Ashes to Ashes

25

CHAPTER

“LISTEN UP!”

Kovac leaned heavily on the end of the table in the Loving Touch of Death war room. He had been home long enough to fall asleep on a kitchen chair while waiting for the coffee to brew. He hadn't showered or shaved, and imagined he looked like a bum in the same limp, wrinkled suit he'd worn the day before. He hadn't had time to even change his shirt.

Everyone on the team was showing similar signs of wear. Dark circles under bloodshot eyes. Deep frown lines etched into pale faces.

The room stank of cigarettes, sweat, and bitter coffee over the original aromas of mice and mildew. A portable radio on the counter tuned to WCCO competed with a ten-inch television tuned to KSTP, both on to catch the latest reports the media had to offer. Photos from the car fire and of victim number four had been hastily pinned to one of the boards, so fresh from the developing trays, they were curling in on themselves.

“The media is going nuts with the stuff from last night,” Kovac said. “Smokey Joe lights up a vic practically under our noses, and we look like we've been sitting around picking our toenails. I've already had the chief and Lieutenant Fowler on me like a couple of trick riders this morning. Long story short: If we can't make something happen fast, we'll all be on jail duty doing body cavity searches.”

“That'd be the closest thing to sex Tip's had in years,” Adler said.

Tippen fired a paper clip at him from a rubber-band slingshot. “Very funny. Let me start with you, Chunk. Mind if I use a crowbar?”

Kovac ignored them. “We managed to keep word of that cassette tape away from them.”

“Thank God none of them found it,” Walsh said, contemplating the state of his handkerchief. “They'd be playing it on every station in town.”

Kovac hadn't been able to get the sound of those screams out of his head. The idea of that tape playing into every house in the Twin Cities was enough to make his stomach roll.

“The tape is at the BCA lab,” he said. “Some techno-geek is going over it, trying to pick up background noise and the like. We'll see what he has to say later. Tinks, did you find Vanlees?”

Liska shook her head. “No go. It seems the only close friend he's got is whoever he's house-sitting for. And he sure won't be making any new ones soon. Mary and I managed to piss off everyone he knows, calling up in the middle of the night. One guy said Vanlees was bragging on this house though. He thought it sounded like it might be Uptown or thereabouts. Near a lake.”

“I've got a car sitting on his Lyndale apartment,” Kovac said. “Another one at the Target Center, and one at the Edgewater town houses. And every cop in town is looking for his truck.”

“We've got no probable cause to arrest him,” Yurek pointed out.

“You won't need it,” Quinn said, walking into the middle of the conversation. Flecks of snow melted in his hair. He shrugged out of his trench coat and tossed it on the counter. “It's not an arrest. We're asking for his assistance. If this guy is Smokey Joe, then he's feeling cocky and smug. He made us look like idiots last night. The idea of the cops asking him for help will have enormous appeal to his ego.”

“We don't want to lose the guy on a technicality, that's all,” Yurek pointed out.

“The first person to screw up that way, I will personally shoot in the kneecaps,” Kovac promised.

“So, G,” Tippen said, eyes narrowed. “You think this guy is it?”

“He fits the picture pretty well. We'll get him in here and have a chat, then I'd recommend a bumper-lock surveillance. Make him sweat, see what we can get him to do. If we can rattle him, get him to spook, doors will open. If things fall right, we'll end up with cause for a search warrant.”

“I'll head over to the Edgewater,” Liska said. “I'd like to be on hand, try to put him at ease, get his guard down.”

“How did he seem at the meeting last night?” Quinn asked.

“Fascinated, a little excited, full of theories.”

“Do we know where he was Sunday night?”

“The ever-popular home alone.”

“I want to be there when you get him in the box,” Quinn said. “Not in the room, but watching.”

“You don't want to question him?”

“Not right off the bat. We'll have you in there, and someone he's never seen before. Probably Sam. I'll come in later.”

“Beep me as soon as you've got him,” Kovac said as a phone rang in the background. Elwood got up to answer it. “Tip, Charm, did you find anybody who saw the DiMarco girl get in a truck Sunday night?”

“No,” Tippen said. “And the going rate for that answer is ten bucks. Unless you're Charm. In which case, you can get that answer and a blow job for a smile.”

Yurek gave him a dirty look. “Like it's some kind of treat to get the clap for free.”

“It is for Tip,” Liska pointed out.

“Charm! Telephone!” Elwood called.

“Stay on it,” Kovac ordered. “Get some fliers printed off with the girl's picture and a picture of a GMC Jimmy. Ask Lieutenant Fowler about a reward. Chances are someone just hanging out in that area at that time of night will be willing to turn in his mother for a couple hundred bucks.”

“Will do.”

“Someone diplomatic has to go to the Phoenix and talk again to this hooker that knew the second vic,” Kovac went on.

“I'll do it,” Moss offered.

“Ask her if Fawn Pierce had a tattoo,” Quinn said, forcing himself to sit ahead. He rubbed at a knot in the back of his neck. “Lila White had a tattoo exactly where that chunk of flesh was missing from her chest. Smokey Joe may be an art lover. Or an artist.”

“Where'd you get that?” Tippen asked, skeptical, as if maybe Quinn had just pulled it down out of the sky.

“I did something no one else bothered to do: I looked,” he said bluntly. “I looked at the photographs Lila White's parents gave Agent Moss. They were taken days before her death. If it turns out Fawn Pierce had a tattoo removed by the killer, you'll need to find where both women got them done and check out the parlors and everyone associated with them.”

“Do we know if Jillian Bondurant had any tattoos?” Hamill asked.

“Her father says none he knew of.”

“Her friend, Michele Fine, claims not to know of any either,” Liska said. “And I think she'd know. She's a walking scratch pad herself.”

“Did she ever come in to get printed?” Kovac asked, digging through a messy stack of notes.

“I haven't had time to check.”

A cell phone rang, and Quinn swore and got up from the table, digging in the pocket of his suit coat.

Adler pointed at the television, where scenes from the car fire filled the screen. “Hey, there's Kojak!”

The sun guns washed Kovac's skin out to the color of parchment. He frowned heavily at the cameras and shut down the questions with a stiff rendition of “The investigation is sensitive and ongoing. We have no comment at this time.”

“You need to lose that mustache, Sam,” Liska said. “You look like Mr. Peabody from Rocky and Bullwinkle.”

“Any mutilation on the latest vic?” Tippen called from the coffeepot.

“Autopsy's scheduled for eight,” Kovac said, check-ing his watch. Seven-forty. He turned to Moss. “Rob Marshall from legal services will meet you at the Phoenix. That's the brass making public nice-nice with the Urskines after the Bitch Queen of the North kicked up that stink last night.

“Personally, I don't care how offended they are. I want someone to have a heart-to-heart with Vampira's mate at the station later today. Mary, ask him to come in, and be vague when they demand to know why. Routine procedure, like that. And ask if they have a credit card receipt or canceled check from the cabin they were in the weekend Lila White was killed.

“Gregg Urskine was one of the last people to see our witness last night. The first vic was a guest of theirs. The second was a friend of one of their current hookers. That's too many close calls for me,” Kovac declared.

“Toni Urskine will be on the phone to every news outlet in the metro,” Yurek cautioned.

“If we're polite, that only makes her look bad,” Kovac said. “We're being thorough, leaving no stone unturned. That's what Toni Urskine wanted.”

“Did we get anything from the meeting last night?” Hamill asked.

“Nothing of use to us from the cars,” Elwood said. “Just the videotape.”

Kovac checked his watch again. “I'll look at it later. Doc'll be sharpening her knives. You with me, GQ?”

Quinn held up a hand in acknowledgment and signed off on his call. They grabbed their coats and went out the back way.

The snow had covered the filth of the alley—including Kovac's car—camouflaging tire hazards like broken Thunderbird and Colt 45 malt liquor bottles, which covered the ground in these downtown alleys like dead leaves. Kovac pulled a brush out from under a pile of junk in the backseat and swept off the windshields, the hood, and the taillights.

“You got back to your hotel all right last night?” he asked as they slid into their seats and he turned the engine over. “'Cause I sure could've taken you. It's not that much out of my way.”

“No. I was fine. It was fine,” Quinn said, not looking at him. He could feel Kovac's gaze on him. “Kate was so upset over that tape, I wanted to make sure she was all right.”

“Uh-huh. Was she? All right?”

“No. She thinks that body was her witness, that those screams were the screams of her witness being tortured. She blames herself.”

“Well, it's probably a good thing you saw her home, then. What'd you do? Catch a cab downtown?”

“Yeah,” he lied, the morning scene playing through his mind.

Waking up and looking at Kate across the pillow in the faint light, touching her, watching those incredible clear gray eyes open, seeing the uncertainty there. He would rather have been able to say making love had solved all their problems, but that wasn't true. It had given them some solace, reconnected their souls, and complicated everything. But, God, it had been like returning to heaven after years in purgatory.

Now what? The unspoken question had hung between them awkwardly as they'd cleaned up, gotten dressed, grabbed bagels, and hustled out the door. There had been no morning afterglow touching, kissing, lingering passion. There had been no time to talk, not that he could have gotten Kate to. Her first tendency when feeling cornered was to retreat within herself, shut the door, and stew. God knew he wasn't much better.

She'd dropped him off at the Radisson. He'd shaved too hastily, thrown on a fresh suit, and run out the door, late.

“I tried to call you this morning,” Kovac said, putting the car in reverse but keeping his foot on the brake. “You didn't answer.”

“Must have been in the shower.” Quinn stayed poker-faced. “Did you leave a message? I didn't take time to check.”

“Just wanted to see how Kate was doing.”

“Then why didn't you call her?” Quinn asked, his temper tightening. He looked at Kovac and turned the conversation around on a dime. “You know, if you'd shown this much interest in the White murder back when, we may not be here right now.”

Kovac flushed. More with guilt than anger, Quinn thought, though the cop played the latter. “I did that case by the numbers.”

“You took the express lane, Sam. How else do you explain missing that tattoo?”

“We asked. I'm sure we did. We must have,” Kovac said, certain, then less so, then not at all. He craned his neck and looked out the back window as he let his foot off the brake. “Maybe we didn't ask the right person. Maybe no one had noticed the goddamn thing.”

“Her parents are a couple of square pegs from a farming town. You think they wouldn't have noticed their daughter had a calla lily tattooed on her chest? You think none of her regular johns noticed it?”

Kovac gunned the engine, rocked the car out of its spot too fast, then hit the brakes too hard. The Caprice slid on the slick wet snow and the back bumper met the corner of a trash Dumpster with a nasty thud.

“Shit!”

Quinn winced, then relaxed, his attention still on Kovac. “You never checked the Urskines' alibi when Lila White was killed.”

“I didn't make them produce the receipt. What motive did they have to kill the woman? None. Besides, Toni Urskine was kicking up such a stink that we weren't trying hard enough . . .”

“I read the reports,” Quinn said. “You worked the case hard for a week, then less and less and less. Same thing with Fawn Pierce.”

Kovac cracked the window open, lit a cigarette, and blew the first lungful outside. The Caprice still sat cockeyed, ass up against the Dumpster. Liska came out of the building and pointed at him, shaking her head, then climbed into her car.

“You've seen enough of these cases to know how it works,” he said. “A hooker buys it, the department is about as concerned as if someone had run over a stray dog. Tag 'em, bag 'em, give 'em the no-frills investigation. If the case isn't solved fast, it gets pushed to the back burner to make way for the taxpaying citizens getting murdered by jealous husbands and crack-crazed carjackers.

“I did what I could while I could,” he said, staring out the windshield at the falling snow.

“I believe you, Sam.” Though Quinn thought Kovac did not entirely believe himself. The regret was etched in the lines of his weathered face. “It's just too bad for those other three victims that it wasn't enough.”

“HOW LONG HAD you known Fawn Pierce?” Mary Moss asked.

In the den of the Phoenix House, she sat down at one end of a pea-green couch, silently inviting Rita Renner to take the other end, creating a certain sense of intimacy. A spring poked her in the butt.

“About two years,” Renner said, so softly Mary reached out to the small tape recorder on the coffee table and pushed it closer. “We met downtown and we just got to be friends.”

“You worked the same territory?”

She glanced up at Toni Urskine, who sat on the arm of the couch, a hand resting reassuringly on Renner's shoulder. Then she looked to Rob Marshall, who hovered on the other side of the coffee table, looking impatient to be somewhere else. His left leg was jiggling like an idling motor.

“Yeah,” she said. “We worked around the strip clubs and the Target Center.”

Her voice sounded as if it were coming from another dimension. So quiet and mousy, dressed in old jeans and a flannel shirt, she hardly looked the picture of a woman strutting her stuff for the horny sleazeballs that trolled the seedier streets of Minneapolis, looking to pay for sex. But then, this was the “reformed” Rita Renner, not the woman who had been arrested for possession and found to keep her crack pipe in her vagina. What a difference sobriety had made.

“Did she have any enemies? Did you ever see anybody hassle her on the street?”

Renner looked confused. “Every night. That's the way men are,” she said, glancing under her lashes at Rob. “She got raped once, you know. People don't think you can rape a hooker, but you can. The cops caught the guy and he went away, but not for raping Fawn. He did some woman accountant in a parking ramp downtown. That's what he went away for. They didn't even want Fawn to testify. Like it didn't matter what he done to her.”

“Testimony about other possible crimes committed by a defendant isn't admissible in court, Ms. Renner,” Rob said. “That seems unfair, doesn't it?”

“It sucks.”

“Someone should have explained that to Ms. Pierce. Do you know if she ever met with anyone from victim/witness services?”

“Yeah. She said it was a bunch of shit. She was supposed to go back a few times, but she never did. All they wanted to do was rehash it all.”

“Restating the events is crucial to the healing process,” Rob stated. He smiled in a way that seemed awkward and made his little pig eyes disappear. “I highly recommend it to all my clients. In fact, I recommend they tape record themselves talking about their experience over a period of time, so they can actually hear the changes in their emotions and attitudes as they heal. It can be very cathartic.”

Renner just stared at him, her head a little to one side, like a small bird contemplating something new and strange.

Mary stifled a sigh of impatience. Having someone not in law enforcement “helping” with an interview was about as helpful as an extra pinkie finger. “Do you know of anyone in particular who might have wanted to hurt Fawn?”

“She said some guy had been calling her. Bugging her.”

“When was this?”

“Couple days before she died.”

“Did this guy have a name?”

“I don't remember. I was pretty strung out at the time. One of her johns, I guess. Can't you check the phone records?”

“It would work only if she called him.”

Renner frowned. “It's not in a computer somewhere?”

“If you knew the guy's name, we could check his phone records.”

“I don't know.” Tears came to her eyes and she looked up at Toni Urskine, who patted her shoulder again. “Fawn called him the Toad. I remember that.”

“Unfortunately, I don't think that'll be the name he uses with the phone company,” Rob Marshall said.

Toni Urskine gave him a pointed look. “There's no need to get snide. Rita is doing the best she can.”

Rob scrambled to recover. “Of course she is. I didn't mean to imply otherwise,” he said with a nervous smile, which he turned to Rita Renner. “Can you recall any conversation you had with Fawn about this . . . Toad? If you could replay a conversation in your mind, it might come to you.”

“I don't know!” Renner whined, twisting one shirttail around her hand. “I was on the rock then. And—and—why would I remember anyway? It wasn't like she was scared of him or anything.”

“That's okay, Rita. It might come to you later,” Moss said. “Can you tell me if Fawn had any tattoos?”

Renner looked at her, confused again by the sudden change of direction. “Sure, a couple. Why?”

“Can you tell me where they were on her body?”

“She had a rose on her ankle, and a shamrock on her stomach, and a pair of lips with a tongue sticking out on her butt. Why?”

Moss was saved from finding the noncommittal lie, as Gregg Urskine chose that moment to enter the room with a coffee tray. Picking up her tape recorder from the table, she rose and smiled apologetically.

“I'm afraid I can't stay. Thank you for the thought.”

“You don't want to warm up before you go back out into the cold, Detective?” Urskine asked, looking pleasant and vacuous.

“No time, but thanks.”

“I suppose there's extra pressure today,” Toni Urskine said with a hint of malicious pleasure. “With everything that happened last night, the task force is looking exceptionally inept.”

“We're doing everything we can,” Moss said. “In fact, Sergeant Kovac asked me to have you stop by the station later today, Mr. Urskine, with a copy of your receipt for the inn you were staying at the weekend Lila White was murdered.”

Toni Urskine shot off the couch, her face flaming. “What! That's outrageous!”

“It's a formality,” Moss assured. “We're just crossing all our T's and dotting all our I's.”

“It's harassment, that's what.”

“A simple request. Of course, you're under no obligation to comply at this time. Sergeant Kovac didn't see the need for a warrant, considering how strongly you both feel about the thoroughness of the investigation.”

Gregg Urskine gave a nervous laugh, his attention on Toni. “It's okay, honey. I'm sure I can find the receipt. It's not a problem.”

“It's an outrage!” Toni snapped. “I'm calling our attorney. We've been nothing but conscientious citizens in all of this, and this is how we're treated! You can leave now, Ms. Moss. Mr. Marshall,” she added, including Rob as an afterthought.

“I think what we have here is a simple communication problem,” Rob said with the nervous grin. “If my office can in any way facilitate—”

“Get out.”

Gregg Urskine reached out. “Now, Toni—”

“Get out!” she shrieked, batting his hand away without even looking.

“We're only trying to do the best job for the victims, Mrs. Urskine,” Moss said quietly. “I thought that was what you wanted. Or is that only when the cameras are rolling?”

“HAVE YOU HAD a chance to talk to your friend in Milwaukee?” Kate asked. “You faxed her the picture, right?”

“Yes, on the second. No, on the first,” Susan Frye answered.

Kate thanked God she had chosen to call rather than walk to the woman's office. Her frustration and impatience would have shown, she knew. Stress had shredded the veneer of manners, leaving all the emotional nerve endings exposed and raw. At this point, she thought, one wrong answer might drive her over the edge, and she'd wind up like the guy with the gun in the atrium.

“She's been tied up with a trial,” Frye said. “I'll call and leave her a message.”

“Today.” Kate realized too late the word had come out as an order rather than as a question. “Please, Susan? I'm in a world of hurt with this kid. I don't know what Rob was thinking. He should have assigned her to someone on your side of the fence. I don't do kids. I don't know how. And now she's gone—”

“I heard she might be dead,” Frye said bluntly. “Don't they think she's the victim from last night?”

“We haven't heard for certain.” Kate mouthed the word bitch after. Some friend, swinging for the low blow. “Even if it's true, we have to know who the kid is—was—so we can try to contact her family.”

“I'll guarantee you right now, Kate: You won't find any who could give a damn or she never would have ended up in this mess. Poor kid would have been better off aborted in the first trimester.”

The callousness of that statement struck Kate hard as she thanked Susan Frye for her dubious assistance and hung up the phone. It made her wonder what exactly had brought Angie DiMarco into the world—chance? fate? love? the desire for a check from Aid to Families with Dependent Children? Had her life gone wrong from conception, or had the mistakes come later, like tarnish slowly growing on silver that had been minted shiny and bright?

Her gaze went to the little picture of Emily in the pocket of her overhead cupboard. A beautiful small life, luminous with the promise of the future. She wondered if Angie had ever looked that innocent, or if her eyes had always held the weary bitterness of a bleak existence.

“Poor kid would have been better off aborted in the first trimester.”

But Angie DiMarco was living out her sad life, while Emily's had been taken.

Kate bolted out of her chair and began to pace the tiny space that was her office. If she didn't lose her mind by the end of the day, it was going to be a miracle.

She had fully expected a command to Sabin's office first thing, or, at the very least, an order to Rob's office for a formal dressing-down for the things she'd said in the parking lot the previous night. No such call had come . . . yet. And so she had tried to fend off thoughts of Angie being dead by taking proactive measures to find out about the girl's life. But every time she so much as slowed down her thought process, she heard the screams from the tape.

And every time she tried to think of something else entirely, she thought of Quinn.

Not wanting Quinn in her mind, she sat down again, grabbed the telephone receiver, and dialed another number. She had other clients to think of. At least she did until Rob fired her.

She called David Willis and got a very long, overly detailed explanation of how to leave a message on his machine. She tried her rape victim at home with similar results, then tried her at work and was told by the manager of the adult bookstore that Melanie Hessler had been fired.

“As of when?” Kate demanded.

“As of today. She's had too many absences.”

“She's suffering from post-traumatic stress,” Kate pointed out. “Because of a crime committed against her on your property, I might add.”

“That wasn't our fault.”

“Post-traumatic stress has been ruled a disability by the courts, and therefore falls under the Americans with Disabilities Act.” She sank her teeth into the sense of injustice, almost glad for the chance to tear into someone. “If you discriminate against Melanie on the basis of this disability, she can sue you out of existence.”

“Listen, lady,” the manager said, “maybe you ought to talk to Melanie about this before you go around threatening people, 'cause I don't think she's all that bent out of shape about it. I haven't heard boo from her all week.”

“I thought you said you fired her.”

“I did. I left it on her machine.”

“You fired her on her answering machine? What kind of rotten coward are you?”

“The kind that's hanging up on you, bitch,” he said, slamming down the receiver.

Kate hung up absently, trying to think when she had last spoken to Melanie Hessler. A week ago at most, she thought. BC—before the Cremator case. There hadn't been time to call her since. Angie had taken up all her time. It seemed too long now that she thought of it. Melanie's calls had become more frequent as the trial drew closer and her nerves wound tighter and tighter.

“I haven't heard boo from her all week.”

Kate supposed she might have gone out of town, but Melanie would have let her know. She checked in as if Kate were her parole officer. This felt wrong. The court, in its infinite wisdom, had seen fit to release Melanie's attackers on bail, but the cops had been good about keeping tabs on them, with the detective in charge of the case staying on top of the situation.

I'm just spooked about everything because of Angie, Kate thought. There was probably no cause for alarm. Still, she followed her instincts, picked up the phone again, and dialed the detective in sex crimes.

He'd heard nothing from their victim either, but knew that one of her perps had been picked up over the weekend for assaulting a former girlfriend. Kate explained what she knew and asked him to drop by Melanie Hessler's house, just to check.

“I'll head over that way after lunch.”

“Thanks, Bernie. You're a peach. I'm probably just being paranoid, but . . .”

“Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean life's not out to get you.”

“True. And my luck isn't exactly on high tide here.”

“Hang in there, Kate. Things can always get worse.”

Cop humor. She couldn't quite appreciate it today.

She tried to turn her attention to a stack of paperwork, but turned away from it and pulled Angie's file instead, hoping she might see something in it that would prompt an idea for some kind of action. Sitting in this office, waiting, was going to make her brain explode.

The file was woefully thin. More questions than answers. Could the girl have left the Phoenix herself? If so, where had the blood come from? She flashed on the scene in the bathroom: the bloody handprint on the tile, the diluted blood trickling down the tub drain, the bloody towels in the hamper. More blood than any reasonable explanation could account for.

But if Smokey Joe had come for her, how had he found her, and how was it Rita Renner had heard nothing—no doors, no struggle, no nothing?

More questions than answers.

The phone rang, and Kate picked it up, half hoping, half dreading to hear Kovac on the other end of the line with news of the autopsy on victim number four.

“Kate Conlan.”

The polished voice of a secretary delivered unwelcome news of another variety. “Ms. Conlan? Mr. Sabin would like to see you in his office now.”