Kovac And Liska: Prior Bad Acts Part 10

12.

CAREY LAY IN BED,half-awake, desperately longing to sleep, pain keeping her from shutting down. It hurt to take more than a shallow breath, because of her ribs. Her head was pounding and felt swollen to the point that she wished she could open her skull and let the pressure out. She was still dressed, having refused to let Anka help her out of the gray pin-striped suit, not because of modesty but because the least movement set off waves of dizziness and nausea. Her slacks were torn at one knee. A shoulder seam had split on the jacket during the struggle, a b.u.t.ton was missing, and one elbow was ripped out.

She concentrated on these things--the damage to her clothing and the fact that it was one of her favorite suits and she was angry to have to trash it--because in truth none of it was important. She didn't want to think about the fact that someone had attacked her, had possibly meant to kill her. She didn't want to think about what that would have meant, never seeing her daughter again, not being there for her father as his life drew to a close.

Guilt gnawed at her for not having included her husband in the list of people she would miss. She didn't hate him. He wasn't a bad guy. He was a wonderful father, when he was home, which had been less and less over the last year. It was just that what had been good between them had worn away. All they had now were pretense and tension.

Carey had realized their marriage was over a long while ago. David knew it too. He was as miserable as she was, but they both preferred to ignore the situation. Their marriage had become the elephant in the room that n.o.body wanted to talk about. If they talked about it, they would have to deal with it, and with the fallout that would rain down on their child.

Instead, they each stayed busy with their work. Carey had a full load with the Dahl trial looming. David, who had been a promising young doc.u.mentary filmmaker at the start of their marriage, continued trying to drum up support for his latest project idea. He spent much of his time wining and dining, bowing and sc.r.a.ping to the kinds of people who could get films made. Unfortunately, the backing never seemed to come through, and he had had to lower himself to making the occasional local TV commercial.

Carey knew that he resented her success, and his lack thereof. He had become touchy and snappish on the subject of his career. She had tried to be supportive and patient, knowing that his self-esteem had taken a beating. But David had grown too comfortable with playing the victim, with making her walk on eggsh.e.l.ls around his ego. She was tired of it, and her own resentments toward him had begun to grow like warts on the ends of her nerves.

If he knew how many times she had bitten her tongue to cut him a break, to give him the opportunity to be a man . . . and how many times he had failed . . .

The pressure of the tears behind her eyes made her head throb all the harder. Carey tried to blink them back. If she was going to cry, she would end up having to blow her nose, which would probably be so painful she would pa.s.s out.

Maybe that wasn't such a bad idea.

The numbers 1:13 glowed green on the alarm clock that squatted on her night table. Still no sign of David.

Potential backers, my a.s.s,she thought. She suspected he was having an affair, and was almost relieved at the idea. He hadn't touched her in months. She hadn't wanted him to. His touch only made her feel impatient and irritated. At the same time, the idea of his cheating on her p.i.s.sed her off no end, because she could too easily imagine him doing it out of spite.

She brought her hands up to her face, wanting to rub her cheeks and forehead, sucking her breath in as her fingers brushed ever so slightly over an abrasion, wincing at the pain in her ribs from taking too deep and too sudden a breath.

Anka tapped softly on the bedroom door and let herself in.

"The detective told me to check on you," she said quietly.

"I'm fine, Anka."

"You don't look so fine."

"No, I suppose not," Carey said. "Has Mr. Moore called?"

"No. I heard your cell phone ringing a while ago. Of course, I didn't answer it."

"Would you bring it to me, please?"

The nanny frowned. "You should be sleeping."

"You just came to wake me up," Carey pointed out. "I only want to check my messages."

Looking unhappy, muttering something unpleasant in Swedish, the girl went away, and came back with the phone.

"Thanks," Carey said. "Go to bed. Get some sleep. I promise not to lapse into a coma."

Anka sniffed her disapproval at her employer's sense of humor but left the room.

Carey touched the key to retrieve her voice mail, entered her pa.s.sword, and closed her eyes as the messages played through.

A call from Ted Sabin, HennepinCounty's version of a district attorney and her former boss, expressing his concern for her, having heard about her attack. He promised to bring the full force of his considerable power to bear in the apprehension and prosecution of her attacker.

A call from Kate Quinn, an old friend from her days in the county attorney's office, calling for the same reason, telling Carey to call her and she would be there ASAP. Kate had worked as a victim/witness advocate. Carey had never imagined she would ever call on her friend in her professional capacity.

Then Chris Logan's voice was in her ear, anxious, upset, full of bl.u.s.ter, the usual way he reacted to unpleasant news over which he had no control. "Carey, G.o.ddammit, I just heard. Are you all right? Are you in the hospital? Why the h.e.l.l didn't you take a deputy to the garage with you? Jesus, I should have walked you out, p.i.s.sed off or not. Call me."

She deleted the message and put the phone down beside her on the bed. A feeling she couldn't quite identify rippled through her. A blend of regret, sadness, loss. It would have been nice to have someone strong and protective to turn to now. Someone she trusted. A shoulder to lean on.

But she didn't have that. After their one brief interlude, she had never called Logan in search of that kind of support. Not that she hadn't been tempted. After what he'd said to her in her chambers, she would never want to again. She felt betrayed by him for taking the cheap shot about their one night together, and now she wouldn't trust him.

She had never really quite trusted him, she admitted. Not absolutely. That was why there had been no other nights shared before or since. Logan was a big package of single-minded ambition. He cared about winning, about seeing justice done, no matter the cost to himself or those around him. They had been friends back in their days working together, but Carey knew he had also seen her as a rival, and that had never sat well with her.

Her father would have been there for her, as strong as the Rock of Gibraltar, as he had been all her life. But for all intents and purposes, her father was dead. His body had yet to get the message, but the essence of him was gone. The sh.e.l.l of him sat in a rest home, waiting to shut down.

Feeling alone and adrift, Carey closed her eyes and fell into a shallow sleep disturbed by menacing dreams. Dreams of her attacker, of who he might be. In the dark theater of her mind, she lay on her back on the cold concrete, struggling against a man she couldn't see. At first, his face was nothing but black, blank s.p.a.ce, and then gradually it became clear.

The images flashed in her mind like lightning, a different face in each blinding burst. Karl Dahl. Wayne Haas. Chris Logan. David. Marlene Haas, her face partially decomposed, dead eyes bulging from their sockets.

Carey jerked awake, crying out, trying to sit up. The pain knocked her back, and she rolled to her side as the nausea crashed over her again. She was sweating, shaking, breathing too quickly.

The cell phone beneath her hand rang, startling her. David, she thought, half hoped, though she wasn't sure whether she wanted him to say he was coming home or that he wasn't.

"David?"

There was silence on the other end just long enough to raise the hair on the back of her neck.

When the caller spoke, she didn't recognize his voice. It was a low, hoa.r.s.e whisper, the words stretched out, strangely distorted.

"I'm coming to get you, b.i.t.c.h" was all he said.

13.

KOVAC HAD JUST PULLEDup to the curb across the street from Carey Moore's house when his cell phone rang.

"Kovac."

"It's Carey Moore."

Her voice was quiet, composed, but he could hear an underlying tension.

"I just got a call. A man. He said, 'I'm coming to get you, b.i.t.c.h.'"

"I'm right across the street from your house. I'll be right there."

"Come to the door, but don't ring the bell. I don't want to wake Anka and Lucy."

She hung up. All business. Used to being queen of her domain, even in times of crisis.

Kovac crossed the street to the prowl car parked at the curb with two uniforms inside. The driver ran his window down.

"You guys see anything?" Kovac asked.

"Nope. All's quiet."

"You've been around the house?"

"Couple of times. The place is locked down."

"Did the husband show up?"

"Nope."

It was almost one-thirty in the morning. What the h.e.l.l kind of business dinner ran until one-thirty in the morning?

Kovac patted a hand absently on the roof of the cruiser.

"You married, Benson?" he asked the officer behind the wheel.

"Twice."

"What would your wife do if you stayed out until one-thirty in the morning without checking in with her?"

"She'd hang my b.a.l.l.s from the chandelier, and I wouldn't be attached to them."

"Right."

Kovac was willing to bet Carey Moore hadn't even bothered to call her husband to find out where he was or when he was coming home or to tell him she'd been attacked, or anything else.

He went up to the gate and heard the lock release. The judge was looking out at him through one of the sidelights. She opened the front door as he came up onto the landing.

She was still wearing the pants and blouse she'd worn home from the hospital. The pants were torn. The silk blouse was bloodstained and missing a couple of strategically placed b.u.t.tons. He caught a glimpse of blue lace and a curve most other judges he knew didn't have. But if she gave a d.a.m.n that he could see her bra, she didn't show it.

"You need to sit down, Judge," he said. "Looks to me like that door is the only thing holding you up."

"I'm--"

Kovac held up a hand. "Don't even."

She closed the door and leaned back against it for a moment, white as paste. Gathering herself and all the strength she could sc.r.a.pe together, she eased away from the door and turned to lead him into a den off the hall.

A table lamp cast an amber glow over leather chairs and the hand-waxed pine paneling. The judge slowly lowered herself into one corner of a dark green leather love seat. Kovac sat in the chair adjacent, moving it closer to her until their knees were almost touching.

"What time did the call come?" he asked, pulling his small notebook and a pen out of his pocket.

"One-twenty-two. I looked at the clock."

"Your house phone or your cell?"

"Cell."

"Can I see the phone?"

She handed it to him. Her hand was trembling.

Kovac brought up the menu and found his way to the call list. "Same number as the call to the house--the call asking for Marlene."

"Were you able to trace it?"

"Prepaid cell phone. The modern criminal's best friend. We might be able to trace it to the manufacturer, maybe to a list of places in the Twin Cities area where that manufacturer distributes. But you know as well as I do, that's a lot of territory, and the d.a.m.n things are everywhere. Tracking down this one phone . . . you'll die of old age before we find the mutt who bought it."

She stared into the dark end of the room as if waiting for a sign from another dimension.

"Who are you looking at?" she asked.

"I shouldn't get into that."

The judge laughed without humor and shook her head. "Excuse me, Detective, but I'm not your average vic, am I? I've been a part of the criminal justice system since I clerked for my father when I was a student. Here's who I think you'll look at: Wayne Haas, Bobby Haas, Stan Dempsey--"

"No offense, Judge, but that's not even the tip of the iceberg of people who hate you right now."

"You should check on the relatives of the foster children who were murdered."

"I know my job."

"I know you do."

She looked away again, wrestling with something. She rested her forehead in her hand and sighed. "I'm not very good at being a victim," she admitted. "I don't know how to do it. I don't know what I should feel, what I should think, what I should just try to shut out. I still can't believe this happened to me."