The Bitter Season (Kovac and Liska, #5)(76)

Taylor thought about it for a moment. “Yeah, you’re probably right about that. She seems erratic, but that’s her logic system at work.”

“And maybe all the wailing and screaming is grief magnified by guilt,” Kovac said.

“Neither of them has an alibi.”

“The phone records might tell a story.”

“I’ll get right on it.”

“Good,” Kovac said, leaning back in the seat and closing his eyes. “Wake me up when you’ve got something.”





22


“I’m really sorry to bother you,” Nikki said as the latest owner of the old Duffy house invited her inside.

“It’s not a problem at all,” Bruce Larson said, wiping his hands on a dishtowel. He was a big burly bearded lumberjack of a man, a look contradicted by a chef’s apron with DOMESTIC GODDESS embroidered on the chest. “It’s kind of exciting, to be honest.” He made a comical face. “David, my partner, told me I probably shouldn’t admit that out loud.”

Nikki toed her shoes off. “Not everyone can say they had a famous murder in their backyard.”

“Do you really think it can be solved after all these years?”

“Never say never.”

“We are the biggest fans of true-crime shows,” Larson admitted. “I was saying to David, we could end up being in an episode of 48 Hours or Dateline or something. How crazy would that be?”

“Pretty crazy,” Nikki agreed. “I just want to have a look out the window of the one bedroom, and then I’ll be out of your hair.”

“Sure. I’ll take you up,” he said, gesturing her toward the stairs.

“Don’t let me keep you from your cooking. It smells amazing.”

“Not a problem. The meat loaf just went in the oven. The best thing about this time of year is the menu, right? Comfort food. My famous Italian meat loaf and heart-attack-in-a-hot-dish macaroni and cheese. I’m a personal chef. I’ll give you a card before you go.”

Nikki checked her watch as they went into the bedroom. The boys would be getting home, and she had nothing planned for dinner.

“Was the tree stump still here when you bought the house?” she asked.

“Yes, and was that thing a bitch to get out of there!”

“Can you point out where it was?”

He joined her at the window. “Where the fire pit is.”

Visible from where they stood, but not if she backed up more than a few feet. Jennifer Duffy had been on her bed or in a chair, reading a book. She couldn’t have seen anything. Nor could she have seen where the shots came from—especially considering it was nearly dark at the time of the shooting. Nikki had figured as much. She had wanted to get into this room more to imagine Jennifer in here, nine years old and hiding out from the chaos of her family.

“Cozy room,” she said, glancing around.

Larson and his partner had it ready to welcome a guest, with an antique iron bed with a small mountain of pillows, a patchwork quilt tossed across the foot. There was a small dresser and an upholstered armchair, and bedside tables draped in lace.

“Thanks,” Larson said, then his smile dropped. “You don’t think the killer shot him from here, do you?” he asked, torn between horror and excitement at the thought.

“No,” Nikki said. “We know the shots came from the park. The victim’s daughter was in this room at the time. I just wanted to know if she might have been able to see something.”

She imagined the world beyond the lacy curtains dark and cold, Jennifer tucked up against the pillows with her foster sister Angie reading in the amber glow of the bedside lamps.

That wouldn’t have happened if they hadn’t been close, Nikki thought. What teenage girl would go out of her way for a lonely little bookworm if she didn’t feel a connection to the girl? Certainly little Jennifer had looked up to her surrogate big sister. Certainly she would have known if Angie Jeager had a boyfriend, or if she had been friends with the boy next door.

Nikki looked across the backyard to the second story of Donald Nilsen’s house.

“How well do you know your neighbor? Mr. Nilsen?”

Bruce Larson rolled his eyes dramatically. “Better than we would care to. He’s a horrible, hateful old homophobic geezer. That’s the Discovery ID show we’ll probably end up on—the one where the neighbor from hell ends up killing us.”

“That bad?”

“You have no idea. The first thing he did when we moved in was tell us he doesn’t approve of our lifestyle—and I’m phrasing that politely. Then we started remodeling the house, and he was a nightmare. He was constantly complaining about the noise, about the workmen’s trucks. He kept reporting us for whatever imagined infractions he could come up with—which only prolonged the project of course.

“When we took that stump out, he tried to get us in trouble for that. We planted a vegetable garden. He complained about the tiller.

“Every time we have guests over for a cookout or a party, and we’re in the backyard, he calls the cops to complain. And it’s not like we’re out there dancing naked and having a Roman orgy. We’re quiet guys. We like to cook and eat, and drink good wine. Our friends are professional people. We talk about books and movies and politics. I’m sure Donald Nilsen hasn’t read a book since Mein Kampf.”