Dust to Dust

by Tami Hoag

  Leonard went behind his desk and stood with his hands on his hips and a frown on his mug face. He was wearing a tweedy brown sweater over a shirt and tie. The sleeves of the sweater were too long. The overall picture made Kovac think of a sock monkey he’d had as a kid.

  “You’ll have a preliminary report from the ME on the Fallon kid later today.”

  Kovac gave his head a little shake, as if he had water in his ear. “What? I was told it could be four or five days before they even got to him.”

  “Someone called in a favor. On account of Mike Fallon,” Leonard added. “He’s a department hero. No one wants him suffering more than he has to because of this. What with the circumstances surrounding the suicide . . .”

  His lipless mouth squirmed like a worm. Distasteful business: naked suicide with kinky sexual overtones.

  “Yeah,” Kovac said. “Damned inconsiderate of the kid to off himself that way. If that’s what happened. It’s an embarrassment to the department.”

  “That’s a secondary consideration, but it’s a valid one,” Leonard said defensively. “The media is all too happy to make us look bad.”

  “Well, this would do the trick. First it’s downtown beat cops spending their shifts in strip clubs. Now this. We got us a regular Sodom and Gomorrah down here.”

  “You can keep that comment to yourself, Sergeant. I don’t want anyone talking to the media with regards to this case. I’ll give the official statement later today. ‘Sergeant Fallon’s untimely death was a tragic accident. We mourn his loss and our thoughts are with his family.’” He recited the lines he’d memorized, trying them out for size and impact.

  “Dry, brief, to the point,” Kovac critiqued. “Sounds good, as long as it’s true.”

  Leonard stared at him. “Do you have any reason to believe it isn’t true, Sergeant?”

  “Not at the moment. It’d be nice to have a couple of days to tie up the loose ends. You know, like an investigation. What if it was a sex game gone wrong? There could be an issue of culpability.”

  “Do you have any proof anyone else was at the scene?”

  “No.”

  “And you’ve been told he was having problems with depression, that he was seeing the department shrink?”

  “Uh . . . yeah,” Kovac said, figuring it was a half-truth, at least.

  “He had . . . issues,” Leonard said, uncomfortable with the topic.

  “I know he was gay, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Then don’t stir the pot,” Leonard snapped. Taking a sudden interest in the paperwork on his desk, he sat down and opened a file folder. “There’s nothing to be gained in it. Fallon killed himself either accidentally or on purpose. The sooner we all move on, the better. You’ve got cases open.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Kovac said dryly. “My murders of tomorrow.”

  “Your what?”

  “Nothing, sir.”

  “Tie this up and get back on the Nixon assault. The county attorney is riding me like a jockey on that one. Gang violence is a priority.”

  Yeah, Kovac thought, heading back toward the cubicle, keep those gang stats down to placate the city council. The odd, unexplained death of a cop could be shrugged off.

  He told himself he should be happy. He didn’t want the Fallon case dragging on any more than Leonard did, though for different reasons. Leonard could give a shit about Iron Mike. He’d probably never even met the man. Leonard’s concern was the department. Kovac wanted it over for Mike’s sake—same as whoever had called in the marker with the ME. Yet that fist of tension Kovac didn’t want to acknowledge held firm in the pit of his belly, as familiar to him as a lover’s touch. More so, considering how long it had been since he’d had a lover.

  Liska shoved his coat at him. “You need a cigarette, don’t you, Sam?”

  “Hello? I’m quitting. Big fucking help you are.”

  “Then you should get a lot of fresh air. To clean the crud out of your lungs.”

  She stepped in close and gave him a meaningful look. He followed when she turned for the door.

  “Fallon’s over,” he said, pulling on his topcoat as they left the office.

  Liska looked at him the same way he’d looked at Leonard, only more so.

  “The autopsy’s a done deal.”

  “What?”

  “Everyone expects a suicide ruling. Only they’ll call it accidental, just to go easy on Mike. We’ll have a preliminary report today and a benediction from Leonard. No one upstairs wants Mike—or the department—to be further embarrassed by the sordid details.”

  “Yeah, I bet not,” Liska said, suddenly looking pale.

  She didn’t speak again until they were outside. Kovac didn’t ask for an explanation. They’d been together long enough that he could read her easily. A partnership on the job was an intimacy—not in the sexual sense, but psychologically, emotionally. The more in tune with each other, the better they could work a case. His partnership with Liska was as good as any he’d had. They understood each other, respected each other.

  He walked beside her through a maze of halls and out a little-used door on the north side of the building. The sun was out, brilliant and blinding on the snow. The sky was the pale blue of a robin’s egg. A deceptively pretty day with a windchill factor in the teens. There was no one else on this set of steps, which caught no sunlight and all the wind. People flocked instead to the south side like arctic birds searching for warmth.

  Kovac winced as the cold slapped him in the face. He jammed his hands down in his coat pockets and turned a hunched shoulder to the wind.

  “Leonard told you Fallon was over,” Liska said.

  “Wrap it up and close it.”

  “Who made that autopsy happen so fast?”

  “Someone higher on the food chain.”

  Liska looked up the street, the muscles in her jaw tensing. The wind fluttered through her short hair and brought moisture to her eyes. He could sense he wasn’t going to like what she was working up to tell him.

  “So what bug’s up your ass?” he asked irritably. “It’s colder than my second wife’s mother out here.”

  “I just had a call from someone who claims to have known what Andy Fallon was working on.”

  “Does this someone have a name?”

  “Not yet. But I saw him yesterday in the IA offices. Another dissatisfied customer.”

  The fist in Kovac’s belly pressed knuckles-down and started to grind. “And what does he claim Fallon was working?”

  She looked up at him. “A murder.”

  “Murder?” Kovac said with disbelief. “Since when does IA touch a murder? No way. A felony always goes to the division, on account of IA can’t find their own asses in a dark room. How could Fallon be working a murder and us not know about it? That’s bullshit.”

  “He could have if we thought it was closed,” Liska said. “Remember Eric Curtis?”

  “Curtis? The off-duty patrol cop? The mutt that did him is sitting in jail. What was his name? Vermin?”

  “Verma. Renaldo Verma.”

  “A string of robbery-assaults. Gay victims. He did—what? Three or four in eighteen months.”

  “Four. Two of the vics died. Curtis was last.”

  “Same MO as the others, right? Bound, beaten, robbed.”

  “Yes, but Eric Curtis was a cop,” Liska pointed out.

  “So?”

  “So he was a cop and he was gay. According to my mystery man, months before his death, Curtis had complained to IA about harassment on the job because of his sexual preference.”

  “And you’re saying maybe a cop killed him because of it?” Kovac said. “Jesus, Tinks. You want to believe that, maybe you ought to apply for Fallon’s job.”

  “Fuck you, Kojak,” she snapped. “I hate IA. I hate what they do to people. I hate them like you can’t know. But Eric Curtis was a cop, and he was gay, and now he’s dead. Andy Fallon was looking into it, he was gay, and now he’s dead,” she said, not liking the soun
d of it herself by the scowl on her face. And still, she stood up to him, toe to toe, and pressed her point. That was Liska: no job too mean or too ugly. She stepped up to the plate and swung at whatever she had to.

  “And I just got told the book is all but closed on Fallon,” Kovac said, looking out at the street.

  “You don’t like it either, Sam,” Liska said quietly. “You can feel it in your gut, can’t you?”

  He didn’t answer her right away. He let it all roll through his head like a movie while the carillon in the city hall clock tower began to mark the hour with “White Christmas.”

  “No,” he said at last. “I don’t like anything about this.”

  They were both silent for a moment. Cars rolled by on Fourth Street. The wind howled down the tunnels created by the buildings, snapping the flags on the federal building across the street.

  “Andy Fallon probably killed himself,” Liska said. “There wasn’t anything at the scene to say he didn’t. This guy that just called me. Who’s to say he gives a shit about Andy Fallon? Maybe the Curtis murder is just his ax to grind and he thinks we’ll get into it through the back door. . . . But what if it’s not, Sam? We’re all Andy Fallon has. And Mike. You taught me that—who do we work for?”

  “The victim,” he murmured, that bad feeling still heavy in the bottom of his stomach.

  They worked for the victim. He’d grounded that into countless trainees. The victims couldn’t speak for themselves. It was up to the detective to ask all pertinent questions, to dig and prod, and turn over rocks until he found the truth. Sometimes it was easy. And sometimes it wasn’t.

  “What’s it gonna hurt to ask a few more questions?” he said, knowing it sounded too much like something for the Famous Final Words file.

  “I’ll take the morgue.” Liska hugged her coat around her as she turned back for the door. “You take IA.”

  “I’VE ALREADY SPOKEN with your partner, Sergeant,” Lieutenant Savard said, barely glancing up at him as she sorted through a pile of reports on her desk. “And, in case you haven’t been informed, Andy Fallon’s death is being ruled an accident.”

  “In record time,” Kovac said.

  The IA lieutenant gave him her undivided attention at that. The green of her eyes was almost startling. Clear and cold, staring out from beneath brows several shades darker than the ash blond of her hair. The contrast intensified the sharp seriousness of her expression. He had to think she scared the shit out of a lot of cops with that look.

  He’d been around too long to feel fear. He was numb to it. Or maybe he was just stupid.

  He sat in the chair across the desk from her, ankles crossed. He’d done a brief stint in IA himself a hundred years ago, back when the department had been run by a real cop, not some brass-polisher looking to shine his way up the chain of command. He hadn’t been ashamed to work the job. He had no love for bad cops. But he hadn’t liked it either.

  In those days there hadn’t been any lieutenants on the force who looked like this one.

  “Damn decent of them to do the slicing and dicing so quick, don’t you think?” he said. “Seeing how backed up they are at the morgue this time of year. They’ve got bodies stacked up like Yule logs, for Christ’s sake.”

  “Professional courtesy,” Savard said curtly.

  Kovac caught himself watching her lips. They were the perfect shape of an archer’s bow, with a sheer coat of lipstick.

  “Yeah, well,” he said, “I feel like I kinda owe old Mike the same courtesy, you know? Do you know him? Mike Fallon?”

  The eyes went back to the papers. “I know of him. I spoke with him on the phone today and gave him my condolences.”

  “Yeah, you’re too young. You wouldn’t have been around in the days of Iron Mike. You must be—what? Thirty-seven, thirty-eight?”

  She looked at him as if she had a mouthful of bitters. “That would be none of your business, Sergeant. And just a word of advice. If you’re going to try to guess a woman’s age, err on the side of youth.”

  Kovac winced. “Was I that far off?”

  “No. You were that close. I’m vain. Now, if you don’t mind . . .” She lifted some of the papers and rattled them. The subtle reminder to leave.

  “I just have a couple of questions.”

  “You don’t need questions or answers to them. You have no case to investigate.”

  “But I have Mike,” he reminded her. “I’m just trying to piece some things together for him. It’s a tough thing for a parent to lose a child. If it helps for me to fill him in on Andy’s last days, then I’ll do that. That doesn’t seem too much to ask, do you think?”

  “It is if you want confidential information from an Internal Affairs investigation,” Savard said, pushing her chair back from the desk.

  She had tried the cool dismissal. Now she would try to herd him out. Kovac stayed seated for a moment, just to irk her, just to let her know he wouldn’t give up that easily. She came around the desk to show him the door. He waited until she was near his chair, then he stood, making her hesitate. She took a half step back, frowning, retreating and not liking it.

  “I know about the Curtis thing,” Kovac bluffed.

  “Then you know you don’t need to speak with me after all, don’t you?”

  A wry smile tugged at one corner of his mouth. “You didn’t ride in here on the equal rights bandwagon, did you, Lieutenant?”

  “Believe me, I’m more than qualified for my job, Sergeant Kovac.”

  There was something like amusement in her voice, but it was darker. Irony, maybe. He couldn’t begin to imagine why, or where it came from, or why she would allow him to hear it. It wasn’t important to him now, but he filed the curiosity in his brain, just in case he might need it later.

  He crossed his arms and sat back against the edge of her desk as she made a move toward the door. Irritation flashed in the green eyes. Temper brought a tint of color to her cheeks. This, he thought, was what television wanted lady lieutenants to look like: classy, sleek, stylish in a steel-gray pantsuit. Cool, controlled, sexy in an understated way.

  Too classy for you, Kovac, he thought. A lieutenant. Jesus. Why was he even looking?

  “Did you know Andy Fallon was gay?” he asked.

  “His personal life was none of my business.”

  “That’s not what I asked.”

  “Yes, he told me he was gay.”

  “Before you went to his house Sunday night?”

  “You’re pressing your luck here, Sergeant,” Savard said. “I’ve already told you, I’m not going to answer your questions. Do you really want me to speak to your lieutenant about this?”

  “You can call him, but he’s busy practicing his it-was-a-tragic-accident-now-drop-it speech.”

  “He should be practicing it on you.”

  “I’ve already given him my critique—there’s no beat and you can’t dance to it. He should keep his day job as a petty bureaucrat and forget about politics.”

  “I’m sure your opinion means a great deal to him.”

  “Yeah. Exactly nothing,” he said. “Yours will mean more, if you decide to go that way. He’ll ask me in his office and tell me to do my job the way he says or get suspended. Thirty days without pay. And all because I’m trying to do something decent for another cop. Life sucks, some days harder than others. But what am I supposed to do? Hang myself?”

  Savard’s face darkened. “That wasn’t funny, Sergeant.”

  “It wasn’t meant to be. I’m sure you know it was meant to make you see Andy Fallon in your head again. I can show you the Polaroids if you want.” He pulled one out of his inside breast pocket and held it up like a magician doing a card trick. “It’s a hell of a thing to see, isn’t it?”

  The blood drained out of the lieutenant’s face. She looked as if she wanted to hit him with something. “Put it away.”

  Kovac flipped it over and looked at it with the dispassion of someone who had seen hundreds of such photographs. “You
knew him. You had a connection to him. You’re sorry he’s dead. Think how his old man feels.”

  “Put it away,” she said again. There was the barest hint of a tremor in her voice as she added, “Please.”

  He slipped the Polaroid back into his coat pocket. “Do you care enough to help lay a father’s doubts to rest?”

  “Does Mike Fallon have doubts about Andy’s death being an accident?” she asked.

  “Mike has doubts about who Andy was.”

  She moved away from him, silent for a moment, thinking, considering. “No one knows anyone. Not really. Most of us don’t even know ourselves.”

  Kovac watched her, intrigued by the sudden turn to philosophy. She seemed reflective rather than defensive.

  “I know exactly who I am, Lieutenant,” he said.

  “And who are you, Sergeant Kovac?”

  “I’m exactly what you’re looking at,” he answered, lifting his arms to the sides. “I’m a flatfoot, a straight-line cop in a cheap suit from JC Penney. I’m a walking, talking stereotype. I eat bad food, drink too much, and smoke—though I’m trying to quit and think I should score character points for that. I don’t run marathons or do tai chi or compose opera in my free time. If I have a question, I ask it. People don’t always like that, but fuck ’em—pardon my language, another bad habit I won’t be shed of. Oh, yeah—and I’m stubborn as hell.”

  Savard arched a brow. “Let me guess. You’re divorced?”

  “Twice, but that won’t stop me from trying again. Under the cheap suit beats the heart of a hopeless romantic.”

  “Is there any other kind?”

  Kovac chose not to answer. The better part of valor.

  “So, I want to do this for Mike,” he said. “Ask around about his kid, try to put together a picture he can live with. Will you help me with that?”

  Savard thought about that for a moment, digested it, dissected it, weighed the pros and cons.

  “Andy Fallon was a good investigator,” she said at last. “He always tried hard. Sometimes he tried too hard.”

  “What does that mean? Too hard?”

  “Just that the job was everything to him. He worked too hard and took failures too much to heart.”