Dust To Dust (46 page)

He looked for the youngest, least-experienced staff
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member working around the front desk, and homed in on her. A cherubic girl with natural blond curls clipped like a poodle's. Her name tag read "Amber." Amber's eyes went wide as Kovac showed her his badge, using it to lure her away from the older woman answering the phone.

"Is he near here?" the girl asked, worried. "Excuse me?"

"That guy," she answered in a hushed whisper. "That killer. Are you here looking for him?"

Kovac leaned toward her. "I'm not at liberty to say," he whispered back.

"Oh, my gosh."

"I need to ask you
a couple of questions, Amber," Kovac said, pulling out a snapshot
of Andy Fallon he had taken from Mike's place. "Have you seen this man around here?"

She seemed disappointed the photograph wasn't of Derek Rubel, but she recovered gamely.

"Yes. I've seen him. He's been here a couple of times." "Lately?"

"In the past few weeks. He's a police officer too," she said, narrowing her eyes. "At least, he claimed to be."

"What wis he doing here? Who did he speak to?" Kovac kept one eye on the older woman at the other end of the desk. At a place like Hazelwood, discretion would be the rule. Amber looked too innocent of sin to understand the meaning of the word.

"He came to visit Mrs.Thorne:'she said simply, eyes blinking.

Y 0 U N A V E T 0 understand, Sergeant, Evelyn lives in her own world:' the doctor said as they walked down the long hall toward Evelyn Thorne's room. "She'll acknowledge your presence. She'll interact with you. But the conversation will be her own."

The psychiatrist was a large, soft-looking woman with a thick mane of long blond hair.

1 just want to ask her a couple of questions about the cop who came to see her a couple of times:'Kovac said. "Sergeant Fallon. Did he speak with you?"

The doctor looked troubled. "I spoke briefly with Mr. Fallon. I wasn't aware he was here on police business. He told me he was Evelyn's nephew. He asked me if she ever speaks about her husband's murder."

"Does she?"

"No. Never. She had her breakdown shortly after his death." "And she's been like this ever since?"

"Yes. Some days she's better than others, but she pretty much stays in hiding in her mind. She feels safe there."

The doctor looked in the glass set in the center of Evelyn Thorne's door, then rapped twice before going in.

"Evelyn, you have a visitor. This is Mr. Kovac."

Kovac stopped just inside the room, feeling as if he'd taken a fist in the belly. Evelyn Thorne sat in an upholstered armchair, looking out her i dow, dressed in a blue track suit. She was thin, the kind of win
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thinness that came from nerves. Her hair had gone gray. She wore it swept back from her face with a velvet headband. In the newspaper photograph he'd thought she looked a little like Grace Kelly. In reality she looked too much like someone else.

She turned her head to see him, her eyes a little vacant but her mouth curved in a pleasant smile.

"I know you!"

"No, ma'am, you don't," he said, walking toward her.

"Mr. Kovac needs to ask you some questions about the young man who came to see you, Evelyn," the doctor said.

She paid no attention to the doctor. "You were a friend of my husband:'she said to Kovac.

The doctor gave him the I-told-you-so look and left them.

The room was spacious, with normal-looking furmiture except for the hospital bed, which was draped with a pretty flowered spread. Not a bad place to while away the hours locked inside your own reality, Kovac thought. It had to cost some major bucks. He wondered if Wyatt was footing the bill for this as well. No wonder he needed to go Hollywood.

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"So nice of you to come," Evelyn Thorne said with formality. "Please have a seat."

Kovac took the chair across from her and held out the photograph he'd shown Amber. "Mrs. Thorne, do you remember Andy Fallon? He came to see you recently."

She took the photograph, still smiling. "Oh, isn't he handsome? Your boy?"

"No, ma'am. He's Mike Fallon's boy. Do you remember Mike Fallon? He was a police officer. He came to your house the night your husband died."

He didn't know if she heard a word he said. She seemed not to. "They grow up so fast:,
she said, getting up from her chair and going to a little bookcase that held a lot of magazines and a Bible.

"I have pictures too," she said, digging for. a magazine at the bottom. Redbook. "She thinks she took them all. She doesn't like having photographs out, not of family. But I had to keep a few."

She pulled a manila envelope from the magazine and extracted a couple of snapshots.

"My daughter," she said proudly, holding them out to Kovac. He didn't want to touch them, as if not touching them, not looking at them, would keep their truth at bay. But Evelyn Thorne pushed them into his hands.

She was younger in the photograph. A little thinner. Her hair was different. But there was no mistaking Evelyn and Bill Thorne's daughter: Amanda Savard.

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A M A N D A S A V A R D W A S Bill Thorne's daughter.

He remembered the only hint in the newspaper articles from all those years ago: Thorne is survived by his u,,fie and one daughter. That was it. No name, no photo.

Savard was Evelyn's maiden name. He had been able to get that much out of her. Amanda must have taken the name for her own after the murder. Otherwise, she never could have come on the job without people making something of it.

Andy Fallon worked for Amanda Savard, Bill Thorne's daughter. He'd been looking into Bill Thorne's murder, the night Mike Fallon was shot, the night Ace Wyatt became a hero. Ace Wyatt had been paying off Mike Fallon for years. Andy Fallon was dead. Mike Fallon was dead....

Kovac sat in the dark parking lot of the building that housed the Wyatt Productions offices. On his third cigarette in two hours, his head was pounding. Hell of a day. He felt beat up. He felt old. He felt hollow. Funny, he'd thought he was too cynical to be disillusioned or disappointed. nejoke on you, Kovac.

The building was nondescript. A brick two-story like a thousand others in the western suburbs. The parking lot had emptied in the last

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hour as the business day had come to a close and the CPAs and attorneys and orthodontist who shared the building had climbed into their cold vehicles and rolled down the street in a fog of exhaust to edge their way into the rush-hour crawl on 494.

Wyatt was expecting him. Had expected him ten minutes ago. Kovac let him wait, let the office staff leave. The Lincoln was parked in a reserved spot near the front of -the building. Kovac had parked three rows back, alone. His pager trilled and he checked the display. Leonard. Fuck 'em.

He turned off the car and walked across the lot and into the building, tossing his cigarette just outside the door, not caring where it landed. The circular reception desk was deserted, the telephone ringing.A directory board on the wall showedWyatt Productions to be on the second floor.

Kovac walked past the elevator, went up the stairs, and slipped into the outer office unnoticed. Like the rest of the building, everything was graythe carpet, the walls, the upholstery on the square furniture. The walls were covered mainly with photographs of the great man being given commendations for this and that remarkable feat, being honored for his selfless service to the community. Photographs of him with local celebrities, with legends in law enforcement, with movie stars buttonholed on the sets of pictures being shot in the metro area.

The man had never met a camera he wouldn't turn his good side to. Evelyn Thorne's included.

Kovac sniffed and shook his head.

The knob turned on the door to Wyatt's office and the sound of voices spilled out in dribs and drabs, the volume rising and falling. that kind of publicity ... unacceptable, Gavin." Wyatt. situation can be defused ... denials . . ." Gaines.

"Goddammit, you have to
... image ... my audience is Middle America, for god's sake."

"I'm sorry"

The door closed tight again. Kovac moved closer, straining to hear. Then Gaines came out, looking flushed and angry.

"What's the matter, Slick?" Kovac asked. "Hard day on your knees?" "I realize you have no appreciation for what I do, Sergeant," he said. "There's really no need for you to make the point every time we meet."

"But I like the way it makes your nostrils flare, Gavin."

Gaines looked ready to bend an iron bar with his teeth. "Captain Wyatt has been waiting for you."

"Good. I'm a busy man.
" Kovac went to the door, then looked back atWyatt's right hand. "You can go, Gaines.The captain won't be needing you. We're just going to talk about old times."

Wyatt stood looking out a window at nothing. Darkness had fallen like an anvil an hour before. He watched Kovac's reflection in the window.

"No word yet on Rubel:'he said. A statement of fact. "You'll hear it before I will."

"Shouldn't you be out on the search?"

"With all your citizens beating the bushes? They'll bring him to you hog-tied. He can be the special guest on your next show."

Wyatt went for the straight line. "Maybe. I like the idea of the occasional interview with a bad guy. Let the public see how twisted minds work."

He'd been spending too much time with the WB VPs.

"I have other cases ongoing:' Kovac said. "Mike's murder. Andy's murder . . ."

Wyatt looked straight at him then.

"No one called you?" Kovac said, feigning shock. "Stone believes Andy was strangled before he was hung."

The color drained from his face. "What?"

"Marks on the throat: he said, runming a finger around his own to demonstrate. "Faint but there. The doc who did the autopsy missed them. I asked Dr. Stone to personally go back over the autopsyjust in case the new guy Inissed something-having had pressure on him from higher up. Good thing, huh? Or he might have been buried with that little secret."

"Why ... ?" Kovac could see Wyatt scrambling mentally, trying to get his legs back under him, trying to sound intelligent and ignorant at once. "Do you think it had to do with Rubel?"

"Personally, no," Kovac said. "I think it's a pretty damn strange coincidence that first Andy dies and it looks like suicide, then his old man buys it and it's made to look like suicide. Don't you find that strange?"

Wyatt furrowed the famous brow. "So you like Neil for both,murders?"

Kovac ignored the question, feeling too raw and wrung out

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emotionally to dance the mental minuet. "I found Evelyn Thorne. Andy found her too.You think I'll end up the same as he did, or the same as Mike?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Jesus Christ, Ace:'Kovac said, the impatience burning through. "I don't have time for this bullshit! It goes back to Thorne! Andy found something about what happened that night, something no one else saw at the time, because they didn't want to see k, or they buried it because it was all in the fanuily, It was cops. Thorne was a cop, you, Mike. The only one dead not a cop was that poor bastard Weagle."

"Weagle attacked Evelyn!" Wyatt said. "He he beat her. He raped her. He shot Bill. Killed him. He shot Mike."

"Did he?" Kovac asked. "'Cause I'm wondering here, Ace, why people interested in that case, connected to that case, are suddenly dead if it happened the way we all heard back then."

Wyatt walked away, went behind his desk. Retreating, or taking cover ... Kovac never took his eyes off the man, every muscle in his body taut, ready to move. He positioned himself so he could see both Wyatt and the door.

"What did Evelyn say to you?" Wyatt asked. "She's not a wen woman. I'm sure the doctors told you she's often delusional."

"You told me you'd lost touch with her.You told me you didn't know where she was."

"I was trying to protect her. Evelyn never recovered from what happened. She was always ... fragile. Something broke in her mind that might.The doctors have never been able to fix it. She retreated to a safe place, a world of her own. She seems to be happy there most of the time."

"She showed me photographs:' Kovac said. "Pictures of the old neighborhood, barbecues, friends. You know, she didn't have one photograph of Bill. Not one photograph of her husband."

"Painful memories."

"How painful?" Kovac asked.

Wyatt closed his eyes and drove his hands back over his hair. "What's the point of this, Sam? It was twenty years ago."

Kovac stared at him, looked around the plush executive office, thought of the career Ace Wyatt had made for himself since the night someone had shot and killed Bill Thorne. What if it was all a lie? A house of cards. A legend born of blood. With Wyatt's show

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poised to go national, what if Andy Fallon had found the answer to that question?

"There's a body count, Ace," he said. "If you don't see the point of that, you're in a bad place."

. Wyatt pulled down the game face, a granite mask. "You haven't shown me any evidence that these deaths are tied to one another, or tied to the past. I don't believe it."

"I'll admit, at this point, I'm still fishing," Kovac said. "Probably the same as Andy was fishing. But I think he found something-which is why he's dead-and I think I know where he put it. If it's there, Ace, it's mine. Better for everyone to get out in front of it now.You know what I'm saying? You. Savard. I know she's Thorne's daughter."

Wyatt looked through him. "You're saying you think I've done something wrong," he said flatly." I haven't. I didn't. There's nothing to be gained in stirring up old dust, Sam. People, careers, reputations could be damaged. For nothing."

"I think two people are dead because of it," Kovac said. "That's something, Ace. I don't give a damn about any of the rest of it."

He went to the door and put his hand on the knob, looking back at the legend. A man he'd never liked, and still there was a place deep inside him where he felt sorry.