Kovacliska - Ashes To Ashes Part 45

"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 besharpening her knives. You with me, GQT' Quinn held up a hand inacknowledgment and signed off on his call. They grabbed their coats andwent 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 alleyslike dead leaves. Kovac pulled a brush out from under a pile of junk inthe backseat and swept off the winds.h.i.+elds, the hood, and thetaillights.

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

"No. I was fine. It was fine," Quinn said, not looking at him. He couldfeel Kovac's gaze on him. "Kate was so upset over that tape, I wanted tomake sure she was all right."

"Uh-huh. Was she? All right?"

"No. She thinks that body was her witness, that those screams were thescreams 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 theuncertainty there. He would rather have been able to say making love hadsolved all their problems, but that wasn't true. It had given them somesolace, reconnected their souls, and complicated everything. But, G.o.d,it had been like returning to heaven after years in purgatory.

Now what? The unspoken question had hung between them awkwardly asthey'd cleaned up, gotten dressed, grabbed bagels, and hustled out thedoor. There had been no morning afterglow touching, kissing, lingering pa.s.sion. There had been no time to talk, not that he could have gottenKate to. Her first tendency when feeling cornered was to retreat withinherself, shut the door, and stew. G.o.d knew he wasn't much better.

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

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

"Must have been in the shower." Quinn stayed poker-faced. "Did you leavea 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. Helooked 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 maynot be here right now."

Kovac flushed. More with guilt than anger, Quinn thought, though the copplayed the latter. "I did that case by the numbers."

"You took the express lane, Sam. How else do you explain missing thattattoo?"

"We asked. I'm sure we did. We must have," Kovac said, certain, thenless so, then not at all. He craned his neck and looked out the backwindow as he let his foot off the brake. "Maybe we didn't ask the rightperson. Maybe no one had noticed the G.o.dd.a.m.n thing."

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

Kovac gunned the engine, rocked the car out of its spot too fast, thenhit the brakes too hard. The Caprice slid on the slick wet snow and theback b.u.mper met the corner of a trash Dumpster with a nasty thud.

"s.h.i.+t!"

Quinn winced, then relaxed, his attention still on Kovac. "You neverchecked the Urskines' alibi when Lila White was killed."

"I didn't make them produce the receipt. What motive did they have tokill the woman? None. Besides, Toni Urskine was kicking up such a stinkthat 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 firstlungful outside. The Caprice still sat c.o.c.keyed, a.s.s up against theDumpster. Liska came out of the building and pointed at him, shaking herhead, 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 someonehad 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 backburner to make way for the taxpaying citizens getting murdered byjealous husbands and crack-crazed carjackers.

"I did what I could while I could," he said, staring out the winds.h.i.+eldat the falling snow.

"I believe you, Sam." Though Quinn thought Kovac did not entirelybelieve himself The regret was etched in the lines of his weatheredface.

"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 peagreencouch, silently inviting Rita Renner to take the other end, creating acertain sense of intimacy. A spring poked her in the b.u.t.t.

"About two years," Renner said, so softly Mary reached out to the smalltape recorder on the coffee table and pushed it closer. "We met downtownand 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 handresting rea.s.suringly on Renner's shoulder. Then she looked to RobMarshall, who hovered on the other side of the coffee table, lookingimpatient to be somewhere else. His left leg was jiggling like an idlingmotor.

"Yeah," she said. "We worked around the strip clubs and the TargetCenter."

Her voice sounded as if it were coming from another dimension. So quietand mousy, dressed in old jeans and a flannel s.h.i.+rt, she hardly lookedthe picture of a woman strutting her stuff for the h.o.r.n.y sleazeb.a.l.l.sthat trolled the seedier streets of Minneapolis, looking to pay for s.e.x.But then, this was the "reformed" Rita Renner, not the woman who hadbeen arrested for possession and found to keep her crack pipe in herv.a.g.i.n.a.

What a difference sobriety had made.

"Did she have any enemies? Did you ever see anybody ha.s.sle her on thestreet?"

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 caughtthe guy and he went away, but not for raping Fawn. He did some womanaccountant 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 hedone to her."

"Testimony about other possible crimes committed by a defendant isn'tadmissible in court, Ms. Renner," Rob said, "That seems unfair, doesn't.i.t?"

"It sucks."

"Someone should have explained that to Ms. Pierce. Do you know if sheever met with anyone from victim/witness services?" "Yeah. She said it was a bunch of s.h.i.+t. 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 att.i.tudes 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 s.h.i.+rttail 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 b.u.t.t. 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