She admired the fresh nicotine patch affixed to his upper arm. Kovac pulled his shirt back on and started doing the b.u.t.tons, grumbling under his breath.

Liska leaned back against the counter. "I thought you told the doctor to take a hike."

"I told him I have shoes older than he is," Kovac groused. "It's got nothing to do with him. You know I try to quit once a year. It's an annual event. It's like a holiday."

He had only tried quitting more times than he could count. It never lasted more than a few weeks, a month at the outside. Something always happened that made him think he should just enjoy himself, because in any given moment he could become a statistic. He was a homicide cop. A sunny outlook didn't come with the job.

"Nothing to do with Tim Metzger having a heart attack last week," Liska said.

Kovac didn't answer her. He focused on tying his tie. It was hard enough to face mortality on his own terms. If he had to share his feelings with Liska--or anyone else--he would sooner have thrown himself in front of a bus.

Liska looked up at him, speculating. "Are you seeing someone and not spilling all the details to me?"

Scowling, Kovac straightened the knot in his tie and snugged it up against his collar. "Did you come in here for some other reason than trying to see a d.i.c.k?"

"We're up," she said.

"That's what I get for hanging around to do my paperwork. What is it?"

"a.s.sault," she said. "In the government center parking ramp. Get this. Our vic is none other than the Honorable Judge Moore."

"Moore?" Kovac said with disgust. "Can't we just leave her for dead?"

5.

FRIDAY NIGHT INthe Hennepin County Medical Center ER could resemble a violent punk rock Halloween party, but the evening was young. The ghouls and g.a.n.g.b.a.n.gers were still home, primping their nose rings and polishing their tattoos.

"Sam Kovac! f.u.c.k me sideways!"

"He can do that?" Liska asked. "A man of hidden talents, our Sam."

Kathleen Casey, trauma nurse and ER pit bull, waved a hand in dismissal as she marched up to them. "The h.e.l.l if I know. But I'd rather find out than deal with these people."

She rolled her eyes toward the waiting area, where reporters and camera crews were perched on the furniture like a flock of vultures. "G.o.d save us from the media. Give me your average street sc.u.m any night."

As if on cue, several of them spotted Kovac and started toward him.

"Kovac!"

"Detective!"

"Do you have any leads--"

"Do you know what prompted the attack--"

"Did this have anything to do with the ruling on the Dahl case?"

The usual cacophony. Rapid-fire questions they knew d.a.m.n well he wouldn't answer. Kovac held up a hand to ward them off. "No comment."

Casey took an aggressive step toward them and shooed them with her hands. "Back to the chairs with you before I break out my Taser."

Casey had been through the wars. Kovac called her the Iron Leprechaun. Five feet nothing, with a hedge of maroon hair and a sweet-Irish-mother kind of a face that drew people to her so they could confide in her, then implode in some spectacular way.

Kovac had known her forever. She was a longtime veteran of HCMC, with a brief stint at a small-town ER in the Minnesota hinterland, also known by Kovac as Outer Mongolia. He tried never to venture south of the airport, east of the river, west of the 494 freeway, or north of downtown.

"So what's the story with our vic?" he asked as they started down a side hall at a quick clip.

"Resident Pain-in-the-a.s.s will want to fill you in ad nauseam," she said. "Quick and dirty: Someone beat the ever-living-c.r.a.p out of her."

"s.e.xual a.s.sault?" Liska asked.

"No."

"She's conscious?"

"Yes, but she hasn't had a lot to say."

"I wish we could have said that earlier in the day," Kovac muttered.

They had all heard about Judge Moore's ruling on Karl Dahl's past criminal record. Carey Moore had been a kick-a.s.s prosecutor, but on the bench she had earned the motto "Moore is less," giving perps a benefit of the doubt no cop in town believed they deserved, and they felt betrayed because of it.

The resident making notes in Judge Moore's chart looked like she had probably been the president of the science club in high school--last year. Drowning in her lab coat, stringy brown hair sc.r.a.ped back into a ponytail, and black plastic rectangular gla.s.ses.

Liska shoved a badge in her face and got aggressive. "So? Spill it, sweetie. I want to get home before menopause sets in."

It was always fun to set young doctors back on their heels before their egos could metastasize and take over their humanity.

This one used a lot of fifty-dollar words to explain that their victim had a mild concussion, a couple of cracked ribs, and a lot of nasty bruises and abrasions.

The uniformed cop who had answered the initial 911 call had filled in Kovac and Liska on the details of the a.s.sault as they had walked the crime scene. Moore had been on her way to her car in the parking ramp adjacent to the government center. The a.s.sailant had hit her from behind, knocked her down, smacked her around. Apparent motive: robbery. If anything more had been on the agenda, there hadn't been time. Moore's car alarm had gone off, and the mutt had run away with her wallet.

Kovac looked over the top of the doctor's head and into the examination room. Carey Moore was propped up on a hospital bed, looking like she'd gone five rounds with one big, bada.s.s dude. The bruises hadn't turned blue yet, but Kovac had seen more than enough victims of beatings to read the damage and predict what would greet the vic in the mirror the next morning. There was a contusion on her forehead crowning a lump the size of a golf ball. One eye, the flesh around it already swollen, was going to turn black.

A short line of st.i.tches crawled over her swollen lower lip like a black ant. She had a cell phone pressed to one ear. Alerting the scavengers out in the waiting room, or complaining to the mayor how people weren't safe on the streets, no thanks to her.

He moved past the doctor without acknowledging her, walked up to Judge Moore, took the phone out of her hand, and clicked it off.

"What do you think you're doing?" she demanded.

"I'll need your undivided attention, Judge Moore. That is, if you want your a.s.sailant caught and prosecuted to the full extent of the law. You might care about that more now than you did a couple of hours ago."

She s.n.a.t.c.hed the phone back from him and turned it on, never taking her glare off his face. "I was on the line with my nanny, letting her know I'm going to be late and not to let my daughter see any news on television. I don't want her to find out from strangers that her mother has been attacked.

"I don't care what you need, Detective Kovac," she said. "You aren't more important than my child."

Kovac arched a brow and took a step back. So much for her weakened physical state. She looked like a tigress ready to tear his throat out. "My mistake."

"Yes, it is."

She looked down then, touched a hand to her forehead, and winced as her fingers brushed against the angry red abrasion. Flesh v. Concrete.

"I'm sorry, Anka. We got cut off. Please get Lucy in her pajamas and put a movie on for her." She was silent for a moment, listening to the nanny. "Yes, all right. Put her on. . . . Hi, sweet pea," she said softly, tears welling in her eyes.

Kovac turned a little away from her in order to look like he wasn't eavesdropping, even though he was.

"No, honey, I won't be home before you go to bed. I'm sorry. . . . I know I promised, but I had an accident and fell down, and I'm at the doctor now. . . ."

She closed her eyes, and a couple of tears squeezed out from between her lashes. "No, honey, I don't know what time Daddy will get home. . . . Why don't you have a slumber party with Anka?"

She touched a knuckle beneath the blackening eye to discreetly wipe away the tears.

Kovac scowled and turned away completely. He didn't want to feel sorry for Carey Moore. She was no friend to him, certainly no friend to Stan Dempsey, who would never be right again after working the Haas murders. He couldn't even imagine what Wayne Haas and his son were feeling after hearing about the judge's ruling against the prosecution. The last thing Kovac wanted was to feel sorry for her.

"I'll see you in the morning, sweetheart. . . . I love you more. . . ." Her voice strained, she said good night and ended the call.

Kovac waited. Liska joined him.

"Did you make her cry?" she whispered, accusatory.

"I didn't do anything!"

"And you wonder why you're single."

"I know why I'm single," he grumbled. "And I know why I'm going to stay that way."

"Let's get this over with." Judge Moore had her voice and her composure back.

Kovac shrugged. Liska gave him a look of womanly disgust and pushed past him.

"Judge Moore, I'm Detective Liska--"

"I know who you are," the judge said. "Can we cut to the chase, Detective? I want to go home."

The resident piped up then. "No, I'm sorry, Judge Moore. You have a concussion. We'll need to admit you overnight for observation."

Carey Moore raised her chin and gave the young doctor a glimpse of the steely look she had leveled at many a difficult witness in her days as a prosecutor. "I'm going home to my daughter. I'll sign a release. Why don't you get that process started?"

The science club president looked like she didn't know whether she should be offended or afraid. She disappeared into the hall.

"You might want to reconsider that, Judge Moore," Liska said. "Someone attacked you."

"I was mugged. It's over."

"With all due respect, you don't know that."

Kovac watched her set her jaw as best she could, considering the split lip. She wanted to believe what she wanted to believe.

"You managed to p.i.s.s off a lot of people today, Judge," he said. "Maybe someone decided they needed to express themselves in person."

"He stole my wallet."

"Bonus."

"He?" Liska said. "Did you see him?"

"No. He was behind me. The voice was male."

"Young, old? Black, white?"

"Angry. That's what I remember. Angry. Full of rage."

"What did he say?"

"'You f.u.c.king b.i.t.c.h. You f.u.c.king c.u.n.t,'" the judge said without emotion.

"Did he use your name?" Kovac asked.

"No."

"You didn't recognize the voice."

"No. Of course not."

"So, he knocked you down, grabbed your purse. That was it?" Kovac said, knowing that that wasn't so.

She closed her eyes briefly, started to sigh, winced again, and tried to cover that up. Tough cookie, he thought. The mutt had done a number on her. She had to be in a considerable amount of pain, and he knew from experience docs didn't dole out the good narcotics to people with concussions. They had probably given her some Tylenol. Big deal. Like putting a Band-Aid on a shark bite. She had to have one mother of a headache.

"I was going to my car--"

"Did you see anyone in the parking ramp?" Kovac asked.

"No."

"In the skyway?"

"No. I went to pull my keys out of my purse--"