frowning mouth, the angry eyes that had seen too much. “I know exactly what you're saying.”
She put the photo back in her purse, tossed a buck on the bar for the coffee she hadn't touched, and walked out. The snow had started in flurries, the clouds sending down a handful at a time on gusts of cold wind. The street was deserted, the sidewalks empty, the dingy storefronts dark except for the bail-bonds place across the street.
She leaned back against the building and wished the wind would blow away the feelings that were stacking up inside her. They'd about reached the back of her throat and she couldn't even begin to swallow them down.
She knew too much about the world to let its injustices and cruelties get to her too easily. Of course a bartender in a pool hall on Lake Street wouldn't be overly concerned about the life of a hooker, young or not. He saw it every day and never looked too closely. He had his own life to worry about.
It hit Kate hard only because she knew the next chapter to the story. The ride that had taken Angie DiMarco away from Eight Ball's had taken her to a crime scene, and the driver of that nondescript truck might have been a killer. Even if he'd been just another pathetic loser willing to pay for sex, he'd delivered her to a rendezvous with a fate that may just have gotten her killed.
Quinn came out of the pool hall, eyes narrowed against the cold and wind as he flipped up the collar of his trench coat.
“Kovac says: ‘Good police work, Red.' If you ever want to give up the soft life, he'll put a word in for you.”
“Yeah? Well, I've always wanted to work nights, weekends, and holidays up to my ass in dead bodies. Now's my big chance.”
“He's sending a team out to talk to the bartender and whoever else they can find. If they can come up with somebody who remembers more about the vehicle, or saw the driver that night, they've got something to run with.”
Kate pulled her coat closed up around her throat and stared across the empty street at the bail-bonds place. A red neon light glowed through the barred window: CHECK$ CA$HED HERE.
“Timing is everything,” she said. “If Angie hadn't been standing on this street at the exact moment that truck pulled up, I'd be home in bed, and you'd be digging in someone else's boneyard.”
She laughed at herself and shook her head, the wind catching a rope of hair and whipping it across her face. “As long as I've been around, I still shake my fist at chance. How stupid is that?”
“You always took the prize for stubborn.” Quinn reached out automatically to brush her hair back, his fingertips grazing her cheek. “A cynic is a disappointed idealist, you know.”
“Is that what happened to you?” she tossed back.
“I never saw life as ideal.”
She knew that, of course. She knew about his life, about the abusive alcoholic father, and the grim years growing up in working-class Cincinnati. She was one of the few people he had allowed to see in that window.
“But that never saved you from disappointment,” she said quietly.
“The only thing that can save you from disappointment is hopelessness. But if you don't have hope, then there's no point in living.”
“And what's the difference between hope and desperation?” she asked, thinking of Angie, wondering if she dared hope.
“Time.”
Which might have already run out for Angie DiMarco, and which had run out for the two of them years earlier. Kate felt disappointment sink down through her. She wanted to lay her head against Quinn's shoulder and feel his arms slip around her. Instead, she pushed away from the wall and started for the 4Runner parked down by the Laundromat. The homeless guy was looking in her back window as if considering it for his night's accommodations.
“I'll drop you off at your hotel,” she said to Quinn.
“No. I'll ride home with you and call a cab. Tough as you are, I don't want you going home alone, Kate. It's not smart. Not tonight.”
If she'd been feeling stronger, she might have argued just on principle, but she wasn't feeling strong, and the memory of phantom eyes watching her as she'd let herself in her back door just hours before was still too fresh.
“All right.” She hit the remote lock. The alarm system on the truck beeped loudly, sending the homeless guy scuttling back into the doorwell of the Suds-O-Rama. “But don't try anything funny, or I'll sic my cat on you.”
20
CHAPTER
“ANYTHING ON THE house-to-house yet?” Kovac asked, lighting a cigarette.
Tippen hunched his bony shoulders. “A lot of people pissed off about having cops pounding on their doors in the middle of the night.”
They stood on the front porch of the Phoenix, huddled under a jaundice-yellow bug light. The B of I van was still on the yard. The yard had been cordoned off to create a media-free zone.
The press had swooped in like a flock of vultures, suspiciously in sync. Kovac squinted through the smoke and the falling snow, staring out at the end of the sidewalk, where Toni Urskine was being interviewed in the eerie glow of portable lights.
“How much you wanna bet I pull the phone records for this dump tonight I find calls to WCCO, KSTP, and KARE?” he muttered.
“Raking publicity off crime and tragedy,” Elwood said, pushing his goofy-looking felt hat down on his head. “It's the American way. All this media exposure, you can bet the donations will come rolling in.”
“She even hints what's going on here is connected to our witness, I can just bend over and grab my ankles,” Kovac groused. “The brass pricks will be lining up behind me.”
“Better make nice with her, Sam,” Liska suggested, bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet to keep warm. “Or I could loan you a tube of K-Y Jelly.”
“Jeez, Tinks.” Distaste rippled across Kovac's face. He turned to Elwood. “What've we got in the basement? What's the story with that cellar door?”
“Door's locked from the inside. We've got what looks like some bloodstains on the floor. Not a lot. Urskine says it's nothing, that he cut himself working on the furnace a few nights ago.”
Kovac made a growling sound low in his throat and looked to Liska again. “What about your mutt, Vanlees?”
“Can't find him. I wanted to follow him from the meeting, but between the crowd and the traffic getting out there, I lost him.”
“He's not working tonight? He came to the meeting in his uniform.”
“I'll bet he sleeps in that uniform,” she said. “Ever ready to save the public from ticket scalpers and unruly basketball fans. He's got a cheap apartment over on Lyndale, but he's not in it. I finally talked to his soon-to-be ex-wife. She tells me he's house-sitting for someone. She doesn't know who and couldn't give a shit.”
“Hey, he wants to be a cop, he might as well start out with one divorce under his belt,” Tippen said.
“She give any indication he's into anything kinky?” Kovac asked.
“Oh, you'll love this,” she said, eyes brightening. “I asked her about that misdemeanor trespass conviction eighteen months ago. Quinn was right. Ol' Gil had the hots for some woman his wife works with. He got caught trying to sneak a peek at her in her panties.”
“And he's still working security?” Kovac said.
“He kept it quiet, pleaded down, no one paid attention. He claimed it was all a big misunderstanding anyway.”
“Yeah,” Tippen sneered. “‘It was all a big mistake, your honor. I was just driving along, minding my own business, when I was struck by an uncontrollable urge to play spank the monkey.'”
“I like this guy, Sam,” Liska said. “His wife had nothing but disdain for him. She hinted their sex life was nonexistent when they were together. If that's true, he could be an even better fit to Quinn's profile. A lot of these
