Kovacliska - Ashes To Ashes Part 40

CHAPTER 19.

THE HOUSE WAS DARK. The neighborhood was dark.

People living on Lake of the Isles kept civilized hours. In Kovac'sneighborhood there was always a light on somewhere-people coming inlate, going to work early, watching infornercials.

Kovac parked on the street at the edge of Bondurant's property and madea complete circuit of the place on foot through the fresh snow. Fresh,wet snow. Heavy and sticky, it clung to his pant legs and worked downinto his shoes, but he ignored it, his attention on the mansion thatseemed to loom even larger in the dark than in the light.

Security lights marked entrances on the back side. There were no lightsvisible in the house. If Peter Bondurant was watching TV, learning howto get buns of steel, he was in some windowless room in the heart of hishome.

Some home. It looked like something out of medieval England, likesomeplace that would have a torture chamber in the bas.e.m.e.nt. For all heknew, it did have.

Christ, wouldn't that be just his luck? He'd have to be the one to tellthe world billionaire Peter Big Deal Bondurant was a homicidal lunatic.

The mayor would have his throat cut and dispose of his body in thefootings of the new jail. The bigwigs wanted a killer caught, all right.

And this killer would preferably be a bug-eyed, drooling ex-con fromWisconsin.

Circling back around to his car, he kicked the snow off his legs andfeet, slid in behind the wheel, and started the engine, setting theanemic heater to full blast. T The bones in his feet and ankles and s.h.i.+ns had absorbed the cold into their marrow, and it was now making itsway up his legs like mercury in a thermometer.

He dug his cell phone out from under a pile of junk on the seat anddialed Bondurant's home number. Quinn had called to tell him Kate hadspotted Bondurant in the back at the meeting, hiding out among thecommon folk. The guy was a twitch. He was holding out on them about thatlast night with Jillian, and G.o.d knew what else.

The phone rang.

It burned his a.s.s that Bondurant got special treatment, was privy toinformation, didn't have to come downtown to make a statement. It waswrong. They should have been able to rattle his cage same as anyoneelse's.

On the fifth ring the answering machine picked Lip and an emotionlessvoice gave instructions. Kovac left his name and number, and a requestfor a return call.

He put the car in gear, rolled up to the intercom panel at the securitygate, and hit the buzzer. No one responded. He sat there for anotherfive minutes, leaning on the buzzer again and again, well schooled inhow to be an a.s.shole to get someone's attention. No one ever responded.

A prowl car from a private security company came by and a weightlifterin a spiffy uniform asked to see his ID. Then he was alone again, leftto stare up at Peter Bondurant's house and wonder what secrets hidinside.

Some people didn't answer their phones when they rang after midnight.

Not the parents of missing children. Maybe Peter Bondurant neveranswered his gate buzzer, and was, even at that moment, cowering in hisbed, waiting for a mob of the desperate poor to burst in and loot hishouse. But he hadn't been the one to call in the security car. Routinedriveby, the weightlifter had said.

Kovac stared at the house and let seventeen years of experience tell himthere was no one in. Peter Bondurant was not at home in the dead of this night when their witness had gone missing. Peter Bondurant, who demandedanswers but refused to give any. Peter Bondurant, who had fought withhis daughter the night she disappeared, then lied about it. PeterBondurant, who had the power to crush a cop's career like an empty beer can.

I'm probably a moron for sitting here, he thought. Vanlees was their hotticket. Vanlees looked to fit Quinn's profile. He had a history.

He'd known Jillian, had access to her town house. He even drove theright kind of vehicle.

But there was still something off about Peter Bondurant. He could feelit like hives just under his skin, and come h.e.l.l or high water, he wasgoing to find out what.

He sighed, s.h.i.+fted his weight to a new uncomfortable position, and settled in, lighting a cigarette. What the h.e.l.l did he need with apension anyway?

THE CORPSES FLOATED above him like logs. Naked, rotting bodies. Torn,hacked apart, riddled with holes. Decomposing flesh shredded away fromthe wounds. Fish food. Eels swam in and out of the bodies through thegaping holes.

Quinn looked up at the bodies from below, trying to identify each one byname in the dim blue watery light. He was out of oxygen. His lungs wereburning. But he couldn't go to the surface until he had identified everybody and named the killer that went with each.

The bodies bobbed and s.h.i.+fted position. Decaying limbs fell away fromtorsos and sank toward him. Below him, a bed of lush green weeds caughtat his feet like the tentacles of a squid.

He needed to think hard. Names. Dates. Facts. But he couldn't remember all the names. He didn't know all the killers. Random facts raced through his head. The bodies seemed to be multiplying, kept drifting andbobbing. He was running out of air.

He couldn't breathe, couldn't think.

He struck out with his arms, trying to grab hold of anything that mighthelp pull him up. But the hands he caught hold of were cold and dead,and held him under. The bodies and his responsibility to them held himunder.

He had to think hard. He could solve the puzzles if only the pieceswould stop moving, if only his thoughts would stop racing, if only hecould breathe.

The bodies s.h.i.+fted again above him, and he could see Kate's face on theother side of the surface, looking down at him. Then the bodies s.h.i.+ftedagain and she was gone.

Just as it felt as if his lungs were starting to bleed, he gave one lasthard kick and broke the surface of the water and the dream, gasping forair, coming up off the bed. Sweat drenched his body, ran off the end ofhis nose and down the valley of his spine.

He staggered away from the bed, his legs weak beneath him, and fell intothe chair by the writing desk, shaking now as the air chilled him.Naked, shaking, sweating, sick, the taste of bile and blood bitter inhis mouth.

He sat doubled over the wastebasket, his focus not entirely on thewrithing fire in his belly. As ever, there was the sound of that innervoice that always found him wanting, and never hesitated to kick himwhen he was down. It told him he didn't have time for this s.h.i.+t. He had cases to work, people depending on him; if he lost his focus and f.u.c.kedup, people could die. If he f.u.c.ked up bad enough, if anyone found outwhat a mess his head was, that he'd lost his nerve and his edge, he'd beout of a job. And if he didn't have the job, he didn't have anything,because it wasn't just what he did, it was all he was, all he had.

The dream was nothing new, nothing to shake over, nothing to waste hisenergy on. He had any number of variations on that one.

They were all stupidly simple to interpret, and he always felt vaguelyembarra.s.sed for having them at all. He didn't have time for it.

He could hear exactly what Kate would have to say about that She wouldgive him the sharp side of her tongue and another lecture on Superman,then try to make him drink herbal tea. She would try to mask her concernand her maternal instincts with the wise-a.s.s sarcasm that seemed so much safer and more familiar and more in character with the image others hadof her.

She would pretend he didn't know her better.

And then she'd call him a cab and shove him out of her house.

"Let's just call ourselves old ftiends and leave it at that, huh? Youdidn't come here for me, John. You would have done that years ago if itwas what you wanted."

That was what she thought, that he hadn't come because he didn't wanther. Maybe that was what she wanted to think. She was the one who hadwalked away. It justified her action to believe there'd been no reasonto stay.

Still feeling weak, he went to the window that looked out on a wedge ofdowntown Minneapolis and an empty street filling with snow.

R*at he wanted. He wasn't sure what that even was anymore. He didn'tallow himself to want outside the scope of the job. A lead, a piece ofevidence, a fresh insight to help pry open a killer's head. He couldwant those things. But what was the point in wanting what couldn't hehad?

The point was whether or not to allow himself hope.

"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." His ownwords. His own voice. His own wisdom. Coming right back around to bitehim in the a.s.s.

He didn't ask the point of his life. He lived to work and he worked tolive. He was as simple and pathetic as that. That was the Quinn machineof perpetual function. The trouble was he could feel the wheels comingloose. What would happen when one came off altogether?

Closing his eyes, he saw the corpses again, and felt the panic wash downthrough him, a cold, internal acid rain. He could hear his unit chiefdemanding answers, explanations, prodding for results. "The directorchewed my tail for half an hour. Bondurant isn't the guy to p.i.s.s off,John. What the h.e.l.l's wrong with you?"

Tears burned his eyes as the answer called up from the hollow in thecenter of his chest: I've lost it. His edge, his nerve, his instincts.He felt it all torn asunder and scattered to too many parts of thecountry.

He didn't have the time to go hunting for the pieces. He could onlypretend he was intact and hope not too many people caught on.

"Are you getting anywhere with this? Have they developed a suspect?

You know what they're looking for, don't you? It's prettystraightforward, isn't it?"

Sure it was. If you looked at the murders of two prost.i.tutes and ignoredthe fact that Peter Bondurant's daughter may or may not have been thethird victim. If you pretended Peter Bondurant's behavior was normal. Ifyou didn't have a hundred unanswered questions about the enigma that wasJillian Bondurant. If this was simply about the murder of prost.i.tutes,he could have pulled a profile out of a textbook and never leftQuantico.

But if this were simply about the murders of two prost.i.tutes, no onewould ever have called his office.

Giving up on the notion of sleep, he brushed his teeth, took a shower,pulled on sweat pants and his academy sweats.h.i.+rt. He sat down at thedesk with the murder book and a bottle of antacid, drinking straight outof the bottle as he browsed through the reports.

Wedged in between pages was the packet of photographs Mary Moss hadgotten from Lila White's parents. Pictures of Lila White alive andhappy, and laughing at her little girl's birthday party. Her lifestylehad aged her beyond her years, but he could easily see the pretty girlshe had once been before the drugs and the disillusioned dreams. Herdaughter was a doll with blond pigtails and a pixie's face.

One shot captured mother and daughter in bathing suits in a plasticwading pool, Lila on her knees with the little girl hugged close infront of her, both of them smiling the same crooked smile.

It had to break her parents' hearts to look at this, Quinn thought.

In the baby's face they would see their daughter as she had been whenher world was simple and sunny and full of wonderful possibility. And inLila's face they would see the lines of hard lessons learned,disappointment, and failure. And the hope for something better. Hopethat had been rewarded with a brutal death not long after thesephotographs had been taken.

Quinn sighed as he held the picture under the lamplight, committing LilaWhite's image to memory: the style of her hair, the crooked smile, theslight b.u.mp in the bridge of her nose, the curve where her shoulder mether neck. She would join the others who haunted his sleep.

As he went to set the picture aside, something caught his eye and hepulled it back. Half obscured by the strap of her swimming suit was asmall tattoo on her upper right chest. Quinn found his magnifying gla.s.sand held the snapshot under the light again for closer scrutiny.

A flower. A lily, he thought.

With one hand he flipped through the murder book to the White autopsyphotos. There were about a third of the photos of the victim believed tobe Jillian Bondurant. Still, he found what he was looking for: a shotshowing a section of flesh missing from Lila White's upper rightchest-and no tattoo in sight.

KATE SAT CURLED into the corner of the old green leather sofa in herstudy, another gla.s.s of Sapphire on the table beside her. She'd lost count of its number. Didn't care. It took the sharp corners off the painthat a.s.saulted her on several different fronts. That was all that mattered tonight.

How had her life taken such a sudden left turn? Things had been going sosmoothly, then BAM! Ninety degrees hard to port, and everything fell outof the neat little cubicles into a jumbled mess that came up to herchin.

She hated the feeling that she didn't have control. She hated the ideaof her past rear-ending her. She'd been doing so well. Focus forward,concentrate on what was ahead of her for the day, for the week. Shetried not to think too much about the past. She tried never to thinkabout Quinn. She never ever allowed the memory of his mouth on hers.

She lifted a hand and touched her lips, thinking she still felt the heatof him there. She took another drink, thinking she could still tastehim.

She had more important things to think about. Whether or not Angie wa.s.still alive. Whether or not they had a hope in h.e.l.l of getting her back.

She'd made the dreaded call to Rob Marshall to inform him of the situation.

He had the unenviable task of pa.s.sing the news on to the countyattorney.

Sabin would spend the rest of the night contemplating methods oftorture.

Tomorrow Kate figured she would be burned at the stake.

But a confrontation with Ted Sabin was the least of her worries.

Nothing he could do to her could punish her more than she would punishherself.

Every time she closed her eyes she saw the blood.

I should have stayed with her. If Id been there for her, she would stillbe alive.

And every time she thought that, Angie's face morphed into Emily's, andthe pain bit deeper and held on harder. Quinn had accused her of being amartyr, but martyrs suffered without sin, and she took full blame. ForEmily. For Angie.

If she'd just gone into the house with the girl .. . If she'd justpressed a little harder to get a little closer .. . But she'd pulledback because a part of her didn't want to get that close or care thatmuch.

Christ, this was why she didn't do kids: They needed too much and shewas too afraid of the potential for pain to give it.

"And I thought I was doing so well."

She rose from the couch just to see if she could still stand withoutaid, and went to the ma.s.sive old oak desk that had been her father's.

She picked up the phone and dialed the number for her voice mail,feeling the lump form in her throat before she punched the code toretrieve the messages. She'd listened three times already. She skippedthrough messages from David Willis and her cooking instructor to hit theone she wanted.

10:05 P.m the mechanical voice announced. A long silence followed thetone.

10:08 P.m. Another long silence.

10:10 P.m. Another long silence.

She had left the cell phone in the truck. Hadn't wanted to go back outto get it because she was spooked. Any callers could leave a message.

She'd check her voice mail later, she remembered thinking.

If those calls had come from Angie .. .

But there was no way of knowing, and nothing to do but wonder and wait.

THE CALL CAME into Hennepin County 911 dispatch at 3:49 A.M. A car fire.Kovac listened with one ear out of habit. He was cold to the bone. His feet felt like blocks of ice. Snow blew in the window he had keptcracked open to prevent carbon monoxide poisoning. Maybe he should setthis car on fire. The heat could thaw his blood out, and the powers thatruled the motor pool could move him up to something better-like aHyundai with a hamster wheel under the hood.

And then came the address, and adrenaline instantly burned off thechill.

They'd sure as h.e.l.l drawn Smokey Joe out with the meeting, all right. Hegunned the engine and rocked the car away from the curb and onto thestreet half a block down from Peter Bondurant's empty house.

Their killer had just lit up his fourth victim .. . in the parking lotof the community center where the meeting had been held.

CHAPTER 20.

KATE RAN OUT THE BACK DOOR with her coat half on, half off.

She had managed to pull on a pair of snow boots, but the heavy soleswere little help as she hit the ice on the steps. An involuntary shriekraked her throat as she tumbled down into the yard, where what looked tobe half a foot of wet snow cus.h.i.+oned her landing. She didn't even allowherself to catch her breath, but kept her legs moving and pushed herselfupright.