Prior Bad Acts

9

NO ONE HAD WANTED to go near the Haas home on the north side of Minneapolis since the murders. Kids rode past it slowly on their bikes during the day, morbidly fascinated with the place and the idea of something as evil as murder. They dared each other to go up to the windows and look inside, especially the basement windows. Every once in a while some kid would take the challenge. More often, they all spooked and ran.

No one wanted to go near the Haas home, which was why Wayne Haas and his son from his first marriage still lived in it. The “For Sale” sign had been standing in the front yard for more than a year. No takers. The only people who looked, looked out of the same morbid fascination as the children who sat on their bikes out in front on the street.

No one wanted to buy a home where a woman and two children had been tortured and murdered, their bodies desecrated in sickening, unspeakable ways.

If any place should have been haunted, it should have been that house. The evil that had lived inside it that terrible day surely must have permeated the place-the walls, the floors, the ceilings, the foundation-the same way smoke from a fire could permeate, and never leave.

Wayne Haas was not a man of means. He worked in a meat-packing plant, hanging carcasses and loading trucks. He made a decent living, but he couldn’t afford to buy a different house without selling the one he had. And nobody wanted the house he had.

Kovac and Liska pulled into the cracked concrete driveway, which led to a detached garage. Erratic lights flashed in the front window of the otherwise dark house, indicating someone inside was watching television. Still, the place had a weird, vacant quality to it. The yard was bad, weedy and bald in spots. There once had been a big oak tree in the front, but the tornado that had come on that same fateful summer afternoon as the murders had torn it up by the roots, leaving the lawn naked and the house exposed. A photograph of the scene had taken up half the front page of the newspaper the next day.

“I couldn’t live in this house,” Liska said. “I don’t even want to go inside.”

“I’d live in a garbage Dumpster behind a fish market before I’d live here,” Kovac said.

He mostly didn’t believe in superstitions, but even he drew the line at living in murder scenes.

For one thing, in all his twenty-plus years on the job, he had never gotten used to the smell of death. There was nothing else like it. It hung in the air at a death scene, so thick and heavy that it was a presence. And though he knew logically that the smell would disappear shortly after the corpses had been removed and the cleaning crew had come through, he believed the memory of it never left and that every time he returned to the place, the stench would fill his head and turn his stomach.

Kovac’s second wife had never allowed him into the house wearing the suits he had worn to murder scenes. His “corpse clothes,” she had called them. He had had to take them off in the garage and leave them there and walk through the house in his underwear to get to the shower. Then, instead of sending the clothes to the cleaners or throwing them into the trash, she would box them up and take them to Goodwill. Like the disadvantaged people of Minneapolis didn’t have enough going against them, they had to go around smelling of corpses.

After the disappearance of three suits, he had wised up and kept a change of clothes at the station and made friends with the guy who ran the dry cleaners down the street.

Liska sighed. “Let’s get it over with so I can go home and lie awake all night feeling guilty that I had to question these people.”

Wayne Haas came to the front door looking like he wanted to hit somebody. He was a rawboned man with big hands and big shoulders from moving beef carcasses and slabs of meat. Stress and grief and anger had cut such deep lines in his ruddy face that it looked as if it had been carved of redwood.

“What the hell kind of show are you people running?” he demanded, glancing at the ID Liska held up for him to see. “It’s all over the TV. That murdering son of a bitch is running loose. How the hell could you let this happen?”

“I can imagine how you must feel, Mr. Haas,” Kovac started.

“The hell you can! You’re not the one walked into this house and found half his family butchered! And now the bastard is running around loose, free to kill-”

“Every cop in the city is looking for him,” Kovac said.

“That’s supposed to make me feel better? You people lost him in the first place!”

Kovac didn’t bother to tell him it was the sheriff’s office that had lost Karl Dahl, not the police department. Wayne Haas wouldn’t appreciate the difference. The only thing that mattered to him was the end result.

“You’re right,” Kovac said instead. “I’m pissed off about it too. It was the cluster fuck of the century. Believe me, my partner and I sure as hell didn’t want to come here tonight and tell you Karl Dahl escaped. We didn’t even want to come here to tell you about Judge Moore’s ruling on that evidentiary hearing.”

Haas shook his head and stepped back a little from the door. Kovac took advantage and moved inside. Liska, who was the size of a minute, slipped in behind him and around him and did a quick survey of the place.

“What’s wrong with that woman?” Haas asked. “How could she say what Dahl did in the past didn’t have anything to do with this? It just proves what a sick bastard he is. The jury should hear about it.”

“I know,” Kovac said. “I’m with you. The guy didn’t just wake up one day and decide to kill. These mutts work their way up to it.”

“It’s a goddamn nightmare,” Haas said, almost to himself.

“We can put a squad car on the street in front of your house if you’re worried about Dahl coming back here,” Liska offered.

Haas looked over at the television, where a reporter was coming live from outside the ambulance bay at HCMC. Amber, blue, and red lights from the cop cars and emergency vehicles gave the scene a carnival atmosphere. But it didn’t look to Kovac like any of it was registering on Haas. His mind had gone somewhere else, probably somewhere worse.

“I don’t want anything from you people,” he said at last.

“Mr. Haas?” Liska asked. “Is your son at home?”

“He went to a basketball game at his school. Why?”

Kovac grimaced and looked embarrassed. “This stinks. Believe me, we know it. If it was up to me, I wouldn’t ask, but we have to answer to the higher powers.”

Haas looked suspicious but said nothing, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“I’m sure you heard, Judge Moore was attacked in the parking ramp at the government center earlier tonight,” Liska said. “We need to ask you and your son where you both were at the time.”

“Get out of my house,” he said quietly, though the rage was building visibly inside him.

“It’s routine, Mr. Haas,” Kovac said. “No one really thinks you had anything to do with it. We just have to put it on paper.”

“Get out of my house,” he said louder. His neck was red, and Kovac could see a big vein pulsing on one side. “Get out of my house, goddamn you!”

He went to the front door and yanked it wide so hard that it hit the wall and rattled the front windows.

Bobby Haas stood on the front porch, looking bewildered and worried, brown eyes wide. “Dad? Dad, what’s wrong? Who are you people?”

“We’re with the police,” Liska said, but the boy was looking at his father as Wayne Haas raised a hand to his temple and gritted his teeth.

“Dad!”

“Mr. Haas?” Kovac moved toward him at the same time the kid did. Haas bent forward in obvious pain.

“Get him to a chair,” Kovac ordered, and he and the boy each took an arm and moved Wayne Haas to a worn green armchair a few feet away. Kovac looked at Liska. “Call an ambulance.”

Even as Liska was pulling her cell phone from her coat pocket, Haas was waving off the order.

“No. I’m fine,” he insisted.

“You don’t look fine,” Kovac said.

Bobby Haas squatted down beside his father. “It’s his blood pressure. It spikes like that when he gets upset. He’ll be okay in a minute. Right, Dad? You’re gonna be okay.”

Haas blew out a couple of big breaths and nodded wearily, his eyes focused on the floor. He was pale now, and damp with sweat.

Kovac looked at the boy. “Why don’t you get your dad a glass of water?”

Liska followed him down the hall.

Kovac knelt down on one knee by Wayne Haas’s chair so he could see the man’s face more clearly. “You’re sure you don’t want to go to a hospital?”

“Just go,” Haas whispered. “Just go away from here.”

“I’m sorry we upset you like that,” Kovac said. “There are some times this job sucks, and this would be one of them. But the questions have to be asked. If we don’t touch all the bases, a case can get dismantled. You’ve seen for yourself, the system isn’t there to help guys like you or cops like me.”

“I just want this all to be over,” Haas said. “I wish I’d died that day too.”

“You’ve got a son to live for.”

Haas just hung his head.

Bobby Haas and Liska returned then, and the son handed the father half a glass of water. Liska gave Kovac a look and nodded toward the door. They stepped out onto the porch, and Kovac drew the door shut behind them.

“The kid’s going to get our answer and come out here,” Liska said. “I figured that would be a hell of a lot easier than us making the guy stroke out before our very eyes.”

“What does Junior have to say for himself?”

“He hung out with a buddy after school, and they went to a basketball game tonight. He’s worried about his dad, says his health isn’t good. The stress of it all has taken a toll on him.”

“Poor bastard,” Kovac murmured, digging a finger in an inside coat pocket. Jackpot. He pulled out a cigarette and rolled it between his fingers like he was rubbing a rabbit’s foot for luck. “What about the boy? How’s he holding up?”

“He’s rattled. Could be because of his father. Could be because of us. He’s seventeen, he has a penis, definitely qualifies him for being stupid enough to mug a judge.”

Kovac cut her a look of annoyance. “Don’t take your shitty love life out on me, Tinks. You ought to know better than to go out with a lawyer.”

“Just shows how desperate I am,” she muttered. “Scraping the bottom of the barrel.”

“Nah… You haven’t dated me yet.”

“Maybe I should. You’re the only guy I know who returns my calls.” She flicked a glance at his hand. “Didn’t you quit smoking, like, three hours ago?”

Kovac scowled. “Three days, and I’m not smoking it.”

Liska craned her neck to get a peek into the living room to see what was going on between the Haas men. Wayne Haas was still in the chair with one hand covering his eyes, the other grasping Bobby’s shoulder. The son patted his father’s knee, a very adult gesture of reassurance.

“All things considered, the kid seems pretty well adjusted,” she said blandly. “I’m sure that means he’s seriously screwed up.”

“Who isn’t?”

“Speak for yourself. I’m a pillar of mental health.”

“Right,” Kovac said, looking at the cigarette. “Me, I’m fucked up and proud of it. I worked hard to get to this level of neurosis.”

“He’s coming out,” Liska whispered.

Bobby Haas slipped out the front door and onto the porch, careful not to let the old screen door bang. He was a nice-looking kid with a head of soft, dark, curling hair, and earnest brown eyes. In no way did he resemble his father. Where Wayne Haas’s face had been cut from stone with a rough chisel, the boy’s face was smooth and soft, with small, almost feminine features. He had the lean build of a cyclist and stood three or four inches shy of six feet.

The boy had discovered the bodies of Marlene and the foster children, just moments before Wayne Haas had arrived home from work. By the accounts of the uniforms who had responded to the scene first-and later Stan Dempsey and his partner-Bobby had refused to leave the house, refused to leave his father. He had stayed on the front porch for hours as the forensics people and the medical examiner’s people went in and out, carrying evidence, rolling out the body bags.

Bobby Haas had stayed on the front porch, crouched in a corner, sobbing and retching, rocking himself with his arms banded around his knees. Inconsolable, terrified. The advocate from Victim Services had sat beside him, trying to calm him, trying to convince him he needed to go with her to the police station. Finally, he had been taken to HCMC for his own protection and stayed the night, sedated in a bed in the psych ward, where he was kept under observation for the better part of a week.

Kovac knew the shock of seeing the horrors one human being could inflict on another. He was a grown man with twenty-plus years on the force, countless murder investigations under his belt, and still there were cases so unspeakably horrible they shocked even him and lingered in his brain like shadows. Bobby Haas would have to live with the memories of finding those bodies in his head and in his nightmares for the rest of his life.

“Is he all right? Your dad?” Kovac asked.

The kid kind of shrugged, kind of nodded, looked away. He was upset and worried, and glanced back through the front window at his dad. “He said to tell you he came straight home after work and he hasn’t been out. What’s going on?”

Kovac didn’t answer.

“It’s really hard on him, you know?” the boy said. “The judge’s ruling.”

“If you were hanging out with a friend after school, how’d you hear about Judge Moore’s ruling?”

“People were talking about it. Me and Stench went to a Burger King.”

“How did that make you feel, Bobby?” Liska asked. “Judge Moore’s not letting in Karl Dahl’s record. Does that piss you off?”

“Shit, yeah,” he said, trying to look tough. He couldn’t quite pull it off. He planted his hands at his waist, and the oversized black Vikings-logo jacket he wore crept up around his shoulders and neck like a turtle’s shell. “How could she do that? The guy’s a psycho!”

“So where was this Burger King?” Kovac asked.

The boy looked at him, suspicious. “Downtown. City Center, I think.”

“You think? You were there. How come you don’t know?”

“All those buildings are hooked together down there with the skyways and all. We were in a lot of places. I didn’t pay attention.”

“What were you doing downtown at all?”

“Hanging out. What’s the big deal?”

Kovac just looked at him.

“We’ll need to speak with your friend, Bobby,” Liska said, good cop with a twist of mother. “Judge Moore was attacked tonight. We need to know where you were when that happened.”

Bobby Haas looked at them like they’d each sprung an extra head. “You’re kidding. You can’t be serious. You think I did it?”

“Did you?” Kovac asked.

“No!”

“We don’t know who did it, Bobby,” Liska said. “But we need to account for your whereabouts so we can take you off the list.”

“And my dad too? What kind of sick people are you?” he asked, a fine sheen of tears rising in his eyes. “Don’t you think he’s been through enough?”

“It’s procedure,” Kovac said. He finally hung the cigarette on his lip, flicked a lighter at the end of it, breathed deeply, and directed the smoke just to the right of Bobby Haas’s face. “Standard op.”

Liska frowned at him, then turned back to the boy. “We know this has been a nightmare for you and your dad, Bobby. I’m sorry we have to ask these questions, but we do. We have to cover all the bases, just like the cops on the murders covered all the bases to get Karl Dahl.”

The boy rolled his eyes, turned away, turned back. “Yeah. Look how great that turned out.”

“We’ll need your friend’s information,” Kovac said with blunt impatience. “His name, for starters. I have to think his parents didn’t name him Stench.”

“Jerome Walden,” Bobby Haas said grudgingly. “We didn’t do anything.”

“Then you don’t have anything to worry about. But you can see why we have to ask, Bobby,” Liska went on calmly. “We have to cover the people who have the biggest ax to grind with Judge Moore. Like it or not, that would be you and your dad.”

“So we ask you a few questions and that’s the end of it,” Kovac said. “Provided you didn’t do it.”

“We didn’t do anything!”

Liska glared at Kovac. “Don’t you have some calls to make, Detective?”

Kovac made a face, tossed the cigarette down on the chipped, painted floorboards of the porch, and ground it out with his toe. He cut a final, flat look at Bobby Haas. “Chicks. What’re you gonna do?”

Then he walked off the porch and over to the latest piece-of-crap car they had been assigned from the department pool. He slid into the driver’s seat and waited.

They had agreed Liska should take the kid. Even at seventeen a motherless boy was just that: a boy. There was a better chance of his relaxing with Liska, letting his guard down. If he had acted out of hurt and rage and taken it out on Judge Moore, there was a better chance he might feel guilty with a woman who was giving him compassion and understanding.

Kovac thought about Carey Moore, lying in her bed on the other side of the tracks. She’d taken a beating delivered with more emotion than the average mugger bothered to exhibit. Smack and grab. Knock ’em and rock ’em. It didn’t pay to hang around.

There had been rage behind that attack.

Liska handed Bobby Haas her card, patted his arm, and left the porch.

Kovac started the engine.

“What do you think?” he asked as she buckled her seat belt and heaved a big sigh.

“I think I want to go home and hug my boys.”