Dust to Dust by Tami Hoag Read Free Book Online Page A

more than a cop.
    Finally, he lifted a hand in defeat. “There’s a key under the mat in back.”
             
    “A KEY UNDER the mat.” Kovac set it on the counter and cocked a look at the old man. “Jeez, Mike. You used to be a cop. You oughta know better.”
    Fallon ignored him. The kitchen smelled of bacon grease and fried onions. The curtains were stiff with age. The countertops were lined with cups and glasses and plates and cereal boxes, and a giant jar of Metamucil with prescription bottles clustered around it like white-capped toadstools. All the doors had been taken off the lower cupboards, exposing the contents: boxes of instant potatoes, canned vegetables, about a case of Campbell’s soup.
    Fallon hadn’t bothered with pants. He rolled around the small room in his chair, his hairy, atrophied legs pushed to one side, out of the way. He ferreted out a bottle of Tylenol from the pharmacy on the counter, and got himself a glass of water from the door of the refrigerator.
    “What’s so damned important?” he demanded gruffly, though Kovac could see the tension in Fallon’s shoulders, as if he was bracing himself. “I got a hangover could drop a cow.”
    “Mike.” Kovac waited until Fallon turned and looked at him, then took a deep breath. “Andy’s dead. I’m sorry.”
    Blunt. Just like that. People always thought they had to lead in to bad news with platitudes, but that wasn’t the way. All that did was give the recipient a chance to panic at the many horrible possibilities. He had learned long ago to just say it and get it over with.
    Fallon looked away, his jaw working.
    “We don’t know yet what happened.”
    “What do you mean, you don’t know what happened?” Fallon demanded. “Was he shot? Was he stabbed? Was it a car accident?” He worked up a temper, anger being more comfortable, more familiar than grief. A flush began at the base of his throat and pushed upward. “You’re a detective. Somebody’s dead. You can’t tell me how they got that way? Jesus H.”
    Kovac let it roll off. “It might have been an accident. Or it might have been suicide, Mike. We found him hanging. I wish I didn’t have to tell you, but there it is. I’m really sorry.”
    Sorry
. As Andy had been. He could see the word on the mirror over the reflection of Andy Fallon. Naked. Dead. Bloated. Rotting.
Sorry
didn’t mean a whole lot in the face of that.
    Mike seemed to deflate and shrivel. Tears filled his small red eyes and spilled down his cheeks like glass beads.
    “Oh, Jesus,” he said. A plea, not a curse. “Oh, dear Jesus.”
    He brought a trembling hand to his mouth. It was the size of a canned ham but looked fragile, the skin thin and spotted. A sound of terrific pain wrenched free of his soul.
    Kovac looked away, wanting to allow the man at least that much privacy. This was the worst part of being the messenger: trespassing on those first acute moments of grief, moments that should not be witnessed by anyone.
    That, and knowing he would have to intrude on the grief with questions.
    Fallon abruptly spun his chair around and wheeled out of the room. Kovac let him go. The questions could wait. Andy was already dead, most likely by his own hand, purposely or not. What difference would ten minutes make?
    He leaned against the counter and counted the bottles of pills. Seven brown prescription bottles for the treatment of everything from indigestion to arrhythmia to insomnia to pain. Prilosec, Darvocet, Ambien. At least Mike had plenty of chemicals to help him get through this.
    “Damn you! Damn you!”
    The shouts were accompanied by a crash and the sound of glass breaking. Kovac bolted out of the kitchen and down the short hall.
    “Damn you!” Mike Fallon screamed, smashing a framed picture against the edge of the dresser. The cheap metal frame bent like modeling clay. Glass sprayed out across the dresser.
    “Mike! Stop it!”
    “Damn you!” the old man cried again, swinging his arms and