Dust To Dust (40 page)

Death didn't get more simple than that. Too bad he couldn't make himself buy it.

THE HOMICIDE OFFICE was quiet on Saturday. Leonard never came in on weekends. Shift detectives were primarily on call. People sometimes came into the office to catch up on paperwork. Kovac spent most of his Saturdays here because he had no life.

He hung his coat up and wondered what Amanda was doing with her Saturday.Was she thinking about him, about what had happened? Was she reliving the moment he'd walked out the door, rewriting it in her head so that she asked him to stay?

He fell into his chair and stared at the telephone.

No. No, he wouldn't call. But he snatched up the receiver to check his voice mail. On the off chance ... There was nothing. He sighed, flipped through the Rolodex, and dialed a number.

"Records, Turvey." The voice on the other end rattled with gravel and phlegm.

"Russell, you old mole. Why don't you get a fucking life?"

"Ha! What the hell would I want with that? J. Christ. If I had to interact with regular people ..."The old man made a gargling noise. "Argh. I'd sooner hump a monkey."

"Yeah, there's an image." Russell Turvey: sixty-whatever years old with a face like Popeye, a cigarette hanging on his lip, a stomach like a basketball, doing it with a monkey.

Turvey laughed and coughed and hacked. His lungs sounded like a couple of plastic bags half-full ofJell-O.

Kovac picked up the pack of Salems he'd bought on the way in and threw it in the garbage.

"Whatd you need, Sam? Is it legal?"

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"Sure." -

"Well, shit.You're no fun. Getting dull in your old age. Hey, that was too bad about Iron Mike, huh? I heard it was you found him. It's always those hard-ass guys that eat their guns."

:, Yeah, well, he might not have. I'm looking into it."

'j. Christ! You're shittin' me! Who'd waste a bullet on a moldy old turd like him?"

I'll keep you posted:'Kovac promised. "Listen, Russ, I came across an old badge the other day in a junk shop. I'm curious who might have worn it. Can you find something like that?"
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"Sure. If I don't have it, I know who does. I got nothing else to do here but sit around with my thumb up my ass."

"You're killing me with the visuals here, Russell."

"Argh. Come on down and take a picture for your scrapbook. What's the badge number?"

"Fourteen twenty-eight. Looked like a seventies issue. I was Just curious."

"I'll dig it up."

"Thanks. I owe you one."

"Catch the bastard that capped Mike.We'll call it even." "I'll do what I can."

"I know you, Sam.You'll do nine times more than that, and some brass cocksucker'll take all the credit."

"The way of the world, Russ."

"Argh. Fuck 'em." He hacked into the phone and hung up. Kovac dug the cigarettes out of the garbage, bent the pack in two, and tossed it back in.

He turned the computer on and spent the next hour getting to know Jocelyn Daring. Through one source, he found out she had graduated cum laude from Northwestern, where she had been a standout field hockey player. Athletic. Strong-he already knew that. Aggressive-he'd seen that for himself She was fourth in her class at the University of Minnesota law school. Ambitious. Hardworking. Through DMV records he discovered she had a lead foot and did a poor job feeding parking meters. That could suggest a certain disregard for rules ... or so would say John Quinn and his profiler pals.

But he discovered no criminal record, no newspaper stories about her flipping out in a restaurant or anything of the sort. He hadn't

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really expected to. Even ifJocelyn had a history of irrational behavior, her family had the bucks to cover it up.

Not so the Fallon clan, Kovac could see as he went through the file Elwood had put together on Neil. Neil's life foibles were a matter of public record. The assault conviction, a couple of DUls, tax problems, health code violations at the bar, run-ins with agents of the Department of Natural Resources for taking more than his legal limit of damn near every living creature that had a season on it.

The pattern was one of wanting more than what he was entitled to. A man with resentment for authority. The complete opposite of his brother--something Neil undoubtedly blamed Andy for, though it bad most likely happened the other way around. Andy had watched Neil screw up and cause trouble, and he had gone a hundred eighty degrees in the other direction to please his father. And he'd done it right up to the end, with the unforgivable exception of telling the old man the truth about his sexuality.

Poor kid. Even going so far as to try to understand Mike through his life experiences. What was to understand? There weren't that many layers to guys like Mike Fallon. That was where Neil had the edge on Andy: he had understood Mike perfectly.

I 'V E G 0 T N 0 T H I N Q to say to you, Kovac. Not without having my lawyer present."

Neil Fallon glared at him and paced by the door to the interview room. He looked natural in the orange jailhouse jumpsuit, except it should have had dirt and grease on it. He had had to cuff the pants legs to keep from tripping over them.

"This isn't about you, Neil," Kovac said, sitting in the plastic chair and squaring an ankle over a knee. Mr. Relaxation.

"Then why are you here? I got nothing to say to you."

"So you've said. So I guess you don't want a chance to help yourself out."

"How can I help myself out if it isn't about me?" "Good faith."

Fallon's eyebrows climbed his forehead. "Good faith? Stick it up your ass."

"For a guy who claims to be straight, you're awful big on wanting me to stick something up my ass," Kovac observed.

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"Fuck you!" Fallon snapped, catching himself too late. He growled and paced some more. "I'm suing you, Kovac. Suing this rotten police department."

Kovac sighed his boredom. "Look, Neil, you tell me you're innocent.You tell me you wouldn't kill your old man."

"I didn't."

"So help me understand some things.That's all I'm asking. Understanding is the key to etilightenment.You know, the policeman is your friend," he said as if he were talking to a four-year-old. "And if he's not, you're fucked. Make me like you here, Nell."

Fallon leaned against the wall beside the door and crossed his arms, thinking.

"My lawyer says not to talk to you without him present."

"Once you've engaged counsel, nothing you say without him present can be used against you.You can't get hurt here.You can only help yourself I never wanted us to be enemies, Neil. Hell, we shared a bottle.You're a decent, hardworking guy. So am L"

Fallon waited, lower lip sticking out.

"I brought you some cigarettes," Kovac said, holding up the pack. Fallon came over and took it, making a face. "They're all bent!" "Hey, they still burn."

"Jesus," he grumbled, but took one out and tried to straighten it. Kovac handed him a lighter.

"I'm just curious about some things with Andy-and no, I don't think you killed him. I don't know if anybody did. Everybody says he was depressed. I just want a clearer picture of that, that's all."

Behind the haze of smoke, Fallon narrowed his eyes, thinking: trick question.

"See, I'm a homicide cop," Kovac went on. "I look sideways at everybody when somebody's suddenly dead. It's nothing personal. If my old man turned up dead, I'd look at my mother, for chrissake. But there's another picture here to look at. Say, what if Andy wanted to get close with your dad again. He wanted a chance to win him back, so to speak. So he tries to do some things with Mike, talk to him, spend time with.him. Maybe he buys him that big-ass TV in the living room-"

"Wyatt bought that
Fallon said, matter-of-fact. He took a seat and considered the crooked cigarette.

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"What?" "Ace Wyatt. The old man's guardian angel:' Fallon said sarcasti-

cally. "It was always that way since the shooting. Wyatt helped with hospital bills, bought stuff for the house, for Andy and me. Mikee always said that's how it was-cops looking out for cops. That's what it's all about, he said, obligation. And that's what it was. Wyatt never wanted to spend any time with the old man, or with any of us. He'd come into the house and act like he thought he was getting fleas. Big asshole."

"Yeah, that's pretty rotten, buying you stuff like that."

"I always figured he felt guilty 'cause Mike caught that bullet. Wyatt living right across the street from Thorne and all. Him being the one that Thorne called for help. It should have been him in that wheelchair. But Mike beat him to it."

Kovac digested the theory, thinking Fallon probably had a pretty good handle on it. Mike had caught that bullet instead ofAce Wyatt, and he'd n e*ver let Wyatt forget it. The fading image of the noble legend washed kway by the acid rain of reality.

"Mike needed something, he'd call Wyatt," Neil went on, puffing on the L-shaped cigarette. "And don't think he didn't throw that up in my face every chance he got. I should have been taking care of him.The oldest son and all that bullshit. Like he ever did shit for me." "How old was Andy at the time of the shooting?"

"Seven or eight, I guess.Why?"

"Someone told me he had wanted to sit down with Mike and talk about what happened. To try to get a better understanding of your father."

Fallon laughed and coughed and puffed on the crooked cigarette. "Yeah, that was Andy. Mr. Sensitivity. What's to understand? Mike was a bitter old son of a bitch, that's all."

"I guess Mike didn't want to talk about what happened. Had Andy said anything to you?"

He thought about it for a moment, looking as if he was trying to remember. "I guess he said something about it one of those last times I saw him. Mentioned it in relation to Mike not wanting him poking at old wounds. I didn't pay much attention.What was the point digging all that up?" He studied Kovac for a moment. "Why do you care?"

Kovac turned the information over in his mind, mixing it into

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what he already had, trying to recall something he thought Mike had said in the last few days of his life.

"I'm just thinking," he said, just to fill airtime. "Andy had some problems with depression. If it meant a lot to him to get back with the old man, and Mike wouldn't cooperate, then maybe he really did hit bottom and check out. And maybe Mike blamed himself. . . ."

"Well, that would be a first." Fallon finished the cigarette and crushed the butt out on the sole of his shoe. "Never blame yourself when you can blame someone else. That was Mike."

Kovac checked his watch.

"So if you're on the suicide angle now, how long before I get outta here?"

"It's out of my hands, Neil," Kovac said, pushing to his feet. He went to the door and pushed the buzzer for the jailer. "Not my fault. It's those rotten lawyers. I'd help you if I could. Keep the cigarettes. It's the least I can do."

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C H A P T E

THE MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE printed Ace Wyatt's shooting schedule for Crime Time in the entertainment news every Thursday. Part of the show's gimmick was Wyatt's interaction with the audience. It was like a fucking inforriercial, Kovac had thought the few times he'd watched it. Or something ftom the Food Channel. Ace Wyatt: the Emeril Lagasse of law enforcement.

The crime du Jour was being reenacted in a hockey rink in the suburb of St. Louis Park. Murder by curling stone: a cautionary tale of poor sportsmanship. Kovac badged the security bruiser standing at the roped-off section of bleachers and walked into the thick ofAce Mania.

A twelve-by-twelve red carpet had been spread on a section of the ice. The camera stood at one corner of it, along with a bored videographer who looked like Gandhi in a down jacket. Another videographer, this one on skates and with a handheld camera, leaned against the frame of the hockey goalie's net. Four lucky fans had been chosen to sit in the penalty boxes. Another hundred sat behind them. Lots of large women and wimpy-looking older men in red PROActive! sweatshirts.

"We need quiet now, people!" shouted a thin, rawboned woman in black-rimmed glasses and a coat that looked as if it had been made

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from olive-green shag carpeting. She clapped her hands precisely three times and the crowd obediently went silent.

The director, a fat guy gnawing on a Shm-Fast bar, shouted at the two actors: "Places! Let's get it right this time"'

One of the actors, a fiftyish guy in a Nordic patterned sweater and what looked like blue tights, slipped and slid across the ice, arms working like spastic propellers at his sides.

"It's bothering me, Donald," he complained. "How can I think like a curler when there's a hockey goal sitting there?"

"Tight shots, Keith. No one's going to see the net. Think small. If you have to think at all."

The actor went to find his mark.The director gave the God-spareme-from-actors shake of the head.

Kovac spotted Wyatt sitting away from the audience, having his makeup retouched. Hugging themselves against the cold of the arena, a couple of Hollywood mover-shaker types stood behind him, smiling gamely while Gaines snapped a Polaroid. An anorexic young woman with brilliant red hair sculpted into a hedge on top of her head, and a twenty-something guy in a black leather coat and tiny rectangular spectacles.

"One more for the scrapbook," Gaines said.The flash burst, and the camera spat out its product.

"The audience doesn't seem to mind the cold," the guy said. Gaines gave them the engaging grin. "They love CaptainWyatt.We turn away droves at every taping.They're so excited to be here.What's a little chill?"

The girl bounced up and down and rubbed her hands over her arms. "I've never been so cold in my life! I haven't been warm one minute since I got off the plane. How do people live here?"

"You think this is cold?" Kovac said, and huffed his disgust. "Come back in January. You'll think you died and went to Siberia. Colder than a grave-digger's ass."