Ashes to Ashes Read Online Free

proclaimed:
     
TURKEY WAKE!
NOVEMBER 27
PATRICK’S
1600HRS
     
    Sabin gave the receptionist a dismissive wave and took a right into the homicide offices. The room was a maze of ugly steel desks the color of dirty putty. Some desks were occupied, most were not. Some were neat, most were awash in paperwork. Notes and photographs and cartoons were tacked and taped to walls and cabinets. A notice on one side of the door ordered: HOMICIDE—LOCK UP YOUR GUNS!
    Telephone receiver pressed to his ear, Sam Kovac spotted them, scowled, and waved them over. A twenty-two-year veteran, Kovac had that universal cop look about him with the requisite mustache and cheap haircut, both sandy brown and liberally threaded with silver.
    “Yeah, I realize you’re dating my second wife’s sister, Sid.” He pulled a fresh pack of Salems from a carton on his desk and fumbled with the cellophane wrapper. He had shed the jacket of his rumpled brown suit and jerked his tie loose. “That doesn’t entitle you to inside information on this murder. All that’ll get you is my sympathy. Yeah? Yeah? She said that? Well, why do you think I left her? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Is that right?”
    He bit at the tab on the cigarette wrapper and ripped the pack open with his teeth. “You hear that, Sid? That’s the sound of me tearing you a new one if you print a word of that. You understand me? You want information? Come to the press conference with everybody else. Yeah? Well, same to you.”
    He slammed the receiver down and turned his scowl on the county attorney. His eyes were the green-brown of damp bark, bloodshot, and hard and bright with intelligence. “Damn newsies. This is gonna get uglier than my aunt Selma, and she has a face that could make a bulldog puke.”
    “Do they have Bondurant’s name?” Sabin asked.
    “Of course they do.” He pulled a cigarette from the pack and let it dangle from his lip as he rummaged through the junk on his desk. “They’re all over this like flies on dog crap,” he said, glancing back at them over his shoulder. “Hi, Kate—Jesus, what happened to you?”
    “Long story. I’m sure you’ll hear it at Patrick’s tonight. Where’s our witness?”
    “Down the hall.”
    “Is she working with the sketch artist yet?” Sabin asked.
    Kovac blew air between his lips and made a sound like a disgusted horse. “She’s not even working with
us
yet. Our citizen isn’t exactly overjoyed to be the center of attention here.”
    Rob Marshall looked alarmed. “She’s not a problem, is she?” He flashed the bootlicker’s smile at Sabin. “I suppose she’s just shaken up, Mr. Sabin. Kate will settle her down.”
    “What’s your take on the witness, Detective?” Sabin asked.
    Kovac snatched up a Bic lighter and a messy file and started for the door. World-weary and nicked up, his build was at once solid and rangy, utilitarian rather than ornamental. His brown pants were a little baggy and a little too long, the cuffs puddling over the tops of his heel-worn oxfords.
    “Oh, she’s a daisy,” he said with sarcasm. “She gives us what’s gotta be a stolen out-of-state driver’s license. Tells us she’s living at an apartment in the Phillips neighborhood but she’s got no keys for it and can’t tell us who has. If she hasn’t got a sheet, I’ll shave my ass and paint it blue.”
    “So, you ran her and what?” Kate asked, forcing herself to keep pace with him, so that Sabin and Rob had to fall in behind. She had learned long ago to cultivate friendships with the cops who worked her cases. It was to her advantage to have them as allies rather than adversaries. Besides, she liked the good ones, like Kovac. They did a hard job for little credit and not enough pay for the plain old-fashioned reason that they believed in the necessity of it. She and Kovac had built a nice rapport in five years.
    “I tried to run the name she’s using today,” he qualified. “The fucking computer’s down. Swell day this is gonna