The Bitter Season (Kovac and Liska, #5)(48)

“You’re telling me you don’t have anything on this guy?” Kovac said. “That’s hard to believe, Mr. Rucker. I have to give two forms of ID and promise my firstborn kid to cash a freaking check. How do you have nothing on a guy you let live on the premises?”

Rucker spread his hands. “Gordon isn’t a county patient, so we don’t have county paperwork. He’s considered a private client, and since the boss foots the bill, and he’s not a paid employee, what do we need from him?”

“Does he collect veteran’s benefits? His mail must come here, right?”

“No, it doesn’t. If he gets mail, he’s got a box somewhere. It’s none of our business.”

Kovac rubbed his hands over his face and muttered, “Wow. We live in the age of information, and you have no information. This guy could be a mass murderer for all you know.”

“I don’t think so,” Rucker said.

“You don’t think so.”

“He’s quiet, reliable, keeps to himself. He’s never caused any trouble here.”

Here, where he had a free bed to sleep in and nobody asked any questions.

There was no point in pursuing the conversation further. Kovac would try to get a search warrant for Krauss’s room, but he didn’t like his odds tonight. What did he have for probable cause? He couldn’t even say for certain their running man was Krauss at all. The guy had cleaned the rain gutters on the murdered couple’s house. So what? Chamberlain’s public beef had been with Dan Franken. There had been no mention of Krauss specifically in his complaint. They would run Krauss’s name through the system for wants and warrants. Maybe something would turn up—or maybe not.

This night was getting longer by the minute.

“Do you have a photograph of this guy?” he asked. “Or is he invisible, too?”

“That I can help you with,” Rucker said, turning toward his computer.

He pulled an image up on screen—himself and a lean, athletic guy in his forties with a thousand-yard stare, a head full of wavy brown hair, and a bushy beard. Rucker was smiling, looking happy. Krauss looked like someone you wouldn’t want your mother to sit next to on a city bus.

Rucker printed a copy of the photograph for Kovac to take.

“Can you please e-mail that to me as well?” Kovac asked, handing Rucker his business card. “If you see him, call me immediately.”


*



THE SEARCH CONTINUED FOR another hour among the rows of U-Store-It buildings, and the adjacent lot with the RVs and covered boats. Half a dozen uniformed officers and a K-9, and they never caught so much as a glimpse of their mystery man. He had vanished.

Kovac finally pulled the plug. He would issue a BOLO for Gordon Krauss, and try to squeeze Dan Franken for some answers. If Franken felt enough loyalty to Krauss to tip him off, maybe their connection went deeper than one former addict helping out another.

Wet and tired, he slid behind the wheel of the car. Taylor fell into the passenger’s seat like a sulky teenager, swore, and banged a fist on the dashboard.

“I had hold of him! I had him! I let him get away!”

He banged on the dash a few more times, cursing with each punch, then fell back in his seat, clasped his hands around the back of his head, and groaned.

“Don’t sweat it, kid,” Kovac said. “He wanted to get away a whole hell of a lot worse than you wanted to hang on to him. Never underestimate the power of a desperate individual.”

“What if he’s our guy?”

“What if he’s not even Krauss?” Kovac countered. “He could be some poor homeless schmuck who crawled out of a doorway to take a leak, and suddenly people are screaming at him and jumping on him. That was some kick he gave you.”

“That was a kick?” Taylor asked. “I thought he hit me in the head with an iron pipe.”

“That was like something out of a kung fu movie,” Kovac said. “I wonder if he knows anything about samurai swords.”

“I should keep looking,” Taylor muttered.

“Every cop in Northeast is looking for him now. Don’t be a freaking martyr,” Kovac said, putting the car in gear. “You need your head examined.”

“I’m crazy for wanting to find this guy?”

“No. I’m taking you to the ER so they can shine a light in your eyes and ask you how many fingers you see.”

Taylor didn’t protest, which said enough.

“I hate to go home empty-handed,” the kid complained as they headed south.

“We’re not,” Kovac said. “We’ve got one thing we didn’t have when we came here.”

“A concussion?”

“A suspect.”





15


Evi sat down for what seemed like the first time all day. She was tired, but in a wonderful way. They had slept in because of the ice, then Eric had cooked them his famous firehouse breakfast, with eggs and pancakes, bacon and hash browns. At Mia’s insistence they decorated their pancakes with faces, using banana slices and blueberries and strawberries and whipped cream out of a can. They had played with their daughter, then gently made love while Mia had her nap.

A perfect day, Evi thought as she curled up on the sofa. Eric had convinced her to stay home all day. The center called to cancel the meeting she had worried about missing, making for a guilt-free afternoon. She soaked in the pleasure and joy of it all the more because she would now be without Eric for a day and a half. He had left late in the day to fill in at an ambulance service for a paramedic buddy whose wife was having a baby. His regular twenty-four-hour shift at the firehouse would begin at eight the next morning.