Tami Hoag - Prior Bad Acts

“Why not?” Tippen said. “He gets his next two victims in a package, conveniently delivered to a remote location, no less.”

“We still don’t know who attacked the judge in the parking ramp,” Liska pointed out. “Or are we pinning that on Dempsey too?”

“It makes sense,” Elwood said. “News of her ruling on Dahl’s prior bad acts had broken. Stan would have been in proximity. He was working Friday.”

“And what?” Liska asked. “He’d brought his all-black mugger outfit to change into at the end of the day, just in case?”

“What did Porn Boy have to say for himself?” Kovac asked.

“Nothing,” Dawes said. “He denied any knowledge of the assault. But he doesn’t have anyone to corroborate his story, and I have no doubt that he’s lying as to his whereabouts that night at the time of the attack.”

“So he’s still on the board,” Kovac said.

“Why would he risk it?” Tippen asked. “The guy is a major star in his genre.”

Liska rolled her eyes. “Let’s not go over that ground again. I haven’t recovered from the initial horror.”

“O, ye of narrow mind,” Tippen said. “And frankly I can’t believe you haven’t indulged yourself.”

“That’s not the point. It’s the mental image of you indulging yourself that will send me into therapy.”

“So I should be congratulated for doing a public service.”

Liska snagged one of his chocolate-covered coffee beans and bounced it off his forehead.

“Ginnie Bird is Bergen ’s sister,” Kovac said. “Maybe he’s actually devoted to her. Little Sis cries on his shoulder that her boyfriend isn’t going to leave his wife. Boo-hoo, can’t you do something, Donny? And this is what the boy genius comes up with.

“I still like him for it. When the unis knocked on his door, he was packing and had a ticket to St. Kitts.”

“Is he smart enough to know the U.S. has no extradition treaty with St. Kitts?” Elwood asked.

Kovac shrugged. “Even the dumbest criminals who flunked out of nursery school seem to find a way to know every angle how to get away with something.

“I had a mutt once who was so stupid he couldn’t find his dick in a dark room. But this clown knew every way there was to create a false identity and evade the cops.”

“Can we keep Bergen in town?” Elwood asked.

“Chris Logan is trying to help us out with that,” Dawes said.

“Has anyone notified Wayne Haas of Dahl’s death?” Liska asked.

“You have a connection with him now, Nikki,” Dawes said. “I think you should take care of that.”

Liska nodded and made a note to herself.

“All right, people,” Dawes said. “Let’s call it a night. I’m starving. Burgers and beers at Patrick’s on me.”

A cheer went up, and chairs were vacated immediately. While the rest of the pack went for the door, Kovac and Liska hung back.

“Jeez, Kojak, you broke one without me,” Liska said, pouting. “I’m hurt. You cheated on me with Tippen.”

Kovac smiled and put an arm around her. “Sorry, Tinks. You would have gotten sick on the car ride anyway.”

“You were driving?”

“Yeah.”

“I forgive you.”

“Let’s go to Patrick’s,” Kovac said. “I’ll let you steal my french fries.”

“Nah,” she said, patting the flat of his belly. “You can have the burger I would have eaten. You’re a healthy, active boy, after all.

“I’m going home. Speed’s bringing the boys back tonight. I want to spend some time with them like a normal mom.”

“Okay,” Kovac said. “Give Speed a kick in the balls for me.”

“My pleasure.”

“You parked out front?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I’ll walk you to your car,” he said.

Liska gave him a little hug. “You’re a good man, Sam Kovac.”

He smiled a crooked smile. “So I hear.”

LISKA PULLED UPin front of the Haas house. It was only a small detour on her way home to St. Paul. She felt like she owed them the visit to tell them Karl Dahl would never hurt anyone again. She could give them good news for once, instead of bad news, excuses, and accusations. She could take ten minutes out of her life for that.

There were lights on downstairs and in the detached garage. Wayne Haas’s car was in the driveway. She went first to the garage, thinking father and son might be there together, working on some project. Hoping for both of them that that would be the case.

A radio was playing hip-hop, something she heard enough around her own house to have learned to thoroughly hate it. A sure sign of going over the hill.

“Mr. Haas? Bobby?” she called out as she neared the side door.

The rain had stopped, but the grass was wet, and she could feel it soaking into the leather of her shoes. No good deed goes unpunished.

She knocked, looking into the garage through the glass panes of the old side door. The usual assortment of junk-lawn mowers, bikes, yard tools, paint cans.

Bobby Haas was sitting on a stool at the workbench that ran from wall to wall across the end of the building. He looked up from a book, slipped off the stool, and came to the door.

“Detective Liska? What are you doing here?”

“Can I come in? It’s getting really cold out here.”

He stepped back from the door to let her in. Liska automatically took in her surroundings at a glance-garden tools hanging on the garage walls, fishing rods that hadn’t been out in a long time. Bobby moved toward the long workbench.

“I came with some good news for a change,” she said. “Is your dad around?”

Bobby frowned. “He went to bed early. He wasn’t feeling well.”

“Is he okay? Does he need to go to a doctor?”

“No. I think he’s mostly just worn-out,” the boy said, looking sad. “He’s always worn-out.”

“You want things to be the way they were before,” Liska said.

“He doesn’t even want to try. He couldn’t care less about me.”

“I’m sure that’s not true, Bobby. Your dad’s in a bad place. He feels ashamed that you’ve had to be the strong one in the family, when he should be strong for you.”

None of this impressed the boy. He had run out of patience. Like every boy, he wanted to be the center of his father’s world. There was no greater disappointment than for a son to find out that he wasn’t.

“Yeah, well,” Bobby said, tears glazing his eyes, “I wish he would just get over it. It’s been more than a year and every day he still gets up depressed over what happened, and every day he comes home from work depressed over what happened. It’s like I’m not even there. He’s supposed to be my dad. What about me? What about what I need?”

Liska put a hand on his back and patted, offering the same silent comfort she had given her oldest boy the many times his father had disappointed him. Bobby Haas was trembling against the raw emotions rising up inside him. He was at an age when those emotions were suddenly bigger and stronger than he knew what to do with.

He stepped away from her and walked in a small circle, his hands on his hips. “He’s supposed to love me, not a bunch of dead people he can’t do anything about!”

Struggling to bat the tears back, to take the feelings that had burst free and shove them back inside, he walked his small circle, breathing hard.

Liska wondered what must have happened to spark all of this. A fight with Wayne? Or Wayne not having it in him to fight? The truth of it was, Wayne Haas was a broken man, and she really didn’t think he would ever pull out of it. It looked like Bobby had come to that realization as well.

The boy swiped at his eyes, embarrassed he had lost his composure in front of her.