Prior Bad Acts (22 page)

“You don’t trust me not to do what?” he asked, his anger rising again. “That’s Kovac telling you he thinks I paid someone to have you attacked. How could you possibly believe that, Carey? You know me better than that!”

Carey stared at him. “I don’t know you at all. I don’t know who you are. The man I married would never have done any of the things you’ve done. I have no idea who you are.”

“So that’s what you think of the man I am now?” he asked aggressively. “That I would pay someone to kill you? That I might kill you in your sleep myself? Jesus Christ, Carey.”

“You have to go now, David,” she said. “I can’t have you here. I don’t want you here. Don’t make me call the officers in from their car to remove you. It’s not like you don’t have someplace else to go.”

“You are un-fucking-believable!” he shouted.

“Please keep your voice down. Your daughter is asleep upstairs.”

Muttering curses under his breath, David grabbed the external hard drive from his computer and stormed out of the room and up the stairs.

Carey followed him, afraid she had pushed him too far. Her heart in her throat as David approached Lucy’s bedroom, she was struck by a fear that David might try to take Lucy with him. But when he stopped at the door to the room, it was only to look in on their sleeping child.

He was red in the face, fighting tears, breathing hard as he turned away and stalked down the hall into the bedroom they had shared. He jerked a suitcase out of his closet, tossed it on the bed, and began throwing clothes at it.

Ten minutes later he was gone.

Carey stood at the kitchen door to the garage and listened as his car started and backed out. She hadn’t known how she would feel after the big scene. She hadn’t known if she would cry or be angry or feel sick. She didn’t feel anything. She was numb. She had spent all her emotions confronting him.

Going back to the den, she walked back and forth across the room, physically holding herself together. She needed to call Kovac. She had told him not to come, but he was almost certainly there, if not in the front yard, then sitting in his car down the street. It touched her that he was concerned about her. She felt less alone.

Being a cop, Kovac was unshockable. Carey couldn’t even picture herself telling anyone else what David had been up to all this time. Not even her best friend. She felt stupid and embarrassed talking about it. Kovac hadn’t batted an eye. He had dealt with far worse than a cheating spouse.

Sitting down in David’s desk chair, she used her cell phone to call him. She had put his number on speed dial. He answered before the first ring finished.

“Kovac.”

“It’s Carey. I’m all right. David is gone.”

“You don’t sound all right.”

“I’m very tired,” she said, appalled at how weak her voice sounded.

“Do you want to talk about it? Do you want me to come over? I’m not that far away.”

“You’re in my front yard, aren’t you?”

“Yeah. You can tell me what to do,” he said. “But I’ll do whatever I want.”

She managed to smile a little at that—her own words tossed back at her. “Touché,” she said. “I really just want to go to bed. But thank you for offering, Sam.”

“I’m here to protect and serve.”

“I know.”

An awkward silence hung between them for a moment. Carey had the feeling he wanted to say something more, but finally he just said, “I’ll call you in the morning.”

Carey turned off her phone and tucked it into the pocket of her jeans, and sighed, hoping morning would come soon.

33

KOVAC FLICKED ON
the dash strobe as he drove through the streets, trying to catch up to David Moore. He was betting Moore would go straight to the apartment he had been paying for. Even money said Ginnie Bird lived there.

He caught a look at the big Mercedes sedan sitting at the next stoplight and killed the strobe.

Moore went through the intersection and turned onto the ramp to the freeway. Kovac followed him, then stepped on the gas and blew past him, two lanes over. Moore didn’t know his car and wouldn’t be looking for him anyway. His head would still be in the scene that had just played out between himself and his wife, and on what he was going to do next.

Kovac exited the freeway and drove straight to the apartment building. It was a nice place in a pricey neighborhood. Fairly new building, landscaping, a gated underground garage. No doorman, though, no concierge.

He parked across the street, got out, and walked over to the entrance.

The tenant list was on a brass buzzer pad beside the door to the small lobby. Kovac went down the names.

Bird, V. Apartment 309.

As he debated whether or not to ring the buzzer, a white Lexus turned in at the drive. The garage gate groaned and rattled as it began to rise.

Kovac moved away from the building entrance, went back down the sidewalk, nonchalant, going for a stroll. The Lexus rolled down into the garage. He waited until the car had turned to the right in search of a parking spot, then walked down into the garage, ducking under the descending gate.

It was as simple as that to get into a building where residents believed they were secure. He checked the ceiling for cameras, but there were none.

He didn’t bother to hide, but walked over to the elevator as if he lived there, and pushed the button to go up. Ten seconds later he was joined by the driver of the Lexus, a tired-looking guy with a red, runny nose and a plastic bag from Snyder Drug.

“You got that bug that’s going around?” Kovac said.

The guy rolled his eyes. “I wish I was dead.”

“Drink whisky.”

“That helps?”

The elevator arrived and they got on. Kovac pushed the button for the third floor and glanced up at the ceiling of the car. No security camera.

“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “After you’ve had a couple, you won’t give a shit.”

“Good point.”

“Where you going?”

“Four. Thanks.”

They rode the rest of the way in silence and nodded to each other when Kovac got off on the third floor.

He didn’t go down the hall to Ginnie Bird’s apartment but stood there outside the elevator, waiting for the car to go back down and come back up, and the doors to open on David Moore. The hall was empty. Someone had taped a bright orange sign on the wall beside the elevator, inviting all residents to the October meeting of the renters’ association.

VOTING ON THE ISSUE OF CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS ON THE BUILDING EXTERIOR.

WE NEED A QUORUM! PLEASE COME!

Kovac considered writing his neighbor’s name and phone number on the poster as a source of expertise on the subject.

Maybe five minutes passed before the elevator rumbled as it descended, then rose out of the parking garage. Kovac stood in front of the doors so that when they opened, David Moore stepped right into him.

“Hey!” Moore barked, annoyed at the obstacle, then realizing the obstacle was Kovac. The look in his eyes went from annoyance to confusion to suspicion in a split second.

Kovac hit him hard in the chest with the heels of both hands, knocked him back into the elevator car, into the back wall, and followed him in.

“What the hell?” Moore said, trying to get his feet back under him.

Kovac grabbed him by the front of his shirt and shoved him into the corner.

“Listen, you sorry piece of shit. I know all about you and your girlfriend,” Kovac said. “I know all about your little tête-à-têtes at the Marquette every other week.

“What are you? One of those pervs that gets off on taking the chance of being caught?

“That’d be you, all right,” Kovac sneered. “You don’t have the balls to stand up to your wife. You want somebody else to tell her you’re out on the town with some fifty-bucks-a-blowjob skirt. You fucking coward.”

Moore pressed himself back into the corner, raised up on his toes like that would somehow make him a bigger man than the worm that he was.

“You can’t treat me this way!” he blustered, red faced, more afraid than aggressive. “This is harassment and—and brutality.”

Kovac curled his lip in disgust. “Call a cop, limp-dick. I’ve got twelve witnesses who’ll swear I was playing Parcheesi at the Moose Lodge in New Hope.”

“Are you crazy?”

“Yeah, I’m crazy,” Kovac said sarcastically. “I’m not the one meeting in a public bar to pay off the guy I hired to whack my wife.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“You make me sick.” Kovac all but turned and spat on the floor. “What’d you think, David? That everyone would just assume your wife was mugged, or that some nutjob did her because of Karl Dahl?”

“I didn’t do anything to Carey!”

“And you figured you were playing it smart to be seen in public at the time of her attack, that you were extra clever, using your motive as your alibi.”

“What motive?”

“Your little plaything you got this apartment for. A junkie whore too stupid to think you’re exactly what you appear to be—a loser with a big mouth and delusions of grandeur. You’re pathetic.”

The look on Moore’s face was priceless. Kovac smiled like a tiger. He had opened both barrels of bullshit and actually hit some nerves. A little knowledge and a lot of attitude went a long way toward rattling people with something to hide. All the years of wading hip-deep in the excrement of criminal minds had taught him more about human nature than any Ph.D. in psychology could have.

David Moore was the kind of guy who needed to feel important, needed people to think he was smart. That he had to lower himself to the standard of prostitutes to accomplish that wouldn’t matter.

“You’re thinking, ‘How do you know all that, Kovac, you dumb son of a bitch?’” Kovac said, still smiling. “I know all kinds of things about you, Sport. I know about your taste for hookers. The flowers, the gifts, the expensive dinners, paying for it all out of the family funds. I know about your biweekly habit at the Marquette,
Mr. Greer
. You go there to pretend you’re a big shot, don’t you? Mr. Hollywood, the film executive.

“By the way, that’s lower than low, using your wife’s maiden name. Freud would have a field day with you and your issues with women, huh? What’s that all about, David? Your mother screwed up your potty training?”

Moore was silent, seeming to be holding himself very still, as if one wrong move and his whole alternate universe would implode on him.

“What I can’t figure is where Edmund Ivors fits into this sordid little puzzle. What’s a guy like him have to gain acting as your beard, helping you out with your alibi?”

“I don’t need an alibi,” Moore said. “I haven’t done anything wrong.”

Kovac just looked at him, stunned to silence for a moment.

“You haven’t done anything wrong? Jesus Christ, you cheat on your wife with whores, spend her money to finance your secret life. What part of that isn’t wrong?”

The elevator gave a little jerk and groan and began to descend.

Kovac hit the key for the second floor and pulled Moore out into the hall with him when the doors opened. The door to the stairs was just to the right. He gave Moore a shove in the back.

“Step into my office here for a minute, Ace.”

“Fuck you, Kovac,” Moore said, turning around.

“Are you resisting?” Kovac asked, incredulous. “Are you resisting me? ’Cause if you’re resisting, all bets are off, pal.”

“Are you arresting me?”

“You want to have this conversation downtown? ’Cause I’ll be happy to take you there and put you in the box for a formal questioning. Is that what you want?” Kovac asked. “You want to up the ante? You want to call my bluff? Go ahead. Then you can call a lawyer, and I can call Chris Logan, and he’ll have you arraigned and toss your ass in the can. And if you think a judge is going to give you bail for trying to kill one of their own, you’re even dumber than you look. Is that what you want?”

“I didn’t try to kill my wife!”

The door to apartment 214 opened and a woman stuck her head out, glaring at them. “Take your fight somewhere else, or I’ll call the cops.”

Kovac pulled his badge out of his coat pocket and showed it to her. “This is already police business, ma’am. Go back into your apartment and lock the door.”

The woman disappeared.

Kovac turned back to David Moore.

“Why didn’t you tell me a man joined your little party at the bar last night?”

Moore looked away, looked confused, shrugged, spread his hands. Only the first thing was significant.

“I—I don’t know,” he stammered. “I didn’t know the guy. Why would I mention it?”

“Because you don’t leave things out when you talk to the cops, Einstein. It tends to make us suspicious when we find out after the fact. Who was he?”

“Ivors knew him. He’s—uh—in the business. He’s a—a director of photography. He stopped by. We talked about my project.”

“What’s his name?”

“Don something. I don’t remember his last name.”

“He drops by to talk about your project. Maybe ’cause he’s interested in doing whatever he does for you, right? And you don’t remember him. He didn’t give you a business card?”

“It was a casual conversation. Ivors wanted me to meet him. That’s all.”

“So why did Ivors and your little Bird friend not say something about him to me either?”

“I don’t know. They didn’t think it was important. He was only there for a few minutes.”

“I’m supposed to swallow this load of horseshit?” Kovac asked.

“I don’t care what you believe.”

“That’s a very poor attitude you’ve got, Sport. You damn well ought to care what I think. Because I have the power to take your putrid little life apart turd by turd and poke at every slimy thing crawling under your lies.

“And now I’m gonna go upstairs and talk to the little chickadee without you being there. Did you all get your lies lined up beak to tail earlier today? ’Cause I’ll be a lying son of a bitch and tell her that you talked and told me all about your plan, so she might as well too. And Edmund Ivors won’t be there to put words in her mouth this time.”

Moore’s cell phone rang, tucked somewhere in a pocket.

“Why don’t you answer that, Dave?” Kovac suggested. “That’s probably her right now, wanting to know where the hell you are.”

Moore didn’t move.

Kovac pushed past him, took the stairs back up to the third floor, and knocked on the door of apartment 309.

Ginnie Bird opened the door immediately, her face falling as she was greeted with the unpleasant surprise of Kovac.

“Can I come in?” he asked even as he stepped inside the apartment and past her.

Moore came in behind him. “You don’t have to talk to him, Ginnie. Not without a lawyer.”

Kovac arched a brow. “Ms. Bird isn’t under arrest. Why would she want a lawyer present?”

Ginnie Bird looked like a deer in the headlights. Dumb as a sack of hair, this girl. Her assets lay elsewhere—in plain sight. Deep purple silk and lace were artfully arranged over her unnaturally round breasts and slender frame in the form of a camisole and a thong. She wore a sheer purple robe over the ensemble for her version of modesty. It barely came to the top of her thighs. She balanced on a pair of silver stilettos. All ready to offer comfort and white-hot sex to poor beleaguered David Moore.

Kovac looked around what he could see of the apartment. Hardwood on the hall floor, white carpet flowing through a dining/living room to a small gas fireplace with a granite surround. Contemporary furnishings—chrome, glass, leather.

“Nice digs,” Kovac said. “But we’re a long way from Hudson, Wisconsin. You must be very good at what you do to have a place on this side of the river and the other, Ms. Bird.”

“Ginnie is a casting director—” Moore started.

Kovac turned on him. “You’re interfering with a police investigation, asshole. You can sit down and shut up, or I can put you in the hall facedown on the floor, hog-tied.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” Moore said.

“Hey, you’re the one who decided I’m crazy. You don’t know what I might do. And you really don’t want to find out the hard way, do you?”

Moore held up his hands and took a couple of steps backward into the dining room area to pace.

Kovac turned back to Ginnie Bird. “Ms. Bird, you were at the Marquette Hotel last night, having drinks with your boyfriend here, Edmund Ivors, and a third man who dropped by. Who was that man?”

Her eyes darted to Moore. Kovac moved into her line of sight.

“Don . . . something,” she said. “It was loud in the bar. I couldn’t catch his last name.”

“What was he doing there?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t paying attention.”

She shifted to the left, trying to make eye contact with Moore again.