The Bitter Season (Kovac and Liska, #5)(16)

Kovac’s work area was a mess: binders and file folders in precarious stacks, notes and reminders hastily scribbled on scraps of paper and stuck haphazardly to the cabinet doors and the bottom of his computer screen. On the shelf above the computer a human skull sat with a fake severed finger in its nose hole and a cigarette clenched between its teeth.

He set his coffee mug on the desk—black with a ceramic gun for a handle. The taste went bitter in his mouth, and his mood soured. Michael Taylor was the modern detective in a nicely tailored charcoal suit and shined shoes, a business executive with a badge. His side of the cubicle could have belonged to a bank vice president. Kovac, on the other hand, felt like he’d slept in his clothes. He had nicked himself shaving. He looked like he was on the backside of a three-day bender, with his bloodshot eyes and the dark smudges beneath them, while his partner could have been a model for GQ magazine.

“I like Reek, myself,” Tippen said, wandering over from the giant whiteboard where all active cases were listed on a grid. “It has a medieval feel to it.”

“Maybe we could put this off until I do something more impressive than puke on a suspect who shit all over the interview room,” Taylor suggested.

Tippen shrugged. “We could, but seriously, how are you going to top that?”

“How about a double homicide with a samurai sword?” Elwood asked as he joined them.

“What are the odds of that happening?” Kovac grumbled.

“Better than even. The call just came in. You guys are up.”


*



THE CITY LOOKED LIKE it was made of glass, all the trees and bushes, parked cars and fire hydrants encased in a thick layer of ice that had turned the entire metro area beautiful and treacherous overnight. The sleet and freezing rain that had begun after midnight had eventually turned into a light snow as the temperature dropped, covering the ice, doubling the danger. The ERs would be full of car accident victims and slip-and-fall broken hips and wrists.

Taylor had snagged the car keys before Kovac could reach for them, and drove them across town like a grandma, carefully avoiding the fender benders that littered the streets.

“I’d like to get there before they mummify,” Kovac complained, drumming his fingers impatiently on the armrest.

“I’d like to get there in one piece,” Taylor countered. “They aren’t going to get any deader.”

Kovac scowled. “You know, I’ve probably been driving longer than you’ve been alive.”

“Yeah. It’s a pure damn miracle you’ve made it to this ripe old age. I’m just making sure I get as far along as you.”

“Yeah, well,” Kovac grumbled. “By the time we get to this scene . . .”

Two radio cars were parked at the curb in front of the address. A news van had already staked out a spot on the opposite side of the street. Barricades had been put across the sidewalk and the end of the driveway to keep the vultures at bay. If the words samurai sword had gone out over the radio waves, every reporter and kook with a scanner would be rolling up at any minute.

“Bad news travels fast,” Taylor said as they pulled in behind the crime scene van.

“Faster than you,” Kovac returned, getting out of the car.

The house was a formal two-story brick Colonial that would have looked at home in Boston—white trim, black shutters, and a black lacquered front door with a big brass knocker and a wreath of wheat and fall leaves that said “rich but homey.” The kind of place upper-middle-class families had Thanksgiving dinners as depicted on television: everyone slender and well dressed, smiling and laughing. Not the kind of place where people were found hacked to death.

That was the thing with murder, Kovac thought as he flashed his ID at the uniform on the front steps: The emotions that fueled violence didn’t discriminate. People of all socioeconomic classes were equally capable of hate and rage, and equally capable of dying in a puddle of their own terror.

“Taylor! Mr. Bigshot homicide detective,” the uniform said with a grin.

Taylor ducked his head, sheepish. “Dave. How’s it going?”

“It’s a f*cking bloodbath inside, man. Hope you didn’t eat a big breakfast. I hear you’ve developed a delicate stomach.”

“Ha-ha,” Taylor said without humor. “Were you first on the scene?”

“Yeah. The university called for a welfare check. The male DB was a professor of something or other. He didn’t show up for a big meeting, didn’t answer on any of his contact numbers. We came, did a walk around the house, spotted the bodies through the patio door to the dining room. Looks like that’s where the killer went in—knocked a pane out of the French doors, reached inside, and let himself in.”

“Any footprints?”

He shook his head. “Had to have happened before the snow.

“We went in and checked the house for other possible victims,” he went on. “It’s all clear. Looks like a burglary gone bad. The home office and the bedrooms were gone through.”

“Have there been any recent burglaries in the area?” Taylor asked.

“A couple B-and-Es, no violence, no home-invasion shit. This is a nice quiet neighborhood.”

“Suspects on the burglaries?” Kovac asked.

“Not that I’ve heard.”