Prior Bad Acts

by Tami Hoag

  Carey motioned to the door when Kovac looked to her.

  “Uh… okay,” he stammered, taking her small hand. He walked her out to hand her over to the care of Officer Young.

  When he came back, he looked a little rattled, as if he didn’t know what to do with the emotions Lucy had evoked in him. Murderers he could deal with. A five-year-old child undid him.

  “Do you have children, Detective?”

  He hesitated a beat before he answered. “No. I’m not married.”

  Not that one necessarily had anything to do with the other. Like eighty percent of the cops she knew, Kovac had probably been married and divorced at least once.

  “She’s a doll,” he said.

  “Thank you.”

  An awkward silence hung in the air for a moment.

  “I suppose you want to scold me for leaving my house,” Carey said.

  “I believe I did tell you to stay put.”

  “You can tell me anything you want.”

  “And you’ll do whatever you damn well please.”

  “Wouldn’t you?”

  He thought about that; then one corner of his mouth crooked up. “Point taken. You should sit down, though. You look a little pale.”

  “I look like something from a zombie movie.”

  “Well… yeah,” Kovac conceded.

  Carey eased herself down into her desk chair, glad for the soft padded leather. “So is this bad news, or are you just going to lecture me?”

  Kovac sat in the chair on the other side of the desk and let go a sigh. “Well, yeah, I was gonna lecture you, but… what’s the point?”

  “I wouldn’t have come here alone,” Carey said. “I’m not that stupid woman in every suspense movie who has to go investigate the strange sounds in the basement.”

  Once again he gave that little quarter of a smile that only touched one side of his mouth. He let his gaze wander around the room, seeming to not want to make eye contact with her unless he had the cop face on.

  “This is a lot nicer than what the prosecutors get,” he said. “You kicked ass back then. Do you ever miss it?”

  “Yes, sometimes,” she admitted. “But this was what I always wanted to do.”

  “Because of your old man?”

  “Yes. My idol,” she said, looking away as the emotion threatened to surface again.

  “He was a good judge. What’s he doing in his retirement? Golfing in Arizona?”

  “He’s dying,” she said. “He has Alzheimer’s, and… he’s dying.”

  “Oh, Jesus,” Kovac muttered. “I’m sorry.”

  “Me too.”

  “I never miss an opportunity to stick my foot in it.”

  “You didn’t know,” Carey said. “Have there been any leads tracking down Stan Dempsey?”

  Kovac shook his head. “No sign of him. No sign of his car.”

  “Has anyone called Kenny Scott? He has to be up there on Dempsey’s hit list.”

  “That’s supposed to be happening.”

  “You didn’t call him yourself?”

  “Kenny Scott is not my priority,” Kovac said. “I’ve got all I can handle with you.”

  Carey smiled a little and realized that she never made eye contact with him either in those moments when her guard slipped.

  “Am I being difficult?”

  He didn’t answer right away. He studied her. She could feel his gaze on her. Finally, he said, “I think you’re too brave for your own good. Why did you have to come here?”

  “I wanted to get some paperwork to look at while I’m convalescing.”

  His sharp eyes swept over the desktop. “So where is it?”

  “I forgot it’s in my briefcase,” she lied.

  “You know, you’re good,” Kovac said. “But I’m better. Let’s try this again, and maybe you can tell me the truth this time. Why did you have to come here?”

  Carey looked down at the desk drawer where she had stashed her file on David’s hobbies. She should probably have given it to him. But what was really in it? Evidence that her husband was unfaithful. Kovac already knew that. And the note-$25,000-could have been anything. Maybe David was thinking of buying a boat. Maybe twenty-five thousand dollars was the lottery prize that day. Maybe he was putting a down payment on a house for another one of his hooker girlfriends or for himself. Maybe he was thinking of moving out.

  “I spoke with your husband’s business associates,” Kovac said. “The people he had dinner with last night. A man named Edmund Ivors. Do you know him?”

  “No. David doesn’t include me in his business dealings.”Or anything else, she thought.

  “Does the name Ginnie Bird mean anything to you?”

  “No. Why?”

  “I think your husband is sleeping with her,” he said bluntly. “Actually, I’m pretty sure of it.”

  Carey didn’t say anything for a moment. Kovac let her process the information.

  “I’m telling him I want a divorce,” she said at last.

  Kovac raised his brows. “Just like that? No ‘Let’s work this out’? No ‘Let’s go to counseling’?”

  “Our marriage has been dying a slow death for a long time. There isn’t anything left to work out except visitation rights.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She almost laughed. “Why? You hate my husband. You can’t believe I ever married him in the first place, let alone that I stayed with him all these years.”

  “I’m sorry for you,” Kovac said softly. “I’m sorry you have to go through it. I’m sorry I had to tell you about the girlfriend.”

  Carey shook her head. “No. Don’t be.”

  She stared down at the desk drawer, then finally pulled it open and took out the file. She handed it across the desk.

  “What’s this?”

  “Evidence. I’ll be using it in court.”

  Kovac paged through the contents. “How long have you been saving this up?”

  “Since this morning. I did a little detective work of my own. He wasn’t even bothering to hide it.”

  “That rotten, rat bastard son of a bitch,” Kovac growled half under his breath as he looked at the hotel receipts and florist bills. He picked out the list of escort agencies and turned red with anger. If David had been there, Carey had little doubt that Kovac would have punched him in the face.

  He pulled out a copy of several canceled checks made out to the property management company. “What are these for?”

  “He’s paying for an apartment,” she said, and recited the address to him. “For himself or for one of his little playmates. I called the company this morning, pretending to be David’s new accountant. I needed information. The last accountant left things in a terrible mess. Couldn’t they help me out? All I needed was the address of the property.”

  “And they gave it up,” Kovac said.

  Carey nodded.

  Kovac picked up the copy of the note regarding twenty-five thousand dollars. “What’s this?”

  “I don’t know,” she said softly. “It was in his wastebasket this morning.”

  “It’s a payoff,” he said.

  “You don’t know that. It could mean anything. A debt. Something related to his business. He’s talked about buying a boat.”

  Everything she said sounded like an excuse. If she had been sitting in Kovac’s place, she knew what she would have been thinking.

  “In October?” Kovac said. “Who buys a boat right before winter?”

  Carey didn’t answer him.

  “Carey…”

  “David is a lot of things,” she said softly, looking down at the desk. “But I can’t believe he would do what you’re suggesting.”

  “Before you found this stuff, would you have believed he was living a secret life? That he was cheating on you with prostitutes every time you turned your back? That he would use your maiden name as his alias?”

  She looked up at him, startled and hurt.

  “You didn’t know that part,” Kovac s
aid gently. “What else don’t you know about him?”

  What could she say? She was married to a stranger.

  “Things weren’t always like this between us,” she said at last, feeling the need to justify having stayed in the marriage. “We were in love once. The last couple of years, we’ve grown apart. He’s slowly become this bitter, unhappy person. I wanted just to gloss over it, to think he was frustrated with his lack of success. I didn’t want to come down on him, because I knew his ego was fragile and my career was going so well.”

  She brushed a thumb beneath her eyes. “And there was Lucy. She loves her daddy. If nothing else, he’s been a good father. He adores Lucy. The sun rises and sets on her.

  “I didn’t care that he didn’t love me anymore. I had my career, my daughter. I could make that be enough.”

  She felt weak, was trembling ever so slightly. She didn’t think she’d ever felt so defeated in her life. Kovac just sat there quietly, watching her with sympathy in his world-weary face.

  “I’d like to go home now,” Carey announced, pushing herself to her feet. “I need to rest up for the big scene.”

  “You’re telling him tonight?” Kovac said, rising from his chair. “Are you sure you want to do that?”

  “Why wait? I’ve waited too long as it is.”

  Kovac gently caught her by the arm as she came around the desk, headed for the door. His touch surprised her.

  “I can be right there for you,” he said, looking her straight in the eye.

  And he meant it, Carey thought. This hardened street cop, who didn’t even like her, would help her through this if she asked. And she had no doubt that he would follow through. That was who Sam Kovac was-blunt, honest, reliable-and not for any reason other than he simply believed that that was the right thing to do.

  “I really don’t want an audience,” she said.

  “I’ll stay outside.”

  Carey shook her head. “I already have two officers sitting out front. David is as aware of them as I am. He wouldn’t risk touching me. He has a whole other life to live for. I can guarantee you prison isn’t on his agenda.”

  “I don’t want you to be alone,” Kovac said.

  “Well, that’s what I’ll want to be-alone. Despite all recent evidence to the contrary, I prefer to cry in private.”

  He didn’t like the idea at all. He wanted to protect her. What a lovely thought, someone looking out for her, someone to lean on, someone volunteering to shoulder the burden for her.

  “I appreciate the thought,” she said. “I really do.”

  “I don’t trust him, Carey.”

  “Don’t worry. David is far too passive-aggressive to hurt me himself.”

  “I want you to call me after,” Kovac said. He still had hold of her arm and stood close enough that she could feel his breath on her cheek. Peppermint… and the faintest hint of scotch.

  She arched a brow. “Drinking on the job, Detective?”

  “Yeah,” he admitted, that little tug of a smile at the corner of his mouth. “You drove me to it.”

  “Well, then, I guess your secret should be safe with me.”

  She took a step away from him, and he let go of her arm.

  His expression turned serious. “Be careful. And call me. And remember: I can be there before you hang up the phone.”

  Carey nodded. “Thank you… Sam. Thank you.”

  She wanted to put her arms around him and hug him for being kind. Or because she wanted to feel strong arms around her, supporting her, protecting her. She felt so alone.

  Instead, she thanked him again and went to the door. Lucy’s face lit up.

  “Mommy, I learned how to arrest somebody.”

  Officer Young smiled at her. “What do you say to the bad guys?”

  Lucy put her hands on her hips and made her best mean face. “Assume the position!”

  Carey chuckled. “We have to go now, sweetie. Thank Officer Young and Detective Kovac.”

  Lucy said her thanks to the officer, then went to Kovac’s feet and looked up at him. “Thank you for holding my hand, Detective Kovac.”

  Kovac leaned down and shook her hand formally. “You’re welcome, Fairy Princess Lucy. You can call me Sam.”

  The little girl smiled, delighted. “I like you, Detective Sam. Will you carry me?”

  “Lucy!” Carey exclaimed.

  Kovac looked uncomfortable and slightly terrified. He glanced up at Carey.

  “You don’t have to,” she said.

  But when he looked back at Lucy, he couldn’t seem to say no. Lucy put her arms around his neck and sat in the crook of his arm, looking pleased as punch with herself.

  “I’m going to pretend you’re a giant,” she said. She jabbered at him all the way to the car.

  When he put her down on the sidewalk, he turned to Carey, his expression dead serious. “You call me, I’m there. Be careful.”

  Carey nodded and slipped into the backseat of the Mercedes. All the way home, she thought of how much her father would have liked Sam Kovac.

  29

  “YOU PLACE KIDS in foster homes, you worry if the foster parents are just in it for the money or if it might turn out they’re abusive. You never think about some psycho killing them.”

  Marcella Otis had been the Family Services caseworker for Wayne and Marlene Haas regarding their fostering of Amber Franken’s two children. Liska had arranged to meet her at a coffee shop on the Nicollet pedestrian mall just a few blocks from the police station. They sat at a sidewalk table, soaking up the glorious day, nursing their drinks, and talking. They probably looked as if they were just two ordinary women chatting about ordinary things. Only the people at the next table, who were quite obviously eavesdropping, knew better.

  Ms. Otis was a sight to see. A woman of considerable substance in a neon green tunic and pants, an African-looking multicolored pillbox hat perched atop ropes and ropes of cornrows. She wore hip rectangular glasses and an abundance of silver jewelry.

  “I was just sick when I saw it on the news. I’ll never forget that night. That terrible thunderstorm. Just waiting for a tornado to take the house. It seemed like a nightmare, but it was all too real. I remember everything turned green just before it hit, the sky, the air. Freaky.”

  She closed her eyes and shivered at the memory.

  “Had the kids’ father ever surfaced before the murders?” Liska asked.

  “Ethan Pratt? Ha! That’s a good one. He had no more interest in those children than the man in the moon.”

  “But I heard he’s suing the county for endangering them.”

  Marcella pursed her lips and made a face. “He’s all interested now. Those kids are worth more to him dead than they ever would have been alive. That boy’s a damn coyote, picking at their bones. He’s making noise about suing what’s left of the Haas family too. Like those poor people haven’t been through enough tragedy.”

  Liska nodded. “Yeah. I talked to Bobby Haas a little while ago. He’s been through more than any one person should go through in a lifetime. Finding Marlene and the two children. His own mother dying of cancer.”

  “Cancer?” Marcella said, arching a brow.

  “He told me Marlene Haas was his stepmother,” Liska said. “That his real mother died of cancer a few years ago.”

  “If he was talking about the first Mrs. Haas, that’s just not true,” Marcella said. “The first Mrs. Haas was carrying laundry down to the basement, slipped, and fell down the stairs. She died of a broken neck.”

  Liska sat back. “Why would he lie about something like that?”

  “I don’t know. I guess you’d have to ask him. Maybe he just doesn’t want to think about one more person being snatched out of his life so suddenly.”

  “Did you know that Mrs. Haas?”

  Marcella nodded. “Rebecca. A very sweet lady with a big heart. She and Wayne were talking about taking on another child. I had just been to their home to speak with them about it a day or two before th
e accident.”

  “You said if Bobby was talking about her,” Liska said. “Who else would he have been talking about?”

  “His birth mother, I suppose.” She took a long sip of her chai latte.

  “Bobby Haas is adopted?”

  “Yes. Wayne and Rebecca took him on as their first foster child when Bobby was ten. They ended up adopting him. And now that I think about it, his birth mother didn’t die of cancer either. She committed suicide.” She fondled a chunk of biscotti while she pulled the memory up. “That’s right. She hanged herself.”

  “Jesus,” Liska muttered.

  “If I remember correctly, she was a seriously disturbed woman. Bobby Haas had gone through the tortures of the damned before he ever became Bobby Haas.”

  “Does he have any history? Trouble in school? Trouble on the streets?”

  “No. I hear he’s an excellent student. Hasn’t been in any trouble ever that I know of. Why? Is he in trouble now?”

  “No,” Liska said absently. “Not that I know of.”

  “He’s a good kid,” Marcella said. “If I’d gone through half of what he’s gone through, I would’ve gone crazy a long time ago.”

  “Maybe he did,” Liska said softly. “There are a lot of ways to go crazy. The ones who do it quietly are the ones you have to worry about most.”

  “You can’t possibly think he had anything to do with those murders,” Marcella said. “The boy was inconsolable when it happened. Karl Dahl is your killer.”

  “Yeah,” Liska said, her mind already moving on from the conversation. “Actually, I’m looking in to the attack on Judge Moore.”

  The social worker sniffed and made another face. “I hate to sound un-Christian,” she said, “but there are a whole lotta people in this city who would have lined up for the chance to take a whack at her.”

  Yes, Liska thought, but more and more she was thinking maybe Bobby Haas had been at the head of that line.

  30

  “SO LET’S HAVE the update, people.”

  Lieutenant Dawes stood at the head of the table in the conference room. The war room, they called it when they were working a case like this. One entire wall was covered side to side with whiteboard. Leads, questions, details were written on it in Dry Erase marker, easily wiped away for the next terrible case.