Prior Bad Acts

52

“I DON’T GET IT, ”Kovac said. “Why kill this woman? Just to take her car?”

“Maybe he knew her,” Liska suggested. “Maybe she could ID him.”

“You think Christine Neal was into porn? Is there a whole over-fifty porn movie industry out there I don’t know about?”

“I don’t want to know. I’m still reeling from Tippen.”

Kovac huffed. “Please. Like you didn’t already think he was watching porn.”

“Yeah, but hearing it from the horse’s mouth was too much.”

They stood in the front yard, near Christine Neal’s house, waiting for the ME’s people to roll out the victim, cloaked in the anonymous black body bag. It would be the last private moment for Christine Neal.

By day’s end the cops and the media would be dragging out the details of her life like entrails from a carcass. By the end of the next day, everyone with a television or a newspaper subscription in the metro area would know how old she was, who her family was, what her neighbors knew about her, how her coworkers felt about her.

Kovac lit a cigarette, giving Liska a warning glare. She held her hands up in surrender.

“Maybe the doer wasn’t Donny Bergen,” Lieutenant Dawes said.

“It was,” Kovac snapped.

“Why? Because you want to pin the plan on David Moore?”

“It all fits,” he insisted. “The assault Friday night, Bergen showing up at the hotel bar dressed in black like the guy on the tape from the parking garage. Moore wanted out of the marriage, but he didn’t want to lose anything. Carey is kidnapped, murdered, and he’s the grieving husband, the devoted single father, inherits everything via Lucy.”

Dawes’s phone rang. She sighed and took the call, walking away.

Liska shifted her weight to her right foot, effectively moving closer to her partner. They stood at right angles, facing the house, their backs to the gathering mob of media and curious onlookers.

Kovac stared at the house, raised his cigarette to his lips, knowing she could see the slight trembling of his hand. Their killer had murdered twice, senselessly. There was no reason to think he wouldn’t do it again. Especially if he’d been paid to do it.

Christine Neal and the nanny had been just for sport. He could have stolen either car without harming anyone. Wear a mask, tie the women up, tape their mouths shut. They hadn’t needed to see him.

“Sam, there are other possibilities,” Liska said.

“Maybe there are,” he conceded. “But are any of them good, Tinks? You think this is going to have a happy ending? You know as well as I do more kidnap victims are murdered within the first few hours of the abduction than not. And those are the ones snatched for ransom. There’s no ransom involved here. There hasn’t been a call. There’s not going to be a call.

“Let’s say it’s not Donny Bergen,” he suggested. “Who’s up next? Stan Dempsey? Your boy Bobby? You think either of those scenarios is going to end well? We’ve looked at two dead women inside an hour.”

“You need to hold it together, Kojak,” Liska said firmly but gently as the ME’s people came out the front door with the gurney. “If Carey Moore is still alive, she sure as hell doesn’t need you writing her off.”

Kovac squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed his forehead with one hand. What made a good cop was objectivity. Objectivity and dogged tenacity. He had made his career on both.

He finished his cigarette, put it out on the front step, and dropped the butt into a jack-o’-lantern.

Liska put a hand on his arm, drawing his attention back to her. The concern in her eyes touched him. “Are you gonna be all right?”

Kovac forced a smile. “Remains to be seen, doesn’t it? I’d rather work ten murders than one abduction.”

“You’d better not be blaming yourself,” Liska warned. “That’s self-indulgent bullshit. I’ll have to kick your ass.”

Somehow he managed to chuckle, not because he felt any better but because that was the reaction Liska wanted.

“Let’s get back to work, Tinker Bell,” he said. “We’ve got crimes to solve.”