The Bitter Season (34 page)

Gordon Krauss had nothing to say.
Nothing at all. He had neither waived his rights nor invoked his right to counsel. He sat across the table from Kovac in the box, his back to the wall.

A suspect was put in that position, cramped behind the too-small table that was bolted to the wall on one end of the room, to feel as if he was cornered. Kovac had the option of increasing or decreasing the sense of pressure by moving closer in his chair, which was on wheels, or sliding subtly back away from the suspect.

He stayed back from Gordon Krauss, waiting. This was going to take time. Krauss appeared dead calm, his posture straight but not tense. He stared past Kovac into the middle distance, expressionless, observing his right to remain silent.

He had obviously been living rough since they had flushed him out of Rising Wings. His clothes were dirty and wet. He smelled like a Dumpster. His hair was greasy and flat from hiding under a watch cap. His beard needed a serious grooming. He had been caught trying to shoplift a pair of scissors and a pack of disposable razors from a drugstore.

They had not offered him fresh, dry clothes. Kovac wanted him uncomfortable. They had not offered him food. Kovac wanted him irritable, in the hope of eliciting an angry outburst, but none had been forthcoming.

They had been in the box for seventy-three minutes, mostly just
staring. Kovac asked the occasional question that went unanswered. The afternoon was almost gone. It had grown dark outside by now. Most people would be thinking about going home and having dinner. His own stomach was grumbling. Krauss’s face was gaunt. He probably hadn’t had a decent meal in days.

“Everyone said you were a quiet guy,” Kovac commented. “They didn’t say you were a mute.”

He sat back in his chair, yawned, and stretched his arms over his head. He had all the time in the world.

“You’re a real man of mystery, Gordon,” he said. “We found six IDs in your room at Rising Wings. I don’t think any of them are you. You convinced a bunch of people you’re a vet, but we can’t find your fingerprints in any system. So if you’re a veteran, you must have been in the French Foreign Legion. Then again, I’ve got a guy who thinks you’re some kind of shadow-world ninja assassin for the government. A poor man’s James Bond, if you will. That would make a good movie,” he said. “I’m not much for movies, but I would go to that.”

Krauss had no interest in discussing his potential as an action star.

“I doubt you’re that interesting in reality,” Kovac said. “I think you’re probably just a garden-variety mutt. You’re just another lazy mutt who took a low-end honest job so you could case some nice homes during the day and then come back after hours and steal what you could carry in a knapsack. There’s nothing special about that. Just your average workaday thief.”

If Krauss was insulted, he didn’t show it.

“Yeah, you’re a little bit clever,” Kovac conceded. “That’s a good gig you landed with the rehab. That was smart. Too bad you had to meet Diana Chamberlain there. That chick is bad news. Bat-shit crazy. Look what she pulled you into. You’re never gonna see the light of day as a free man again because of her.”

Krauss said nothing. He didn’t acknowledge or deny knowing
Diana Chamberlain. He didn’t deny being a thief. He didn’t say they had nothing on him or that he didn’t belong in jail. His expression didn’t change at all. He stared past Kovac, barely blinking. His eyes were empty, dead-looking, like a shark’s eyes.

“What did she promise you, Gordon? Money? Drugs? Sex? All of the above? She’s a party waiting to happen, that one.”

He opened a file folder and took out several photographs from the Chamberlain crime scene, gruesome close-ups of the victims, and laid them out on the table.

“Was she there with you? Did she help out with the alarm system that night?” Kovac asked. “She’s the kind of chick who would get off on watching this go down. But you know she’s going to totally throw you under the bus on this, right?”

Krauss didn’t look at the pictures. He seemed lost in some fantasy world. Meditating on murder. The guy made his skin crawl. Kovac had been in the box across from every kind of dirtbag known to man, but only a handful had given him the sense of being in the presence of something truly, darkly evil. Something in the blank, soulless stare made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

“Yeah, well . . .” He stood up and rolled his shoulders, picked up the file folder, but left the photographs on the table. “It’s been nice talking to you, Gordon. I’m gonna take a break here, go get a cup of coffee, grab some dinner, take a piss. Do you need anything, Gordon? Can I get you anything? No? Suit yourself. I’ll see you later.”

He walked out of the interview room and went directly to the war room, where the whole gang had gathered to watch the show on a monitor.

“He’s not much of a conversationalist,” Kovac said.

“But is he our killer?” Mascherino asked. Standing among the guys (and Liska), in her prim black suit and sensible shoes, she looked like the headmistress of a school for incorrigible overgrown boys.

“This guy probably killed his own mother and ate her the day he hatched,” he said. “Whether he killed the Chamberlains or not, I don’t know. I want to get Diana Chamberlain in here and see if we can play one off the other.”

“Be careful how you approach her, Sam,” the lieutenant said. “After yesterday’s fiasco, if you push too hard, she’s going to use the
L
word. And not the one you’re thinking, Mr. Tippen,” she added, arching a brow at the resident reprobate.

Kovac said nothing about their Diana encounter of the morning. He wanted her rattled but not over the edge. It was a fine line, especially if Taylor was correct in his hunch that Diana had handed her brother a beat-down—or worse. She was already teetering on the edge. They had yet to locate Charlie. He could have been dead in the trunk of her car as she drove off to yoga class that morning for all they knew.

“Work your charm, Magic Mike,” he said, looking to Taylor. “She likes you. Reel her in.”

Taylor pulled his phone out and composed a text message. He read aloud as his fingers tapped the keys. “Ms. Chamberlain: Good news. Suspect in custody. Please contact me ASAP.”

“Let’s leave her alone for an hour or two,” Mascherino suggested. “See if she’s curious enough to make a move on her own.

“In the meantime,” she said, turning back to Kovac. “How long are you going to keep him in the box?”

She nodded at the monitor and Gordon Krauss.

“As long as I can without him being able to claim we infringed on his civil liberties. We’ve got plenty to charge him with. Assaulting Junior here, for starters.”

“Don’t forget the shoplifting,” Tippen threw in. “Razors ain’t cheap, you know.”

“Is that your excuse?” Liska asked sarcastically.

Tippen struck a smug pose and stroked his goatee with pride. “The ladies love my goat.”

“They ladies you know?” Liska rolled her eyes. “If you pay them enough, they won’t care if you
smell
like a goat.”

“Nikki, you think you’ve got something on Mr. Krauss, too?” Mascherino asked.

“I’ve got a witness who ID’d Krauss for assaulting a homeless guy with a hammer a few months ago. I think if we dig into the rightful owners of those IDs that were in his room, there could be a list of charges. Assault might be the tip of the iceberg. That’s a vulnerable community. A homeless guy goes missing, who even notices?”

“Owen Rucker from Rising Wings said Krauss came to them from a shelter,” Kovac said. “He knows the ins and outs of that life. He’d know when people got their checks for Social Security, disability, whatever.”

“He’s a predator,” Liska said. “The homeless are easy prey.”

“It’s safe to say Mr. Krauss won’t be going anywhere for some time,” the lieutenant said.

“No, but I don’t want him all snug as a bug in a jail bunk,” Kovac said. “I’d rather take a shot at breaking him down now. Once he’s arraigned and the court appoints him a mouthpiece, we won’t get another shot.”

“Hey! He’s moving,” Elwood announced, pointing at the screen.

They turned their collective attention back to the monitor to watch, as if Gordon Krauss was an exotic animal in a cage.

He shifted his posture on his chair, leaning forward slightly, changing the angle of his head to look down at the photographs Kovac had left on the table. He didn’t touch them. He took a good long look, absorbing all the details of the carnage of Lucien and Sondra Chamberlain hacked and bludgeoned to death.

When he had seen enough, he sat back, and a slow reptilian smile curled across his face.

Is he a killer
? Mascherino had asked.

Oh, yeah
. Now Kovac just had to find a way to get him to admit it.

Nikki stopped on her
way home and picked up lasagna and a big salad from their favorite Italian restaurant. In the old days, she would have stayed and tag-teamed the suspect with Kovac. She would have sat and watched the monitor while he tried all his tricks to get Gordon Krauss to talk. If anyone could get anything out of a suspect, it was Sam. But when she left the office, they were still at an impasse.

She had no obligation to stay. At this point, all she could ask Krauss was whether he was actually Jeremy Nilsen—which he probably wasn’t—and if not, did he know where Jeremy Nilsen was. But he wasn’t going to speak to her any more than he had spoken to Sam, and Sam had dibs on him anyway.

Still, there was a residual low level of anxiety humming inside her as she drove home. There was that rising sense of anticipation that momentum was building, in her case and in Kovac’s, and that something big would happen soon.

But not tonight. Tonight she would have a nice family Friday evening with the boys. They would have lasagna and watch movies with insane car crashes, or watch professional wrestling, or whatever they wanted to do. They would all hang out in their pajamas on the big couch in the family room and fall asleep bundled up in afghans and blankets with sport team logos.

That was an infinitely preferable plan to sitting in a hard chair
watching Sam have a stare-down with a silent suspect. Her mood lifted the closer she came to home, right up until she pulled onto her block and saw Speed’s black Jeep Wrangler in her driveway.

Automatically annoyed, she parked at the curb and hustled up the sidewalk in the spitting drizzle, lugging what felt like forty-two pounds of Italian food. The front door flew open as she came up the steps, and the boys tumbled out onto the porch talking and laughing.

“Hey, Mom!” R.J. said in that overly excited tone he always got when his father had wound him up. “Guess what? Dad scored tickets to the WWE! Ringside seats!”

“Wow!” Nikki said, looking at her ex. “Two appearances in one week. If I had known, I would have worn a red dress for the occasion.”

“I just got the tickets this afternoon,” Speed said. “I tried to call you.”

“You did not.”

“Mom! Jeez,” Kyle complained. “Do you have to start a fight?”

“No,” she said. “No, I don’t.”

“Hey,” Speed said. “You’re the one who’s always complaining that I’m not around enough.”

“And it’s not even a school night!” R.J. said.

“No, that’s great,” Nikki said, trying to muster a show of enthusiasm. “I brought home lasagna. Come in and have supper before you go.”

“No time, babe,” Speed said. “These are VIP tix. We get a meet-and-greet with John Cena. Gotta go! Don’t wait up. They’re staying with me.”

“Yeah, gotta go!” R.J. called, jumping off the porch. “See ya, babe! Don’t wait up!”

And just like that, the three of them were bolting across the lawn and scrambling into the Jeep, where a perky-looking blonde waited in the front passenger’s seat.

Nikki stood on the porch, struggling with her temper, hoping she didn’t look as worn out and old and pissed off as she suddenly felt as she watched them back out of the driveway. Speed was free to have his overgrown juvenile existence. He had always had a blonde waiting for him somewhere. None of that was news. She had just been looking forward to quality time with her sons, that was all. Now she might as well be sitting downtown watching Kovac watch Gordon Krauss.

She put the food away, took a shower, put on yoga pants and a loose sweater, and set about adjusting her attitude. With the boys gone, she could spread out her work on the kitchen island. She could turn on the television and watch a show without a single exploding car. She could take a long hot bath and go to bed early.

All great ideas she couldn’t get very excited about because the house was too quiet. Then it occurred to her that this would be what all her Friday nights would be like once the boys were graduated and gone. Those few years would go by in the blink of an eye.

“Oh my God, stop it!” she snapped at herself.

Needing to busy herself, she spread her work out on the kitchen island, then poured herself a glass of wine. She ate some salad and a square of lasagna, and put her mind to work, going over her notes about Evi Burke.

Her instincts were dead on. Angie Jeager/Evi Burke was the key to this case. If she hadn’t been certain before, she was after their conversation that morning. She could hear it—not so much in what Evi had had to say, but in the heavy silences between. Evi knew what happened to Ted Duffy, and she knew why. And all these years later, she still felt that the burden of that truth was something she had to carry. Why?

If Angie and Jeremy Nilsen had been young lovers, what happened? Donald Nilsen would have blown a gasket, but why would he have killed Ted Duffy over it? He believed the relationship had
in some way ruined his son’s life. Jeremy had quit school and joined the army. Barbie Duffy had dumped the girl back into the foster system like an unwanted kitten. Nothing happened. The kids didn’t run off together. There was no shotgun wedding. Would either of those things have happened had Ted Duffy been alive?

What if Angie had gotten pregnant? What would Ted Duffy, Sex Crimes detective, have done about it? Jeremy Nilsen was a minor. A statutory rape charge didn’t apply. If Jeremy had actually raped her, why wouldn’t Angie have given him up? Why wouldn’t Evi give him up now? She worked every day with victims of sexual assault. Her personal story of overcoming her past was no secret.

If Donald Nilsen molested the girl, Duffy would have gone after him. Nilsen would have stood to lose everything, including his freedom.
That
was a motive. But if that had been the case, why wouldn’t Evi Burke speak of it now? Why protect Donald Nilsen, who had gone on with his life unfettered after Ted Duffy’s death?

What am I missing?

She thought about Jennifer Duffy lying in a hospital bed tonight. The burden of a secret had damaged her so badly that she had struggled with it her whole life. The weight of it had made her fragile and had nearly crushed her, now, all these years later.

Nikki slid off her stool and took her wine to her office, walking back and forth the length of the room as she looked at her time line for the day of Ted Duffy’s death.

Donald Nilsen had been working from home. Ted Duffy had been chopping wood in his backyard. Jennifer Duffy had been in her bedroom, reading. Angie Jeager and Jeremy Nilsen had been at school, attending a basketball game.

The teenagers weren’t really accounted for at the time. Their individual stories had been accepted as irrelevant facts. What motive would either of them have had for killing Ted Duffy? Was he trying to keep them apart? If that was an issue, surely Barbie Duffy would have mentioned it. Besides, star-crossed lovers ran off
together; they didn’t murder people. And if Angie got pregnant, Barbie Duffy would have, no question, brought that up. She had no love lost for the foster daughters she treated with all the compassion of Cinderella’s stepmother.

If Angie Jeager caused a problem that led to the murder of Barbie’s husband, Barbie would have been the first to say so, particularly when she herself had come under such intense scrutiny as a possible coconspirator in her husband’s death.

Barbie had remarked that Jeremy—who had been so irrelevant to her that she had never even used his name in their conversation—attended Ted’s funeral with his mother, and offered his condolences. Donald Nilsen had been conspicuously absent.

The puzzle was as intricate as a Gordian knot, so many strands interwoven and twisting around and around. Nikki’s head was beginning to throb from attempting to untangle it all. She went back into the kitchen and scrounged around for a bite of something chocolate. If she was going to be frustrated, she might as well get fat doing it. Her secret hiding place in the vegetable crisper yielded half a Twix.

She sat back down at the island and ate her candy bar and had some more red wine. She wondered what her life would have been like if Speed had been murdered instead of just an asshole. She wondered if they were all having fun at the wrestling match. She wondered if the perky blonde had any clue what a heel her new boyfriend was.

Despite her ex-husband’s less-than-stellar character, Nikki knew without a doubt that if someone killed him, she would, even now, be at the head of the line to hunt down his murderer. It was one thing for her to complain about his shortcomings and want to strangle him; having someone else do it was a declaration of war on her family.

Why wouldn’t Barbie Duffy feel the same way? Ted was the father of her children, the father of the damaged daughter she now guarded like a tigress.

She thought again of the way Jennifer Duffy’s expression had changed as she looked back on that memory of sneaking into Angie Jeager’s room to read to her after bedtime . . .

Something Jennifer had said came back to her now, ominous and enigmatic:
In real life, good people can turn out to be bad people, and bad people can get away with murder . . . and worse . . .

Someone had gotten away with her father’s murder, and what could be worse than that?

Nikki looked across the room to the big whiteboard calendar on the wall. In less than a week it would be twenty-five years to the day since Ted Duffy was killed. Her calendar was a crazy mess of scribbled-in appointments, color-coded for each of them. Kyle was blue, R.J. was purple, she was hot pink. Appointments for doctors, dentists, lessons, sporting events, social events. Kyle had drawn a cartoon turkey on the date for Thanksgiving.

Add three more kids and a second adult, and the Duffys’ calendar would have looked like an explosion at a crayon factory.

The Liska-Hatcher calendar week for Thanksgiving was double the usual chaos. Kyle got out of school Tuesday, R.J. on Wednesday. Regularly scheduled weeknight events had been canceled or moved because of the holiday. R.J.’s normal night for wrestling was Tuesday, but there would be no meet the Tuesday before Thanksgiving.

She thought back on her own high school years—when this crime had taken place. Boys’ sporting events had been held Tuesday and Friday nights. Girls’ events had been held Monday and Thursday.

Ted Duffy had been killed the Tuesday before Thanksgiving.

Nikki paged through the witness statements, looking for the name of the high school Angie Jeager and Jeremy Nilsen had attended, and then went to her office, sat down at her desk, and brought her computer to life with a move of the mouse. She typed in the name of the school and, once on the school website, brought up the calendar for the month of November. The Tuesday night before Thanksgiving was marked
NO EVENTS
.

There was no way of looking up the school calendar from twenty-five years in the past from this site, but the information was out there in the ether someplace. She would put Seley on it. If there was no basketball game on the night in question, then Angie’s and Jeremy’s alibi went out the window.

But why would they lie? Where had they been? Why had nobody really cared? If two teenagers had anything to do with the death of Ted Duffy, why would the people under the most pressure as suspects, Barbie and Big Duff, not have turned and pointed the finger at them?

It didn’t make sense, but Jennifer Duffy and Angie and Jeremy were loose threads in the fabric of the story, and Nikki couldn’t stand a loose thread. She would worry at it and tug at it to see where it led, and if the whole sweater unraveled in the process, so be it.

Of her three loose threads, she had access to only one: Evi Burke. Evi Burke, who didn’t want her husband to know about this chapter of her past—which made little sense, because she had been through far worse, far darker chapters that were common knowledge.

It all worked out for you
 . . . a faceless voice on the telephone had said to Evi. The idea that her beautiful life was now somehow under threat had Evi Burke terrified.

“I’m sorry, Evi,” Nikki murmured. “I need to know why.”