Ashes to Ashes (53 page)

“Let’s hope for a bloody knife under the seat,” Kovac said. “He looks like he’d be that stupid, don’t you think? Christ, it’s cold. And it’s not even Thanksgiving.”

“Bingo!” called one of the crime scene team.

Kovac jumped away from the car. “What? What’d you get? Tell me it’s got blood on it.”

The criminalist stepped back from the driver’s door. “The economy self-gratification kit,” she said, turning around, holding up a copy of
Hustler
and one very disgusting pair of black silk women’s panties.

“The pervert’s version of the smoking gun,” Kovac said. “Bag it. We may just have the key to unlock this mutt’s head.”

“WHAT’S THE WORD on getting a warrant to search Vanlees’s place?” Quinn asked, shrugging out of his trench coat. He wore the same suit he’d had on the night before, Kovac noticed. Heavily creased.

Kovac shook his head. “Based on what we’ve got, not a chance in hell. Not even with Peter Bondurant’s name attached to the case. We went over every inch of that truck and didn’t come up with anything that would tie him directly to any of the murder victims. We might get lucky with the panties—a few weeks from now when the DNA tests come back. We can’t even run the tests now. The underpants are just part of the inventory of his stuff at this point. We don’t know who they belonged to. We can’t say he stole them. And whacking off ain’t a crime.”

“You hear that, Tippen?” Liska said. “You’re in the clear.”

“I heard those were your panties, Tinks.”

“Tinks wears panties?” Adler said.

“Very funny.”

They stood in a conference room at the PD, the task force minus Elwood, who had refused to go home and was now sitting with Vanlees in an interview room down the hall.

“Why couldn’t he be dumb enough to keep a bloody knife under the seat?” Adler asked. “He looks like he’d be that stupid.”

“Yeah,” Quinn agreed. “That bothers me. We’re not exactly dealing with a brainiac here—unless he’s got multiple personalities and one of the alters keeps the brain to himself. What do we know about his background, other than his more recent escapades?”

“I’m checking it,” Walsh said. His voice was almost gone, choked off by his cold and his pack-a-day habit.

“Nikki and I have both talked with his wife,” Moss said. “Should I see if she’ll come down?”

“Please,” Quinn said.

“She’s gotta know if her husband’s this kind of a sick pervert,” Tippen said.

Quinn shook his head. “Not necessarily. It sounds like she’s the dominant partner in that relationship. He’s likely kept his hobby a secret from her, partly out of fear, partly as an act of defiance. But if he’s got a female partner—and we think he has—then who is she? The wife is clean?”

“The wife is clean. Jillian?” Liska ventured.

“Possibly. Has the wife given any indication she thought he might have a girlfriend?”

“No.”

Quinn checked his watch. He wanted Vanlees waiting just long enough to get nervous. “You get anything back on Michele Fine’s prints?”

“Nothing in Minnesota.”

“Has Vanlees called a lawyer?”

“Not yet,” Liska said. “He’s got his logic going. He says he’s not calling a lawyer because an innocent man doesn’t need one.”

Tippen snorted. “Christ, how’d he ever find his way out of St. Cloud?”

“Dumb luck. I told him we weren’t charging him right off on the accident. I told him we needed to sit down and sort through what happened before we could determine negligence, but that we had to hold him on the DUI. He can’t decide if he should be relieved or pissed.”

“Let’s go to it before he makes up his mind,” Quinn said. “Sam—you, Tinks, and me. We work him like before.”

“I wouldn’t if I were you, Sam,” Yurek cautioned. “Fowler, Little Dick, Sabin, and that assistant prosecutor Logan—they’re all there to observe.”

“Fuck me,” Kovac said with abject disgust.

Liska arched a brow. “Will you respect me afterward?”

“Do I respect you now?”

She kicked him in the shin.

“Charm,” he said to Yurek through his teeth. “If you were me, I wouldn’t be in this mess.”

GREER, SABIN, LOGAN, and Fowler stood in the hall outside the interview room, waiting. At the sight of Kovac, Fowler got an expression as if he were having angina. Greer’s eyes bugged out.

“What are you doing here, Sergeant?” he demanded. “You’ve officially been removed from the task force.”

“My request, Chief,” Quinn said smoothly. “We’ve already established a certain way of dealing with Mr. Vanlees. I don’t want to change anything at this point. I need him to trust me.”

Greer and Sabin looked sulky; Logan, impatient. Fowler pulled a roll of Turns out of his pocket and thumbed one off.

Quinn dismissed the topic before anyone could think to defy him. He held the door for Liska and Kovac, and followed them in.

Gil Vanlees looked like a giant raccoon. Both eyes had blackened in the hours since the accident. He had a split lip and a wide strip of adhesive tape across his nose. He stood at one end of the room with his hands on his hips, looking pissed and nervous.

Elwood sat in a chair with his back against the wall. Both hands were bandaged. His face was seared red. Without eyebrows his expression seemed one of perpetual unpleasant surprise.

“I hear you had a little accident, Gil,” Kovac said, falling into a chair at the table.

Vanlees pointed a finger at him. “I’m gonna sue. You people harassed me, you let the press harass me—”

“You got behind the wheel of a truck with a snootful,” Kovac said, lighting a cigarette. “Did I buy it for you? Did I pour it down your throat?”

“Your people let me get behind that wheel,” Vanlees began with all the sanctimonious indignation of a master at rationalization. He shot a quick, nervous glance at Elwood.

Kovac made a face. “Next thing you’re gonna tell me it’s my fault you killed Jillian Bondurant and those other women.”

Vanlees reddened, his eyes teared. He made a sound like a man straining on the toilet. “I
didn’t
.” He turned on Liska then. “You told me this was about the accident. You’re such a lying little cunt!”

“Hey!” Kovac barked. “Sergeant Liska’s doing you a favor. You killed someone last night, you fucking drunk.”

“That wasn’t my fault! That son of a bitch shot a flash off in my face! I couldn’t see!”

“That’s what Sergeant Liska says. She was there. She’s your witness. You want to call her a cunt again? I was her, I’d feed you your dick for dinner, you sorry sack of shit.”

Vanlees looked at Liska, contrite.

“Liska says you’re innocent as a vestal virgin,” Kovac went on, “and that you don’t want a lawyer. Is that right?”

“I haven’t done anything wrong,” he said, sulking.

Kovac shook his head. “Wow. You’ve got a broad definition of reality there, Gil. We’ve got you dead to rights on the DUI—which is wrong by law. I know you were looking in Jillian Bondurant’s windows. That would be considered wrong.”

Vanlees sat down, chair turned sideways to the table, presenting his back to Kovac and to the people on the other side of the one-way glass. He rested his forearms on his thighs and looked at the floor. He looked prepared to sit there all night without saying another word.

Quinn studied him. In his experience it wasn’t the innocent man who refused counsel, it was the man with something on his conscience he wanted to unload.

“So, were those Jillian’s panties we pulled out from under your driver’s seat, Gil?” Kovac asked bluntly.

Vanlees kept his head down. “No.”

“Lila White’s? Fawn Pierce’s? Melanie Hessler’s?”

“No. No. No.”

“You know, I wouldn’t have guessed it looking at you, but you’re a complex individual, Gil,” Kovac said. “Multilayered—like an onion. And every layer I peel away smells worse than the last. You look like an average Joe. Peel one layer back and—oh!—your wife’s leaving you! Well, that’s not so unusual. I’m a two-time loser myself. Peel another layer back and—jeez!—she’s leaving you because you’re a window peeper! No, wait, you’re not just a window peeper. You’re a weenie wagger! You’re just one big, bad progressive joke. You’re a drunk. You’re a drunk who drives. You’re a drunk who drives and gets somebody killed.”

Vanlees hung his head lower. Quinn could see the man’s swollen mouth quivering.

“I didn’t mean to. I couldn’t see,” Vanlees said in a thick voice. “They won’t leave me alone. That’s
your
fault. I didn’t do anything.”

“They want to know what happened to Jillian,” Kovac said. “I want to know what happened to her too. I think there was something more going on between you than what you’re telling us, Gil. I think you had the hots for her. I think you were watching her. I think you stole those panties out of her dresser so you could whack off with them and fantasize about her, and I’m gonna prove it. We already know the panties are her size, her brand,” he bluffed. “It’s just a matter of time before we get the DNA match. A few weeks. You’d better get used to those reporters, ’cause they’re gonna be on you like flies on roadkill.”

Vanlees was crying now. Silently. Tears dripping onto the backs of his hands. He was trembling with the effort to hold them back.

Quinn looked to Kovac. “Sergeant, I’d like to have a few moments alone with Mr. Vanlees.”

“Oh, sure, like I got nothing better to do,” Kovac complained, getting up. “I know where this is going, Quinn. You G-men want it all to yourself. Fuck that. His ass is mine.”

“I just want a few words with Mr. Vanlees.”

“Uh-huh. You don’t like the way I talk to this piece of cheese. You’re sitting there thinking I should go easy on him on account of his prostitute mother used to beat his bare ass with a wire hanger or some such psychobabble bullshit. Fine. I’ll see you in the headlines, I’m sure.”

Quinn said nothing until the cops had gone out, and then he said nothing for a long time. He took a Tagamet and washed it down with water from the plastic pitcher on the table. Casually, he turned his chair perpendicular to Vanlees’s, leaned ahead, rested his forearms on his thighs, and sat there some more, until Vanlees glanced up at him.

“More of that good cop-bad cop shit,” Vanlees said, pouting. “You think I’m a dumb shit.”

“I think you watch too much TV,” Quinn said. “This is the real world, Gil. Sergeant Kovac and I don’t have identical agendas here.

“I’m not interested in headlines, Gil. I’ve had plenty. You know that. I get them automatically. You know all I’m interested in, right? You know about me. You’ve read about me.”

Vanlees said nothing.

“The truth and justice. That’s it. And I don’t care what the truth turns out to be. It’s not personal with me. With Kovac, everything is personal. He’s got you in his crosshairs. All I want to know is the truth, Gil. I want to know your truth. I get the feeling you’ve got something heavy on your chest, and maybe you want to get it off, but you don’t trust Kovac.”

“I don’t trust you either.”

“Sure you do. You know about me. I’ve been nothing but up front with you, Gil, and I think you appreciate that on some level.”

“You think I killed Jillian.”

“I think you fit the profile in a lot of respects. I admit that. Moreover, if you look at the situation objectively, you’ll agree with me. You’ve studied this stuff. You know what we look for. You know some of your pieces fit the puzzle. But that doesn’t mean I believe you killed her. I don’t necessarily believe Jillian is dead.”

“What?” Vanlees looked at him as if he thought Quinn might have lost his mind.

“I think there’s a lot more to Jillian than first meets the eye. And I think you may have something to say about that. Do you, Gil?”

Vanlees looked at the floor again. Quinn could feel the pressure building in him as he weighed the pros and cons of answering truthfully.

“If you were watching her, Gil,” Quinn said very softly, “you’re not going to get in trouble for that. That’s not the focus here. The police will gladly let that go in trade for something they can use.”

Vanlees seemed to consider that, never thinking, Quinn was sure, that the “something” they were looking for could in turn be used against him. He was thinking of Jillian, of how he might cast some odd light on her and away from himself, because that was what people tended to do when they found themselves in big trouble—blame the other guy. Criminals regularly blamed their victims for the crimes committed against them.

“You were attracted to her, right?” Quinn said. “That’s not a crime. She was a pretty girl. Why shouldn’t you look?”

“I’m married,” he mumbled.

“You’re married, you’re not dead. Looking is free. So you looked. I don’t have a problem with that.”

“She was … different,” Vanlees said, still staring at the floor but seeing Jillian Bondurant, Quinn thought. “Kind of … exotic.”

“You told Kovac she didn’t come on to you, but that’s not exactly true, is it?” Quinn ventured, still speaking softly, an intimate chat between acquaintances. “She was aware of you, wasn’t she, Gil?”

“She never said anything, but she’d look at me in a certain way,” he admitted.

“Like she wanted you.” A statement, not a question, as if it came as no surprise.

Vanlees shied away from that. “I don’t know. Like she wanted me to know she was looking, that’s all.”

“Kind of mixed signals.”

“Yeah. Mixed signals.”

“Did anything come of it?”

Vanlees hesitated, struggled. Quinn waited, held his breath.

“I just want the truth, Gil. If you’re innocent, it won’t hurt you. It’s just between us. Man to man.”

The silence stretched.

“I—I know it was wrong,” Vanlees murmured at last. “I didn’t really mean to do it. But I was checking the yards one night, making the rounds—”

“When was this?”

“This summer. And … I was there …”

“At Jillian’s house.”

He nodded. “She was playing the piano, wearing a silky robe that wanted to fall off her shoulder. I could see her bra strap.”

“So you watched her for a while,” Quinn said, as if it was only natural, any man would do it, no harm.

“Then she slipped the robe off and stood up and stretched.”