The Bitter Season (32 page)

“He came in out
of the rain to use the bathroom,” Tippen said as they watched the security video. “Betrayed by his own bowels. It’s one for the anals.”

He chuckled diabolically as everyone else groaned at his play on words.

“What time was this?” Kovac asked, squinting at the television screen. Even with his glasses, the time and date stamp was squiggly.

“Five seventeen this morning at the SuperAmerica convenience store on Thirty-fourth Avenue, south of the Minnehaha Parkway,” Elwood said, pushing a pin with a red head into the map on the war room wall.

“You’re sure it’s him?”

“Looks like him,” Tippen said, referencing the photo on the wall. “Same hair, same beard. The clerk was dead certain. Said he acted shady.”

“Him and every other street twitch sneaking into a bathroom meant for paying customers,” Kovac said. “What do you think, Tinks?”

“I think this bearded lumberjack fad has to end soon, or I’m going to become a lesbian.”

“Is that supposed to be a threat?” Tippen asked, “Or a tantalizing glimpse into one of my favorite fantasies?”

Liska threw a piece of stale donut at him, hitting him in the forehead. “Not in front of the children, you disgusting pervert,” she returned without rancor.

Taylor was glaring at Tippen like a hungry guard dog, clearly unhappy with Tippen’s apparent lack of respect for the lady of the group.

“Don’t worry about Tinks, kid,” Kovac said. “She could turn Tippen inside out by the scrotum if she wanted to.”

“Don’t give me ideas,” Liska said. “I don’t have time to play. Let’s get back on point, please.”

“Second possible sighting at Oxendale’s Market, just down the street from the convenience store,” Elwood said, sticking another pin in the map. “A truck driver delivering produce thought he saw Krauss hopping out of a Dumpster behind the store. That’s two sightings, blocks apart, within an hour and a half of each other.”

Kovac scratched his head as he stared at the map. “He’s a long way from Rising Wings. What’s he doing on that end of town?”

“Maybe he’s from that area, knows his way around, is comfortable there,” Taylor speculated.

“It’s a risk. That’s a quiet residential area,” Kovac said. “He’s going to stick out more there than if he had stayed downtown.”

“But downtown is crawling with cops.”

“Maybe there’s somebody he wants to see before he splits town,” Tippen offered. “He’s working his way south. He’s got his pick of major highways from there. He can kiss an old flame good-bye and hit the road for anywhere.”

“The airport’s right there, too,” Taylor pointed out. “Who knows what he might be carrying for an ID. It won’t say Gordon Krauss, we can be sure of that. A shave and a haircut, and he’s past TSA as Joe Schmoe.”

Kovac nodded at Liska. “Fill them in on your deal.”

She got up and went to the map. “I’m looking for a man named Jeremy Nilsen who may have information related to my cold case.
He lived next door to my victim at the time. His father and the victim had an ongoing beef. Your guy, Krauss, had Jeremy Nilsen’s ID.”

“And five others,” Tippen said. “Do you think he’s your guy?”

She shrugged. “I don’t have a current photo of Nilsen, but if it’s him, you should have gotten a hit on his prints. He’s ex-military.”

“Unless he’s been erased,” Tippen said, excited at the thought.

Kovac tossed a pen in the air and rolled his eyes. “Oh God, here come the conspiracy theories.”

Tippen pointed a finger at him. “If you think it doesn’t happen, my friend, you are doomed to an Orwellian future.”

“Yeah, I’ve got news for you,” Kovac said, “1984 was a few decades ago.”

“Here’s what’s interesting,” Liska went on. “Jeremy Nilsen lived next door to Ted Duffy here, west of Lake Nokomis.” She stuck a pin in the map. “His father—the poster boy for angry white men everywhere—still lives there. The kid had a crush on Duffy’s foster daughter—now known as Evi Burke—who now lives here, east of Lake Nokomis.” She stuck a second pin in the map and then drew a finger in a triangle between her pins and Elwood’s. “We’re talking about a relatively small area, a few square miles. And yesterday Evi Burke received a creepy, vaguely threatening note in the mail that said, ‘I know who you are and I know where you live.’”

Kovac sat up straighter. “She works at Chrysalis?”

“Yes. She assumed the note was related to one of her cases. Maybe not.”

“So, the guy you want to question about a twenty-five-year-old homicide could be our suspect in a possible double murder-for-hire?” Taylor said. “
And
he’s stalking the girl he had a crush on in high school? That’s a whole lot of a word I’m not allowed to use.”

“An unlikely serendipitous collection of ideas,” Elwood offered.

“I’m not saying anything,” Liska said. “But I am taking a picture of your guy over to Evi Burke, and I think it’d be a good idea to put
an unmarked unit on her block until somebody throws a net over this guy.”

“Done,” Kovac said.

“Thank you. I’m out of here,” she said, giving a jaunty salute. “Call me when you catch him, boys.”

As the door closed behind her, Taylor said, “I stopped to talk to Charlie Chamberlain on my way home last night.”

“And he didn’t tell you to call his attorney?” Kovac asked.

“I made speaking to me a better choice.”

“Good boy.”

“Someone had beaten the living crap out of him.”

Kovac’s brows sketched upward. “Sato?”

“He wouldn’t say.”

“Not Sato.”

“My hunch? I think Diana did it,” Taylor said.

“The sister beat him up?” Tippen asked. “Now, that’s my kind of crazy.”

“She’d snap you like a twig,” Kovac said, “and pick her teeth with your bones. She’s a freaking Amazon, and a whole truckload of nuts.”

“He didn’t want to talk about it,” Taylor said.

“If Sato did that to him, he’d be bringing charges.”

“Exactly. I also spoke with his neighbor across the hall. She referred to Diana as his tall girlfriend, and said there seemed to be a lot of fighting and making up between them.”

“And we have just crossed a line, even for me,” Tippen commented.

“I’m not surprised,” Kovac said. “Even if he’s not sleeping with her, her power base is sexual. She’s had him wrapped around her finger since they were kids. He pissed her off popping her boyfriend in the face yesterday.”

“There was probably a sexual component to the father-daughter relationship, as well,” Elwood added. “Actual or implied.”

“Charlie didn’t come out and say so,” Kovac said, “but he hinted there might have been abuse in Diana’s background. Before or after she was adopted by the Chamberlains, I don’t know. The damage was done either way. Add the result of sexual abuse to her bipolar disorder, and you’ve got a potentially explosive mix.”

“Sex and violence,” Taylor said. “She goes off on her brother for taking a swing at her lover. Charlie looked like he went a couple of rounds with Mike Tyson.”

“They both studied martial arts as kids,” Kovac said. “Imagine her reaction if Daddy told them he was giving away their inheritance.”

“Charlie denied knowing about that,” Taylor said, “but I wasn’t convinced. He said their father was always making threats like that, but that he would never follow through.”

“He was following through this time,” Kovac said.

“So Big Sis picked up the phone and called her ninja lover at Rising Wings,” Tippen suggested. “Oh, won’t you please slaughter my father for me, Gordon? He’s so mean.”

“She saw Gordon Krauss at the house the day he was there to do the repairs,” Kovac said. “Tweedle Dumber told me she was slinking around Krauss like a cat in heat.”

“She probably watched him do the deed,” Elwood said.

“Watched?” Kovac asked. “Hell, she could have beaten her father to death herself. Whoever did it had a whole lot of rage. Then either Krauss or Sato took care of the mother.”

“Or Charlie,” Taylor said. “After yesterday, we know he can lose control. And he certainly knows more than he’s saying.”

“Were there any calls from Diana’s phone that might have been to Krauss?” Kovac asked. “To Rising Wings? To a pay phone? Anything?”

“No, but she’s smart enough; she could have used a burner,” Taylor said. “Disposable phones are everywhere.

“I’m still bothered by the anomaly in the calls from the mother’s
phone,” he went on. “I hope to hear back from the phone company today what towers those calls were pinging off. I asked Charlie if I could listen to the message his mother left Tuesday night. He said he erased it.”

“But we know the call was made,” Elwood said.

“But we only have his word about the message. What if Diana pocketed that phone Sunday night? What if the call was only for show?”

“Why steal her mother’s phone?” Tippen asked.

“To disarm the security system from the app.”

“I like that,” Kovac said. “Gold star for Junior.”

“You didn’t drive to Dinkytown and ask the girl if she put a beat-down on her brother and hacked her mother up with a sword, Mr. Overachiever?” Tippen asked.

“The lights were off, and she didn’t answer the door,” Taylor returned. “I didn’t see her car on the street. And she never answers her phone.”

“She was probably off eating a bloody steak with her bare hands,” Kovac said, pushing to his feet. He looked at Elwood and Tippen. “You two stay on Gordon Krauss.”

He grabbed his coat and hat and nodded to Taylor. “We’re going to find Ms. Chamberlain and have a chat about her taste in men.”

Evi Burke had called in sick to work.
Nikki mused on that on the drive south. Was she sick, as in the stomach flu? Was she sick, as in the work flu? Was she sick, as in afraid of a stalker? Was she sick, as in detectives came to her house and asked her questions that upset her?

“I’m freaking Typhoid Mary,” she muttered to herself, thinking of Jennifer Duffy lying in a hospital bed, recovering from a stomach pumping and suicidal intentions.

It made Nikki sick to think about it. Over and over she went through her meeting with Ted Duffy’s daughter. Had she pushed too hard? She didn’t think so. She knew what it was to go after a suspect like a tigress when it was the method that would yield the best result, but she prided herself on being able to read people and find the path of least resistance to get the information she needed.

They had talked about being the daughters of cops, how it was hard, how their fathers had been distant from them, how kids took things to heart. Jennifer Duffy had not spoken of her father in a sentimental way, and yet she had clearly absorbed some of the guilt the afternoon he died below her bedroom window. She had smiled a little remembering her secret bedtime reading sessions with Angie Jeager. Then a cloud had passed over her memories, and the smile had faded away.

She knew something. Something she had kept secret all these
years. Something that had sent her to therapy. Something that had driven her to take an overdose of pills.

And the family had rallied around her.

What the hell was that about? Nikki wondered as she pulled up in front of the Burkes’ charming little English-cottage-style house.

Evi Burke’s husband answered the door. He was a virtual Viking god in the flesh. In jeans and a faded navy-blue thermal shirt that hugged sculpted muscles, he looked like he could have been a few years younger than his wife. Jackpot, Evi Burke, Nikki thought as he invited her in.

“What’s this about?” he asked, not letting her get any farther than the entryway. He crossed his arms over his chest and took a stance with his feet shoulder-width apart. The protector. “We’re looking for a person of interest in a homicide,” Nikki said. “And we’re trying to learn as much as we can about him.

“We think he might be connected to one of your wife’s clients at the Chrysalis Center,” she lied. “Mrs. Burke may have had an encounter with him during a home visit.”

“Do you think he’s in our neighborhood? There’ve been a lot of radio cars on the street.”

“A clerk at the SuperAmerica on Thirty-fourth thinks he might have seen him this morning. We’ve saturated the surrounding area with patrol cars.”

Eric Burke took in her answer, thought about it, and nodded. She gave a mental sigh of relief.

Evi emerged from the dining room white as a sheet, with dark circles under her eyes, shuffling in a pair of fuzzy cat-face slippers, yoga pants, and an oversize sweater. She was preceded by an adorable blond-haired moppet wearing a pink tutu and waving a glitter wand.

Nikki grinned at the little girl. “Are you a princess or a fairy?”

“I’m Mia!” the girl exclaimed as her father scooped her up onto his hip.

“Mia and I will go up to the Magic Kingdom while you two talk.”

Nikki murmured her thanks. Evi watched her husband and daughter disappear up the stairs. She hugged herself as if she was cold.

“Why did you do that?” she asked. “This suspect doesn’t have anything to do with anyone at Chrysalis.”

“No,” Nikki said. “But I didn’t see a need to tell your husband this is about something that happened twenty-five years ago, either.”

“Thank you.”

They went into the dining room, taking the same seats they had the night before.

“You look like you had a rough night,” Nikki said. “Did something happen after we left?”

Tears filled Evi Burke’s eyes. “I got a phone call,” she murmured. “In the middle of the night. The person said, ‘It all worked out for you.’”

“What does that mean?”

She made a little fluttering movement of frustration and confusion with her hands. “I-I have a nice life now. I didn’t always.”

“Did you recognize the voice?”

“No.”

“Male or female?”

“I couldn’t really tell. They whispered.”

“Did you tell your husband about this?”

“No. I don’t like to worry him. I mean, it wasn’t really a threat, was it? Just—
It all worked out
. I don’t even know why I’m so afraid.”

“Because some faceless creep is reaching into your life without so much as introducing themselves,” Nikki said. “That’s scary. Knowing that you have a past, knowing that you work with at-risk women—that ups the ante considerably.”

“That’s not why you’re here, though, is it?” Evi said, trying to steer the conversation elsewhere.

Maybe, Nikki thought, but she didn’t say it. Jeremy Nilsen had left the army on a psych discharge. Maybe he wasn’t so happy life had finally smiled on the girl he had known as Angie Jeager. And Donald Nilsen had as much as said he blamed her for some imagined downfall of his family. Who knew where he had been in the middle of the night? He had nothing but time on his hands. He might have seen Evi’s face in the newspaper article about the Chrysalis Center and recognized her. Nikki kept those thoughts to herself for the moment.

She pulled the photograph of Gordon Krauss out of her portfolio and put it on the table. “Do you recognize this man?”

“He’s the one you’re looking for—for those murders. I saw the picture on television,” Evi said, looking confused. “I don’t understand. Why would I know him?”

“He’s calling himself Gordon Krauss. A search of his room turned up Jeremy Nilsen’s ID. Could he be Jeremy Nilsen?”

Evi looked more closely at the photo, not touching it, frowning. “I haven’t seen Jeremy in twenty-five years. He was a teenage boy.”

“Imagine him without the beard,” Nikki said. “What was he like back then? Was he troubled? Was he angry? Could he be violent?”

She stared at the picture. Her color worsened as she considered the questions and her answers to them, answers she chose to keep to herself.

“He seemed like a nice boy,” she said so softly Nikki almost had to strain to hear her. She looked as fragile as spun glass.

“Was he ever in trouble?”

“Not that I know of.” Her hands were shaking. She sat back and put them in her lap.

“Were you involved with Jeremy Nilsen, Evi? Did his father know about it?”

“No. I told you, we were just acquaintances.”

Nikki reached into the leather portfolio again and pulled out the photographs she had taken from Jeremy Nilsen’s bedroom and put
them on the table. “Then why would I find these in Jeremy’s bedroom? They were hidden under the mattress. All these years.”

Evi Burke’s eyes widened at the sight of herself, sixteen and shy, her vulnerability captured by a school portrait photographer.

“I don’t know,” she whispered, blinking against tears.

Nikki sat back and sighed. “You have to tell me, Evi. You need this to be over.”

“I think you should go now,” Evi said. “I’m not feeling well. I need to lie down.”

“Jennifer Duffy tried to kill herself last night.”

Evi’s face dropped. “Oh my God. That’s terrible. Is she all right? Will she be all right?”

Nikki shrugged. “The family seems to think the conversation I had with her about her father’s murder prompted her to do it. She’s in the hospital.”

“I’m so sorry,” Evi whispered, closing her eyes and pressing a hand to her forehead as if feeling for a fever. Nikki wondered if she was speaking in general or specifically apologizing to Jennifer Duffy . . . for what?

“Evi, what could Jennifer have known that would have upset her to the point of trying to end her own life?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t there.”

“You weren’t there the night Ted Duffy was murdered. But what about any other night?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“What was going on in that house, Evi? The Duffys have closed ranks around Jennifer. Whatever she knows about her father’s death is staying in that circle. Why?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“You lived there,” Nikki said, frustrated.

“Please go now.”

Nikki sighed but made no move to get up. She could feel Evi
Burke teetering on the edge. The harder it felt to hold the secret, the more tempting revealing the truth became.

“There’s no reason not to tell me, Evi,” she said gently. “You were a child. You didn’t have any control over what happened.”

Evi looked out the window at the cold gray day as if she was staring into her past. She looked utterly alone. Nikki wanted to reach out to her, but that wasn’t her job, and it wouldn’t get her the answers she needed.

Not finding an answer to an impossible internal question, Evi finally shook her head.

“I can’t help you,” she said at last. She pushed the photographs back across the table. “I don’t know who that man is. I’m sorry.”

Nikki reluctantly put the pictures back in her portfolio.

“I will get to the bottom of this, Evi,” she said in the least threatening voice she could use. “I know I’m close. I can taste it. I won’t stop until I have the answer.

“I’m not out to hurt anybody,” she said. “It makes me sick that Jennifer Duffy is lying in the hospital today. There was no reason for her to make that choice. Nothing is worth that. Nothing that happened back then, when she was just a child, could be worth paying that price.

“You have a nice life now, Evi,” she went on. “You’ve been through enough. You deserve to be happy. I don’t want to disrupt that for you. I just want the truth. That’s what my job is: finding the truth. I won’t stop until I get it. I owe that to my victim.”

“Good luck,” Evi said, pushing her chair back and screwing up the strength to stand.

They walked to the door together.

“Please call me if you decide you have something to say,” Nikki said, handing over another business card. “Twenty-five years is long enough to keep a secret that doesn’t matter anymore. Let it go. Set yourself free of it.”

“If it didn’t matter,” Evi said, “you wouldn’t be here.”

Nikki couldn’t really argue the point, she thought as she walked away from the Burke house. It seemed she was one of a small minority who gave a rat’s ass what had happened to Ted Duffy or why. Maybe she would feel the same way by the time this was over, but that wasn’t her choice to make.

*   *   *

E
VI WATCHED THE D
ETECTIVE
walk to her car at the curb even as a patrol car rolled past on the street. Behind her and up the stairs she could hear the laughter of her husband and her child.

No, Detective Liska, she thought. Some secrets have to last forever.