Dust To Dust Read Online Free PDF Page A

had tied him to Iron Mike years ago, and again last night.The least he could do was maintain some continuity for the old man. Let the news come from a familiar face.
    "Don't you think we should jump on it?" Liska said, glancing around for Copeland and Springer. "Try to keep a lid on things. Andy being on the job and all."
    "Yeah," Kovac said, glancing at the blinking light on his phone. "Let's blow this Joint before Leonard saddles us with another'murder of tomorrow.'"
    A N D Y F A L L 0 N L I V E D in a one-and-a-half-story house just north of the trendy district known as Uptown. Home to the upwardly mobile and the stylishly hip, Uptown was, in fact, south of downtown, which had never made any sense to Kovac. "Uptown" in the sense of being too chic for the likes of him, he supposed. The business center was an area of reclarnations; and renovations-coffee bars, yuppie restaurants, and art house movie theaters. Homes on the west side, near Lake of the Isles and
Lake
Calhoun
, went for a premium. Fallon's was just far enough north and east to be affordable on a single cop's salary
    Two radio cars sat at the curb out front. Liska. marched ahead up the sidewalk, always eager for a new case. Kovac trailed behind, dreading this one.
    "Wait'll you get a load of this," said the uniform who met them at the door. "It's one for the scrapbook."
    His tone was almost sni'de. He'd been at it too long, had grown numb to the sight of dead people to the point where they were no longer people to him-they were bodies. All cops got that way or they got off the street before they could lose their minds. Death simply couldn't affect them in a personal way every time they encountered it. Kovac knew he was surely no exception. But this time would be different. It already was.
    Liska gave the cop the flat look all detectives mastered early on in their career. "Where's the body?"
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    "Bedroom. Upstairs." "Who found him?"
    "A 'friend" " the uniform said, again with the snide tone, making the quotation marks with his fingers. "He's in the kitchen, crying." Kovac looked at the name tag, leaminig in, crowding him. "Burgess?" "Yeah," he said, visibly resisting the urge to step back.
    Liska scribbled his name and badge number in her notebook. "You were first on the scene"' Kovac said.
    "Yeah." "You used that mouth to talk to the guy found the body?" Burgess frowned, suspicious. "Yeah . . ."
    Kovac took another small step into the cop's space. "Burgess, are you always such a fiicking asshole or is today special?"
    The cop colored, his features growing taut.
    "Keep the mouth in check," Kovac ordered. "The vic was a COP, and so's his old man. Show some respect."
    Burgess pressed his lips together and took a step back, eyes cold. "Yes, sir."
    "I don't want anyone coming in here unless they've got a badge or they're from the ME. Got that?"
    "Yes, sir."
    "And I want a log of every name, badge number, and the time they walk in the door and walk back out. Can you manage that?"
    "Yes. Sir."
    "Ooh, he didn't like that:' Liska whispered gleefully as they left Burgess at the door and headed toward the back of the house. "Yeah? Fuck him." Kovac glanced down at her. "Andy Fallon was queer?"
    "Gay," she corrected. "How would I know? I don't hang out with IA rats.What do you take me for?"
    "You really want to know?" Kovac asked, then, "He worked IA? No wonder Mike said the kid was dead to him."
    The kitchen was hunter green with pristine white woodwork and had everything in its place. It was the kitchen of someone who knew how to do more than run the microwave commercial range, pots hanging from the iron rack above a granite-topped island loaded with big-ass knives in a wood block.
    On the far side of the room, at a round table nestled into a bay window, sat the "friend," head in hands. A good-looking guy in a dark
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    suit. Red hair, stylishly cut. A rectangular face full of sharp angles and freckles.Thefreckles stood out against skin washed