Ashes to Ashes

by Tami Hoag

  Kate refrained from reminding him yet again that she had spent most of her years with the FBI at a desk in the Behavioral Sciences Unit at the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime. Her days in the field were longer ago than she cared to remember.

  “The mayor will want to give you an award,” Sabin said brightly, knowing he would get in on the photo op.

  Publicity was the last thing Kate wanted. As an advocate, it was her job to hold the hands of crime victims and witnesses, to shepherd them through the justice system, to reassure them. The idea of an advocate being chased down by media hounds was likely to spook some of her clients.

  “I'd rather she didn't. I don't think it's the best idea for someone with my job. Right, Rob?”

  “Kate's right, Mr. Sabin,” he said, flashing his obsequious smile—an expression that often overtook his face when he was nervous. Kate called it the bootlicker's grin. It made his eyes nearly disappear. “We don't want her picture in the paper . . . all things considered.”

  “I suppose not,” Sabin said, disappointed. “At any rate, what happened this morning isn't why we've called you in, Kate. We're assigning you a witness.”

  “Why all the fanfare?”

  Most of her client assignments were automatic. She worked with six prosecuting attorneys and caught everything they charged—the exception being homicides. Rob assigned all homicides, but an assignment never warranted anything more than a phone call or a visit to her office. Sabin certainly never involved himself with the process.

  “Are you familiar with the two prostitute murders we've had this fall?” Sabin asked. “The ones where the bodies were burned?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “There's been another one. Last night.”

  Kate looked from one grim face to the other. Behind Sabin she had a panoramic view of downtown Minneapolis from twenty-two stories up.

  “This one wasn't a prostitute,” she said.

  “How did you know that?”

  Because you'd never take time out of your day if it was.

  “Lucky guess.”

  “You didn't hear it on the street?”

  “On the street?” Like he was in a gangster movie. “No. I wasn't aware there'd been a murder.”

  Sabin walked around behind his desk, suddenly restless. “There's a chance this victim was Jillian Bondurant. Her father is Peter Bondurant.”

  “Oh,” Kate said with significance. Oh, no, this wasn't just another dead hooker. Never mind that the first two victims had fathers somewhere too. This one's father was important.

  Rob shifted uncomfortably in his chair, though whether it was the case or the fact that he insisted on wearing his pants too small around the waist was unclear. “Her driver's license was left near the body.”

  “And it's been confirmed that she's missing?”

  “She had dinner with her father at his home Friday night. She hasn't been seen since.”

  “That doesn't mean it's her.”

  “No, but that's the way it worked with the first two,” Sabin said. “The ID left with each hooker's body matched up.”

  A hundred questions shot through Kate's mind, questions about the crime scene, about what information the police had released about the first two murders and what had been held back. This was the first she'd heard about the IDs being left at the scene. What did that mean? Why burn the bodies beyond recognition, yet leave the victim's identity right there?

  “I assume they're checking dental records,” she said.

  The men exchanged looks.

  “I'm afraid that's not an option,” Rob said carefully. “We have a body only.”

  “Jesus,” Kate breathed as a chill ran through her. “He didn't decapitate the others. I never heard that.”

  “No, he didn't,” Rob said. He squinted again and tipped his head a little to one side. “What do you make of it, Kate? You've had experience with this kind of thing.”

  “Obviously, his level of violence is escalating. It could mean he's gearing up for something big. There was some sexual mutilation with the others, right?”

  “The cause of death on the other two was ruled strangulation by ligature,” Sabin said. “I'm sure I don't need to tell you, Kate, that while strangulation is certainly a violent enough method of murder, a decapitation will throw this city into a panic. Particularly if the victim was a decent, law-abiding young woman. My God, the daughter of one of the most prominent men in the state. We need to find this killer fast. And we can make that happen. We've got a witness.”

  “And this is where I come in,” Kate said. “What's the story?”

  “Her name is Angie DiMarco,” Rob said. “She came running out of the park just as the first radio car arrived.”

  “Who called it in?”

  “Anonymous caller on a cell phone, I'm told,” Sabin said. His mouth tightened and twisted as if he were sucking at a sore tooth. “Peter Bondurant is a friend of the mayor's. I know him as well. He's beside himself with grief at the idea that this victim is Jillian, and he wants this case solved ASAP. A task force is being put together even as we speak. Your old friends at the Bureau have been called. They're sending someone from the Investigative Support Unit. We clearly have a serial killer on our hands.”

  And a prominent businessman up your butts.

  “Rumors are already flying,” Sabin muttered darkly. “The police department has a leak big enough to drain the Mississippi.”

  The phone on his desk was lighting up like the switchboard on a disease telethon, though it never audibly rang.

  “I've spoken with Chief Greer and with the mayor,” he continued. “We're grabbing this thing by the short hairs right now.”

  “That's why we've called you in, Kate,” Rob said, shifting in his chair again. “We can't wait until there's been an arrest to assign someone to this witness. She's the only link we have to the killer. We want someone from the unit attached to her right away. Someone to sit with her during police interviews. Someone to let her know not to talk to the press. Someone to maintain the thread of contact between her and the county attorney's office. Someone to keep tabs on her.”

  “It sounds like what you want is a baby-sitter. I've got cases ongoing.”

  “We'll shift some of your caseload.”

  “Not Willis,” she said, then grimaced. “As much as I'd like to dump him. And absolutely not Melanie Hessler.”

  “I could take Hessler, Kate,” Rob insisted. “I sat in on the initial meeting. I'm familiar with the case.”

  “No.”

  “I've worked with plenty of rape victims.”

  “No,” she said as if she were the boss and the decision was hers to make.

  Sabin looked annoyed. “What case is this?”

  “Melanie Hessler. She was raped by two men in the alley behind the adult bookstore she works in downtown,” Kate explained. “She's very fragile, and she's terrified about the trial. She couldn't take me abandoning her—especially not to a man. She needs me. I won't let her go.”

  Rob huffed a sigh.

  “Fine,” Sabin declared impatiently. “But this case is priority one. I don't care what it takes. I want this lunatic out of business. Now.”

  Now that the victim would garner more than a minute and a half on the six o'clock news. Kate had to wonder how many dead prostitutes it would have taken to get Ted Sabin to feel that same level of urgency. But she kept the question to herself and nodded, and tried to ignore the sense of dread that settled in her stomach like a lead weight.

  Just another witness, she told herself. Just another case. Back to the usual, familiar entanglements of her job.

  Like hell.

  A dead billionaire's daughter, a case full of politicos, a serial killer, and someone winging in from Quantico. Someone from ISU. Someone who hadn't been there five years ago, she had to hope—but knew that hope was a flimsy shield.

  Suddenly, Las Vegas didn't seem so bad after all.

  3

  CHAP
TER

  “THIS HAPPENED IN the night. It was dark. How much could she have seen?” Kate asked.

  The three of them walked together through the underground concourse that ran beneath Fifth Street and connected the government center to the depressing Gothic stone monstrosity that housed the Minneapolis city government offices and the Minneapolis police department. The underground corridor was busy. No one was going out onto the street voluntarily. The gloomy morning had turned dour as a leaden sky sank low above the city and let loose with a cold, steady rain. November: a lovely month in Minnesota.

  “She told the police she saw him,” Rob said, trundling along beside her. His legs were short for his body, and hurrying gave him the toddling gait of a midget, even though he was of average height. “We have to hope she saw him well enough to identify him.”

  “I'd like a composite sketch in time for the press conference,” Sabin announced.

  Kate ground her molars. Oh, yeah, this was going to be a peach of a case. “A good sketch takes time, Ted. It pays to get it right.”

  “Yes, well, the sooner we get a description out there, a picture out there, the better.”

  In her mind's eye she could envision Sabin wringing information out of the witness, then tossing her aside like a rag.

  “We'll do everything we can to expedite the situation, Mr. Sabin,” Rob promised. Kate shot him a dirty look.

  The city hall building had at one time in its history been the Hennepin County courthouse, and had been constructed with a sense of sober grandiosity to impress visitors. The Fourth Street entrance, which Kate seldom had cause to pass through, was as stunning as a palace, with a marble double grand staircase, incredible stained glass, and the enormous Father of the Waters sculpture. The main body of the building had always reminded her of an old hospital with its tiled floor and white marble wainscoting. There was forever a vacant feeling about the place, although Kate knew it was all but bursting at the seams with cops and crooks, city officials and reporters and citizens looking for justice or a favor.

  The criminal investigative division of the PD had been crammed into a gloomy warren of rooms at the end of a cavernous hall while remodeling went on in their usual digs. The reception area was cut up with temporary partitions. There were files and boxes stacked everywhere, beat-up dingy gray metal file cabinets had been pushed into every available corner. Tacked to the wall beside the door into the converted broom closet that now housed sex crimes investigators was a sign that proclaimed:

  TURKEY WAKE!

  NOVEMBER 27

  PATRICK'S

  1600HRS

  Sabin gave the receptionist a dismissive wave and took a right into the homicide offices. The room was a maze of ugly steel desks the color of dirty putty. Some desks were occupied, most were not. Some were neat, most were awash in paperwork. Notes and photographs and cartoons were tacked and taped to walls and cabinets. A notice on one side of the door ordered: HOMICIDE—LOCK UP YOUR GUNS!

  Telephone receiver pressed to his ear, Sam Kovac spotted them, scowled, and waved them over. A twenty-two-year veteran, Kovac had that universal cop look about him with the requisite mustache and cheap haircut, both sandy brown and liberally threaded with silver.

  “Yeah, I realize you're dating my second wife's sister, Sid.” He pulled a fresh pack of Salems from a carton on his desk and fumbled with the cellophane wrapper. He had shed the jacket of his rumpled brown suit and jerked his tie loose. “That doesn't entitle you to inside information on this murder. All that'll get you is my sympathy. Yeah? Yeah? She said that? Well, why do you think I left her? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Is that right?”

  He bit at the tab on the cigarette wrapper and ripped the pack open with his teeth. “You hear that, Sid? That's the sound of me tearing you a new one if you print a word of that. You understand me? You want information? Come to the press conference with everybody else. Yeah? Well, same to you.”

  He slammed the receiver down and turned his scowl on the county attorney. His eyes were the green-brown of damp bark, bloodshot, and hard and bright with intelligence. “Damn newsies. This is gonna get uglier than my aunt Selma, and she has a face that could make a bulldog puke.”

  “Do they have Bondurant's name?” Sabin asked.

  “Of course they do.” He pulled a cigarette from the pack and let it dangle from his lip as he rummaged through the junk on his desk. “They're all over this like flies on dog crap,” he said, glancing back at them over his shoulder. “Hi, Kate—Jesus, what happened to you?”

  “Long story. I'm sure you'll hear it at Patrick's tonight. Where's our witness?”

  “Down the hall.”

  “Is she working with the sketch artist yet?” Sabin asked.

  Kovac blew air between his lips and made a sound like a disgusted horse. “She's not even working with us yet. Our citizen isn't exactly overjoyed to be the center of attention here.”

  Rob Marshall looked alarmed. “She's not a problem, is she?” He flashed the bootlicker's smile at Sabin. “I suppose she's just shaken up, Mr. Sabin. Kate will settle her down.”

  “What's your take on the witness, Detective?” Sabin asked.

  Kovac snatched up a Bic lighter and a messy file and started for the door. World-weary and nicked up, his build was at once solid and rangy, utilitarian rather than ornamental. His brown pants were a little baggy and a little too long, the cuffs puddling over the tops of his heel-worn oxfords.

  “Oh, she's a daisy,” he said with sarcasm. “She gives us what's gotta be a stolen out-of-state driver's license. Tells us she's living at an apartment in the Phillips neighborhood but she's got no keys for it and can't tell us who has. If she hasn't got a sheet, I'll shave my ass and paint it blue.”

  “So, you ran her and what?” Kate asked, forcing herself to keep pace with him, so that Sabin and Rob had to fall in behind. She had learned long ago to cultivate friendships with the cops who worked her cases. It was to her advantage to have them as allies rather than adversaries. Besides, she liked the good ones, like Kovac. They did a hard job for little credit and not enough pay for the plain old-fashioned reason that they believed in the necessity of it. She and Kovac had built a nice rapport in five years.

  “I tried to run the name she's using today,” he qualified. “The fucking computer's down. Swell day this is gonna be. I'm on nights this rotation, you know. I oughta be home in bed. My team is on nights. I hate this team-concept crap. Give me a partner and leave me the hell alone. You know what I mean? I got half a mind to transfer out to sex crimes.”

  “And turn your back on all this fame and glamour?” Kate teased, bumping him with a subtle elbow.

  He gave her a look, tilting his head down in conspiracy. A spark of wry humor lit his eyes. “Shit, Red. I like my stiffs uncomplicated, you know.”

  “I've heard that about you, Sam,” she joked, knowing he was the best investigator in the PD, a straight-up good guy who lived the job and hated the politics of it.

  He huffed a laugh and pulled open the door to a small room that looked into another through the murky glass of a one-way mirror. On the other side of the glass, Nikki Liska, another detective, stood leaning against one wall, eyes locked in a staredown with the girl who sat on the far side of the fake-woodgrain table. A bad sign. The situation had already become adversarial. The table was littered with soda cans and paper coffee cups and doughnut chunks and fragments.

  The sense of dread in Kate's belly gained a pound as she stared through the glass. She put the girl at maybe fifteen or sixteen. Pale and thin, she had a button nose and the lush, ripe mouth of a high-priced call girl. Her face was a narrow oval, the chin a little too long, so that she would probably look defiant without trying. Her eyes tilted at an exotic Slavic angle, and looked twenty years too old.

  “She's a kid,” Kate declared flatly, looking to Rob with confusion and accusation. “I don't do kids. You know that.”

  “We need you to do this one, Kate.”

  “Why?” she demanded. “
You've got a whole juvenile division at your disposal. God knows they deal with murder on a regular basis.”

  “This is different. This isn't some gang shoot-'em-up we're dealing with,” Rob said, seemingly relegating some of the most violent crime in the city to the same category as shoplifting and traffic mishaps. “We're dealing with a serial killer.”

  Even in a profession that dealt with murder as a matter of routine, the words serial killer struck a chord. Kate wondered if their bad guy was aware of that, if he reveled in the idea, or if he was too completely bound up in his own small world of hunting and killing. She had seen both types. All their victims ended up equally dead.

  She turned from her director and looked again at the girl who had crossed paths with this latest predator. Angie DiMarco glared at the mirror, resentment pulsing from her in invisible waves. She picked up a fat black pen from the table and very deliberately drew the cap end slowly back and forth along her full lower lip in a gesture that was both impatient and sensuous.

  Sabin gave Kate his profile as if he were posing for a currency engraver. “You've dealt with this kind of case before, Kate. With the Bureau. You have a frame of reference. You know what to expect with the investigation and with the media. You may well know the agent they send from the Investigative Support Unit. That could be helpful. We need every edge we can get.”

  “I studied victims. I dealt with dead people.” She didn't like the anxiety coming to life inside her. Didn't like having it, didn't want to examine its source. “There's a big difference between working with a dead person and working with a kid. Last I heard, dead people were more cooperative than teenagers.”

  “You're a witness advocate,” Rob said, his voice taking on a slight whine. “She's a witness.”

  Kovac, who had propped himself up against the wall to watch the exchange, gave her a wan smile. “Can't pick your relatives or your witnesses, Red. I would have liked Mother Teresa to come running out of that park last night.”