Ashes to Ashes

19

CHAPTER

TONI URSKINE ENTERED the front room still dressed to impress in slim black slacks and a cardinal-red blazer over a white blouse with an elaborate cravat. The fire of righteous indignation burned bright in her eyes.

“I don't appreciate those police cars out front. Could they at least turn their lights off? This is a neighborhood, Sergeant, and our neighbors are none too gracious about us being here as it is.”

“I'm sorry for the disruption, Ms. Urskine,” Kovac said dryly. “Abductions, murders, they're a big damn pain in the ass, I know.”

A redhead with the thin, brittle look of a crack addict came into the room behind Toni Urskine, followed by Gregg Urskine, who looked like a model for Eddie Bauer in scuffed work boots, jeans, and a flannel shirt open at the throat to reveal a white T-shirt. He put a hand on the redhead's back and urged her forward.

“This is Rita Renner. Rita was here with Angie tonight after I left.”

“I wasn't really with her,” Renner said in a small voice. “I was watching TV. I saw her go upstairs. She was in the bathroom for a long time—I could hear the water running. We're not supposed to take long showers.”

“And what time did you notice the shower stopped running?”

“I didn't. I fell asleep on the couch. I didn't wake up until the news.”

“And in the time you were awake, did you see or hear anyone else in the house—other than Angie?”

“Not after Gregg left.”

“No doors opening, closing? No footsteps? No nothing?”

Renner shook her head, staring at her feet.

“She's already told you she didn't hear or see anything,” Toni Urskine said impatiently.

Kovac ignored her. “Why didn't you go to the meeting with the others?”

Toni Urskine stiffened. “Is Rita under suspicion of something, Sergeant?”

“Just curious.”

Nervous, Renner looked from one Urskine to the other, as if seeking some kind of invisible sign for permission to speak. “I don't like crowds,” she said apologetically. “And, then, it's hard for me, you know. Because of Fawn.”

“Rita and Fawn Pierce—or, as you call her, victim number two—were good friends.” Toni put a supportive arm around Renner's bony shoulders. “Not that anyone in your investigation cares.”

Kovac held back a scowl. “I'm sorry about the oversight. I'll have a detective come by tomorrow for an interview. My priority tonight is Angie DiMarco. We need to find her.”

“You don't think this killer came in here and took her, do you?” Toni asked with sudden alarm.

“Don't be ridiculous,” Gregg said, trying to smile away the edge in his voice. “No one broke in.”

His wife turned on him with a venomous look. “I'm not ridiculous. Anyone could have come in here. I've been asking you for months to install new locks and seal off that old storm cellar door.”

Urskine contained his embarrassment to a dull blush. “The storm cellar door is locked from the inside.”

Kovac looked to Elwood. “Check it out.”

“I'll show you,” Urskine offered, starting for the door, eager to get away from his wife.

Kate held him up with a question. “Gregg, did Angie say anything to you before you left for the meeting?”

He gave the nervous laugh, and she thought what an annoying habit that was, on a par with the Rob Marshall bootlicker's grin.

“Angie never has anything to say to me. She avoids me like the plague.”

“What time did you leave for the meeting?” Kovac asked.

Urskine's brows went up above the rims of his glasses. “Am I under suspicion of something?” he asked, pretending to be amused.

Toni glared at Kovac. “We're being punished, Gregg. Can't you see that? The police don't appreciate having attention called to their shortcomings.”

Kovac gave her the cop eyes. “I'm just trying to get our time line straight, ma'am. That's all.”

“I left not long after Kate,” Gregg said. “I must have gotten to the meeting about—what, honey?—eight-thirty, quarter to nine?”

“Something like that,” his wife said, pouting. “You were late.”

“I was working on the furnace.” A muscle flexed in Urskine's jaw, and he turned again to Elwood. “I'll show you that cellar door now.”

“Are we free to go, Sergeant?” Toni Urskine asked. “It's been a very long evening.”

“You're telling me,” Kovac muttered, waving them off.

Kate followed them out of the room, but took a right to the front door, leaving Toni Urskine to rant to her captive audience of residents gathered in the living room.

OUR LIVES MATTER TOO. The banner stretched across the front porch of the Phoenix, the oilcloth crackling as the wind picked up.

“It's going to snow,” she said, burying her hands in her coat pockets and hunching her shoulders, not against the weather, but against a cold that was internal. She wandered to the far end of the porch, almost out of reach of the yellow bug light that hadn't been changed at summer's end, away from the traffic that came and went through the front door.

If Toni Urskine was unhappy with two cruisers parked at the curb, she would be livid soon, Kate thought as the crime scene people parked their van on the front lawn. Uniforms had already begun KOD duty—knocking on doors in search of a neighbor who might have seen a strange car, or a man on foot, or a man carrying something, or a man and a young woman together—anything that might give them a time frame or a lead. Despite the late hour, the neighborhood homes were well lit, and the occasional figure could be seen at a window, pulling the drapes back to look out.

“Kate, we don't know what happened,” Quinn said.

“Well, I think it's safe to say Angie didn't cut herself shaving her legs.”

A tremor went through her as she saw the blood again in her mind. The blood on the floor, the blood-streaked tile, the bloody towels. She stiffened against the nauseating weakness seeping through her muscles.

Gotta be tough, Kate. Put those feelings in a box. Put the box in its proper cubicle. Keep the walls intact.

“Looks this way to me,” she said around the knot in her throat. “He slips into the house through the back. Grabs her upstairs. There's a struggle, judging by the bloody handprints in the tub—I'm guessing they're Angie's. Maybe he kills her, or maybe he just starts the job—probably the first. And he lets her bleed out in the tub, otherwise there would have been more mess elsewhere. He wants to make it look like she just left, so he tries to clean up, but he's in a hurry and he does a poor job of it. Still, even the poor job he did would have bought him some time if we hadn't come looking tonight.”

“How did he know she was here?”

“I don't know. She felt like he was watching her. Maybe he was.”

“And how does all this go down with no one hearing, no one seeing anything?”

“He'd already managed to grab, torture, and murder three women without anyone hearing or seeing a thing. Rita Renner was asleep on the first floor with the television going. It's a big house.”

Quinn shook his head. “It doesn't feel right.”

“Why not? Because you wanted him to be at the meeting?”

He sat back against the railing, shoulders hunched inside his trench coat. “He could still have been at the meeting. We're only a few blocks away, and the meeting was over half an hour before Kovac and I started over here. My question is, why would he risk it? The girl hadn't given the cops anything worthwhile—not a name, not a decent composite, she pulled nothing from the mug books. Why would he risk this?”

“To show us he can,” Kate said. “What a nose-thumbing. The night of the meeting intended to draw him out, he slips into a house and takes the only witness to his crimes. A killer like this one, he'll have a hard-on the size of a Louisville Slugger over that. You know it.”

Quinn looked over as one of the evidence guys carried a vacuum cleaner into the house.

“Why did you come here tonight?” Kate asked. “Kovac never said.”

“When you told him about Angie and her john in the park Sunday night, you mentioned the guy was in an SUV. I think there's a good chance Smokey Joe is transporting his bodies to the parks in a truck of some kind. Something resembling a parks department vehicle. Possibly an SUV.”

Kate felt her stomach turn. A chill pebbled her flesh from head to toe. “Oh, God, John. You don't think he was her customer?”

“It would be right on target. He hates women, particularly the sexually promiscuous variety. He's got a dead one in the back of his truck. He picks up another and takes her to his dumping grounds to have sex with her. This excites him. That excitement reminds him of the thrill and stimulation of the kill. At the same time he's mentally asserting domination and control over the woman he's with. The secret knowledge that he could do to his current partner what he did to his victim but chooses not to gives him a sense of control both over her and over his compulsion to kill.”

“That decision not to kill bolsters his sense of power. And everything is building toward the burning ceremony—the completion of the cycle,” Kate finished.

“Looks good on paper.”

“Angie said the guy shoved her out of his truck and she watched him drive away. From where he left her, he would have had to have doubled around to that back lot in a hurry in order for her to have seen him burning that body.”

Quinn moved his shoulders. “It's still just a theory.”

A theory from a man who knew more about sexually sadistic killers than perhaps anyone else in the country. Kate stared out into the darkness, watching the cloud of her breath float away.

“But if it was the same guy, why wouldn't she have told me? And why wouldn't she give us a better composite? She saw this john up close and personal.”

“Those are questions only she can answer.”

“And she can't answer them now,” Kate said quietly. “It was so hard for her to tell me about it this afternoon. From the beginning of this mess, she'd talk so tough, give so much attitude, but when she finally told me about this john, it was like she was ashamed. She kept saying that she didn't like doing it, that she was so sorry. And she cried and cried.”

Her own emotions threatened to rise up at the memory, just as they had that afternoon with Angie.

“You like this girl,” Quinn declared.

She huffed a breath. “What's to like? She's a lying, thieving, foul-mouthed prostitute.”

“And she needs you,” he said simply.

“Yeah, well, look what that got her.”

“This isn't your fault, Kate.”

“I should have stayed with her.”

“You couldn't have known this would happen.”

“She was at a vulnerable point,” she reasoned. “I should have stayed with her if for no other reason than to get something out of her. But I didn't because—”

She choked herself off, not wanting to admit it. Not here. Not to Quinn. He knew her too well—or once had. He knew every raw spot in her soul. He'd held her more times than she could count when she'd been so racked with the pain and guilt of Emily's death that the anguish was beyond sound. He had given her comfort and offered his strength and soothed her with his touch. She couldn't let him do that now, and she didn't want to find out that maybe he wouldn't try.

“She's not Emily, Kate.”

Kate sucked in a breath as if he'd slapped her and turned sharply to glare at him. “I'm well aware of that. My daughter is dead.”

“And you still blame yourself. After all this time.”

“As far as I know, there's no statute of limitations on guilt.”

“It wasn't your fault. And neither is this.”

“Emily was my daughter, my responsibility. Angie is my client, my responsibility,” she argued stubbornly.

“How many of your clients do you take home with you?” Quinn demanded, moving away from the railing, closer to her.

“None, but—”

“How many of your clients do you stay with around the clock?”

“None, but—”

“Then there's no reason for you to think you should have been with her.”

“She needed me and I wasn't here.”

“But anytime you get a chance to punish yourself, by God, you're right there,” Quinn said, old anger of his own rising up sharp and pure. He could remember too well the frustration of trying to separate Kate from her sense of culpability in Emily's death. He could remember too well the need to shake her and hold her close at once, because that was exactly what he was feeling now.

She stood before him, fierce and angry and defensive. And beautiful. And vulnerable. He wanted to protect her from the pain she would inflict on herself. And she would fight him tooth and nail every step of the way.

“I'm taking responsibility—as if you don't know anything about that,” she said bitterly, toe to toe with him. “The Mighty Quinn, curing the cancer of modern society. Singlehandedly rooting out all evil. You carry the world around on your shoulders as if you were sole guardian, and you have the gall to stand there and criticize me? My God, you're amazing!”

Shaking her head, she started past him for the front steps.

“Where are you going?” He reached for her as if he still had some right to touch her. She stepped aside, giving him a look that could have frozen water at fifty paces.

“I'm going to do something. I'm not sitting here biting my fingernails all night. On the slim chance Angie left here under her own power, the least I can do is help look for her.”

Hands in her coat pockets, digging for her keys, she trotted down the steps and headed for her truck. Quinn glanced at the front door of the Phoenix. He was of no use here. And the sight of Kate walking away triggered his panic. Foolish thought. She didn't want him there, didn't want him, period. She was sure as hell better off without him. If he'd been a stronger man, he would have let it go at that.

But he wasn't feeling strong, and he wouldn't be here more than a few days, a week. Where was the harm in stealing a little time with her? Just to be near her. A fresh memory to put away with the old ones, to take out when the solace of his life threatened to swallow him whole.

“Kate!” he called, jogging after her. “Wait. I'm going with you.”

She arched a brow imperiously. “Did I invite you?”

“Two pairs of eyes looking are better than one,” he argued.

Kate told herself to say no. She didn't need him poking at old wounds. She did a mean enough job of that herself. Then she thought of the way he'd put his arms around her upstairs, ready to pull her away from the horror they hadn't found on the other side of that shower curtain, ready to hold her up if she needed it, giving her his own strength to lean against. She thought of how easily she'd let him do that, and knew she should say no.

He watched her, the dark eyes intent, the lines of his face serious, then he dredged up half a charming smile from somewhere, and she felt something clutch in her chest exactly as it had all those years before. “I promise not to be a jerk. And I'll let you drive.”

She sighed and turned toward the 4Runner, punching the button on the keyless remote. “Well, I believe half of that.”

THEY MADE THE rounds of the places on Lake Street where the nocturnal creatures passed the hours between dusk and dawn. Pool halls, bars, and all-night diners. A homeless shelter full of women with children. A Laundromat where a wino with a thick halo of filthy gray hair sat in one of the plastic bucket chairs and stared out the windows until the slightly more fortunate night clerk chased him back onto the street.

No one had seen Angie. Half of them barely glanced at the photograph. Kate refused to think about the lack of results. She hadn't expected results, she had expected to pass time. She couldn't decide which had to be more like penance: spending the night pounding the pavement in this rotten part of town or sitting home drinking gin until she couldn't see the bloodstains in her head anymore.

“I need a drink,” she said as they walked into a place called Eight Ball's. The interior was obscured by a fog bank of cigarette smoke. The sharp clack of billiard balls colliding was underscored by Jonny Lang's blues wailing from the juke—“Lie to Me.”

“You missed last call a while ago, gorgeous,” the bartender said. He was the size of a minivan with a shaved head and a woolly Fu-Manchu mustache. “Name's Tiny Marvin. How 'bout something strong and black like me?”

Quinn flashed his ID and a no-nonsense G-man look.

“Damnation. It's Scully and Mulder,” Tiny Marvin said, unimpressed, as he pulled a coffeepot off its warmer.

Kate planted her butt on a barstool. “Coffee's fine, thanks.”

There were maybe a dozen serious players at the pool tables. A pair of hookers served as ornamentation, looking bored and impatient at the downtime. One caught an eyeful of Quinn and nudged the other, but neither made a move to get closer.

Tiny Marvin squinted at Quinn. “Hey, man, didn't I see you on TV? For real?”

“We're looking for a girl,” Quinn said.

Kate slid the Polaroid across the bar, expecting Marvin to give it as little attention as every other bartender had. He picked it up with fingers as short and thick as Vienna sausages and squinted harder.

“Yeah, she been in here.”

Kate sat up straighter. “Tonight?”

“Naw, Sunday night, around ten-thirty, eleven. Came in to warm up, she said. Jailbait. I chased her skinny white ass outta here. I mean, consenting adults is one thing, man—you know what I mean? That child's trouble. I don't want no part of that shit.”

“Did she leave with anybody?” Quinn asked.

“Not from here she didn't. She went back on the street and walked up and down for a while. Then I start feeling bad—like, what if she was my niece or something, and I found out some hard-ass threw her out on the street? Man, I'd bust his hard ass. So I go to tell her she can have a cup of coffee if she wants, but she's got a ride and they're going down the road.”

“What kind of car?” Kate asked.

“Some kind of truck.”

Her heart started to beat a little harder, and she looked to Quinn, but his attention was still on Tiny Marvin.

“Don't suppose you got the plates?”

“Hey, man, I ain't no neighborhood watch commander.”

“It didn't bother you the guy was breaking the law,” Kate said.

Tiny Marvin frowned at her. “Look, I take care of what goes on in here, Scully. Rest of the world ain't my problem. The girl was doing what hookers do. Wasn't none of my business.”

“And if she'd been your niece?”

Quinn gave her a warning look and spoke again to the bartender. “Did you see the driver?”

“Didn't look. I just thought, man, what about his sorry ass, picking up a kid like that. The world's a cold, sick place—you know what I'm saying?”

“Yeah,” Kate muttered, picking up the snapshot of Angie from the bar, looking at the pretty, exotic face, the frowning mouth, the angry eyes that had seen too much. “I know exactly what you're saying.”

She put the photo back in her purse, tossed a buck on the bar for the coffee she hadn't touched, and walked out. The snow had started in flurries, the clouds sending down a handful at a time on gusts of cold wind. The street was deserted, the sidewalks empty, the dingy storefronts dark except for the bail-bonds place across the street.

She leaned back against the building and wished the wind would blow away the feelings that were stacking up inside her. They'd about reached the back of her throat and she couldn't even begin to swallow them down.

She knew too much about the world to let its injustices and cruelties get to her too easily. Of course a bartender in a pool hall on Lake Street wouldn't be overly concerned about the life of a hooker, young or not. He saw it every day and never looked too closely. He had his own life to worry about.

It hit Kate hard only because she knew the next chapter to the story. The ride that had taken Angie DiMarco away from Eight Ball's had taken her to a crime scene, and the driver of that nondescript truck might have been a killer. Even if he'd been just another pathetic loser willing to pay for sex, he'd delivered her to a rendezvous with a fate that may just have gotten her killed.

Quinn came out of the pool hall, eyes narrowed against the cold and wind as he flipped up the collar of his trench coat.

“Kovac says: ‘Good police work, Red.' If you ever want to give up the soft life, he'll put a word in for you.”

“Yeah? Well, I've always wanted to work nights, weekends, and holidays up to my ass in dead bodies. Now's my big chance.”

“He's sending a team out to talk to the bartender and whoever else they can find. If they can come up with somebody who remembers more about the vehicle, or saw the driver that night, they've got something to run with.”

Kate pulled her coat closed up around her throat and stared across the empty street at the bail-bonds place. A red neon light glowed through the barred window: CHECK$ CA$HED HERE.

“Timing is everything,” she said. “If Angie hadn't been standing on this street at the exact moment that truck pulled up, I'd be home in bed, and you'd be digging in someone else's boneyard.”

She laughed at herself and shook her head, the wind catching a rope of hair and whipping it across her face. “As long as I've been around, I still shake my fist at chance. How stupid is that?”

“You always took the prize for stubborn.” Quinn reached out automatically to brush her hair back, his fingertips grazing her cheek. “A cynic is a disappointed idealist, you know.”

“Is that what happened to you?” she tossed back.

“I never saw life as ideal.”

She knew that, of course. She knew about his life, about the abusive alcoholic father, and the grim years growing up in working-class Cincinnati. She was one of the few people he had allowed to see in that window.

“But that never saved you from disappointment,” she said quietly.

“The only thing that can save you from disappointment is hopelessness. But if you don't have hope, then there's no point in living.”

“And what's the difference between hope and desperation?” she asked, thinking of Angie, wondering if she dared hope.

“Time.”

Which might have already run out for Angie DiMarco, and which had run out for the two of them years earlier. Kate felt disappointment sink down through her. She wanted to lay her head against Quinn's shoulder and feel his arms slip around her. Instead, she pushed away from the wall and started for the 4Runner parked down by the Laundromat. The homeless guy was looking in her back window as if considering it for his night's accommodations.

“I'll drop you off at your hotel,” she said to Quinn.

“No. I'll ride home with you and call a cab. Tough as you are, I don't want you going home alone, Kate. It's not smart. Not tonight.”

If she'd been feeling stronger, she might have argued just on principle, but she wasn't feeling strong, and the memory of phantom eyes watching her as she'd let herself in her back door just hours before was still too fresh.

“All right.” She hit the remote lock. The alarm system on the truck beeped loudly, sending the homeless guy scuttling back into the doorwell of the Suds-O-Rama. “But don't try anything funny, or I'll sic my cat on you.”