Dust To Dust (11 page)

"The cold shoulder. Lieutenant Ice Bitch gave me a lot of attitude and no information. She claims she doesn't want to comprormise an IA investigation. Someone's career might get damaged."

"I thought that was their goal."

Liska shrugged. "She was at Fallon's home Sunday night between eight and mine-thirty, discussing a case he was unhappy about. She says he seemed fine when she left. She did tell me he'd been depressed. She hadn't ordered him to see the shrink, but she'd suggested he do it."

"Do we know if he took her up on it?"

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"Confidential information."

"No one's gonna talk until the ME's done:'Kovac said. "They're all holding out to hear suicide, and then they won't have to talk at all, and to hell with anyone who wants to know why this kid killed himself. If that's what he did."

Liska picked up a fat pen with a plastic bloodshot eyeball glued to one end. One of many odd treasures in their cubicle. They bought them for each other as a runningj'oke. Kovac's most prized possession was a very realistic fake finger that looked as if it had been separated from its hand with a hacksaw. He liked to surprise people with it, leaving it in file folders, booby-trapping desks with it. It was the strangest thing a woman had ever given him-and, oddly, it brought him the most simple enjoyment. Two failed marriages to "normal" women, and he got the biggest kick out of a chick who gave him imitation severed body parts. What did that say?

"You going to the autopsy?" Liska asked.

"What's the point? Bad enough seeing the kid dead. I don't need to watch him get carved up for no good reason. His brother told me Andy came to see him about a month ago. He was coming out of the closet. He'd told Mike, and it hadn't gone well."

"That tirming would coincide with his apparent depression." "Yeah. It sure smells like suicide," he said. "The crime scene guys didn't come up with anything unusual that I've heard about."

"No, they didn't, but the grapevine says otherwise," Liska said. "Tippen told me it was the hot gossip at Patrick's last night.That they came up with all kinds of sex toys and gay pornography. Now, where do you think a rumor like that might have started?"

Kovac scowled. "With the Three Stooges in uniform. Where'd you see Tippen this early?"

"Caribou Coffee. He has a really ugly double espresso habit." "Real cops are supposed to drink the sludge in the break room pot. It's tradition."

"Christmas is a tradition," Liska corrected him. "Bad coffee is avoidable.

"The thing that bothers me with the whole sex angle is this," she went on. "What if Andy Fallon was into S and M? Let's say he and a pal are playing around with erotic rope tricks and something goes wrong. Fallon dies. The partner panics and.leaves the scene. That's a crime in my book. Man two: depraved indifference. At least."

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"I've been thinking about that too," Kovac said. "I went to see Steve Pierce last night. He seems like a man with something heavy on his chest."

"What'd he have to say?"

"Nothing much.We were interrupted by his fianc6e: the lovely Ms. Jocelyn Daring, attorney-at-law."

Liska's brows went up under her bangs. "Daring as in DaringLandis?"

"I made that assumption. No one corrected me."

Liska gave a low whistle. "There's an interesting twist. Anything back yet from latent prints?"

"No, but we can expect to find Pierce's prints. They were friends." Liska's phone rang and she turned to answer it.

Kovac turned back to his computer and hit the power switch. He figured he'd get a jump on the prelinuinary report on Andy Fallon's death.A week or so after the autopsy they would get the N4-E's reports. He would call the morgue sooner than that to hear about the tox screens and to try to speed the report process along.

Lieutenant Leonard appeared suddenly at the cubicle. "Kovac. My office. Now."

Liska kept her head down as she spoke on the phone, avoiding eye contact. Kovac bit back a ble sieh and followed Leonard.

One wall of the lieutenant's office was dorminated by a huge calendar dotted with round colored stickers. Red for open homicides, black for when the case cleared. Orange for open assaults, blue for when they closed. Color-coordinated crime fighting. Neat and tidy. The shit they taught these guys in management class.

Leonard went behind his desk and stood with his hands on his hips and a frown on his mug face. He was wearing a tweedy brown sweater over a shirt and tie. The sleeves of the sweater were too long. The overall picture made Kovac think of a sock monkey he'd had as a kid.

"You'll have a prelinuinary report from the ME on the Fallon kid later today."

Kovac gave his head a little shake, as if he had water in his ear. "What? I was told it could be four or five days before they even got to him."

"Someone called in a favor. On account of Mike FaRon:'Leonard added. "He's a department hero. No one wants him suffering more

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than he has to because of this. What with the circumstances surrounding the suicide..."

His lipless mouth squirmed Eke a worm. Distasteful business: naked suicide with kinky sexual overtones.

"Yeah:' Kovac said. "Damned inconsiderate of the kid to off himself that way. If that's what happened. It's an embarrassment to the department."

"That's a secondary consideration, but it's a valid one," Leonard said defensively. "The media is all too happy to make us look bad."

"Well, this would do the trick. First it's downtown beat cops spending their shifts in strip clubs. Now this.We got us a regular Sodom and Gomorrah down here."

"You can keep that comment to yourself, Sergeant. I don't want anyone talking to the media with regards to this case. I'll give the official statement later today.'Sergeant Fallon's untimely death was a tragic accident. We mourn his loss and our thoughts are with his family! " He recited the lines he'd memorized, trying them out for size and impact.

"Dry, brief, to the point," Kovac critiqued. "Sounds good, as long as it's true."

Leonard stared at him. "Do you have any reason to believe it isn't true, Sergeant?"

"Not at the moment. Itd be nice to have a couple of days to tie up the loose ends. You know, like an investigation. What if it was a sex game gone wrong? There could be an issue of culpability."

"Do you have any proof anyone else was at the scene?" "No."

"And you've been told he was having problems with depression, that he was seeing the department shrink?"

"Uh ... yeah," Kovac said, figuring it was a half-truth, at least. "He had ... issues," Leonard said, uncomfortable with the topic. "I know he was gay, if that's what you mean."

"Then don't stir the pot," Leonard snapped. Taking a sudden interest in the paperwork on his desk, he sat down and opened a file folder. "There's nothing to be zained in it. Fallon killed himself either accidentally or on purpose. The sooner we all move on, the better. You've got cases open."

"Oh, yeah:'Kovac said dryly. "My murders of tomorrow."

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"Your what?" "Nothing, sir."

"Tie this up and get back on the Nixon assault. The county attorney is riding me like a jockey on that one. Gang violence is a priority."

Yeah, Kovac thought, heading back toward the cubicle, keep those gang stats doun to placate the city council. The odd, unexplained death of a cop could be shrugged off.

He told himself he should be happy. He didn't want the Fallon case dragging on any more than Leonard did, though for different reasons. Leonard could give a shit about Iron Mike. He'd probably never even met the man. Leonard's concern was the department. Kovac wanted it over for Mike's sake-same as whoever had called in the marker with the ME.Yet that fist of tension Kovac didn't want to acknowledge held firm in the pit of his belly, as familiar to him as a lover's touch. More so, considering how long it had been since he'd had a lover.

Liska shoved his coat at him. "You need a cigarette, don't you, Sam?"

"Hello? I'm quitting. Big fucking help you are."

"Then you should get a lot of fresh air. To clean the crud out of your lungs."

She stepped in close and gave him a meaningful look. He followed when she turned for the door.

"Fallon's over," he said, pulling on his topcoat as they left the office. Liska looked at him the same way he'd looked at Leonard, only

more so.

"The autopsy's a done deal." "What?".

"Everyone expects a suicide ruling. Only they'll call it accidental, just to go easy on Mike. We'll have a preliminary report today and a benediction from Leonard. No one upstairs wants Mike or the department-to be further embarrassed by the sordid details."

"Yeah, I bet not," Liska said, suddenly looking pale.

She didn't speak again until they were outside. Kovac didn't ask for an explanation. They'd been together long enough that he could read her easily. A partnership on the job was an intimacy-not in the sexual sense, but psychologically, emotionally. The more in tune with each other, the better they could work a case. His partnership with

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Liska was as good as any he'd had. They understood each other, respected each other.

He walked beside her through a maze of halls and out a little-used orth side of the b i ding.The sun was out, bri ant and door on the n
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blinding on the snow. The sky was the pale blue of a robin's egg. A deceptively pretty day with a windchill factor in the teens. There was no one else on this set of steps, which caught no sunlight and all the wind. People flocked instead to the south side like arctic birds searching for warmth.

Kovac winced as the cold slapped him in the face. He jammed his hands down in his coat pockets and turned a hunched shoulder to the wind.

"Leonard told you Fallon was over," Liska said. "Wrap it up and close it."

"Who made that autopsy happen so fast?" "Someone higher on the food chain."

Liska looked up the street, the muscles in her jaw tensing. The wind fluttered through her short hair and brought moisture to her eyes. He could sense he wasn't going to like what she was working up to tell him.

"So what bug's up your ass?" he asked irritably. "It's colder than my second wife's mother out here."

"I just had a call from someone who claims to have known what Andy Fallon was working on."

"Does this someone have a name?"

"Not yet. But I saw him yesterday in the IA offices. Another dissatisfied customer."

The fist in Kovac's belly pressed knuckles-down and started to grind. "And what does he claim Fallon was working?"

She looked up at him. "A murder.

"Murder?" Kovac said with disbelief. "Since when does IA touch a murder? No way. A felony always goes to the division, on account of IA can't find their own asses in a dark room. How could Fallon be working a murder and us not know about it? That's bullshit."

"He could have if we thought it was closed," Liska said. "Remember Eric Curtis?"

"Curtis? The off-duty patrol cop? The mutt that did him is sitting inj*aiLWhat was his name?Vermin?"

"Verma. RenaldoVerma."

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"A string of robbery-assaults. Gay victims. He did-what? Three or our in eighteen months."

f "Four.Two of the vics died. Curtis was last."

"Same MO as the others, right? Bound, beaten, robbed." Yes, but Eric Curtis was a cop," Liska pointed out.

: "Sor "So he was a cop and he was gay. According to my mystery man,

months before his death, Curtis had complained to IA about harassment on the job because of his sexual preference."

"And you're saying maybe a cop killed him because of it?" Kovac said. "Jesus, Tinks.You want to believe that, maybe you ought to apply for Fallon's job-"

"Fuck you, Kojak," she snapped. "I hate IA. I hate what they do to people. I hate them like you can't know. But Eric Curtis was a cop, and he was gay, and now he's dead. Andy Fallon was looking into it, he was gay, and now lie's dead," she said, not liking the sound of it herself by tle kowl on her face. And still, she stood up to him, toe to toe, and pressed her point. That was Liska: no job too mean or too ugly. She stepped up to the plate and swung at whatever she had to.

And I just got told the book is all but closed on Fallon," Kovac said, looking out at the street.

"You don't like it either, Sam," Liska said quietly. "You can feel it in your gut, can't you?"

He didn't answer her right away. He let it all roll through his head like a movie while the carillon in the city hall clock tower began to mark the houtwith "White Christmas."

"No," he said at last. "I don't like anything about this."

They were both silent for a moment. Cars rolled by
on Fourth Street.The wind howled down the tunnels created by the buildings, snapping the flags on the federal building across the street.

"Andy Fallon probably killed himself," Liska said. "There wasn't anything at the scene to say he didn't.This guy thatiust called me. Who's to say he gives a shit about Andy Fallon? Maybe the Curtis murder is Just his ax to grind and he thinks we'll get into it through the back door.... But what if it's not, Sam? We're all Andy Fallon has. And Mike.You taught me that-who do we work for?"

"The victim," he murmured, that bad feeling still heavy in the bottom of his stomach.

They worked for the victim. He'd grounded that into countless

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trainees. The victims couldn't speak for themselves. It was up to the detective to ask all pertinent questions, to dig and prod, and turn over rocks until he found the truth. Sometimes it was easy. And sometimes it wasn't.

"What's it gonna hurt to ask a few more questions?" he said, knowing it sounded too much like something for the Famous Final Words file.

"I'll take the morgue." Liska hugged her coat around her as she turned back for the door. "You take IA."

I 'V E A L R E A D Y S P 0 K E N with your partner, Sergeant," Lieutenant Savard said, barely glancing up at him as she sorted through a pile of reports on her desk. "And, in case you haven't been informed, Andy Fallon's death is being ruled an accident."