Liska looked at Kovac. He knew her well enough to see all the subtle signs that something about this kid was bothering her.
He shrugged. “You can’t arrest the kid for saying his mother died of cancer when she didn’t. And if you can’t get a witness to put him at the parking ramp, you can’t pin the assault on him.
“I’m putting my money on the future ex.”
“I’m sure you are,” Liska said.
Kovac lowered his eyebrows.
“I’m taking Dempsey,” Tippen said. “He’s openly crazy. He’s made threats. What’s beating a woman with a club to a guy who might be willing to torture someone with an electric carving knife?”
“No wagering in my presence, please,” Dawes announced. “Let’s all get back to it. We’ve got to make something happen.”
“Any word on Karl Dahl?” Kovac asked as he rose from his seat.
She shook her head. “The man has vanished. The dogs never got on a scent. No one credible has seen him. We’re getting the usual tips from psychics and religious fanatics and people who just call because they’re lonely and they want someone to talk to. And lots of dead ends. I’ve got uniforms running all over town, chasing down bald-headed men.”
“He’s the kind of guy who lives off the radar,” Tippen said. “A shadow figure on society’s fringes.”
“I thought that was you,” Liska said, standing up.
Tippen gave her a mean look. “You’re very short and perky.”
“Fuck you.”
As they all moved toward the door, Dawes nodded for Kovac to hang behind.
“You have that strong a feeling about Judge Moore’s husband?”
“You’re only seeing the tip of the iceberg of my hatred for this jerk.”
“I’ll make sure we get the security video from the hotel bar ASAP. Maybe we can get a line on this mystery man. We can at least compare the video to the one from the parking ramp. See if it could be the same guy.”
“If I could get Moore ’s financials, maybe I could find evidence of payoffs for the hit.”
“I don’t see a judge giving us a warrant based on what we have, Sam. Do you think Judge Moore would swear out a complaint on him?”
“For what? If being a lousy husband was against the law, I’d be doing twenty-five to life,” Kovac said. “Besides, I don’t think she would do it. She has her daughter to consider. And her reputation. I don’t see her filing a complaint on some half-baked accusation just to get the Dickhead in our box so we can break him.”
Dawes sighed. “Do you have any excuse to bring him in for questioning?”
Kovac thought of the file folder he’d locked in the trunk of his car. He’d only glimpsed through it, but he knew there was plenty of evidence of Moore ’s infidelity. But if he brought David Moore in for that, then he tipped Carey’s hand.
Maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing.
“I could ask him to come in for a noncustodial interview,” he said.
“Will he cooperate?”
“No,” he conceded. “He won’t cooperate. The first thing he’ll do is squeal for a lawyer, and then we’re fucked.”
He looked away and sighed. “I don’t know what to say, Boss. I’d throw the jerk into a snake pit if I could, but if we bring him in on what I’ve got, that just gives him time to circle the wagons, tip off the doer.”
Dawes nodded. “All right. We can put a tail on him.”
“You can get the overtime for that?”
“Already blessed from on high. The brass wants this doer’s head on a silver platter.”
“I mean to make that happen,” Kovac said. “I’ll even stick an apple in his mouth for the ceremony.”
31
THE TRIAL WAS over. It hadn’t come out well for Kenny Scott, Esquire, but justice had been done. Swift and terrible.
Stan was shaking, sweating, exhilarated. There was still a small part of his brain that was horrified and terrified of the other emotions roaring through him. But that part was smaller and smaller, weaker and weaker. With justice came strength. Might with right.
Stan’s justice was pure and simple. There were no games, no loopholes, no getting off on a technicality. There was only right and wrong.
For the first time in his life, Stan Dempsey felt powerful.
To any casual observer going down the street, Kenny Scott simply wasn’t at home. Stan had turned off the television before he left. He had taken Kenny Scott’s car and parked it a block away, then walked back to his truck.
If his former colleagues discovered Kenny Scott too quickly, they would have a target area to look for him, and the intensity of the search would be fierce. Stan couldn’t have them find him before his job was done.
He calmly drove to another neighborhood and parked his uncle’s truck. In the back, under the camper shell, he ate a couple of bologna sandwiches with slices of midget gherkins in them and drank some coffee from his thermos.
He didn’t think about what he had just done. He didn’t try to recall the panic in the lawyer’s eyes, the screams the man had to swallow behind the duct tape that covered his mouth.
The rush the memory of meting out punishment gave was a thing unique to criminals, to serial killers, to men like Karl Dahl. That reaction belonged to the criminals who indulged in cruelty because it excited them. For those men, the memories were as important as the crime itself. They would relive their exploits over and over in their minds.
Stan didn’t think of himself as a criminal. He was just doing a necessary job no one else would do.
He finished his lunch and cleaned his hands off with a wet wipe. It was time for him to move on to the next name on his list.
Carey Moore.
32
IT SEEMED TO take days for the hours to pass. Carey spent the rest of the afternoon in her bedroom with Lucy, playing nurse, taking her temperature with a toy thermometer, and giving her “medicine”-M amp;M’s.
They napped, though Carey couldn’t sleep for more than a few minutes at a time. The tension was exhausting. She passed the time second-guessing herself.
Maybe this wasn’t the time to confront David. Maybe she should wait until the rest of this nightmare was over. Except that she didn’t know her husband wasn’t a part of it. She didn’t want to stay under the same roof with a man who might have arranged to have her killed. She didn’t want her daughter in the same house as him.
She worried about Lucy, who was already feeling insecure and clingy. But was there ever a good time for a child’s parents to end their marriage? No.
She thought about sending Lucy to Kate and John Quinn’s home for the night. Lucy loved sleepovers and was friends with the Quinns’ daughter Haley. But Carey didn’t want her daughter out of her control, or out of her sight, for that matter. Things were too uncertain. And she didn’t want to potentially put John and Kate in harm’s way if Stan Dempsey had decided to go after her daughter to make her pay for Carey’s sins. He could have been watching the house, for all she knew. He could follow her to the Quinns’.
She would wait to speak to David until after Lucy was asleep. Anka would make sure Lucy didn’t go downstairs in the event she woke up. Carey was very thankful the nanny had insisted on staying the weekend, even though Saturday and Sunday were usually her days off. Anka wouldn’t hear of leaving. Her responsibility was to the family.
What a sad thing, Carey thought, that she could trust her nanny more than she could trust her husband.
David ordered Chinese for dinner. Lucy was a big fan of moo goo gai pan. David’s appetite was as healthy as ever. Carey picked at her egg-fried rice, continuously rearranging it on her plate but eating only a few grains. She rested an elbow on the table and her head in her hand and stared down at the bright bits of peas and carrots dotting the rice like confetti.