Not that one necessarily had anything to do with the other. Like eighty percent of the cops she knew, Kovac had probably been married and divorced at least once.
“She’s a doll,” he said.
“Thank you.”
An awkward silence hung in the air for a moment.
“I suppose you want to scold me for leaving my house,” Carey said.
“I believe I did tell you to stay put.”
“You can tell me anything you want.”
“And you’ll do whatever you damn well please.”
“Wouldn’t you?”
He thought about that; then one corner of his mouth crooked up. “Point taken. You should sit down, though. You look a little pale.”
“I look like something from a zombie movie.”
“Well… yeah,” Kovac conceded.
Carey eased herself down into her desk chair, glad for the soft padded leather. “So is this bad news, or are you just going to lecture me?”
Kovac sat in the chair on the other side of the desk and let go a sigh. “Well, yeah, I was gonna lecture you, but… what’s the point?”
“I wouldn’t have come here alone,” Carey said. “I’m not that stupid woman in every suspense movie who has to go investigate the strange sounds in the basement.”
Once again he gave that little quarter of a smile that only touched one side of his mouth. He let his gaze wander around the room, seeming to not want to make eye contact with her unless he had the cop face on.
“This is a lot nicer than what the prosecutors get,” he said. “You kicked ass back then. Do you ever miss it?”
“Yes, sometimes,” she admitted. “But this was what I always wanted to do.”
“Because of your old man?”
“Yes. My idol,” she said, looking away as the emotion threatened to surface again.
“He was a good judge. What’s he doing in his retirement? Golfing in Arizona?”
“He’s dying,” she said. “He has Alzheimer’s, and… he’s dying.”
“Oh, Jesus,” Kovac muttered. “I’m sorry.”
“Me too.”
“I never miss an opportunity to stick my foot in it.”
“You didn’t know,” Carey said. “Have there been any leads tracking down Stan Dempsey?”
Kovac shook his head. “No sign of him. No sign of his car.”
“Has anyone called Kenny Scott? He has to be up there on Dempsey’s hit list.”
“That’s supposed to be happening.”
“You didn’t call him yourself?”
“Kenny Scott is not my priority,” Kovac said. “I’ve got all I can handle with you.”
Carey smiled a little and realized that she never made eye contact with him either in those moments when her guard slipped.
“Am I being difficult?”
He didn’t answer right away. He studied her. She could feel his gaze on her. Finally, he said, “I think you’re too brave for your own good. Why did you have to come here?”
“I wanted to get some paperwork to look at while I’m convalescing.”
His sharp eyes swept over the desktop. “So where is it?”
“I forgot it’s in my briefcase,” she lied.
“You know, you’re good,” Kovac said. “But I’m better. Let’s try this again, and maybe you can tell me the truth this time. Why did you have to come here?”
Carey looked down at the desk drawer where she had stashed her file on David’s hobbies. She should probably have given it to him. But what was really in it? Evidence that her husband was unfaithful. Kovac already knew that. And the note-
“I spoke with your husband’s business associates,” Kovac said. “The people he had dinner with last night. A man named Edmund Ivors. Do you know him?”
“No. David doesn’t include me in his business dealings.”
“Does the name Ginnie Bird mean anything to you?”
“No. Why?”
“I think your husband is sleeping with her,” he said bluntly. “Actually, I’m pretty sure of it.”
Carey didn’t say anything for a moment. Kovac let her process the information.
“I’m telling him I want a divorce,” she said at last.
Kovac raised his brows. “Just like that? No ‘Let’s work this out’? No ‘Let’s go to counseling’?”
“Our marriage has been dying a slow death for a long time. There isn’t anything left to work out except visitation rights.”
“I’m sorry.”
She almost laughed. “Why? You hate my husband. You can’t believe I ever married him in the first place, let alone that I stayed with him all these years.”
“I’m sorry for you,” Kovac said softly. “I’m sorry you have to go through it. I’m sorry I had to tell you about the girlfriend.”
Carey shook her head. “No. Don’t be.”
She stared down at the desk drawer, then finally pulled it open and took out the file. She handed it across the desk.
“What’s this?”
“Evidence. I’ll be using it in court.”
Kovac paged through the contents. “How long have you been saving this up?”
“Since this morning. I did a little detective work of my own. He wasn’t even bothering to hide it.”
“That rotten, rat bastard son of a bitch,” Kovac growled half under his breath as he looked at the hotel receipts and florist bills. He picked out the list of escort agencies and turned red with anger. If David had been there, Carey had little doubt that Kovac would have punched him in the face.
He pulled out a copy of several canceled checks made out to the property management company. “What are these for?”
“He’s paying for an apartment,” she said, and recited the address to him. “For himself or for one of his little playmates. I called the company this morning, pretending to be David’s new accountant. I needed information. The last accountant left things in a terrible mess. Couldn’t they help me out? All I needed was the address of the property.”
“And they gave it up,” Kovac said.
Carey nodded.
Kovac picked up the copy of the note regarding twenty-five thousand dollars. “What’s this?”
“I don’t know,” she said softly. “It was in his wastebasket this morning.”
“It’s a payoff,” he said.
“You don’t know that. It could mean anything. A debt. Something related to his business. He’s talked about buying a boat.”
Everything she said sounded like an excuse. If she had been sitting in Kovac’s place, she knew what she would have been thinking.
“In October?” Kovac said. “Who buys a boat right before winter?”
Carey didn’t answer him.
“Carey…”
