Dust To Dust (41 page)

The girl looked at him the way she might look at some odd creature in the zoo. Gaines lost the grin.

"Sergeant Kovac. What a pleasure," he said flatly.

"For me too," Kovac said, giving the scene the disdainful once-over again. "I don't get to the circus every day. I have a real job-"

"Yvette Halston:'the redhead introduced herself "Vice president, creative development, Warner Brothers television."

286
T A M

0 A G

The guy stuck his hand out. "KelseyVroman, vice president, reality progranirming."

Reality programming.

"Kovac. Sergeant. Homicide."

"Sam!" Wyatt came up out of his chair, shooing the makeup woman away. He pulled the paper-towel bib out of the neck of his double-breasted navy Italian suit and tossed it aside. "What brings you here? Did you get the lab results back on the Fallon evidence?"

The WB VPs pricked up their ears at the sound of real cop talk. "Not yet."

"I made a couple of phone calls. They're on it today."

"Yeah, thanks, Ace," he said Wli thout appreciation. "Actually, I came to ask you about something else. Have you got a rruinute?"

Gaines came to Wyatt's side, clipboard in hand, and tried to show him a schedule. "Captain, Donald wants to get through this section before one. The rest of the curling people were told to be here no later than bne-thirty for the interview portion.We'll be cutting lunch by thirty minutes as it is.The union people will have a fit."

"Then break for lunch nowl"Wyatt ordered. "But they're ready for the shot."

"Then they'll be ready after lunch, won't they?" "Yes, but-"

"Then what's the problem, Gavin?"

"Yeah, Gavin," Kovac goaded. "What's the problem?"

Gaines gave Kovac a cold look. "I believe you're the one who pointed out that Captain Wyatt is retired from the force," he said. "He has other obligations than to solve your case for you, but he's too decent a man to tell you to go away."

"Gavin
Wyatt chided. "I don't have any obligations more important than a murder investigation."

TheVPs both got wet on that one.

"Ace," the redhead purred, "you're consulting on a case?You didn't tell us! That could be very exciting! What do you think, Kelsey?" "We could get something set up with various law enforcement

agencies for a weekly segment. Police, DEA, FBI. Have the consultation at the end of the show. Five minutes, mano a mano, detective to detective. Ace offers the benefit of his no-nonsense wisdom. I like it. It adds a sense of immediacy and vitality. Don't you think so, Gavin?"

D U S T

T 0

D U S T
287

" 1,

"It could work very well," Gaines said diplomatically.
in just concerned about our schedule today."

"We'll deal with it, Gavin," Wyatt said dismissively, then turned to Kovac again. "Let's go upstairs, Sam.You can have a bite while we talk. Our caterer is fabulous. Gavin found him. Makes the best little quiches."

Wyatt
led the way up the concrete steps to a room overlooking the rink through a long window. Food h
'ad been artistically arranged on a long table draped in red with the'Crime Time scrapbook as a centerpiece. Wyatt didn't go near the spread, but gestured Kovac to.

"I don't like to eat when we're shooting:'he explained, opening a bottle of water. "I stay sharper that way."

"Gotta stay on your toes for this." And not bust the girdle, Kovac thought.Wyatt looked as if he hadn't -taken a full breath in five hours. "I know you don't think much of it, Sam," he said, "but we're serv-

ing a real purpose here. Helping solve crimes, helping people stand up for themselves and prevent crime."

"Making a bundle." "That's not a crime.,,

"No. Never rm'nd me," Kovac said, paging idly through the scrapbook, slowing at the pages from Wyatt's retirement party. Posed and candid-if there could be such a thing as a candid shot of Ace Polaroid shots of the great man in his glory.A shot of Wyatt pumping Kovac's hand, Kovac looking as if he'd just grabbed hold of an eel. A posed shot with a Channel Five reporter. A candid of Wyatt speaking to Amanda Savard. His gaze lingered.

"I don't like game shows either," Kovac said, trying to remember having seen her there that night, but he'd been too busy feeling sorry for himself "I'm told I'm getting cranky in my old age, but that's bullshit. I've always been cranky."

"You're not old, Sam," Wyatt pointed out. "You're younger than me, and look where I am now. A great second career. On top of the world."

"I'll probably just stick with the one career until someone shoots me' " Kovac said. "Which reminds me why I'm here."

"Mike." Wyatt nodded. "Do you have anything more on the son, on Neil?"

"I'm more here about Andy, actually."

Wyatt's brow furrowed. "Andy? I don't understand."

288
T A M

"I'm curious as to the why of * a1rhe s i in vague explanation. it
aid i

"I know he'd been looking into the Thorne murder, thinking maybe Mike would want to reminisce, maybe they could get closer through it."

"He talked to you." He put it as if it were a statement of fact, as if

he'd seen the notes, leaving little room for denial, even though he knew no such thing.

"Yes," Wyatt said. "He mentioned it to me. I know Mike didn't want any part of it. Painful memories."

"For you too."

Wyatt nodded. "It was a terrible night. Forever changed the lives of everyone involved."

"Tied you to the Fallons like you were family."

"In a way, yes. You don't go through something like that with another officer and not come away with a bond."

"Especially with the circumstances." "What do you mean?"

"With you living right across the street. With the Thornes calling you for help, but Mike getting there ahead of you.You had to feel a little like Mike took that bullet instead of you, huh? Mike probably felt that too."

I "The tricks of fate,"Wyatt said with a dramatic sigh. "My number wasn't up. Mike's was."

"There must have been a little guilt though.You went above and beyond the call helping Mike out all these years."

Wyatt stood silent for a moment. Kovac waited, wondering what the makeup was hiding. Surprise? Anger?

"Where are you going with this, Sam?"

Kovac shrugged a little and picked a baby carrot from a tray on the table. "I know Mike took advantage all these years, Ace," he said, snapping the carrot in two. "I'm just wondering ... With you making the big move to Hollywood ... Making big dough ... I'm just wondering if he imight have tried to squeeze you for a little more."

Kovac could see the color rise in Wyatt's face now.

"I don't like the direction you're taking," he said quietly." I tried to do right by Mike and his family. And maybe he did take advantage and play on my guilt for not being the one in the chair. But that was between Mike and me, and that's how it slictuld stay.We both deserve better than what you're thinking."

U S T

T 0

D U S T
289

"I'm not thinking anything, Ace. I don't get paid to think. I'm just wondering, that's all.You know me, I've gotta take things apart and see how theywork."

"The Job's made you too cynical, Sam. Maybe it's time you got out."

Kovac narrowed his eyes a little, studying Wyatt, trying to decide if that was a threat. Wyatt could make a couple of his famous phone calls, and thatd be it. Kiss the career good-bye or spend eternity down in Records listening to Russell Turvey hawk up lugies. And for what? To reveal the awful truth that Ace Wyatt felt guilty for being alive and whole? Even if Mike had tried to squeeze a little extra something out of him, the notion of Wyatt killing over that was ludicrous.

Unless the reason he had paid Mike Fallon off all these years had to do with some other kind of guilt altogether.

"How well did you know the Thornes?"

Gaines rapped on the open door and came into the room then, eyebrows raised atWyatt. "Excuse me, Captain. Kelsey andYvette have gone to buy parkas. Everyone is breaking for lunch. Will you be joining the audience, or is this going to take longer?" he asked, emphasizing the word this with a look at Kovac. He pulled a small lint brush from a jacket pocket and gave Wyatt's lapels a quick swipe.

"No,"Wyatt said. "We're finished here."

Kovac popped the carrot in his mouth and chewed thoughtfully as Wyatt walked away. He followed at a distance and watched as Ace Wyatt worked the crowd of people who had so little going on in their lives they would waste a Saturday watching this bullshit.

Like me, he thought with a smirk, and walked out.

T H E 0 N - L I N E A R C H I V E S of the Minneapolis Star Tribune went back only to 1990. Kovac spent the afternoon in a room in the Hennepin County library, straining his eyes looking at rmicrofiche, reading and rereading the articles written about the Thorne murder and Mike Fallon's shooting. They laid out the story as he remembered it.

The drifter-cum-handyman, Kenneth Weagle, had done some work for Officer Bill Thorne's wife and had apparently taken a shine to her. He had come to the house that night knowing Bill Thorne was on patrol. He'd been in the neighborhood long enough to scope out the cormings and goings of residents. He had attacked Evelyn Thorne

in her bedroom, raped her, slapped her around, then started looting the house. By chance, Bin Thorne had stopped back home and walked into the house, unsuspecting. Weagle shot him with a gun of Thorne's he had found in the house. At some point Mrs. Thorne had phoned Ace Wyatt across the street. But before Wyatt could arrive, Mike Fallon did.

Bill Thorne was given a hero's funeral with all the trimmings. There were photographs with that article. The long motorcade of police vehicles. A grainy shot of the widow in dark glasses, being consoled by friends and family.

According to the article, Thorne had been survived by his wife, Evelyn, and an unnamed seventeen-year-old daughter. In the photo, Evelyn Thorne looked a little like Grace Kelly, Kovac thought. He wondered if either of them was still in the area. He wondered if any of Bill Thorne's old cronies would know. Evelyn Thorne had been a relatively young woman at the time of the incident. Chances were she had remarried. She would be fifty-eight now, the daughter thirty-seven.

IfAndy Fallon had been looking into the case, wanting to come to some kind of understanding, he might already have done the legwork. But there was no file. Kovac wondered ifAmanda could be talked into letting him look around Fallon's office, check out his work computer. The Thorne murder wasn't an active IA case. She might not care.

You don't even know if she'll ever speak to you again, Kovac. There was that.

"Sir?"The librarian's voice startled him. He jerked around to find her standing too close.

"The library is closing:' she said apologetically. "I'm afraid you'll have to leave."

Kovac gathered the copies of articles he'd run off, and went back out into the cold. Afternoon had surrendered to night, though it was barely five.The homeless who had spent their day in the warmth of the library had been shooed out along with him. They rmilled around on the sidewalk, instinctively shying away from Kovac, smelling cop. The librarian had probably thought he was one of them. He hadn't shaved, had spent the afternoon pulling at his hair and rubbing his eyes. He felt like one of them, standing on the cold street in this bleak, gray part of town. Alone, disconnected.

He tried to call Liska on his cell phone and got her voice mail;

D U S T

T 0

D U S T
291

debated paging her, then let it go. He drove home so he could feel alone and disconnected in a warmer setting.

The neighbor had added to his lawn display a painted plywood cutout of Santa bending over, showing three inches of butt crack. Hilarious. It was positioned directly toward Kovac's living room window. Such class.

Kovac contemplated taking out his gun and blasting Santa an asshole. See the humor in that, cocksucker?

The house still smelled of garbage, even though he had taken it out. Like the corpse smell at Andy Fallon's. He tossed the copies of the Thorne murder articles on the coffee table and went into the kitchen. He burned some coffee grounds on the stove to get rid of the odora trick he'd learned at death scenes. See if Heloise put that in her helpful hints column. "at to do in'the event ofputrid corpse decay.

He went upstairs, took a shower, pulled on some jeans and wool socks and an old sweatshirt, and went back down in search of supper, even though he had no appetite to speak of. He needed calories to keep the rmind going. If keeping his mind going was what he really wanted tonight.

The only edible food in the house was a box of Frosted Flakes. He ate a handful, dry, and poured some of the scotch he'd picked up on the way home. Macallan. What the hell.

On the stereo, he found the faux jazz station playing a faux jazz tune, and he stood at the window listening to it and sipping the Macallan and staring at Santa's ass.

This is my life.

He didn't know how long he'd been standing there when the doorbell rang. The sound was so unfamiliar, it took three rings before he responded.

Amanda Savard stood on the front step, the black velvet scarf swathing her head, hiding her wounds.
Some of them anyway. "Well:'Kovac said, "you must be a detective too. I'm unlisted." "May I come in?"

He stood back and waved her in with the scotch glass. "Don't expect much. I get so many tips from the Home and Garden channel, but I just don't have the time."

She went to the rm*ddle of the living room, pushed the scarf off her head, but didn't remove her gloves or the long black coat. She didn't take a seat.

0 A 0

"I came to apologize," she said, lookingiust past his right shoulder. Kovac wondered if she could see Santa's moon, but if she did, she didn't react.

"For what?" he asked. "Sleeping with me? Or throwing me out after?"

She looked as if she wanted to be anywhere but there. She held her hands together, then brought one up to touch her haiir near the burns.

1- 1 wasn't- I didn't mean-" She stopped and pressed her lips together and closed her eyes for a moment." I'm not- I don't easily ... share my life ... with other people. And I'm sorry if I