Ashes to Ashes

26

CHAPTER

“SO, IS THIS Sergeant Kovac coming or what?”

Liska checked her watch as she walked back into the interview room. It was almost noon and the room was uncomfortably hot. Vanlees had been waiting almost an hour, and he wasn't liking it.

“He's on his way. He should be here anytime now. I called him the minute you said you'd come talk, Gil. He really wants to get your take on things regarding Jillian. But, you know, he's over at that autopsy—the woman that got lit up last night. That's why he's running late. It won't be much longer.”

She'd given him that line at least three times, and he was clearly tired of hearing it.

“Yeah, well, you know I want to help, but I got other things to do,” he said. He sat across the table from her wearing work clothes—navy pants and shirt. Like a janitor might wear, Liska thought. Or like a cop uniform with no embellishments. “I've got to work this afternoon—”

“Oh, you're squared with that.” She waved off his concern. “I called your boss and cleared it. Didn't want you getting into trouble for being a good citizen.”

He looked as if he didn't like that idea much either. He shifted on his chair. His gaze went to the mirror on the wall behind Liska. “You know we have one of those at the Target Center, back in the offices. Anybody on the other side?”

Liska blinked innocence. “Why would there be anybody on the other side? It's not like you're under arrest. You're here to help us.”

Vanlees stared at the glass.

Liska turned and stared at it too, wondering how she must look to Quinn. Like some worn-out barfly in a smoky lounge, no doubt. If the bags under her eyes got any bigger, she was going to need a luggage cart to carry them. The middle of a serial murder investigation was not the time to want to impress anyone with her fresh good looks.

“So you heard about the fourth victim,” she said, turning back to Vanlees. “That's some balls this guy has, lighting her up in that parking lot, huh?”

“Yeah, like he's trying to send a message or something.”

“Arrogant. That's what Quinn says. Smokey Joe's flipping us off.”

Vanlees frowned. “Smokey Joe? I thought you called him the Cremator.”

“That's what the press calls him. To us, he's Smokey Joe.” She leaned across the table to suggest intimacy. “Don't tell anyone I told you that. It's supposed to be just an inside cop thing—you know?”

Vanlees nodded, hip to the ways of the cop world. Cool with the inside secrets. Mr. Professional.

“SHE'S GOOD,” QUINN said, watching through the glass. He and Kovac had been standing there twenty minutes, biding their time, watching, waiting, letting Gil Vanlees's nerves work on him.

“Yeah. No one ever suspects Tinker Bell will work them over.” Kovac sniffed at the lapel of his suit and made a face. “Jesus, I stink. Eau de autopsy with a hint of smoke. So what do you think of this mutt?”

“He's twitchy. I think we can scare him a little here, then ride his tail from the second he leaves. See what he does. If he spooks hard enough, you might get a search warrant out of it,” Quinn said, his eyes never leaving Vanlees. “He fits in a lot of ways, but he's not the sharpest knife in the drawer, is he?”

“Maybe he just plays it stupid so people expect less of him. I've seen that more than once.”

Quinn made a noncommittal sound. As a rule, the type of killer they were looking for went out of his way to show off what brains he had. That vanity was a common downfall. Invariably, they were not as smart as they wanted to believe, and screwed up trying to show off to the cops.

“Let him know you know about the window peeping,” Quinn said. “Press on that nerve. He won't like it. He won't want cops thinking he's a pervert. And if he's held to the usual pattern, if he's looked in windows, he's maybe tried fetish burglaries. These guys work their way up. Fish in that pond a little.

“Keep him off balance,” he suggested. “Let him think you might do something crazy, that you're fighting with yourself to keep control. The case and the brilliance of this killer are pushing you to the edge. Suggest it, don't admit it. Put all your acting skills to use.”

Kovac jerked his tie loose and mussed his hair. “Acting? You'll want to give me the fucking Oscar.”

“DO THEY KNOW yet who the vic is?” Vanlees asked.

The vic.

“I heard they found her ID during the autopsy,” Liska said. “Kovac wouldn't tell me about it, except to say it made him sick. He said he wants to find this sick son of a bitch and stick something in him.”

“It was in her body?” Vanlees said with a mix of horror and fascination. “I read about a case like that once.”

“You read true crime?”

“Some,” he admitted cautiously. “It gives me insights.”

Into what? Nikki wondered. “Yeah, me too. So what was the guy's story?”

“His mother was a prostitute, and because of that he hated prostitutes, and so he killed them. And he always stuck something in their—” He caught himself and blushed. “Well, you know . . .”

Liska didn't blink. “Vagina?”

Vanlees looked away and shifted on his chair again. “It's really hot in here.”

He picked up a glass, but it was empty and so was the plastic pitcher on the table.

“What do you suppose the killer gets out of that?” Liska asked, watching him closely. “Sticking things in a woman's vagina. You think it makes him feel tough? Powerful? What?

“Is it disrespect on an adult level?” she posed. “It always strikes me as something a snotty brat little boy would do—if he knew what a vagina was. Like sticking beans up his nose, or wanting to poke the eyes out of a dead cat in the road. It seems juvenile somehow, but on this job I see where grown men do it all the time. What's your take on that, Gil?”

He frowned. A single bead of sweat skimmed down the side of his face. “I don't have one.”

“Well, you must, all the studying and true crime reading you've done. Put yourself in the killer's place. Why would you want to stick some foreign object up a woman's vagina? Because you couldn't do the job with your dick? Is that it?”

Vanlees had turned pink. He wouldn't look at her. “Shouldn't Kovac be here by now?”

“Any minute.”

“I gotta use the men's room,” he mumbled. “Maybe I should go do that.”

The door swung open and Kovac walked in—hair mussed, tie jerked loose, rumpled suit hanging on him like a wet sack. He scowled at Liska, then turned it on Vanlees.

“This is him?”

Liska nodded. “Gil Vanlees, Sergeant Kovac.”

Vanlees started to offer his hand. Kovac stared at it as if it were covered with shit.

“I got four women hacked up like Halloween pumpkins and burned to a crisp. I'm in no mood to fuck around. Where were you last night between the hours of ten and two A.M.?”

Vanlees looked as if he'd been hit in the face. “What—?”

“Sam,” Liska said with annoyance. “Mr. Vanlees came in to give us some insight on—”

“I want his insight on last night between ten and two. Where were you?”

“Home.”

“Home where? I understand your wife threw you out for wagging your willy at a friend of hers.”

“That was a misunderstanding—”

“Between you and your johnson, or between you and this broad whose windows you were looking in?”

“It wasn't like that.”

“It never is. Tell me: How much time did you spend looking in Jillian Bondurant's windows?”

His face was crimson now. “I didn't—”

“Oh, come on. She was kind of a hot little ticket, wasn't she? Curvy. Exotic. Dressed a little provocatively—those filmy little dresses and combat boots and dog collars and shit like that. A guy might want a piece of that—especially if the home fires went out, you know what I'm saying?”

“I don't like what you're saying.” Vanlees looked to Liska. “Do I need a lawyer? Should I have a lawyer here?”

“Jesus, Sam,” Liska said, disgusted. She turned to Vanlees. “I'm sorry, Gil.”

“Don't apologize for me!” Kovac snapped.

Vanlees looked warily from one to the other. “What is this? Good cop–bad cop? I'm not stupid. I don't need to take this shit.”

He started to get out of his chair. Kovac lunged toward him, wild-eyed, pointing at him with one hand and slamming the other on the tabletop. “Sit! Please!”

Vanlees dropped back into the chair, his face washing white. Making an obvious show to control himself, Kovac pulled himself back one step and then another, lifting his hands and lowering his head, breathing heavily through his mouth.

“Please,” he said more quietly. “Please. Sit. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.”

He paced for a minute between the table and the door, watching Vanlees out of the corner of his eye. Vanlees was looking at him the way he might look at a wild gorilla had he found himself accidentally locked in the pen with one at the Como Park Zoo.

“Do I need a lawyer?” he asked Liska again.

“Why would you need a lawyer, Gil? You haven't done anything wrong that I know of. You're not under arrest. But if you think you need one . . .”

He looked between the two detectives, trying to figure out if this was some kind of trick.

“I'm sorry,” Kovac said as he pulled a chair out at the end of the table and sat down. Shaking his head, he fished a cigarette out of his shirt pocket, lit it, and took a long drag.

“I've had about three hours of sleep all week,” he said on a breath of smoke. “I've just come from one of the worst autopsies I've seen in years.” He shook his head and stared at the table. “What was done to this woman—”

He let the silence drag, smoking his cigarette as if they were all in the break room taking their fifteen minutes away from the desk. Finally, he stubbed it out on the sole of his shoe and dropped the butt in an empty coffee cup. He rubbed his hands over his face and combed his mustache with his thumbs.

“Where is it you're living now, Gil?” he asked.

“On Lyndale—”

“No. I mean this friend you're house-sitting for. Where is that?”

“Over by Lake Harriet.”

“We'll need an address. Give it to Nikki here before you go. How long you been doing that—house-sitting?”

“Off and on. The guy travels a lot.”

“What's he do?”

“He imports electronics and sells them over the Internet. Computers and stereos, and stuff like that.”

“So why don't you just bunk in with him all the time and dump the apartment?”

“He's got a girlfriend. She lives with him.”

“She there now?”

“No. She travels with him.”

“So, how about you, Gil? You seeing anybody?”

“No.”

“No? You been separated for a while. A man has needs.”

Liska made a sound of disgust. “Like you think a woman doesn't?”

Kovac gave her a perturbed look. “Tinks, your needs are common knowledge. Would you pretend for a minute you're not liberated and go get us some more water? It's hotter than hell in here.”

“I don't mind the heat,” she said. “But the way you smell could turn the stomach of a sewer rat. Jeez, Sam.”

“Just get the water.”

He shrugged out of his suit jacket and let it fall inside out over the back of his chair as Liska left grumbling. Vanlees watched her go, unhappy.

“Sorry about the stink,” Kovac said. “You ever wanted to know what a charred dead body smells like, now's your chance. Breathe deep.”

Vanlees just looked at him.

“So, you never answered my question, Gil. Do you pay for it? You like hookers? You see a lot of them around where you work. Pay them enough, you can do what you like. Some of them will even let you knock 'em around a little, if you're into that. Tie them down, stuff like that.”

“Detective Liska said you wanted to talk to me about Ms. Bondurant,” Vanlees said stiffly. “I don't know anything about those other murders.”

Kovac paused, rolling up his shirtsleeves and gave him the cop stare. “But you know something about Jillian's murder?”

“No! That's not what I meant.”

“What do you know about Jillian, Gil?”

“Just how she was around the Edgewater, that's all. My take on her. Like that.”

Kovac nodded and sat back. “So how was she? She ever come on to you?”

“No! She mostly kept her head down, didn't talk much.”

“She didn't talk to anyone or she didn't talk to you? Maybe she didn't like the way you watched her, Gil,” he said, poking once again at the sore spot.

Sweat beaded on Vanlees's forehead. “I didn't watch her.”

“Did you flirt with her? Come on to her?”

“No.”

“You had a key to her place. You ever go in there when she wasn't around?”

“No!” The denial did not come with eye contact.

Kovac went for another of Quinn's hunches. “Ever dig through her panty drawer, maybe take a souvenir?”

“No!” Vanlees shoved his chair back from the table and got to his feet. “I don't like this. I came in here to help you. You shouldn't treat me like this.”

“So help me, Gil,” Kovac said with a nonchalant shrug. “Give me something I can use. You ever see a boyfriend hanging around her place?”

“No. Just that friend of hers—Michele. And her father. He came over sometimes. He owns her place, you know.”

“Yeah, I suppose. The guy's as rich as Rockefeller. You ever think maybe this deal with Jillian was a kidnapping? Someone wanting to tap in to the father lode, so to speak? You ever see any suspicious characters hanging around, scoping out the place?”

“No.”

“And you've been hanging around enough to notice, isn't that right?”

“I work there.”

“Not exactly, but what the hay—saying so gives you just cause to be there, check out the various apartments, maybe do a little lingerie shopping.”

Purple in the face, Vanlees declared, “I'm leaving now.”

“But we've barely started,” Kovac protested.

The door swung open again and Liska came in with the water. Quinn held the door and came in behind her. In contrast to Kovac, he looked crisp and fresh except for the dark circles under his eyes and the lines etched deep beside them. His face was a hard, emotionless mask. He took a paper cup from Liska, filled it with water, and drank it down slowly before he said a word. Vanlees's gaze was on him the whole time.

“Mr. Vanlees, John Quinn, FBI,” he said, holding out his hand.

Vanlees was quick to accept the gesture. His hand was wide and clammy with stubby fingers. “I've read about you. It's an honor to meet you.”

He took his seat again as Quinn went to the chair directly across from him. Quinn slipped his dark suit jacket off and hung it neatly on the back of the chair. He smoothed his gray silk tie as he sat down.

“You know a little about me, do you, Mr. Vanlees?”

“Yeah. Some.”

“Then you probably have some idea how my mind works,” Quinn said. “You probably know what conclusion I might draw looking at the history of a man who wanted to be a cop but couldn't cut it, a man with a history of window peeping and fetish burglary—”

Vanlees's face dropped. “I'm not—I didn't—”

Liska picked up the Polaroid camera sitting on the table and quickly took his picture.

Vanlees jumped as the flash went off. “Hey!”

“A man whose wife has evicted him and criticizes his sexual abilities,” Quinn went on.

“What? She said what?” Vanlees sputtered. His expression now was a mix of torment and embarrassment and disbelief. A man caught awake in a nightmare. He came out of the chair once more to pace. Circles of sweat ringed the armpits of his dark shirt. “I can't believe this!”

“You knew Jillian Bondurant,” Quinn went on without emotion. “You were watching her.”

He denied it again, shaking his head, his eyes on the floor as he paced. “I didn't. I don't care what that bitch told you.”

“What bitch is that?” Quinn asked calmly.

Vanlees stopped and looked at him. “That friend of hers. She said something about me, didn't she?”

“That friend whose name you didn't know?” Liska asked. She stood between Quinn and Kovac, looking tough. “You told me you didn't know her. But you said her name not five minutes ago, Gil. Michele. Michele Fine. Why would you lie to me about knowing her?”

“I didn't. I don't know her. Her name just slipped my mind, that's all.”

“And if you'd lie to me about a little thing like that,” Liska said, “I've got to wonder what else you'd lie about.”

Vanlees glared at them, red in the face, tears in his eyes, mouth quivering with temper. “Fuck you people. You've got nothing on me. I'm leaving. I came here to help you and you treat me like a common criminal. Fuck you!”

“Don't sell yourself short, Mr. Vanlees,” Quinn said. “If you're the man we're looking for, there's nothing common about you.”

Vanlees said nothing. No one stopped him from throwing open the door. He stormed out, his steps hurried as he made for the men's room down the hall.

Kovac leaned against the doorjamb, watching. “Touchy guy.”

“Almost like he has something to feel guilty about.” Liska looked up at Quinn. “What do you think?”

Quinn watched Vanlees bull the men's room door open with his shoulder, already reaching for his fly with his other hand. He adjusted the knot in his tie and stroked a hand down the strip of silk. “I think I'll go freshen up.”

The stench in the men's room was hot and fresh. Vanlees was not at the urinals. One pair of thick-soled black work shoes showed beneath the stalls. Quinn went to the sinks, turned on a faucet, filled his cupped hands, and rinsed his face. The toilet flushed and a moment later Vanlees emerged, sweaty and pale. He froze in his tracks at the sight of Quinn.

“Everything all right, Mr. Vanlees?” Quinn asked without real concern as he dried his hands on a paper towel.

“You're harassing me,” he accused.

Quinn raised his brows. “I'm drying my hands.”

“You followed me in here.”

“Just making sure you're all right, Gil.” My buddy, my pal. “I know you're upset. I don't blame you. But I want you to realize this isn't personal. I'm not after you personally. I'm after a killer. I have to do what I have to do to make that happen. You understand that, don't you? What I'm after is the truth, justice, nothing more, nothing less.”

“I didn't hurt Jillian,” Vanlees said defensively. “I wouldn't.”

Quinn weighed the statements carefully. He never expected a serial killer to admit to anything. Many of them spoke of their crimes in the third person, even after they had been proven guilty beyond any doubt. And many referred to the side of themselves that was capable of committing murder as a separate entity. The evil twin syndrome, he called it. It enabled those with some small scrap of conscience to rationalize, to push the guilt away from themselves and onto their dark side.

The Gil Vanlees standing before him wouldn't kill anyone. But what about his dark side?

“Do you know someone who would hurt Jillian, Gil?” he asked.

Vanlees frowned at his feet. “No.”

“Well, in case you think of someone.” Quinn held out a business card.

Vanlees took it reluctantly and looked at the front and the back, as if searching for some tiny homing device embedded in the paper.

“We need to stop this killer, Gil,” Quinn said, giving him a long, level stare. “He's a bad, bad guy, and I'll do whatever I have to do to put him away. Whoever he is.”

“Good,” Vanlees murmured. “I hope you do.”

He slipped the card into his breast pocket and left the men's room without washing his hands. Quinn frowned and turned back to the sink, staring at himself hard in the mirror, as if he might be able to see some sign in his own visage, some secret sure knowledge that Gil Vanlees was the one.

The pieces were there. If they all fit together right . . . If the cops could come up with just one piece of evidence . . .

Kovac came in a moment later and reeled backward at the lingering smell. “Jeez! What'd that guy eat for breakfast—roadkill?”

“Nerves,” Quinn said.

“Wait'll he figures out there's a cop on his tail every time he turns around.”

“Let's hope he bolts. If you can get in his truck, you might hit pay dirt. Or maybe he's just another pathetic loser who's a couple of clicks to the right of killing anybody. And the real Smokey Joe is sitting home right now, jerking off as he listens to one of his torture tapes.”

“Speaking of, the techno-geek at the BCA called,” Kovac said. “He thinks we'll want to come listen to that tape from last night now that he's played with it.”

“Could he pull out the killer's voice?”

“Killers, plural,” Kovac said soberly. “He thinks there's two of them. And get this. He thinks one is a woman.”

KATE WALKED INTO Sabin's office, thinking it had been just a matter of days since the meeting that had brought her into this case. In some ways it seemed like a year. In that span of days, her life had changed. And it wasn't over yet. Not by a long shot.

Sabin and Rob rose from their chairs. Sabin looking tired and dour. Rob sprang up. His small eyes seemed too bright in his pumpkin head, and he looked as if he had a temperature. The fever of self-righteous indignation.

“So where's the guy with the black hood and the ax?” Kate asked, stopping behind the chair intended for her.

Sabin frowned as if she'd just spoiled his opening line.

Rob looked to him. “See? That's exactly what I'm talking about!”

“Kate, this is hardly the time for cracking jokes,” Sabin said.

“Was I joking? I've managed to lose the only witness in the biggest murder investigation the Cities have seen in years. You're not giving me the ax? After last night, I'm surprised Rob isn't holding it himself.”

“Don't think I wouldn't like to be,” Rob said. “You're entirely too flip, Kate. I've had it with your attitude toward me. You have no respect.”

She turned to Sabin, discounting her boss without saying a word. “But . . . ?”

“But I'm intervening, Kate,” Sabin said, taking his seat. “This is a highly charged situation. Tempers are running high all around.”

“But she always treats me like this!”

“Stop whining, Rob,” Sabin ordered. “She's also the best advocate you've got. You know it. You suggested her for this assignment for very specific reasons.”

“Need I remind you, we no longer have a witness?”

Sabin glared at him. “No, you don't need to remind me.”

“Angie was my responsibility,” Kate said. “No one is more sorry about this than I am. If I could do anything— If I could go back to yesterday and do something differently—”

“You delivered the girl to the Phoenix last night yourself. Isn't that right?” Sabin said in his prosecutor's voice.

“Yes.”

“And the house was supposedly under surveillance by the police. Isn't that right?”

“Yes.”

“Then I blame this nightmare on them. Whatever became of the girl—whether she was taken or left on her own—is their fault, not yours.”

Kate glanced at her watch, thinking the autopsy was long over by now. If there had been any definitive proof the body in the car last night was Angie's, Sabin would know.

“I want you to remain available to the case, Kate—”

“Do we know—” she began, her heart rate picking up as she struggled to phrase the question, as if the answer would depend on how she put it. “The victim in the car—have you heard one way or the other?”

Rob gave her a nasty look. “Oh, didn't one of your police buddies call you from the morgue?”

“I'm sure they're a little busy today.”

“The victim's driver's license was found during the autopsy.” He drew a breath to deliver the news fast and hard, then seemed to think better of it. At that hesitation, Kate felt her nerves tighten. “Maybe you should sit down, Kate,” he said, overly solicitous.

“No.” Already chills were racing up and down her body, raising goose bumps in the wake. Her fingers tightened on the back of the chair. “Why?”

Rob no longer looked smug or angry. His expression had gone carefully blank. “The victim was Melanie Hessler. Your client.”