Prior Bad Acts

44

KOVAC CALLED AHEAD to the Edina police to send a unit to Ginnie Bird’s condo and not let her leave the premises, hoping to hell that that hadn’t already happened. Since arriving at his house, David Moore hadn’t been alone two seconds to make a call to his girlfriend. But whomever he had called for a lawyer-Edmund Ivors, Kovac suspected-could have given the Bird woman the heads-up to get out of Dodge.

Ginnie Bird had to be cut off from the pack. If he could get her alone, Kovac knew he would get her to talk. She wouldn’t know what to do without Moore or Ivors there to put words in her mouth. She didn’t have the backbone to stand up to him.

She was standing on the curb in front of her building when he pulled up, looking very unhappy to be facing two uniforms.

Kovac walked up to them. “Ms. Bird. Are these guys bothering you?”

“They won’t let me leave,” she said, anxious. “They can’t do that… can they?”

“Well, that would be my fault,” Kovac said. “I asked them to detain you until I could get here.”

Ginnie Bird looked up at him, suspicious. “I don’t have anything to say to you. I don’t know anything about what happened to David’s wife.”

“You knew he had a wife,” Kovac said. “That tells me right there that you make bad choices, Ginnie. I mean, bad enough to hook up with a jerk like Moore if he was single. Why go to all the trouble of having an affair with a guy like that? A sneaky, spineless, petulant liar-”

“I love him!” she said emphatically. “You don’t know anything about him.”

Kovac shook his head. “Honey, I know all about the David Moores of the world. Why don’t we go inside?” he suggested, gesturing toward her building. “I’m sure you’d rather not have your neighbors taking all this in.”

“Am I under arrest?” she asked.

“No. Should you be?” Kovac arched a brow. “Do you have something to hide?”

“No!” she insisted. She glanced surreptitiously at her building, checking to see who might be peering out their windows.

“Fine,” she said. “We’ll go inside.”

She liked her illusion of legitimacy. It was important to her that people around her believed she belonged in this tony part of town.

“No,” Kovac said.

Ginnie Bird had already started to go back to the building. She turned around and looked at him, puzzled.

“No,” he said again. “You know what? I don’t have time for this bullshit.”

“But-”

“There’s a woman missing. I think you know something,” Kovac said aggressively, stepping a little too close to her, his voice getting louder. “And you’d better spit it out, or we’ll be talking about this in an eight-by-ten room downtown.”

“I don’t know anything,” she insisted, but kept her voice down.

“You know who the blond guy was that met you in the bar Friday night,” Kovac said. “I want a name.”

“I don’t know his name!”

“Maybe you don’t know your own name, Ms. Bird,” Kovac said. “If I were to run your prints through the system, who would you turn out to be?”

Big tears filled her eyes, and her face tightened into an unattractive expression. She turned one way and then the other, not knowing what to do or say next.

“I want a name,” Kovac said again.

She put her hands over her face and started to cry.

“Nobody feels sorry for you,” Kovac said harshly. “You’re a junkie whore screwing the husband of a missing judge. Do you know what that sounds like? That sounds like motive. You couldn’t have what you wanted as long as Carey Moore was in the way. I have no doubt you know plenty of lowlifes who could do the dirty work for you.”

Ginnie Bird made a sound like a siren, her face still in her hands.

Kovac held his hands up and took a step back. “That’s it. I’ve had enough of this crap.”

He turned to the uniforms. “She’s going in, guys.”

“Donny,” she sobbed. “Donny Bergen.”

“How do you know him?” Kovac demanded.

She sobbed but didn’t answer.

Kovac got in her face. “How do you know him!”

“He’s my brother.”