The Bitter Season (Kovac and Liska, #5)(32)

He tossed his hands up as if in defeat, but he was shaking his head no even as he said, “It’s all yours.”

Nikki bit her tongue. He was no more going to stay out of it than he was going to stop breathing. He’d said it himself: He’d known the people involved for thirty years. He had gone back to them time and again over the decades.

The lieutenant turned her gaze on Nikki and pointed in the direction of the squad room. “I will not have another outburst like that in this office. Is that understood?”

“Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry.”

“You’re not,” Mascherino said. “But I’ll take it anyway. Now go, the both of you. I’ve got a press conference to prepare for.”

Ever the gentleman, Grider walked out ahead of Nikki.

“Are you happy now?” he grumbled over his shoulder, as they went down the hall toward their own office. “Tattling to the principal. Nice cunt move, Liska. You and the Mother Superior there can have a good laugh over it while you’re rolling your own tampons later on.”

Nikki cut in front of him and stopped, facing him, hands on her hips. The hall was empty but for the two of them. Technically, they were out of the Homicide office proper. Grider stopped and mirrored her stance.

“Now what?” he asked. “You’re going to report me for gender insensitivity?”

“You listen to me, you f*cking dinosaur,” Nikki said, keeping her voice low. “I’ve had worse from better than you. So don’t think for a minute that you can intimidate me. You can take your last-century misogynist bullshit attitude and stick it up your ass. And if you want to make this a fight, metaphorically or otherwise, you’d better know, I will break you in two and beat the shit out of both ends. Stay out of my case.”

She let that hang in the air. Grider said nothing. He just stood there staring at her with cold eyes, his resentment oozing out of his pores like rancid sweat. He had come on the force during another era. Having to stomach the fact that women were equal to or ranked above him stuck in his craw like a chicken bone.

Slowly, Nikki started to back away like a thug leaving a gang confrontation, mean-mugging all the way into their office. Grider followed, but went directly to his desk, grabbed his coat, and left without a word.

Seley sat at her desk, eyes wide. “Can I be you in my next life?” she asked. “You’re a total badass.”

Nikki ignored her, staring at the open door Grider had gone out, and thinking the very first thing he would do when he got out of the building would be to call Barbie Duffy.

“Generally speaking,” she said, “who doesn’t want a crime solved?”

“The perpetrators of the crime,” Seley answered.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Nikki said. “I’m going to go home and read every scrap of paper on this case again.”





11


Diana Chamberlain didn’t answer her phone. She lived in a shabby neighborhood near the commercial district known as Dinkytown, not far from the U of M campus. An area where the big old box-style houses had been cut up into cheap apartments for students, and where the sidewalks were buckled from the massive roots of the old trees that lined the boulevards. An assortment of older cars took up all the parking spaces on the street.

The sun that had melted the morning’s ice was gone, and its meager warmth along with it. The temperature had dropped just enough to freeze the slush into ruts and turn the puddles back into little skating rinks.

Taylor cruised past the address, pulling into the parking lot of a dirty little strip mall a block down the street. He parked in a space reserved for customers of a small dry cleaners with a flickering red-neon Open sign in the front window. A pissed-off-looking tiny woman in a hot-pink sari stood in the doorway with her hands on her hips.

“Parking for dry cleaning only!” she shouted as they got out of the car.

“We’re here on police business, ma’am,” Taylor said politely, holding up his shield.

“Police dry cleaning business?” she asked pointedly.

“Uh, no, ma’am.”

“I thought not. Then take your handsome self away from here and park elsewhere. I have a business to run.”

“We’re from Homicide—” Taylor started.

“No one has been murdered here. I have no need of you.”

“We have to go deliver some bad news—”

“I’m so terribly sorry to hear it. Don’t let me delay you,” she said. “Get in your car and go deliver your bad news of a murder that did not happen here at Star Dry Cleaning.”

Taylor looked at Kovac, clearly not used to being denied anything by a female.

“What time do you close, ma’am?” Kovac asked.

“Six o’clock.”

“It’s almost six now.”

“In seven minutes it will be six o’clock. You are taking the parking space of customers who must rush in to get their dry cleaning at the last possible moment, and this will cost my business money.”

“It’s only four minutes by my watch,” Kovac said. “We can drag this out for four minutes and park for free or you can accept our gratitude and let us get on with our business.”

She arched a brow. “How much gratitude?”