“Your boy, Magic Mike.”
“He’s not my boy,” she said as she tried to forget the animal magnetism rolling effortlessly off Taylor as she sat beside him at the diner. He even smelled gorgeous, as she recalled. “I don’t date guys I could have theoretically given birth to.”
“Only if you were a slut in middle school,” Kovac said. “He’s not that much younger than you.”
“He’s not my type.”
Kovac laughed. “Yeah, right, those devastatingly good-looking guys are so not you,” he said sarcastically.
The smart-ass remark was half formed on her tongue when she saw the name. Her whole body jerked like she’d been given an electric shock.
“What?” Kovac asked, looking over his shoulder.
“Why do you have that name up there?” she asked. “Jeremy Nilsen—why is that up there?”
“His ID was found in the room of a robbery suspect, Gordon Krauss. Why?”
“I’m looking for a Jeremy Nilsen. He was a neighbor of Ted Duffy’s back when. Do you have the ID here?”
“No. It’s in Property.”
“Does it match your guy? Is it him?”
“There’s our guy,” Kovac said, pointing to a photograph stuck on the wall.
The suspect’s hair was overgrown, and a beard obscured the lower half of his face.
“I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t have a recent picture of Nilsen. Every guy in a bushy beard looks the same to me. Have you run his prints?”
“He’s not in the system.”
“Jeremy Nilsen served in the army. His prints have to be in the system.”
“Krauss allegedly served,” Kovac said. “That’s what he told people. But his prints don’t show up as military or anything else. A known associate claims he was some kind of Black Ops assassin or some such bullshit.”
“Do you have him in custody?”
“No. I’ve got every cop in five jurisdictions looking for him.
“Do you think he’s your guy?” he asked. “Krauss could be an alias, but that ID was one of several Tip and Elwood found in his room at a rehab on the North Side. He came there from a shelter downtown as a charity case.”
“Seley from my office has been calling every shelter and soup kitchen in the Cities looking for Nilsen. He was a psych patient at the VA. But he’s been MIA for a long time. This could be him.”
“Or he could have an answer for you,” Kovac said. “This guy’s crazy like a fox, not crazy like a loon. We don’t know how he came by these IDs. Maybe he bought them off these guys for drug money, maybe he stole them. Hell, he could have killed them for all we know. I might like him for my double homicide. Could be the daughter of my vics hired him to off her parents.”
“Holy shit,” Nikki murmured. That would be the luck. She finally got a lead on Jeremy Nilsen only to discover someone killed him for his ID and his veterans benefits.
“Call me if you bring him in,” she said, getting up.
“Will do.”
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” The booming voice belonged to Gene Grider.
Nikki turned and looked at him as he barged into the room like a charging bull, knocking the door back so hard it bounced off the doorstop and nearly hit him on the rebound.
“I told you to leave the family alone!” he shouted at her.
Nikki stared at him, confused. “What? What are you talking about? What’s wrong with you?”
“He’s in the wrong office, for starters,” Kovac said, getting up. “Get out of my war room, Grider. No one invited you to the party.”
“Butt out, Kojak,” Grider snapped, coming forward, red-faced. He looked like his tie was too tight, choking him. He jabbed a thick finger at Nikki. “I told you to leave the Duffys alone!”
Nikki squared off with him, leaning up toward him on her tiptoes. “And I told you to butt the hell out of my case! You’re not the boss of me, Grider. My case is the murder of Ted Duffy. I’m damn well going to speak to his family and anyone else I want to. It’s called an investigation.”
“Well, great fucking job!” Grider shouted at her. “I hope you got what you needed. Jennifer Duffy tried to kill herself last night.”
*
“I HAD A CONVERSATION WITH HER,” Nikki said, still in a state of disbelief. Her gaze skimmed around the lieutenant’s office, looking for something to focus on. She settled on a picture of Mascherino with a granddaughter about the age Jennifer Duffy was when her father was killed.
“I asked her normal questions. It was very casual. I was persistent, but I didn’t bully her. Is she going to make it? What did she do? Pills?”
“Sleeping pills and antianxiety meds. A neighbor heard her fall in the middle of the night and thought someone was breaking in. They called the police.”
“Oh my God,” Nikki whispered, rubbing her hands over her face, relief and shock and guilt all tumbling through her at once. “Thank God.”
“She’ll recover, hopefully no liver damage,” Mascherino said. “She apparently told her mother over the phone earlier in the evening that you came to the library and she didn’t want to speak to you.”