The Bitter Season (Kovac and Liska, #5)(115)

“I’m sorry, Evi,” Nikki murmured. “I need to know why.”





40


“You realize you’re going away for a long time here, Gordon, right?” Kovac asked casually. “We’ve got a whole grab bag of charges against you. Assaulting an officer, resisting arrest, fleeing the scene, attempted murder of a homeless guy last summer.”

There was a flicker of something in Krauss’s eyes at that last bit, so fast that Kovac couldn’t have named it. It was the first tiny crack he’d seen in Krauss’s armor since they brought him in. They had been in the box now nearly four hours.

“We’ve got a witness who ID’d you as trying to beat his friend’s brains out with a hammer.”

Still Krauss said nothing, but his expression had changed subtly. He looked less self-satisfied. He had played the Zen prisoner, saying nothing, asking for nothing, drinking nothing. Kovac had asked him several times if he wanted something to eat, but had gotten no response. But as cool as Gordon Krauss had played it, he couldn’t keep it up forever. He was probably beginning to dehydrate. His stomach was growling loudly.

Slowly, Kovac had picked away at Krauss’s show of confidence with small, sharp truths. He never raised his voice. He remained genial throughout, indifferent to Krauss’s silence.

“Aaaah,” he said. “You didn’t know I had that in my pocket, did you? You were probably thinking you were in the clear for that. It happened months ago. Just a bunch of homeless junkies having a party down by the river. Who gives a shit what happens to them, right? Nobody came looking for you.

“Turns out they weren’t all high. We’ve got a good witness, sober as a judge, an honest-to-God war hero.” He embellished Liska’s facts. Details made a more convincing story. “And then there’s the fact of those IDs we found in your room at Rising Wings. It’s only a matter of time before we connect them to their owners—living or dead.”

He let that sink in and took a sip of coffee.

“You’re racking up the prison time like a freaking Vegas slot machine on jackpot,” he said. “And all that is just frosting on the cake, really, because I can put you with Diana Chamberlain at the rehab, and at her parents’ house within days of the murders. And she is gonna f*cking bury you to save herself. We both know that.”

The corners of Krauss’s mouth turned ever so slightly downward.

“I realize you probably haven’t gotten to watch much TV in the last few days,” Kovac said, “but I have to tell you, she’s a very convincing grieving daughter on camera. Ooooh, those big eyes, that pouty mouth . . . Of course, crazy girls do make the best actresses.”

He rocked in his chair, looking off wistfully, as if picturing Diana Chamberlain shining in all her bipolar glory. He came back to the moment with a sigh.

“I’m gonna go down the hall here in a minute, and she’s gonna tell me how you took advantage of her when she was at her most vulnerable, and how your beady little eyes lit up when you saw her parents’ house that day. She’ll probably turn on the waterworks and tell me how she’s overcome with guilt for recommending Handy Dandy to her poor dead mother . . .

“I think I’ll stop in the break room and get a bag of popcorn to take with me for that show,” he said, smiling.

A fine sheen of sweat glistened on Krauss’s forehead. He looked at Kovac now, not past him.

“You’re sure you don’t want anything to eat, Gordon?” Kovac asked as he got up. “I could bring you some popcorn, too. No? Suit yourself.”

He was almost to the door when Gordon Krauss spoke for the first time since he had been taken into custody.

“She asked me to do it,” he said. He had a voice like smoke and gravel. “I told her no.”

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

Kovac turned around slowly, as if afraid a sudden move might rewind what he’d just heard. It was all he could do to maintain an expression of mild curiosity. “You’ll give me Diana Chamberlain?”

“I want a deal,” Krauss said. “And I want a lawyer.”


*



“THAT WAS SERIOUSLY IMPRESSIVE,” Taylor said as he pointed the car in the direction of Dinkytown.

The rain had subsided. Clouds scudded across the big moon, pushed by a brisk wind bringing a fresh band of crappy cold weather from the west.

“It’s all about patience,” Kovac said. “You won’t get anywhere screaming at a guy like that. You’re not going to scare him. He’s playing the odds. He knows he’s smart. He knows he’s been careful. He doesn’t believe you have anything. You show him one card at a time before you throw in the big bluff.

“Bully the ones that are already scared,” he said. “Like that guy that shit in the wastebasket the other day. He’s a mouse. Mice scare easily. Krauss is a rat. He’s clever and ruthless.”

“He thinks he can leverage Diana Chamberlain into leniency on the other charges,” Taylor said.

“Or mitigate the damage to him in this case.”

“He says he didn’t accept the job.”

“He can say he was born of a virgin for all I care,” Kovac said. “It doesn’t matter if he took the job, didn’t take the job, or is lying through his teeth. We can use him against her.”