The Bitter Season (Kovac and Liska, #5)(89)
She had always been clever and lucky arranging backup and babysitters for the boys. Her last tenant had been a graphic designer who worked from home. Marysue Zaytoun had become a great friend as well. Nikki had hated to see her go, when she got married and moved on with her life. Then Cousin Matt announced the end of his marriage, and the other side of the Liska duplex seemed the perfect solution for all concerned.
“I had hoped I wouldn’t have to call on him much with the move to Cold Case,” Nikki said. “But here I am.”
Mascherino gave her a look, a knowing smile turning her lips. “If you wanted a nine-to-five, you wouldn’t have put on a badge.”
“I know.”
“We didn’t pick an easy ladder to climb, but that’s what makes us who we are.”
“You have kids, too.”
“A boy and a girl. They’re grown, with kids of their own now.”
“So, they didn’t grow up to be serial killers,” Nikki said. “They’re not racking up hours on the therapist’s couch because their mom is a cop.”
“They turned out just fine,” the lieutenant said. “Yours will, too. The fact that you worry about it tells me that much.”
“I don’t know,” Nikki said, scraping together a bit of humor. “I still think Kyle and R.J. will exact their revenge on me when I’m old and decrepit.”
“Oh, they won’t wait that long,” Mascherino said as they went out the doors of City Hall and into the damp cold. “They’ll sic their toddlers on you.”
They met Seley at the car and hit the road once more for Donald Nilsen’s neighborhood. The rain had dissipated into a thick mist that slicked the windshield on the outside as the defroster struggled to clear the fog on the inside of the glass.
A radio car was waiting at the curb when they arrived. Nikki looked next door, at the house the Duffys had lived in, catching a glimpse of Bruce Larson as he stood in the front room of the house with a coffee mug in one hand, gesturing with the other as he spoke and laughed with someone out of sight. He would be thrilled to know the police were next door, setting the stage for a fresh episode of Dateline.
They went into the Nilsen house, leaving one of the uniformed officers to stand guard at the front door. The other paired with Seley to begin the search of the main level. Nikki and Mascherino climbed the stairs to the second floor. They went from room to room, methodically searching closets and drawers, looking under beds and behind dressers—anywhere that could conceivably hide a small rifle or a box of bullets.
There were three bedrooms and a bath on the second floor. Donald Nilsen’s bedroom looked just as it probably had when Mrs. Nilsen was in residence: lace curtains and a floral bedspread, wall-to-wall carpeting so old the traffic patterns were worn like trails in the dingy beige pile. Nilsen had made a halfhearted attempt to make the bed, pulling the bedspread up and over the lumpy shapes of pillows. A few articles of clothing were draped over a chair, but other than that, the room was relatively neat. The furniture was a matching suite that had probably been purchased in a store with the word Mart or Barn in the name—a dresser with a mirror attached, a chest of drawers, a pair of nightstands, a four-poster bed, all made of inexpensive wood stained to resemble mahogany.
Nikki went to Mrs. Nilsen’s dresser. Her perfume bottles still sat on a mirrored tray. An assortment of inexpensive jewelry boxes clustered together on the far right, a few pieces of costume jewelry scattered near them. A small dish held odd buttons, a thimble, a needle and thread.
It looked as if Donald Nilsen hadn’t touched any of it in twenty-five years. Nikki wondered if he had left it in anticipation of his wife’s return or out of apathy for the loss of her. Either way, it struck her as odd. She wouldn’t have pegged him for a sentimental man. She would have expected him to get rid of this stuff, to clear out all traces of the woman who had allegedly left him. But the dresser’s drawers still held a woman’s lingerie and neat stacks of sweaters—all of it smelling vaguely stale, as if the drawers had not been opened, their contents left untouched for all that time.
“Not under the bed,” Mascherino said.
Nikki glanced over at her. “The rifle or the wife?”
“Neither.”
“When Speed moved out of our house, I threw half his stuff out on the lawn and the other half in the trash. I couldn’t clean out our bedroom fast enough,” she said. “This guy just pretends nothing is different.”
“Maybe it’s just easier that way.”
“It’s making my skin crawl. If she left him, she didn’t take much with her. The drawers are full, the closet has women’s clothing in it.”
“Add another unsolved mystery to your stack of cases,” the lieutenant said.
“He never even reported her missing,” Nikki said. “No one did.”
They moved from the master bedroom to a guest room Nikki couldn’t imagine had ever been used. Who would go out of their way to visit Donald Nilsen? He was no one’s kindly uncle. The bed was piled with old clothes. Nilsen’s hunting coats and caps crowded the closet, but this was not where he kept his guns.
The third bedroom had belonged to Jeremy Nilsen. Just like his wife’s portion of the master, Donald Nilsen had left this room just as it was the day his son left for basic training. A thick layer of dust coated the dresser. The bed was neatly made. A modest collection of sports awards was proudly displayed on a little shelf. A poster of Bruce Lee decorated one wall, Bruce Springsteen another.