Dust To Dust (35 page)

"We're in here, Patsy." "We?"

There was a rustle of grocery bags being set down, then a moment later Mrs. Cal came 'into the foyer, looking like a stereotype of a middle-aged schoolteacher. A little plump, a little frumpy, big glasses, mousy hair.

"Nikki Liska, Mrs. Springer." Liska held her hand out. "From work," Cal specified.

"I think we met at a function once," Liska said.

Mrs. Cal looked confused. Or maybe apprehensive. "Did you come out to check on Calvin? His stomach has just been a mess."

"Yeah, well, actually, I had to ask him a couple of questions." Springer had moved behind his wife. His flat face looked made of wax. His focus seemed to be on some other dimension, one where he could see his life crumbling like so much old cheese.

Mrs. Cal's brows knitted. "Questions about what?"

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"Do you know where Cal was last night around eleven, eleven-thirty?"

Mrs. Cal's eyes filled with tears behind the too-big glasses. She glanced over her shoulder at her husband. "What's this about?"

ust answer her, Patsy," Springer said impatiently. "It's nothing." Liska waited, a weight in her chest, thinking of her own mother when IA had come to the house and asked questions. She knew that feeling of vulnerability; that sense of betrayal, of being turned on by your own kind.

"Calvin was out last might," Patsy Springer said softly. "With friends." Behind her, Springer rubbed a hand over his face and tried to stifle a sigh.

"No," Liska said, her eyes on him. "Those people Cal claims he was out with? They're not his friends, Mrs. Springer. I hope for his sake you just told me a lie."

"That's enough, Liskal" Springer said, stepping between them. "You can't come into my home and call my wife a har."

Liska held her ground, took her gloves out of her coat pocket, and pulled them on, one and then the other.

"You'weren't listening, Cal," she said quietly. "Get out in front of this before you get caught in the wheels. Nothing they've got on you is as bad as what they've done."

"What's she talking about, Calvin?" There was fear in Mrs. Cal's voice now.

Springer glared at Liska. "Leave my house."

Liska nodded, taking a final glance at the
too-nice house, and a final look at Cal Springer, a man being eaten alive from the inside out. "Think about it, Calvin," she said. "You know what they did to

him. You probably know more than that. They wear the same badge you and I do, and that's just wrong. Be a man and stop them." Springer looked away, hand pressed to his belly, sweat misting his pale, ashen skin. He said nothing.

Liska walked out into the cold of the fading afternoon, got into the car, and headed east for Minneapolis, wanting nothing more than to be in her modest home with her sons.

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W H AT A R E T H E odds that blood is Iron Mike's?" Tippen asked over a glass of beer.

They sat in Patrick's with the diehards who always gathered after first shift, and the Friday night get-loose-once-a-week bunch.

"Shm. to none," Kovac said. He took a handful of party mix from the bowl on the table and sorted out the peanuts and pretzels. He had long suspected the hard things masquerading as corn chips were, in fact, toenail clippings. "He had to be in front of the old man when the gun went off.The mess went in the other direction. I think the blood on the coveralls is Just what Neil Fallon says it's from-gutting fish. But that doesn't mean he didn't kill the old man. And now we've got him sitting in J* ail, where he can sweat and fret and decide to spill the story."

"Being the weekend, we won't get lab results on the blood until Tuesday or Wednesday," Elwood interjected. "If he's got something to tell, I believe he'll let it go by Sunday night."

"Confession on the Sabbath!' Tippen nodded with the wisdom of experience. "Very symbolic."

"Very Catholic'
" Kovac corrected. "That's how he was raised. Neil Fallon's no hard-case killer. If he did the old man, he won't be able to live with the guilt for long."

"I don't know, Sam," Tippen said. "Don't we all harbor guilt

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for something? We carry it around our whole lives like ballast. Something to weigh us down and keep us from reaching for true happiness. It reminds us we're not worthy, gives us an excuse to underachieve."

"Most of us didn't clip our own fathers. That kind of guilt rolls out," Kovac said. "Eventually."

lie rose from the booth, wishing he didn't have to.

"Where are you going?"Tippen demanded. "It's your turn to buy-" Kovac dug out his wallet and dropped some bills on the table. "To see if I can't hasten the process along for someone."

SOMEONE
D 0 W N T H E block from Steve Pierce was having a Christmas party. Music and conversation and laughter escaped the town house as a fresh batch of guests arrived. Kovac leaned back against his car for a moment and watched as he finished his cigarette, then dropped the butt in the gutter and went to the door.

Lights shone in the windows of Pierce's duplex. His Lexus was in the drive. He might have walked down to the neighbor's party, but Kovac doubted it. Steve Pierce wouldn't join in the holiday festivities this year. It was damn hard to be merry and bright with the weight of loss and grief and guilt hanging around your neck. Kovac's hope was that the fianc6e would be absent, leaving Pierce alone and vulnerable.

"Kick 'em when they're down," he muttered, and rang the bell. Time passed, and he rang it again. More guests arrived down the block. One of them, a guy wearing a red muffler, ran into the yard, threw an arm around a snowman, and began to sing "Holly jolly Christmas."

"Jesus, you again," Pierce muttered as he pulled the door open. "Have you ever heard of a telephone?"

"I prefer that personal touch, Steve. Shows how much I care." Pierce looked worse than he had the night after he'd found Andy Fallon's body. He was wearing the same clothes. He stank of cigarettes and scotch and sweat-the kind of sweat from emotional upset. The smell of it was different from the smell of physical work, more sour and sharp. He had a short glass half-fiffl of scotch in one hand and a cigarette hanging from his lip. He looked as if he hadn't shaved since the funeral.

"You care to throw my ass injail:'he said. "Only if you've committed a crime."

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Pierce laughed. He was close to drunk, but he probably wouldn't allow himself to cross over, to deaden the pain completely. Kovac suspected he wanted tor hurt, and the scotch allowed him to maintain it at a tolerable level.

"Neil Fallon's injail," Kovac said."It looks like he rmight have killed the old man. Id like to hear your take on that."

"Well." Pierce raised his glass. "That calls for a toast. Come on in, Sergeant:'he invited as he walked away from the open door.

Kovac followed. "A toast that Nell's in jail or that Mike's dead?" "Two for one. They deserved each other."

They went into the den with the dark blue walls. Kovac pulled the door shut behind him, to buy an extra rminute or two if the girlfriend showed up.

How well do you know Neil?"

Pierce took another glass from the small cupboard above the bar and splashed in some of the Macallan, then topped off his own glass. "Well enough to know he's a thug. Angry, jealous, petty, mean. A

chip off the old block." He held the new glass out to Kovac. "I used to tell Andy he must have gotten sent home from the hospital with the wrong family when he was a baby. I could never see how he came out of that pack of pit bulls. He was so decent, so good, so kind."

His eyes reddened around the rims, and he went to the narrow window that looked out on the side of the house.The place next door was dark.

"He was so much better than they were:' he said, the sense of injustice and frustration thickening his voice. "And yet he couldn't stop trying to win them over."

Kovac sipped the scotch, realizing at first taste there was valid reason it cost fifty bucks a bottle. Molten gold might taste this smooth.

"He was his father's favorite for a long time," he said, his eyes steady on Pierce. He eased around to the side of one of the leather armchairs for a better angle. "I imagine it was pretty hard for him to take rejection from the old man."

"He kept trying to make it up to him. As if he had something to be sorry for. He wanted the old man to understand something a guy like that will never grasp in a million years. I told Andy to let it go, that he couldn't change someone else's mind, but he wouldn't listen."

"How was he going to make it up to him? What could be the trade-off?"

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Pierce shrugged. "There isn't one. That's Just it. Andy thought maybe they could do something together. Write the old man's memoirs or something. He used to talk about that sometimes, that maybe if he knew more about the old man, he could understand him better, find some common ground with him. He wanted to know more about the shooting that put him in the chair, that being a defining moment in Mike's life. But the old man didn't appreciate the effort. He didn't want to talk about what happened. He didn't want to talk about his feelings. I doubt he had the right vocabulary for it. Personal enlightenment isn't high on the list for guys like Mike Fallon, or Ne 'i1."

"And what about Neil?" Kovac asked." He claims it didn't have any impact on him when Andy came out."

Pierce laughed. "Sure. Smug asshole. He hated Andy already. He thought being the straight one gave him an advantage with the old man. He wasn't such a black sheep anymore. Homosexuality trumps being a felon in the redneck scheme of things."

"Did Andy see much of him?"

"He tried to do macho, brotherly things with Neil from time to time. Hunting, fishing, that kind of thing. A complete waste of time. Neil didn't want to understand Andy or like Andy. Neil didn't want anything from Andy but money."

"He'd asked Andy for money?"

"Sure. First he put it to him as
an investment opportumity I told Andy to forget it. Give Neil the money if he didn't care if he ever saw it again. As an investment? What a crock. Might as well flush the money down the john."

"What did Andy do?"

"Put him off. Kept saying maybe later, hoping Neil would take the hint." He drank some more of the scotch and muttered, "Investment opportunity."

"Did they ever fight, that you knew of?"

Pierce shook his head. He sucked the cigarette down to the filter and put the butt out against a corner of the windowpane. "No. Andy wouldn't fight with him. He felt too guilty about being better than the average Fallon.Why? Do you think Neil killed him?"

"That door's still open."

"I don't see it. Neil's not that clever.You would have caught him by now."

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"We have," Kovac rerm'nded him.

"Still ... you know what I mean." He went back to the bar and freshened his drink for the umpteenth time. "Neil's the messy type, don't you think? Shooting, stabbing, blood and gore, devastation at the scene, fingerprints everywhere."

"Maybe so."

"He sure as hell wouldn't be sorry. Christ, he probably couldn't spell sorry. Hc's the one who should have died," Pierce said bitterly, and drank more of the scotch, stirring up his anger, pouring fuel on the flames. "Worthless excuse for a human being. It doesn't make sense that someone as good as Andy-"

Tears rushed up on him like a flash flood, and he choked on them and fought against them, and lost. He swore and threw his drink. The glass shattered against the bar top, spraying the immediate area with liquor and shards of crystal.

"God!" he cried, covering his head with his arms, as if fending off the blows of a higher power punishing him for his sins. He staggered from side to side, sobbing; dry, raw sounds tearing at his throat. "Oh, God!"

Kovac waited, let him feel his pain, gave him time to look the demon in the face.

After a time, he said, "You loved him."

It sounded strange saying it to a man. But as he witnessed the depth of Steve Pierce's pain, he thought he should be so lucky to have another human being--male or female care that deeply about him. Then again, maybe all he was seeing was guilt.

"Yes," Pierce admitted in a tortured whisper.

Kovac put a hand on his shoulder, and Pierce shrank away. "You had a relationship with him."

"He wanted me to admit it, to come out. But I couldn't. People don't understand.They don't. Even when they say they do, they don't. I've seen it. I know what's said behind the back. The jokes, the sruickering, the lack of respect. I know what happens. My career ... everything I've worked for ... I-1-" He choked himself off, as if the argument wasn't convincing even to his own ears. He sank down in one of the leather chairs, his face in his hands. "He didn't understand. I couldn't..."

Kovac set his own drink aside. "Were you there, Steve? The night Andy died?"

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He shook his head and kept on shaking it, wagging it back and forth as he tried to collect himself.

"No," he said at last. "I told you, I saw him Friday night. Jocelyn's irl riends had a wedding shower for her. I hadn't seen him in a f

g month. We had fought about his coming out, and ... We hadn't been together in a long time. Hadn't even spoken."

"Was he seeing someone else?"

"I don't know. Maybe. I saw him at a bar one night with someone, but I don't know if there was anything to it."

"Did you know him? This other guy?" "No."

"What'd he look like?"

"Like an actor. Dark hair, great smile. I don't know that they were really together."

"What happened when you went to see him Friday night?" "We fought again. He wanted me to tell Joss the truth." "You got angry."

"Frustrated." "How long had you and Andy been involved?"

He made a vague motion with one hand. "Off and on since college. At first, I thought it was just ... experimentation ... curiosity. But I kept ... needing ... and living this other life ... and I couldn't see a way out of it. I'm engaged to Douglas Daring's daughter, for god's sake.We're getting married in a month. How could I ... ?"