The Bitter Season (Kovac and Liska, #5)(44)

“So you were pretty pissed.”

“Yeah, I was pissed! Of course I was pissed! Do you know how hard it is to get a new business going in this town? I’ve got plenty of contracting experience, but I don’t have the name or the kind of bucks it takes to get into new construction. This is my way in: Handy Dandy. I trademarked the name. My brother-in-law thinks I might be able to franchise it if things go well. I’ve spent the last three years trying to build a reputation.”

“Chamberlain cost you business,” Kovac said. “He cost you time, he cost you money. He set you back—who knows how far?”

“So I went to his house in the middle of the night and killed him and his wife so I can lose everything I’ve worked for and spend the rest of my life in prison?” Franken said. “You’re out of your mind.”

“What kind of work did you do for them that they were so unhappy about?” Taylor asked.

“Cleaned the gutters, put on storm windows. Cheap f*cker. The guy has that kind of money and doesn’t replace those old windows. A couple of them got broken. He flipped his shit. Of course we would have fixed them right away, that day. He throws a hissy fit and kicks the guys off the property then bitches all over the neighborhood that he doesn’t have storms on half his windows.”

“Did you do any work inside the house?”

“They fixed a couple of wonky cupboard doors in the kitchen.”

Taylor glanced at Kovac. The security code was on the keypad on the wall near the kitchen door.

“Did you go back and finish the job?” Taylor asked.

Franken set his jaw like a petulant teenager. “I told him if he took the review down, we’d finish the job and not charge him.”

“That would be a no,” Kovac said. “We’ll need the names and contact information of the workers.”

“Yeah, sure,” Franken said, but he looked down at the ashtray as he said it, crushing out his cigarette.

“What kind of guys do you have working for you?” Kovac asked.

“They’re decent guys, hard workers.”

“Cream of the crop?”

“If they were the cream of the crop, they’d be working for better pay than I can afford.”

“Are they all on the books?”

“Absolutely,” he said, shaking another cigarette out of the pack.

“And they’ve all had background checks?”

“Yep.”

Meaning no one would be able to prove otherwise. Franken would give them the names of the guys that were legit, not the ones he paid in cash under the table.

Kovac sighed. “You know, Dan, we don’t have time to monkey-f*ck around here. We’re looking for a murderer. Now, I can go back downtown and waste an hour writing an affidavit, find a judge, get a search warrant, get pissed off, come back here, and turn this rat’s nest inside out just for kicks and giggles, and you’ll spend the next six months trying to put all your files back together, or you can tell us the truth.”

Franken’s expression didn’t change. His eyes went still, lids half lowered. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Let’s take him downtown, Sarge,” Taylor suggested, impatient. “He can sit in the box and think about it while we get the warrants.” He turned back to Franken. “You’ve got your equipment here? I saw your name on the big overhead doors on the next unit. We should probably get warrants for that space, too, Sarge. Who knows what he might keep in there.”

“Oh jeez,” Kovac grumbled. “It could take days to inventory all this shit. Days and days of no business for Mr. Franken. All those Handy Dandy customers waiting will have to look elsewhere for their home maintenance needs. And then, depending on what we find . . .”

“I’ll sue,” Franken said.

Kovac shrugged. “That’s not our department. We’re just trying to solve a brutal double homicide that’s all over the news. If you want your name attached to that story as an uncooperative person of interest, that’s your choice.”

Franken looked away, the muscles in his jaw working. He swore under his breath. “I’m just a taxpayer trying to run a business.”

“I appreciate that,” Kovac said. “And we’re not the business police. I personally don’t give a shit if you’ve dotted all your i’s and crossed all your t’s on your license application. But I’m gonna care a whole lot if you lie to me and a killer runs loose because of it.

“Now, you’ve got a drug rehab right around the corner,” he went on. “I’m willing to bet a few of the fine upstanding citizens who attend group therapy and whatnot there need to pick up a little pocket money now and again. Am I right?”

He could see Franken weighing his options, and not liking any of them.

“And I’m thinking it doesn’t take a master carpenter to clean the crap out of rain gutters,” Kovac said. “Where’s the harm in throwing a few bucks to a guy down on his luck?”

Franken ran a hand back over his thinning dark hair. “What happens to me if it turns out I hired a guy who did . . . something . . . bad?”

“From where we stand? Nothing—unless you sent him there specifically to do harm. On the other hand, hindering a police investigation will get your ass thrown in jail.”