've got places to go and people to rake over the coals, Charm."

Yurek nodded and said into the phone, "I'm sorry, ma'am. I have to gonow. I have an emergency situation here. I'm sorry. Yes, someone willget back to you. I'm sorry, ma'am."

He came around his desk, shaking his head. "These people are driving mebats.h.i.t. There's a woman insisting her neighbor is the Cremator, and notonly has he brutally murdered four women, she thinks he killed and ateher dog."

"I got time for this s.h.i.t like I got time for root ca.n.a.l," Kovacsnapped.

"Is Quinn here?"

"He just got back. He's watching Urskine's interview," Yurek said,falling in step beside Kovac, heading for the interview rooms. "I justgot a call from upstairs-"

"And the woman with the dead poodle is the mayor?

That's how frigging weird this case is."

"No, before the dog lady. You're wanted in the mayor's office. Theytried to get you on your cell phone."

"Dead battery. And you didn't see me. The battle-ax can wait. I've got abig d.a.m.n fish to fry. I've got Jonah's G.o.dd.a.m.n whale."

Worry creased Yurek's perfect brow. "What do you mean, 'big fish'?

Where've you been?"