Dust to Dust

by Tami Hoag

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said to Springer. “It’s foolproof.”

  Kovac snorted. “Nothing is foolproof to a talented fool.”

  They occupied Springer’s kitchen. Springer, Castleton, Tippen from the SO—because they were out of their jurisdiction and wanted to cover their asses with the county people—Liska, and Kovac. Mrs. Springer had gone to stay with a sister. Liska wondered if she would come back after this was all over. Probably. Then again, it remained to be seen if Cal would escape jail time and be here for Mrs. Cal to come back to.

  Springer’s first part in the drama had been to look the other way when Ogden planted evidence in Renaldo Verma’s house. In doing that, Ogden had him on the hook. It was one thing for a uniform to do something stupid, but the lead detective on a homicide investigation was a much bigger target and stood to lose much more. Cal Springer, with the high waters of his lifestyle already coming up around his head, couldn’t afford to lose.

  “I’m not feeling well,” Springer complained.

  “Yeah, we can all smell that, Cal,” Castleton grumbled, getting to his feet.

  Liska broke the pattern of her pacing, went over to Springer, and kicked him.

  “Ouch!” He bent over and grabbed his shin.

  “A man might die because of you, and you’re complaining you don’t feel well?” she said with utter disgust. “My children were threatened because you weren’t man enough to say no to Bruce Ogden.”

  “He could have cost me my job,” Springer defended himself.

  “And now you’re going to prison. Great choice, Cal.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  She stared at him, incredulous. “No. I don’t understand. I will never understand. You let Ogden plant evidence so you could close a case and get a big one in your win column.”

  “What was the difference with Verma?” he argued. “The guy was a killer. We knew he did it! And—and—the vic was one of ours. We couldn’t let him walk for that!”

  “How dare you pretend an interest in justice!” Liska spat the words at him. “That wasn’t your motivation, that’s your rationalization. Your motivation to look the other way on Verma was for your own advancement.”

  “Oh, and you’ve never done anything to get ahead,” Springer sneered.

  “I’ve never contaminated an investigation. Did it ever occur to you that maybe Verma didn’t do Curtis—an HIV-positive gay cop who’d changed patrol partners three times in five years and had lodged formal complaints of harassment.”

  “When I had Verma cold on the Franz murder? No.”

  “Hey, fuck that, Springer,” Castleton jumped in. “Bobby Kerwin got Verma on Franz. You weren’t even in the picture.”

  Springer clenched his jaw. “It was a figure of speech. Verma was good for an identical murder and how many robberies? Why shouldn’t I take him?”

  “The fact that you didn’t have any physical evidence might have weighed in there,” Tippen suggested.

  Springer scowled at him. “Why should I suspect another cop, for god’s sake? We spoke with all of Curtis’s ex-partners. There were no red flags.”

  “Then you weren’t listening,” Liska said. “Curtis’s last partner, Engle, told me—and he doesn’t know me from anyone—he thought something had gone on between Curtis and Rubel. He didn’t tell you when you were looking into Curtis’s murder?”

  “It didn’t pan out,” Springer said. “I mean, look at Rubel. He’s not queer. And—and why would he kill Curtis? They hadn’t been partners for a long time.”

  “Because of the HIV, you moron. If Curtis infected Rubel with an incurable, terminal disease, I would call that motive, wouldn’t you?”

  Springer inhaled and exhaled.

  “And it didn’t strike you odd that a couple of months after Curtis was murdered, Derek Rubel, who had been one of Curtis’s partners, suddenly became partners with the guy who tampered with the evidence in the case?” Liska asked.

  Springer looked ready to have a temper tantrum but was too afraid of Liska to do it. Red in the face. Shaking. “People get reassigned all the time. Besides, the case was closed by then.”

  “Oh, well, the case was closed. So what if you hung it on someone who didn’t do it? He’d done something else just as bad. And you were already way on the meat hook, as far as Ogden was concerned. He could have sold you to IA in a heartbeat,” Liska said. “Sure, it would have cost him. But it would have cost you more. So when Ogden and Rubel needed an alibi for Thursday night, all Ogden had to do was pick up the phone.”

  “Ogden would have ruined me.”

  “Bad cops ruin themselves,” Liska said quietly, remembering Savard telling her that when she had gone into IA after Andy Fallon’s body had been discovered. It seemed like a year ago.

  “It didn’t matter to you what they did to Ken Ibsen?” she asked.

  Springer turned his face away in shame. He hadn’t cared enough to put himself on the line, and someone else had nearly paid with his life.

  “I wish I could drag your sorry ass to the hospital and make you stand next to Ken Ibsen’s bed when his doctors come to examine him,” she said. “I wish I could take his memories of what those two animals did to him in that alley, and permanently implant them in your brain so that you would have to relive that attack over and over every day of your miserable life.”

  “I’m sorry!” Springer shouted.

  “Yes, you are.”

  Kovac stepped between them and took Liska by the arm. “Come on, Tinks. They’ll be here soon. Let’s go hide for the surprise party.”

  He led her into the Springer pantry, a narrow closet of a room lined with shelves of canned foods and extra china. Liska leaned back against one set of shelves, Kovac the other.

  “You got ’em, Tinks,” Kovac said quietly.

  “They’re on the hook, not in the net. I want them bludgeoned and on my stringer.”

  “Then maybe you shouldn’t chew the shit out of the one person who’s going to get them there for you.”

  “He deserves worse.”

  “He deserves exactly what you said—to relive Ken Ibsen’s attack every day of his life. But we’ll have to settle for his career being ruined and his sorry butt in jail.”

  “They threatened my boys, Sam,” she said, trembling again at the thought. “You know, I kept thinking all week, what homophobe would beat a gay man to death in a manner that exposed him to so much blood? It didn’t follow. Every guy I know like that is terrified of AIDS. They think they can get it from toilet seats, a handshake, breathing the air. It had to be someone who was either completely ignorant of the risk, or someone who was already infected. Then I saw Rubel at HCMC. . . .”

  “Rubel didn’t hate Curtis because he was gay,” Kovac said. “He killed him because Curtis infected him. Revenge.”

  “And Ogden put the evidence on Verma to protect Rubel because they’re lovers.”

  “They’re bad guys, Tinks. And you got ’em.” He reached across and touched her shoulder. “I’m proud of you, kiddo.”

  “Thanks.” She looked away and chewed on her lip. “You think Springer can get them to cop to Andy Fallon?”

  “Maybe. If they did it.”

  Tippen stuck his head in the pantry. “The party guests have arrived. Places, everybody.”

  Liska drew her weapon and checked it. Kovac did the same. The game faces went on. They would stay where they were while Cal Springer tried to get Ogden and Rubel to incriminate themselves on tape. When they’d heard enough, the trap would be sprung with Ogden and Rubel in the kitchen. Meanwhile, radio cars from the SO would roll in as backup.

  The doorbell rang. There was the sound of voices, though Liska couldn’t make out the words. She visualized Springer greeting his guests, inviting them in, assuring them he was on their side. But the tone of the voices changed abruptly, and Cal Springer started to shout no! The word was cut short by a gunshot.

  “Shit!” Kovac yelled and bolted from the pantry. />
  Liska was right behind him.

  “Freeze, police!” Castleton shouted.

  Three more shots.

  Kovac dashed for the living room, crouching low.

  Liska went out the service door to the garage, and to the door that opened onto the driveway.

  Rubel and Ogden were running for Rubel’s truck, a dozen feet in front of Liska, guns out.

  “Rubel!” Liska shouted, and discharged her weapon, then ducked back behind the door.

  Two quick shots answered her, one splintering the door frame at the top. Three shots came from somewhere, and a man screamed.

  The truck engine roared to life and spun backward out of Springer’s driveway. Liska swung the door open to see Rubel sticking an arm out the truck window, and fire flashed from the end of his gun.

  Lights and sirens running, a pair of radio cars were screaming toward the bottleneck of the cul-de-sac. Rubel never slowed down, splitting the space between the noses of the cars. One clipped the rear passenger side of his truck with a bang! Rubel kept going, speeding away as one of the sheriff’s cars swung around to give chase.

  Bruce Ogden lay sobbing on the driveway, rolling like a beached seal, trying in vain to grab at his back.

  Liska ran toward him, leading with her weapon, and kicked his gun out of reach. Kovac ran up from the sidewalk, cursing a blue streak.

  “Springer’s dead!”

  “Help me! Help me!” Ogden squealed. A dark stain spread on the ice-packed driveway beneath him. Liska stared down at him, thinking of Ken Ibsen.

  A radio car from the Eden Prairie PD roared up, and two uniforms bailed out and came running.

  “Don’t touch him without gloves,” Liska ordered, stepping back. “He’s a health risk.”

  “WHOSE BRIGHT IDEA was this?” Leonard asked, looking right at Kovac.

  “We had to move fast, Lieutenant,” Liska said. “We wanted Ogden and Rubel on tape before they had a chance to lawyer up.”

  They stood in Cal Springer’s living room with the cold fireplace and unlit Christmas tree. Cal was at that very moment being zipped into his own personal gift bag to be delivered to the morgue. He had taken a shot point-blank in the middle of the chest.

  “We sure as hell never thought this would happen,” Kovac said.

  “I could see Rubel and Ogden trying to get him out the door,” Castleton said. “Probably to take him somewhere and make him disappear. Springer knew it. He tried to pull back. Rubel shot him before I could do anything.”

  “Jesus H.” Leonard stared in disgust at the body bag on the gurney as the ME’s people wheeled it out the front door. “The press is going to have a field day with this.”

  And, oh yeah, Mrs. Springer, sorry for your loss, Liska thought.

  “Every cop in the metro area and surrounding counties has the BOLO on Rubel,” Castleton said.

  “He’ll probably ditch his truck and steal some wheels,” Kovac said. “He’s got nothing to lose now. We catch him and he goes down for two murders and an aggravated assault. He’ll never see the light of day.”

  The Eden Prairie police chief stepped into the foyer from outside. “Lieutenant Leonard? We have members of the press waiting.”

  Leonard cursed under his breath and went away.

  Liska went into the Springers’ kitchen, pulling out her phone to call and check on the boys. Speed came in through the laundry room, stopped in the doorway, and stared at her.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “No.”

  Liska dropped her head and punched in Milo Foreman’s phone number. Speed waited, listening as she explained the situation briefly and asked if the boys could stay until Sunday. She closed the phone and dropped it in her coat pocket.

  “I’d ask what you’re doing here,” she said, “but—”

  “I heard it on the scanner.”

  “Really? You didn’t just follow Ogden and Rubel out here from that gym you don’t belong to?”

  He rubbed the stubble on his jaw and looked away.

  “What were you doing there, Speed?”

  The big sigh. “I’ve been on loan to Minneapolis narcotics. They were aware of a steroid problem within the department. They needed an unfamiliar face.”

  “How long?” she asked, feeling the anger, the hurt, the frustration building inside her.

  He hesitated again before confessing. “The last two months.”

  Liska laughed and shook her head. Why should it hurt this much? she asked herself. She shouldn’t have even been surprised. Maybe she wasn’t surprised. But she had to admit, there had been that sliver of hope, that tiny little spark. . . . After all these years, he still hadn’t managed to kill it. She couldn’t understand how it hadn’t died of its own accord.

  “So your sudden renewed interest in my life and the boys—”

  “Is genuine, Nikki.”

  “Oh, please.”

  He moved toward her. “I knew you had run into Ogden and Rubel. They were at the gym that afternoon you caught the Fallon thing.”

  “And what was your purpose in watching me deal with that?” she asked. “And you never saying one fucking word to me—”

  “I can’t talk about a case, Nikki. You know that.”

  “Oh, but it’s fine for you to pump me for information about my case,” she said. Every question he’d asked her this week bubbled up in her memory. “You are such an asshole.”

  He came toward her again, backing her toward the counter, trying to look sad and concerned and hurt by her low opinion of him. Liska ducked away, cringing away from any contact with him.

  “Nikki, I was looking out for you, for the boys—”

  “How were you looking out for us?” she demanded. “By not filling me in? By not letting me know you were there for us?”

  “You didn’t exactly ask me to stick around.”

  “Don’t try to put this on me!”

  He spread his hands and took a step back. “I thought I could keep an eye on you without compromising my investigation or yours.”

  “So that I wouldn’t blow your collar if mine didn’t pan out,” Liska said. “Or were you planning to swoop in at the end, like Superman, and save the day for everyone? That would have been a nice feather in your cap, wouldn’t it? Get the bad guys, get the girl—”

  Speed was losing patience, as he always did when charm and false sincerity failed him. “If that’s what you really think, Nikki . . .”

  Liska took a deep breath and willed her own emotions down. “I think you need to go. I have a job to do.”

  He bit back another sigh, regrouped mentally, tried to come again with the concerned-friend routine. “Look, I know this isn’t the time or the place. I just wanted to make sure you were okay. Maybe I’ll stop by the house later—”

  “Don’t do that.”

  “I can take the boys for the afternoon tomorrow if you want.”

  “What I want,” Liska said, pointing her gaze toward the laundry room because it was hurting her to look at him, “is not to see you for a while, Speed.”

  It finally sunk into him that he wasn’t going to win this one. Charm and looks could take him a long way in his day-to-day world, but he had run out of disguises with her. At least until the next time she felt weak enough to believe in him.

  “Take the boys tomorrow if what you want is to be with them. But don’t do it to get to me.”

  He hesitated for a moment, as if he had something more to say, but he didn’t say it. He went back out the way he’d come.

  Liska stood there, staring at the floor, trying to clear her mind, get back to work mode, shake it off, suck it up, be tough. Again. She could see Kovac standing in the archway to the main part of the house.

  “Why do I never learn?” she asked.

  “’Cause you’re a hardhead.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Takes one to know one.” He came in and hooked an arm around her shoulders. “Come on, Tinks. Unless you decide to run out and put
a couple in that asshole’s head, our work here is done. Call it a night. Go home. I’ll put a radio car in front of your house.”

  She made a face. “I don’t need—”

  “You do need. You’re the one who found Rubel out, kiddo. And he knows where you live.”

  A chill went down her back like an icy finger.

  “You know,” she said, putting her head on his shoulder, “some days I wish I was a waitress.”

  33

  CHAPTER

  BY SIX A.M. news of the manhunt for Officer Derek Rubel had brought in reporters from every major network. Minneapolis was crawling with camera crews. Kovac, Liska, Tippen, and Castleton had all been ordered to speak to no one regarding the murder of Cal Springer. Interviews were being handled by Leonard, the Hennepin County sheriff, and the Eden Prairie chief.

  The FBI had been called in on the case, along with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. The Minnesota and Wisconsin State Highway Patrols both had helicopters in the air, doing a grid search for Rubel’s black Explorer, a tedious job sparking one false alarm after another. Minnesota was full of black Ford Explorers. None of the ones stopped and searched belonged to Rubel.

  Neighbors and known associates of his were questioned as to his habits in order to try to come up with a list of likely hiding places. Deputies were dispatched to eighty acres of hunting land in the scrub near Zimmerman, property owned jointly by half a dozen officers. There was no sign Rubel had been to the crude cabin.

  Ogden, who had taken two bullets in the shoot-out, had been airlifted by chopper to the Hennepin County Medical Center, where he was listed as stable after three hours of surgery. He had yet to be questioned, and already the union had staked out a lawyer at the door to his hospital room.

  Kovac worked KOD duty all night, preferring knocking on the doors of perfect strangers to spending the night in his empty house. By morning, his social skills were running on empty. He passed the baton to Elwood and went home.

  The neighbor was out in the frigid sunshine wearing his plaid bomber cap, digging bits of snow from his yard with a spade.

  “Goddamn dogs,” Kovac heard him grumble as he got out of the car. At the slam of the door, the old man’s head came up and he drew a bead on Kovac through his cockeyed glasses.