The Bitter Season (Kovac and Liska, #5)(111)

“He had seventeen staples in his head and went deaf in one ear.”

“That’s rough. I’m sorry.”

“Well, I look on the bright side,” Kumar said with a smile. “It knocked some sense into him.”

“Thanks for speaking up,” Nikki said. “You’ve been a big help.”

“Despite all outward appearances,” he said, “I always try to be a good citizen.”


*



“SO, JEREMY NILSEN IS either a thug rolling homeless guys or a homeless guy who got rolled by a thug,” Nikki said as they walked back to their car, leaning into the wind and spitting rain.

“And there were five other IDs found in Krauss’s room,” Seley reminded her.

“Call the morgue and see if they’ve had any unclaimed John Does that match Jeremy Nilsen’s description—or any of the men on those other IDs—in the last six months,” she said. “Whoever this guy is, he could be worse news than anyone imagined.”

Her phone announced a text message with a bright ping! She dug it out of her pocket and looked.

“We’ll find out soon,” she said, turning the screen to show Tippen’s message: GOT HIM.





38


Gordon Krauss had nothing to say. Nothing at all. He had neither waived his rights nor invoked his right to counsel. He sat across the table from Kovac in the box, his back to the wall.

A suspect was put in that position, cramped behind the too-small table that was bolted to the wall on one end of the room, to feel as if he was cornered. Kovac had the option of increasing or decreasing the sense of pressure by moving closer in his chair, which was on wheels, or sliding subtly back away from the suspect.

He stayed back from Gordon Krauss, waiting. This was going to take time. Krauss appeared dead calm, his posture straight but not tense. He stared past Kovac into the middle distance, expressionless, observing his right to remain silent.

He had obviously been living rough since they had flushed him out of Rising Wings. His clothes were dirty and wet. He smelled like a Dumpster. His hair was greasy and flat from hiding under a watch cap. His beard needed a serious grooming. He had been caught trying to shoplift a pair of scissors and a pack of disposable razors from a drugstore.

They had not offered him fresh, dry clothes. Kovac wanted him uncomfortable. They had not offered him food. Kovac wanted him irritable, in the hope of eliciting an angry outburst, but none had been forthcoming.

They had been in the box for seventy-three minutes, mostly just staring. Kovac asked the occasional question that went unanswered. The afternoon was almost gone. It had grown dark outside by now. Most people would be thinking about going home and having dinner. His own stomach was grumbling. Krauss’s face was gaunt. He probably hadn’t had a decent meal in days.

“Everyone said you were a quiet guy,” Kovac commented. “They didn’t say you were a mute.”

He sat back in his chair, yawned, and stretched his arms over his head. He had all the time in the world.

“You’re a real man of mystery, Gordon,” he said. “We found six IDs in your room at Rising Wings. I don’t think any of them are you. You convinced a bunch of people you’re a vet, but we can’t find your fingerprints in any system. So if you’re a veteran, you must have been in the French Foreign Legion. Then again, I’ve got a guy who thinks you’re some kind of shadow-world ninja assassin for the government. A poor man’s James Bond, if you will. That would make a good movie,” he said. “I’m not much for movies, but I would go to that.”

Krauss had no interest in discussing his potential as an action star.

“I doubt you’re that interesting in reality,” Kovac said. “I think you’re probably just a garden-variety mutt. You’re just another lazy mutt who took a low-end honest job so you could case some nice homes during the day and then come back after hours and steal what you could carry in a knapsack. There’s nothing special about that. Just your average workaday thief.”

If Krauss was insulted, he didn’t show it.

“Yeah, you’re a little bit clever,” Kovac conceded. “That’s a good gig you landed with the rehab. That was smart. Too bad you had to meet Diana Chamberlain there. That chick is bad news. Bat-shit crazy. Look what she pulled you into. You’re never gonna see the light of day as a free man again because of her.”

Krauss said nothing. He didn’t acknowledge or deny knowing Diana Chamberlain. He didn’t deny being a thief. He didn’t say they had nothing on him or that he didn’t belong in jail. His expression didn’t change at all. He stared past Kovac, barely blinking. His eyes were empty, dead-looking, like a shark’s eyes.

“What did she promise you, Gordon? Money? Drugs? Sex? All of the above? She’s a party waiting to happen, that one.”

He opened a file folder and took out several photographs from the Chamberlain crime scene, gruesome close-ups of the victims, and laid them out on the table.

“Was she there with you? Did she help out with the alarm system that night?” Kovac asked. “She’s the kind of chick who would get off on watching this go down. But you know she’s going to totally throw you under the bus on this, right?”

Krauss didn’t look at the pictures. He seemed lost in some fantasy world. Meditating on murder. The guy made his skin crawl. Kovac had been in the box across from every kind of dirtbag known to man, but only a handful had given him the sense of being in the presence of something truly, darkly evil. Something in the blank, soulless stare made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.