Prior Bad Acts by Tami Hoag Read Free Book Online

waiting room with a brief statement and a lot of “No comment” and “I can’t speak to that at this point in the investigation.”
    Kovac rolled Carey Moore in a wheelchair through a warren of halls to a little-used side exit, where an orderly had brought Kovac’s car around. The judge had nothing to say as he helped her into the passenger seat and drove out onto the city streets.
    “Where do you live?” he asked.
    She gave the address in the same short, clipped tone she might use with an anonymous cabdriver. Her home was a short distance and a world away from downtown Minneapolis, in an area of large, stately houses overlooking Lake of the Isles. He had ten minutes—fifteen tops—to get something useful out of her.
    “You’ll have one hell of a headache tomorrow,” he said.
    She stared straight ahead. “I have a hell of a headache right now.”
    “You don’t think that the attack seemed personal?”
    “By definition, a physical assault is personal, wouldn’t you say?”
    “You know what I mean. Leave the lawyer bullshit on the side, Judge. You’ve been in the system long enough to know better.”
    “Oh? You don’t believe lawyers are too obtuse and egomaniacal to pick up on the fact that not all cops are mentally challenged?”
    Kovac shot a glance at her. Every time they passed a streetlight, the harsh white light swept over her face, pale as a ghost.
    “I think there wasn’t enough time between news of my ruling and my departure from the building for a disgruntled citizen to formulate a plan to kill me,” she said.
    “Never underestimate the capabilities of a really determined scumbag.”
    “I’ll stitch that on a sampler while I’m recuperating over the weekend.”
    “People knew you were going to rule on Dahl’s past record today. Maybe someone anticipated the worst. I know I did.”
    “So where were you between six-thirty and seven, Detective Kovac?”
    “Doing a bunch of bullshit paperwork on an assault case you’ll probably dismiss next week.”
    “I will if you haven’t done your job properly,” she said.
    “Are you saying Stan Dempsey didn’t dot all his i’s and cross all his t’s on the Haas murders?”
    “I’m saying my job is more complicated than you choose to believe. I don’t make rulings based on whim. Being a judge is not being a rubber stamp for the police department or for the county attorney’s office. I don’t have the luxury of bias anymore.”
    Her temper was bubbling just under the surface. He could hear it in her voice. He’d been in the courtroom to testify when she had been a prosecutor. Cool, controlled, but with a sharp edge and an aggressive streak beneath the veneer of calm, she had been fun to watch. Exciting, even. And the fact that she was attractive hadn’t hurt anything, either.
    She had known how to use her looks, too, in a way that was subtle, and classy. Many a man in the witness box had fallen for the trap and come away from the experience mentally eviscerated without even quite realizing how it had happened.
    “You think I’m not appalled by the murder of Marlene Haas and those two children?” she said. “You think I don’t see those crime scene photos in my sleep? Those children mutilated and hanging by their necks like broken dolls? You think I don’t want their killer to pay? To pay more than this state’s justice system can dole out?”
    There were tears in her voice now. She was wrung out, her ability to keep emotions at bay worn away in the aftermath of being attacked.
    Kovac pushed at her limits. “Then why don’t you have the guts to do something about it?”
    “I should make rulings in favor of the prosecution so they can be immediately overturned on appeal?”
    “The buck has to stop somewhere.”
    “It does. It stops with me. I want convictions to stand up on their own, not lean against personal prejudices, not be open to debate or attack.”
    “So you let defense attorneys just have their way? You let these