The Bitter Season (Kovac and Liska, #5)(52)

“Killed with a samurai sword,” Nikki said. “A very sexy case. I’m jealous.”

“Funny, huh? Someone gets it in the throat with a screwdriver, they bleed out just the same, but it’s so much less glamorous,” he said, forking up some eggs.

“Suspects?”

“Sniffing around a few. We almost had our hands on one last night. He mule-kicked the kid in the head like a f*cking ninja and ran off into the night.”

Nikki looked at Taylor for damage. Taylor frowned at his pancakes and rubbed his neck.

“He’s fine,” Kovac said dismissively. “How’s your thing going? That case is so cold it’s got freezer burn.”

“Thanks for the encouragement. It means so much.”

“I’m here for you.”

Nikki pulled a list out of her coat pocket and handed it across the table to him. “I’m guessing you might know most of those guys. They all worked the Duffy case at one time or another. Which one do you think is worth me trying to talk to?”

He looked at the list and ticked them off. “This one’s dead. This one’s drooling. This one moved to Costa Rica, the lucky son of a bitch. That leaves Peterson. Your winner by default.”

He gave her a look. “You could have picked up the phone and found out all of that in ten minutes.”

“Shut up,” she grumbled, annoyed that he saw right through her. “I asked you and found out in less than one minute. And I’m getting breakfast while sitting next to Magic Mike here.”

“I feel so cheap,” Taylor said.

“I know. It’s tough being the sexy one,” Nikki said, patting his arm. “We all feel really bad for you. So, do you have any tattoos, Mike? And if yes, where are they located on your person?”

Taylor blushed and grinned sheepishly, ducking his head.

“Oh my God, and he blushes, too!” Nikki exclaimed, delighted. “You are the cutest thing ever!”

“It’s lonely back there in the broom closet, isn’t it, Tinks?” Kovac said.

They all had a laugh, and it felt good . . . and it hurt a little, too, Nikki admitted. Maybe more than a little. She was a social animal. She thrived on camaraderie. Kovac’s character would have been more suited to working cold cases than hers. He at least did a better job of pretending not to need human interaction.

“All right, kids,” Kovac said, hailing the waitress for a check. “These murders aren’t going to solve themselves.”

Nikki’s breakfast arrived as the three others left. She stared down at it, not really wanting it now. She sighed and looked around, her gaze going to Grider, sitting at a table on the far side of the room. He had his big ugly head bent down and was deep in conversation with another big man whose back was to her.

She had gone over as much of the Duffy case as she could the night before, until the words on the pages of reports and statements blurred into a swarm of black dashes on white. She hadn’t come up with any overt misstep by Grider during his various stints on the case.

Had he gone easy on Barbie Duffy? Yes, but more so than any other investigator? Not on paper. Then again, he had been the one writing the reports on his investigations. He wasn’t going to make himself look bad.

No other investigator had hinted at anything wrong with Grider’s handling of the case. But that was a problem coming into a case entirely cold: She had only official reports and statements to look at. The real story of an investigation was in the detective’s personal notes, where he didn’t have to worry about verbiage, and could express his concerns and opinions. Those were the notes detectives took home with them and hoarded in file cabinets and cardboard boxes. She had boxes of her own in her attic. What she would ever do with them, she couldn’t imagine, but she kept them just the same. Nobody left those notes in a file, which was why she wanted to speak to one of the guys who had worked the Duffy case—someone not named Grider.

She didn’t know Peterson, the only viable choice from her list. Would he think Grider had looked the other way with regard to the alibis of Barbie and Big Duff? Peterson hadn’t solved the case, either.

Maybe she was just being a bitch, wanting to place the blame on Grider just because she hated him. What would his angle have been, to drag down the case, if Ted Duffy was such a great friend, anyway?

He wouldn’t have been the first guy to fall for his best buddy’s wife. But could she see Barbie Duffy sweating up the sheets with Gene Grider? Gross. Even if she could get her head around that idea, the bigger, better theory of the crime put Barbie and Big Duff in cahoots. And why would Grider run interference for either of them, let alone both of them?

As Kovac had taught her, most murders boiled down to one of two motives: sex or money. Barbie had collected on her husband’s life insurance and his pension. Big Duff had also collected insurance on his brother’s death.

She could ask to get Gene Grider’s financials for the months just prior to and after Ted Duffy’s homicide. She could only imagine Mascherino’s reaction to that request. Then again, Mascherino had come from IA. She might not blink an eye. But even as she thought about it, Nikki felt a little dirty. It wasn’t her nature to go after her own kind.

She had other angles to pursue, angles other investigators had discounted or hadn’t considered at all. The obvious routes had been trampled down over the years, to no avail. She would consider every possibility, and eliminate all but one.