The Bitter Season (17 page)

Nikki hoped Seley’s connection would make the difference. The system at the Department of Children and Family Services was a maze unto itself.

“Great. In the meantime,” she said, raising her voice, “I’ve got a meeting with Thomas Duffy. I need to ask him how he liked the pancakes at Cheap Charlie’s.”

Grider heard her. She could tell by the way he tipped his head, by the tension in his jaw. He was off the phone now, scribbling notes. He didn’t look at her. She half expected him to ask her if she was running to the lieutenant to tell on him. Then again, if he cared about that, he shouldn’t have met with the man in a public place—not just a public place, a cop hangout.

What was it to him if he got fired? He was already retired. He had his pension. He didn’t need this job. He had only come back to work the Duffy case, and now that the case was no longer his, his number one priority was being a pain in Nikki’s ass. She should have wanted him to get fired, but it seemed like a better idea to keep him where she could see him, no matter how annoying he was.

He sat up straighter as Mascherino came into the office looking all business. But the lieutenant’s sharp blue eyes were on Nikki.

“Have you spoken with Thomas Duffy yet?” she asked.

Nikki smiled inwardly as Grider turned toward them. Let him sweat, the fucker. “I have a call in to him. He hasn’t called me back.”

“I just got off the phone with the news director from KTWN. They’re going to shoot a news segment with Duffy at the Big D flagship store off 494 around noon today. They would like you to be a part of it.”

“Great,” Nikki said. “I have lots of questions for Mr. Duffy.”

Mascherino gave her the eye. “Try not to rub anyone the wrong way.”

“Who? Me?” Nikki said, feigning innocence.

“Unless there’s something in it for us,” the lieutenant added dryly as she turned to leave. “Sergeant Grider?”

Grider gave her the blank face.

“You have egg on your necktie. Please rectify that situation before you leave the office. I won’t have people thinking my detectives are slobs.”

She was gone before he could say, “Yes, ma’am.”

“It’s okay, Grider,” Nikki said. “Not everyone has what it takes to make it in television.”

“They’ll show you one at a time,”
Taylor said quietly. “Look at the monitor, answer yes or no. That’s it. Be prepared. They both have facial damage from the attack. It’s not going to be easy to look at.”

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Charles Chamberlain asked his sister. “I can take care of it.”

“They were
our
parents,” she whispered.

They stood in the viewing room of the county morgue, the Chamberlain children facing each other, holding hands, like little kids making a pact. Kovac studied them from a few feet away, the brother looking like Harry Potter grown up, the sister towering over him like an Amazon.

Kovac hadn’t expected the sister when they stopped to pick up Charles Chamberlain, but there she was, wandering around his apartment at eight thirty in the morning in a man’s shirt, hot-pink panties, and wool socks, her hair rumpled and half in her face as she pressed a coffee cup to her lips. She had insisted on coming, but they had to wait nearly half an hour for her to make herself presentable.

She had emerged from the bedroom looking like a naughty librarian character from a porno—hair pulled back, a pair of large plastic-rimmed glasses, the white shirt buttoned up to the throat, and a pair of black leggings painted on her long, long legs. Deep red lipstick and lots of black mascara.

Who put on come-fuck-me lipstick to identify dead family members first thing in the morning? Diana Chamberlain.

She had preened and pouted and batted her lashes at her little brother in a way that made Kovac’s skin crawl. Taylor watched the show with a serious frown, even when the girl cast him a few come-hither glances. The brother seemed immune to it. Charles Chamberlain treated his sister like a child, even though she was a couple of years older, and physically larger.

He sighed now and nodded to Taylor. “Let’s get it over with.”

Kovac kept his gaze on their faces, barely blinking. He knew the second the monitor came on. The young man flinched and turned away almost immediately, swallowing hard and mumbling “That’s him.” Diana Chamberlain stared at the screen, transfixed, unblinking, her face stark white except for the red mouth.

Taylor spoke into the intercom. “Next.”

When the image of Mrs. Chamberlain came on the screen, the son turned away, went to the far side of the room, and retched into a wastebasket. Diana continued to stare at the screen, then slowly began to tremble, then shake harder, and harder, like she was having a seizure. Screams tore up from the depths of her soul. Shrieking, she flung herself at the curtained window that separated them from the room where her parents’ corpses lay. Pounding her fists on the glass, she screamed and screamed.

“Mommy! No! No! No!” she cried, dissolving into racking sobs.

Taylor leapt toward her, catching her by the arm before she could fall to the floor. Her brother hurried to her, and she draped herself over him, pressing her face into his shoulder as she cried. They sank down on the small sofa, holding each other.

Kovac glanced at Taylor to see him watching the pair like a hawk, studying their behavior and their body language. There were times to look away and let survivors grieve. This was not one of those times.

After a few minutes the Chamberlain siblings separated and
began to collect themselves. Charles took his glasses off and cleaned them with his handkerchief, his hands trembling. Diana dried her eyes delicately with tissues from a box on a side table. She had had the foresight to use waterproof mascara, Kovac noticed.

She sniffed and looked up at Taylor from under her lashes. “My mother had a diamond-and-pearl bracelet she would have given to me,” she said softly, her voice fluttering like the wings of a butterfly. “Do you know if that was taken? I would really like to have it.”

Taylor’s jaw dropped a little, but he recovered well. “Ah, I’ll have to check on that. We won’t be able to release any personal effects for some time, though.”

“Would you be able to look at your mother’s things and tell us what might be missing?” Kovac asked.

“Yes, of course.”

Charles frowned. “There’s a detailed inventory of everything in the house, for insurance purposes. I helped make the DVD. That’s going to be the most accurate way to do it.”

“There’s a DVD?” Kovac said. “Great. Do you know where we can find that?”

“He would have put it in his safe-deposit box at the bank. And the insurance agent has one, of course.”

“Great. That’ll be helpful. And we’ll be walking through your father’s collection with Ken Sato today, too.”

The kid didn’t seem to like that idea, either. He looked pointedly away from his sister. “I’d like to be there.”

“Sorry, but we can’t have a lot of people traipsing through the crime scene.”

“That’s our home.”

He didn’t want Diana with them off leash, Kovac thought, and he didn’t like Ken Sato. Did he have suspicions of one or the other? Or was it just habit to be protective of his wack job of a sister?

“We understand,” Taylor said. “But our first obligation is to protect the integrity of the scene. You wouldn’t want your parents’
killer getting off because someone had accidentally messed up evidence, would you?”

“No.” He got up to move, nibbling at a hangnail as the wheels in his mind turned. “What happens now? When can we make arrangements?”

“That’s up to the ME. It could be a few days before the autopsies are done—”

“Autopsies?” Diana said. “Why do there have to be autopsies? You know they were murdered. Isn’t that enough? You have to have them cut up like meat? That’s sick!”

“All violent deaths get autopsies,” Taylor explained. “There are a lot of things we can learn about the crime from the autopsy.”

Staring down at the floor, the brother pressed the heels of his hands into his temples like his head might be about to explode. “This is a nightmare,” he muttered to himself. “I just want it to be over.”

Kovac didn’t bother telling him they were only just getting started, or that the road ahead was probably going to get rougher before it got easier. He would be the one making it tougher for them, and he wasn’t going to ease into it, either. His obligation wasn’t to Charles and Diana Chamberlain, but to their brutally murdered parents lying on cold steel tables in the next room. Sympathy ranked far below manipulation on his list of job requirements. He could feel bad for them later if they deserved it.

Diana excused herself to go to the ladies’ room. Taylor escorted her out to the hall to show her where to go.

“So, Charlie— Can I call you Charlie?” Kovac asked, not to be a buddy, but to pick at the kid’s tight outer wrapper.

The boy wanted to say no, but didn’t, making a stiff half shrug. “I don’t care.”

But he did care. He didn’t like it, but he packed his annoyance down and kept it inside. All those years of dealing with a pompous father had taught him to control his own emotions with an iron fist.

“So, Charlie,” Kovac began again. “Is there a reason you don’t want your sister going to the house without you?”

“No!” he said too quickly, looking a little startled. He thought he’d hidden it better.

“You seem to have a calming influence on her. You two are pretty tight.”

“I know her.”

“You understand her. There’s a difference,” Kovac said. “I get the feeling you’ve spent a lot of time running interference for Diana, trying to head disaster off at the pass. You’re a good brother. That’s no small job, I’m thinking.”

“She’s my sister.”

“You’re protective of her. Why do you think you need to protect her from us? We’re not the bad guys here.”

He wouldn’t quite make eye contact. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“We’re not the bad guys,” Kovac said again. “I know she’s been in trouble with the police before, but that’s got nothing to do with what I need to accomplish, right?”

“Her juvenile record was expunged.”

“I imagine you helped her with that. Good idea. People shouldn’t have their lives ruined because they did some stupid shit as teenagers, right?”

“Why are you bringing it up, then? And how do you even know about it?”

“Having a juvenile record expunged means regular people can’t find it,” Kovac said. “I can find it. Arrest records stay in our system for donkey’s years.”

“Then why do you need me to tell you about it, if you already know?” the kid challenged, scowling.

“I know what happened—shoplifting, shoplifting, possession of weed, more shoplifting. I want to know why.”

“Then you should ask her.”

“I’m asking you for your opinion as her brother.”

“I already told you she’s bipolar.”

“I’m not asking for a medical diagnosis,” Kovac said patiently. “A lot of people are bipolar. They don’t all go around taking the five-finger discount at department stores. They don’t all get into hair-pulling catfights at sporting events. They’re not all in and out of rehab in their teens.”

The kid was stressing, breathing faster, wanting to get away. But it hadn’t occurred to him yet to say, “Fuck off.”

“It’s important for me to know who all the people close to the victims are,” Kovac explained.

“Diana wouldn’t hurt our parents,” Charles said defensively, but his eyes glazed with a fine sheen of tears as he said it. Maybe he wasn’t as certain as he wanted to sound.

“I’m not saying she did,” Kovac said, lifting his hands a little, fingers spread wide.
Nothing up my sleeve, kid.
“But I don’t know who her friends are, or were. I don’t know that she didn’t—or doesn’t—have some bad boyfriend, back when she was going through her delinquent phase, and that guy knows where her parents live, and what they have. See what I’m saying here, Charlie?” he asked quietly.

He could see the wheels turning.

“She’s always been difficult,” the kid said, giving in. “Even when we were little. I don’t know why. Maybe something happened to her. I don’t know.”

“Something like what?”

“I don’t know!” he said, exasperated, glancing toward the door, willing it to open.

“Did your parents talk about something having happened to her?”

The kid drew a big breath like he was going to say something more, but the words stayed in his mouth as the door opened and Taylor ushered Diana Chamberlain back into the room.

“Are we done?” she asked. “Can we go home now?”

“Yeah, we’re done,” Kovac said, resting a hand on Charlie Chamberlain’s shoulder as he walked with him toward the door. Kovac as father figure. “This isn’t something anyone should have to deal with. I know it’s tough. I’m sorry.”

He sent them home in a cruiser, watching as the car pulled away in the drizzle.

“Did she come on to you?” he asked, cutting a glance at Taylor beside him.

Taylor rubbed his stiff neck as he watched them drive away. “Ooooh yeah.”

“I’d bet my pension she’s been sexually abused by someone somewhere along the line.”

“Daddy?”

“You know what they call that.”

“Incest?”

“Motive.”

“Sato said Diana Chamberlain was adopted when she was four or five,” Taylor said as they walked to the car. “That’s got to be tough for a little kid to be uprooted and given to strangers at that age. I’d like to know if she was broken before the Chamberlains got her or what, you know? Does she come from a long line of crazy? I wonder if we can find out.”

“Depends. Maybe the family lawyer can help us with that. Given that the Chamberlains had some bucks, it might have been a private adoption.”

“Poor kid. Abandoned by her real mother one way or another, then ends up with an alcoholic and a narcissistic jerk for adoptive parents. That’s some rotten luck.”

“That’s a petri dish full of resentment, is what that is,” Kovac said, digging the car keys out of his coat pocket.

Taylor frowned. “I can drive.”

“You have a head injury.”

“Yeah, well, I’d really rather not get another.”

“I got us here, didn’t I?” Kovac said, perturbed, as he slid behind the wheel.

“Yeah, but that bus—”

“Was in the wrong freaking lane. How could you see it anyway? You can’t even turn your head.”

“Well, there are these things on the sides of the car,” Taylor said, settling himself gingerly in the passenger’s seat. “They’re called mirrors.”

“Whatever. It’s five blocks. Don’t be such a pussy,” Kovac said as he turned left onto Fifth for the short ride from the morgue to City Hall.

A BMW swerved around them, horn blaring.

“There’s two lanes for a reason, asshole!” Kovac shouted. “Get the fuck over!”

Taylor cringed, then took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“You survived a war, for Christ’s sake,” Kovac grumbled.

“Only to die in traffic.”

“Let’s get our minds back where they belong.”

“The road would be a good start.”

“I can drive this in my sleep,” Kovac said. “I have. What did you think of the kids’ reactions to seeing their parents messed up like that?”

“They seemed real,” Taylor said. “Even Diana’s reaction when she saw her mother seemed genuine—genuinely freaked out.”

“She just stared at her father, like he wasn’t even real,” Kovac said. “Could she be that completely cut off from him in her own mind? Did she not react because she had already accepted that he should be dead? Like maybe she’s pictured him that way a thousand times.”

“And Mom was a surprise?” Taylor asked, sounding doubtful.

“Maybe Mom was collateral damage,” Kovac said. “Daddy was the target. Mom’s supposed to be sleeping off her evening bottle of
Château Blackout, but she wakes up, hears the commotion downstairs, goes to investigate . . .”

“Girls don’t go around physically overpowering people, beating people’s heads in,” Taylor argued. “And whoever killed Mrs. Chamberlain didn’t leave that sword in her by mistake. That was an exclamation point. And then we go back to the whole thing about the scene being too tidy and the burglary being too slick. I’m not saying the daughter couldn’t have had something to do with it, but—”

“But she likes to twist men around her curvy little finger,” Kovac said. “And there’s Sato—”