Dust To Dust (32 page)

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Kovac vaulted up out of his chair. "That's more like it."

"They saw this truck pull up, but they didn't hear the gunshot?" Liska. asked, dubious.

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Pm
. h hear' g aids," Elwood said. "She's eightythree. But she's sharp as a tack."

"How's her eyesight?"

"Great with the Bausch and Lomb binoculars she keeps
on her coffee table."

"Light?" "Floodlights on the corners of her home. She's a neighborhood watch commander. She didn't recognize the truck, but she got the license number."

"Would she like my job after Leonard fires me?" "Did she see him leave?" Kovac asked.

"One thirty-two."

"That's earlier than the estimated TOD, but I'll take it."

Kovac scooped the Mike Fallon Polaroids into a drawer and, looking into his blank computer monitor, tried to straighten his tie. "Have Neil Fallon picked up for questioning," he said to Elwood. "I'll break the news to Leonard."

W H AT T H E H E L L is this about?" Neil Fallon demanded.

A pair of uniforms had pulled him out of his shop to bring him in. His filthy coveralls looked like the same ones he wore the day Kovac had told him about his brother. His hands were dark with dirt and grease.

"Jesus Christ, my brother and my father are dead and-and-you drag me down here like a fucking crirm,nal!" Fallon ranted as he paced hard in the tight confines of the interview room. The same room where jamal Jackson had cracked Kovac in the head. "No explanation. No apology"

"You are a fucking criminal," Kovac said, matter-of-fact. "We know about the assault conviction, Neil. Did you think we wouldn't check? Now, how about you give me an explanation and an apology?"

He stood with his arms crossed and his back against the wall beside the two-way imirror, watching Fallon's reaction. Liska stood opposite him, against the other wall. Elwood had the door. No one availle d-

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themselves of the chairs at the friendly little round table. The red light glowed on the video camera.

Fallon glared at him. "That was a long time ago, and it was bullshit besides. It was an accident."

"You accidentally beat some guy into a coma in a bar fight?" Liska said. "How does that work?"

"There was a fight. He fell and hit his head."

Kovac looked over at Elwood. "Isn't that what Cain said about Abel?"

"I believe so."

"How about you apologize for lying to me yesterday, Neil?" Kovac said. "How about you explain to me what you were doing at your father's house at one A.M. the same morning he died?"

Fallon ran out of gas abruptly. He tried to hold on to some of the anger in his expression. Beneath it was a layer of confusion, then suspicion, then fear. "What are you talking about? I-I don't know what you're talking about."

"Save it:'Liska advised. "A neighbor of your father's put your truck in his driveway at one A.M.
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"You told me yesterday the last time you spoke with him was on the phone that night." Kovac paused.

Fallon's eyes darted around the room as if he might see an explanation somewhere.

"Why would you he to me like that, Neil? Were you embarrassed you couldn't convince your old man to fork over the money you need to pay off your ex? If that's what you talked about in the twenty-three-nuinute phone call placed from your bar at eleven oh-seven Pm."

Fallon sucked in a short breath and then another, like an asthmatic on the verge of an attack. He rubbed the side of his neck with his thick, filthy hand.

Kovac shifted his weight lazily. "You're getting that 'oh, shit' look, Neil. Don't you think so, Tinks?"

"Oh, shit," she said. "It's sphincter spasm time, Neil."

"Did you think I wouldn't call the phone company and request the local usage records on your phone?" Kovac asked. "You must think I'm pretty fucking stupid, Neil."

"Why would you do that?" Fallon asked, nervous. "I'm not a suspect for anything.jesus, my father just killed himself-"

"And I'm sick of hearing you remind me. I'm the one found him

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with his head blown half off.You think you need to keep rerminding me of that? That's not an effective strategy, Neil.

"Someone dies a violent death like Mike did, it gets investigated," Kovac: said. "You know the first people who get looke
d at?
Family. 'Cause no one's got better motive to croak a person than a relative. You told me yourself.-You hated Mike. Add to that the fact that you need money to pay off your soon-to-be ex, and that Mike wouldn't give it to you.That's called motive."

The fear began to rise to the surface. Fallon's movements became jerky. Sweat rmisted his upper lip. He moved backward toward the corner with the built-in bookcase. All the shelves had been removed. "But he was my old man. I wouldn't do that to him. He was my father."

"And he spent thirty-some years telling you you weren't as good as your fag brother. That's what we call afestering wound,"

"He was a bastard," Fallon declared. "I won't say otherwise, but I didn't kill him. As for that bitch Cheryl, it's none of her goddamn business where I get the money. I'll pay her off."

"Or you'll lose the business you've busted your hump for," Liska said. "Hell hath no fury like a bitter, vindictive woman. I should know, I am one."

"I spoke with your ex," Kovac said. "She sounded like she's losing patience, ready to put the squeeze on you. Did you ask your brother for the money?"

He shook his head as if he'd taken a sharp smack in the ear, incredulous at this sudden downturn in his life. He looked from Liska to Kovac. "You gonna say I killed him too?"

"We're not saying you killed anybody, Neil. We're just asking you questions pertinent to our case, that's all. That and pointing out how things look from the police perspective."

"Stick your perspective up your ass, Kovac. Andy's not your case. That's over. Dead and buried. Ashes to ashes and dust to dust. The brass signed off."

Kovac arched a brow. "And you're trying to rub my face in that for what reason?"

"I'm just saying it's over."

"But see, we have to look at an established pattern of behavior here, Neil. One member of the family offi himself, that's one thing. Two in a week? That's something else. You hated them both. You're

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going through a rough time emotionally and financially. We call those factors precipitating stressors. Stressors that might be enough to push a guy over the line.You have a record of violent behavior-"

"I didn't kill anybody,"

"What were you doing at Mike's house at that time of Might?"

"I went to check on him," Fallon said, his gaze sliding away. Absently, he touched his face just below the bruise on the crest of his cheek. "We'd talked earlier. I didn't like the way he sounded."

"The way he sounded or what he had to say?" Kovac asked. "We know you'd been drinking. You told me so. You told me you were tanked enough to mix it up with a customer, the guy you made for a cop. Did your old man say something to piss you offl"

"It wasn't like that."

"How wasn't it like that? You're gonna try to tell
me now your family was like something out of Ozzie and Harriet?"

"No, but-"

"You told me Mike was always chewing your ass. How was this different? What did you talk about?"

"I told you yesterday-what time he wanted to be at the funeral home."

"Yeah, you told me yesterday. Why didn't you tell me then
you hadn't liked the way he sounded?You didn't say anything about having been concerned. In fact, if memory serves, you called him an old prick. Why didn't you tell me you'd been to the house to check on him?"

Fallon turned around in a slow circle, left hand massaging his forehead, right hand on his hip. "He killed himself after I left," he said, lowering his voice. "I didn't do a very good job seeing to his needs, did I? His only living son . . ."

"What did he need? What did he say?"

Kovac waited and watched as Neil Fallon paced his little circle. His bull shoulders curled in as if he were fighting a pain in his stomach. His face was flushed. He held a shallow breath, then puffed it out, held it, puffed it out. He dug into the pocket of his coveralls and came out with a pack of Marlboros. ,

"Sorry, Mr. Fallon:' Elwood said. "We keep a smoke-free environment."

Fallon glared at him and shook one out of the pack. "So throw me out."

Kovac moved toward him slowly. "I don't think that conversation

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was about what Mike needed, Nell," he said softly, shifting gears. "I think it was more likely about what you need. I think you were drunk and pissed off when you called him, and you argued about the cash you need. And after that conversation, you got angrier and angrier, thinking about what you need and how your old man wouldn't give it to you, how he doted on Andy and shit all over you. And you got so mad, you got in your truck and you went to give it to him in his face."

"He was half drunk, half wasted on pills," Fallon muttered. "I might as well have been talking to a turmp. He didn't give a shit what I had to say about anything. He never did."

"He wouldn't give you the money."

He shook his head and laughed. "He wouldn't listen to the question. All he wanted to talk about was Andy. How much he loved Andy. How Andy let him down. How Andy couldn't let sleeping dogs lie." Kovac looked at Liska, who had straightened abruptly.

"He used those words?" she asked. "'Let sleeping dogs lie'? Why would he say that?"

"I don't know," he snapped. "Because of Andy coming out of the closet, I suppose. If he'd kept it to himself he was queer, then the old man wouldn't have had to deal with it.'After all these years,' he kept saying. Like it wasn't fair telling him now. Like either he should have told when he was ten or waited for the old man to die. Jesus ."

"That must have made you crazy," Kovac said. "You'd had a few. You'd mixed it up with that customer.You're there in the flesh and Andy's dead, but he's going on about Andy this and Andy that."

"That's what I said to him.'Andy's dead. Can we bury him and move on?"'

He took a pull on his cigarette and blew the smoke out hard. His face had turned a deep red. He squinted to better picture the memory ... or to keep tears at bay. He stared at the two-way nuirror, not seeing it. "I got right down in his face and I screamed at him-'Andy wasa butt-fucking fag and I'm glad he's dead!"'

He shouted the words past the emotions that swelled in his throat. He covered his eyes with his left hand, the cigarette smoldering between his fingers.

"Whatd he do?"

Fallon was crying, the tears sliding under his hand, tortured, broken sounds cracking from his mouth.

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"Whatd Mike do when you said that, Neil?" "H-he h-hit m-me."

"And what did you do then?" " Oh, God . . *"

"What'd you do then, Neil?" Kovac prodded gently, stepping close. "I h-hit h-him b-back. Oh, Christ!" He sobbed and bent over, putting both hands over his face. "And now he's dead. They're both dead! Oh, God!"

Kovac took the cigarette from him, breathing in the smoke, craving one of his own.With regret, he put it out on the table, burming a black mark in the woodgrain surface.

"Did you kill him, Neil?" he asked softly. "Did you kill Mike?" Fallon shook his head, hands still over his face. "No."

"We can test your hands for gunpowder residue:'Liska said. "We'll do what's called a neutron activation analysis," Kovac explained. "It won't matter how many times you've washed your hands since. Microscopic particles become embedded in your skin from the blowback. It shows up for weeks after."

He was bluffing, playing the card as a scare tactic. The test could only show whether the person had come in contact with barium and antimony-components of gunpowder-and a imillion other mixtures, natural and man-made. Practically speaking, even a positive result would have little forensic value and less validity in a courtroom. Too much time had elapsed between the incident and the test. Defense attorneys made a living at arguing that time equaled contamination of evidence. Paid forensic expert witnesses would have a field day disputing the results. But Neil Fallon probably didn't know that.

A knock sounded at the door, and Elwood moved away from it. Lieutenant Leonard stuck his head in. A constipated expression hardened his face. "Sergeant. Can I have a word?"

"I'm kind of in the rmiddle of something here:' Kovac said impatiently.

Leonard just looked at him, eloquent in his silence. Kovac looked back at Neil Fallon and stifled a sigh. If he was going to confess to anything, this was the time to get it: while he was emotionally weak, before he had a chance to pull up the shields and regroup, before he could utter the L word.

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Kovac felt like a pitcher being taken out of the game while he was still throwing heat.

He turned to Liska. "Guess you're the closer," he said under his breath.

"Sergeant
Leonard said.

Kovac stepped out the door and followed him into the next room, where Leonard had been watching through the glass. The room was dark. A theater with a window for a movie screen. Ace Wyatt stood at the window with his arms crossed, looking through the murky pane at Neil Fallon.Wyatt gave Kovac the profile for another few seconds, then the heavy-things-on-my-mind look. It was the same expression plastered on billboards around the Twin Cities advertising his television show.

"Why are you doing this, Sam?" Wyatt asked. "Hasn't this family suffered enough?"

"That depends. If it turns out this one killed the other two, then the answer would be no."

"Did something happen at the autopsy I don't know about?" "Why should you know anything about it?" Kovac challenged. "Maggie Stone isn't in the habit of passing that kind of information around."

.
Wyatt ignored the question, above the curiosity of the common street cop. "You're treating him like you know for a fact Mike was murdered."