Dust To Dust (16 page)

Liska watched them leave the kitchen, part of her wanting to follow. Not because she wanted to give any impression they had a normal family life. She wanted to follow because she was jealous of the rapport Speed had with the boys.That didn't seem a healthy thing to indulge. No more than her need for her ex-husband's touch.

She picked up the duct tape and garbage bag and went out the kitchen door, glad for the slap of cold night air.

"How stylish," she muttered as she taped the bag over the brokenout window. Nothing like a little duct tape to class up a car.

The neighborhood was quiet. The night was clear and crisp with a sky fill of more stars than she could see from this spot in the city. Her neighbor on this side of her house worked for United Way. On the

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other side was a couple who'd been with 3M for a collective thirtysome years. None of them had ever seen a dead guy hanging from a rafter. Standing in the middle of the neighborhood, Liska felt suddenly alone, set apart from normal humans by the experiences she had had and would have. Set apart tonight by violence that had been directed at her.

Someone she didn't know and couldn't identify had her address. She looked down the driveway to the street. Any car going by ... Any pair of eyes watching from the dark ... Any strange sound outside her bedroom window ...

Vulnerability was not a familiar or welcome feeling. It went through her and over her like the chill of an illness. The anticipation of fear. A kind of weakness. A sense of powerlessness. A sense of isolation.

She wanted to kick someone. "Alone at last."

Liska startled and spun around, voice recognition coming a split second before she came face-to-face with the source. "Dammi't, Speed! How have you lived this long?"

"I don't know. I expected you to kill me a long time ago." His grin lit up the dark.

"You're lucky I wasn't holding a gun," she said. "I'm probably still lucky you're not holding a gun."

He stuffed his hands in the pockets of the old jacket he was wearing and dug out a pack of Marlboros and a lighter. He fired one up. "I wouldn't shoot you now," she said. "I want this mi ght to be over.

If I shot you, I'd have to be up till dawn with the arrest and the booking and all of that. It's not worth it."

"Gee, thanks."

"I'm tired, Speed. Can you say goodnight now?"

He took a long pull on the cigarette and exhaled, looking down the driveway to the street as a dark nondescript sedan crept past and kept going. Liska watched it out of the corner of her eye and pulled her coat tighter around her.

"You'll call someone and get that window fixed tomorrow?" Speed said, flaking ash off his cigarette as he gestured toward her car.

"I'm on the phone mentally, even as we speak." "'Cause that garbage bagjust screams white trash." "Thanks for your concern over my safety."

"You're the mother of my children."

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"That speaks volumes about my judgment, doesn't it?"

"Hey." He looked straight at her and flicked the cigarette on the snow. "Don't say you regret the boys."

Liska met his gaze." I don't regret the boys. Not for half a heartbeat." "But you regret us."

"Why are you doing this?" she asked wearily. "It seems a little late for remorse and bargaining, Speed. Our marriage has been dead a very long time."

Speed pulled his keys out of his pocket and sorted out the one he needed. "Regret's a waste of time. Live for the moment.You never know which one will be your last."

"And on that cheery note . . ." Liska turned toward the house.

He caught her by the arm as she went past. He was thinking he might try to kiss her. She could see it in his eyes, feel it in the tension of his body. But she didn't want it, and she supposed he could see and feel that too.

"Take care, Nikki," he said softly. "You're too brave for your own good."

"I'm what I need to be," she said.

He found a sad smile for that and let go of her. "Yeah. Too bad I was never what you needed."

"I wouldn't say never," she said, but she didn't look at him. She kept her eyes on the ground.

She didn't watch him walk away, but she watched him back out the driveway and turn onto the street. She stood there until the red glow of his taillights was a faded memory. And then she was alone again, she thought as she stared at her patchwork car window. Or so she hoped.

She went up the back steps and into the house. She locked the door and turned out the light. And as she retreated to her bedroom, alone, a dark sedan rolled past on the street .
for the second time.

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C H A P T E R

ANDY FALLON'S HOUSE was a dark spot in the neighborhood, the only glow the reflection of the neighbor's porch lights off the yellow police line tape that crossed the front door.

Kovac detached the tape and let himself in with the key.There was always a lingering sense of violation about a house that had been gone through by a crime scene unit.The place had been probed and examined and trooped through by a dozen or more strangers, without the blessing of the homeowner. Personal items had been touched, the sanctity of privacy raped. judgments had been passed, remarks made. All of that seemed to hang in the air like a sour smell. And yet Kovac tried to return to a home after'the fact if it was possible, to walk the rooms and get a feel for who the victim had been before he or she had become a corpse.

He started with the living room, with the Christmas tree-a Fraser fir decorated with small clear lights and a red bead garland. It was a beautiful tree that had the smell of fake pine scent. Kneeling, he checked the tags on the few wrapped gifts, noting names. Most were from Andy Fallon, yet to be delivered to Kirk and Aaron and Jessica ... He would cross-reference the first names against Fallon's

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address book and try to get a line on the friends. He would do the same with the Christmas cards that filled a basket on the coffee table.

Moving on to the entertainment center, he scanned the tides on the spines of the videotape cassettes. Miracle on 34th Street. Holiday Inn. It's a Wonderful Life--a movie that began with a man wanting to kill himself, but concluded with all the usual nauseating sap of a Hollywood happy ending. No angel named Clarence had saved Andy Fallon from his fate. In Kovac's experience, there was never an angel around when you needed one.

He passed through the dining room on his way to the stairs. The room appeared unused, as most dining rooms were.

The master bath at the head of the stairs was loaded with the usual assortment of stuff a man needed on a daily basis.There were no towels in the hamper. If there had been, the towels could have been checked for hairs and body fluids, the detritus sent off for DNA comparisons. If Fallon's death had been an obvious murder--or ruled a murder-he could have had the crime scene people clean the drain traps in the sinks, checking for hairs. In his experience, that kind of trace evidence never made a case, but it was always welcomed by the prosecutors as more rocks in their pile. But this case was officially closed, and no one would be fishing pubic hairs out ofAndy Fallon's bathtub.

A brown prescription bottle of Zoloft sat on a shelf in the medicine cabinet. Antidepressant. Dr. Seiros. Kovac noted all pertinent information and left the bottle on the shelf. Beside it was a bottle of Tylenol and one of melatonin. No Ambien.

The smell of death lingered in the bedroom over a layer of room freshener.The room had been dusted for latent prints, and a fine, ashy residue was left behind on the dresser and nightstands. Other than that, the room was as neat as a new hotel room. The blue spread was smoothed impeccably over the four-poster. Kovac peeled it back at one corner. Clean sheets. Unlike his father, Andy Fallon had no piles, of soiled clothing, no jelly jars with half an inch of evaporating whiskey. His closet was neat. He folded his underwear and matched his socks in the dresser drawers.

On the nightstand beside the bed was a hardcover book about a young man's ill-fated trek into the Alaskan wilderness. Probably depressing enough to warrant an extra Zoloft or two. In the drawer was a -Walkman, half a dozen tapes for relaxation and meditation, a

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couple of honey-lemon cough drops. The table on the other side held an array of squat ivory candles in a hammered metal bowl. Matchboxes from various restaurants and bars were in the drawer with a bottle of K-Y personal lubricant.

Kovac closed the drawer and looked around the room and thought ofAndy Fallon. The good son. Fastidious. No trouble. Always striving to excel. Keeping his secrets tucked away in metaphorical drawers and closets. On the dresser was the same photograph Mike had smashed in his fit of grief. Andy's graduation from the police academy. Tucked back in a corner, out of harm's way. A memory Andy Fallon had preserved and refreshed every day of his life, despite the strain between him and his old man.

Sadness ran down through Kovac like a slow rain, draining energy. Maybe this was why he'd never tried harder to be something beyond a cop. He'd seen too many families torn like rotten drapes. Ruined by unrealistic or unrealized expectations. No one could ever let well enough alone. It was human nature to want more, to want better, to want what was out of reach.

He filled his lungs with air and paused as he started to leave the room. The faint scent of stale cigarette smoke caught his nostrils. From his own clothes, he thought at first, then tested the air again. No. It was a scent beneath a masking scent. A woodsy air freshener over burnt tobacco. Faint but there.

There were no ashtrays in the room. No half-empty packs. He hadn't seen any evidence of a smoker in any other part of the house. The crime scene people weren't allowed to smoke at a scene.

. Steve Pierce was a smoker. Kovac thought again of his impression that Pierce had something heavy sitting on his chest. He thought of the doe-eyed Ms. Daring.

His attention turned back to the bed. Neatly made. Clean sheets. Hadn't even been sat on. Didn't that seem strange? Fallon had been found hanging just a few feet from the bed with his back to it. It seemed to Kovac a man might prepare the scene for his suicide or for a sex game, then sit down to think it through before putting his head in a noose.

He went and stood in the spot where Fallon's body had been hanging and checked the distance to the bed. Only one or maybe two small steps apart. He scowled at his reflection in the full-length mirror. Sorry.

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The word was still there. They had found the marker that had probably been used to write it. Nothing special. A black Sharpie permanent marker left lying on the dresser. Kovac made a mental note to call and ask about fingerprints on it.

They had made a ten card of Pierce's prints Tuesday in the kitchen downstairs-for elimination purposes. Standard op. Pierce hadn't been happy about it. Because he knew his prints could be found in this bedroom? On the front of the nightstand drawer with the K-Y lube in it? On a bedpost? On the mirror? On that black Sharpie?

It wasn't a tough scenario to put together: Pierce and Fallon were secret lovers who liked to play on the dark side. The game went wrong, Fallon died, Pierce panicked. Or maybe it wasn't as innocent as that. Maybe Fallon wanted Pierce to make a conirmitment and dump the fianc6e. Maybe Steve Pierce had seen his cushy future at DaringLandis circling the drain as Fallon threatened to expose him. Maybe Steve Pierce had come backTuesday morning to check his tracks, then called the cops and put on the face of the shocked best friend.

He took one last look around the bedroom, then headed back downstairs. In the kitchen, he checked the cupboards for prescription bottles. None. Nor were there any used glasses on the counter. The dishwasher had been run with half a load: three plates, some silverware, an assortment of glasses and coffee mugs. Two wineglasses. Off the kitchen,a washer and dryer sat in an alcove behind a pair of louvered doors. Inside the washer: towels and sheets, molded to the sides of the tub.

Either Andy Fallon had wanted his house in order before he died or someone else had wanted it in order afterward. The second possibility made Kovac's nerves hum.

There were two bedrooms on the main floor, down the hall from the stairs to the second story.The smaller was a guest room that held nothing of interest. The larger had been converted into a home office with a modest desk, bookshelves, and a couple of filing cabinets. Kovac clicked on the desk lamp and went through the desk drawers, careful to see but not to disturb.

A lot of cops he knew kept old case files. He had a basement full himself If there was a God, Andy Fallon would have kept a duplicate file on his investigation of the Curtis murder. If he had, chances were goodv he would have it filed under C like a good little anal retentive IA automaton.

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The first of the file cabinets held personal financial information and tax returns. The second was the jackpot drawer. Neatly ordered

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manila folders, the tabs marked with last names printed i careful block letters followed by eight-digit case numbers. None bore the name Curtis. No Ogden. No Springer.

Kovac sat back in Andy Fallon's desk chair and let it swivel and dip. If the Curtis investigation had been Fallon's obsession, there should have been a file. The file cabinets hadn't been locked. Anyone could have pinched the thing and walked off with it. Grgden came to rmind, though he didn't seem as though subterfuge would have been among his strengths. Busting concrete block with his forehead, yes. Clever sleight of hand, no. But then, there was no telling who might have been in and out of the house between Fallon's death and the discovery of his body.There was too much time unaccounted for, too many people in the neighborhood who minded their own business.

He played angles and odds in his mind, trying to scheme a way to get at the actual IA file, but nothing good came to mind. Every path was blocked by the lovely Lieutenant Savard. He couldn't get to the file without her, and she had no intention of letting him past her guard. In any respect.