Ashes to Ashes

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,