The Bitter Season (Kovac and Liska, #5)(104)

“Maybe he’s from that area, knows his way around, is comfortable there,” Taylor speculated.

“It’s a risk. That’s a quiet residential area,” Kovac said. “He’s going to stick out more there than if he had stayed downtown.”

“But downtown is crawling with cops.”

“Maybe there’s somebody he wants to see before he splits town,” Tippen offered. “He’s working his way south. He’s got his pick of major highways from there. He can kiss an old flame good-bye and hit the road for anywhere.”

“The airport’s right there, too,” Taylor pointed out. “Who knows what he might be carrying for an ID. It won’t say Gordon Krauss, we can be sure of that. A shave and a haircut, and he’s past TSA as Joe Schmoe.”

Kovac nodded at Liska. “Fill them in on your deal.”

She got up and went to the map. “I’m looking for a man named Jeremy Nilsen who may have information related to my cold case. He lived next door to my victim at the time. His father and the victim had an ongoing beef. Your guy, Krauss, had Jeremy Nilsen’s ID.”

“And five others,” Tippen said. “Do you think he’s your guy?”

She shrugged. “I don’t have a current photo of Nilsen, but if it’s him, you should have gotten a hit on his prints. He’s ex-military.”

“Unless he’s been erased,” Tippen said, excited at the thought.

Kovac tossed a pen in the air and rolled his eyes. “Oh God, here come the conspiracy theories.”

Tippen pointed a finger at him. “If you think it doesn’t happen, my friend, you are doomed to an Orwellian future.”

“Yeah, I’ve got news for you,” Kovac said, “1984 was a few decades ago.”

“Here’s what’s interesting,” Liska went on. “Jeremy Nilsen lived next door to Ted Duffy here, west of Lake Nokomis.” She stuck a pin in the map. “His father—the poster boy for angry white men everywhere—still lives there. The kid had a crush on Duffy’s foster daughter—now known as Evi Burke—who now lives here, east of Lake Nokomis.” She stuck a second pin in the map and then drew a finger in a triangle between her pins and Elwood’s. “We’re talking about a relatively small area, a few square miles. And yesterday Evi Burke received a creepy, vaguely threatening note in the mail that said, ‘I know who you are and I know where you live.’”

Kovac sat up straighter. “She works at Chrysalis?”

“Yes. She assumed the note was related to one of her cases. Maybe not.”

“So, the guy you want to question about a twenty-five-year-old homicide could be our suspect in a possible double murder-for-hire?” Taylor said. “And he’s stalking the girl he had a crush on in high school? That’s a whole lot of a word I’m not allowed to use.”

“An unlikely serendipitous collection of ideas,” Elwood offered.

“I’m not saying anything,” Liska said. “But I am taking a picture of your guy over to Evi Burke, and I think it’d be a good idea to put an unmarked unit on her block until somebody throws a net over this guy.”

“Done,” Kovac said.

“Thank you. I’m out of here,” she said, giving a jaunty salute. “Call me when you catch him, boys.”

As the door closed behind her, Taylor said, “I stopped to talk to Charlie Chamberlain on my way home last night.”

“And he didn’t tell you to call his attorney?” Kovac asked.

“I made speaking to me a better choice.”

“Good boy.”

“Someone had beaten the living crap out of him.”

Kovac’s brows sketched upward. “Sato?”

“He wouldn’t say.”

“Not Sato.”

“My hunch? I think Diana did it,” Taylor said.

“The sister beat him up?” Tippen asked. “Now, that’s my kind of crazy.”

“She’d snap you like a twig,” Kovac said, “and pick her teeth with your bones. She’s a freaking Amazon, and a whole truckload of nuts.”

“He didn’t want to talk about it,” Taylor said.

“If Sato did that to him, he’d be bringing charges.”

“Exactly. I also spoke with his neighbor across the hall. She referred to Diana as his tall girlfriend, and said there seemed to be a lot of fighting and making up between them.”

“And we have just crossed a line, even for me,” Tippen commented.

“I’m not surprised,” Kovac said. “Even if he’s not sleeping with her, her power base is sexual. She’s had him wrapped around her finger since they were kids. He pissed her off popping her boyfriend in the face yesterday.”

“There was probably a sexual component to the father-daughter relationship, as well,” Elwood added. “Actual or implied.”

“Charlie didn’t come out and say so,” Kovac said, “but he hinted there might have been abuse in Diana’s background. Before or after she was adopted by the Chamberlains, I don’t know. The damage was done either way. Add the result of sexual abuse to her bipolar disorder, and you’ve got a potentially explosive mix.”

“Sex and violence,” Taylor said. “She goes off on her brother for taking a swing at her lover. Charlie looked like he went a couple of rounds with Mike Tyson.”