Live Bait

by PJ Tracy

  He didn’t think about it, he didn’t analyze it, he just responded instantly to that gut-wrenching, mind-screaming instinct that this was very, very wrong. That particular figure should not be here. For the first time all day, he felt a great void on his hip where his gun should be.

  He turned his head and buried his lips in Grace’s hair next to her ear, just a man whispering sweet nothings to the woman he loved. ‘Get up quietly, Grace. Go into the house, then out the back door, do you understand?’

  ‘What’s happening, Magozzi?’ she whispered back, just a trace of panic in her voice, but by then someone was approaching the front walk, head turned, watching them, and Magozzi’s demeanor changed. He shoved his wineglass at her and spoke loud enough to be overheard.

  ‘Fill it up to the top this time, will you?’

  Every muscle in Magozzi’s body was tensed to the point of pain. It eased up just a little when he heard the screen door slam behind Grace. Safe, he thought. Please, God, be safe, run, run out the back door, run to a neighbor’s, don’t do anything brave, Grace, don’t do anything stupid . . .

  The figure was on the walk now, features taking on their familiar shape as he moved closer, and there sat Magozzi with a lame smile of greeting on his face, trying to look natural, rational thought telling him there was nothing to worry about while his instinct told him he had only a few seconds to live. The instinct had already made its plan. Whatever happened was going to happen out here. Grace would get away. The thought gave his lame smile a hint of authenticity as the focus of his entire life boiled down to the most important contribution he would ever make to this world – saving Grace MacBride.

  Inside, pressed against the wall next to the door, Grace’s hand reached automatically for the Sig that wasn’t there, and then came the real panic. She couldn’t breathe; she could barely see, and her legs were threatening to collapse beneath her. Her thoughts flashed back to six months ago – the last time genuine terror had left her frozen and helpless in the loft of the Monkeewrench offices – frantically seeking the remedy she had found then, remembering the hope of salvation, the aura of calm settling over her only when she felt the empowering weight of the Sig in her hands.

  She heard steps on the front walk coming closer. She had no idea who the person was, no clear vision of his intentions except what she had seen in Magozzi’s eyes, heard in his voice, and that was all she needed.

  Her mind raced up the stairs to Magozzi’s bedroom – was that where he kept his guns? They’d taken his service weapon last night, but he had to have another – all cops had another – but where would he keep it, and how in God’s name would she find it in time? Her mind was stuck in the rut guns made. Goddamnit, it was all about guns, all the time, blinding her to any other choices.

  ‘Hello, Detective Magozzi.’

  She heard the voice through the screen, angled her eyes so she could see the figure right there, stopping a safe distance from Magozzi, his hands in his jacket pockets. One pocket bulged more than the other with a distinctive muzzle shape aimed at Magozzi’s chest.

  ‘Please get up, Detective. Slowly. Then go into the house.’

  No gun, no gun, no gun – it was a paralyzing mantra that wouldn’t let her go, and then she heard Magozzi answer, ‘Sorry. I’m afraid that’s not going to happen’ – and then suddenly her mind opened and filled with Magozzi. Magozzi sitting on the Adirondack chair in her backyard, Charlie in his lap; his silly little half smile when he told her about his long-term seduction plan; Magozzi saving her life all those months ago, and then showing up again and again at her door, refusing to leave her alone, hanging on.

  Grace MacBride had never had much of a life, but she knew absolutely that whatever chance she had for one was sitting out there on the porch steps, prepared to die for her.

  She scooped up the two wineglasses from where she’d set them on the floor, then butted her hip against the screen door, sending it crashing against the outside wall as she stumbled out onto the porch. ‘Hey, honey, guess what? . . . oh. Hi, there. I didn’t know we had company.’

  So fast, she toddled down the steps, wine sloshing in the glasses, a slightly drunken grin plastered to a face that had never worn one before, an impossible vision of Grace MacBride as the ditzy suburban housewife, so unexpected that it made empty seconds where there had been none.

  For just an instant, the figure on the walk looked at her, startled, and in that instant, Magozzi flew off the porch in a vault that covered the distance between life and death, his head ramming into Tim Matson’s chest, knocking him backwards onto the hard cement of the sidewalk.

  45

  The first squad arrived less than five minutes after Tim Matson had gone down on Magozzi’s front walk. He was still wriggling violently, fighting the yards of duct tape Grace had wound around his arms and legs while Magozzi held him down, making furious muffled sounds behind the strip she’d slapped over his mouth.

  Gino was there a few seconds later; McLaren a few seconds after that. Magozzi sat on the ground next to the trussed Matson, utterly exhausted, thinking that pretty soon the whole damn department would be there.

  He glanced over at Grace, looking small and lonely on the front-porch steps, staring at the ground, and in that second he knew they would never make it. He’d been an idiot to think they’d ever had a chance. Everything Grace had always been afraid of was what Magozzi did for a living, and sometimes, goddamnit, it followed you home.

  For the next hour he and Grace answered questions, gave statements, told their story to McLaren, the crime-scene techs and the first responders while Gino sat in the squad with a cuffed Matson doing God knew what. After everyone else left, Gino came inside and sat at the kitchen table with Grace and Magozzi.

  ‘You two doing okay?’

  Magozzi and Grace looked at each other, but neither one of them said anything, and Gino couldn’t read their expressions. He waited for a while, growing more uncomfortable by the second. There was an open bottle of wine on the table with what looked like French words on it. McLaren would know; Gino didn’t care. ‘Pour me a glass of that, Leo, would you? And tell me what the kid said to you; what you know.’

  Magozzi pulled his eyes away from Grace. She hadn’t said a word to him since it happened. The last time he’d heard her voice was when she was giving her statement to McLaren. ‘He didn’t say anything, just came up the walk and told me to get in the house.’ He went to the cupboard for a glass and set it in front of Gino.

  ‘But you sent Grace into the house before that. Why did you do that?’

  Magozzi shrugged. ‘I saw him coming, and it just felt wrong.’

  ‘He was saving my life,’ Grace said quietly, but Magozzi shook his head.

  ‘She saved mine.’

  Gino rolled his eyes and reached for the bottle. ‘Oh, please. I talked to McLaren outside. I heard all about the mutual-admiration society you’ve got going here. A dynamic duo is what you are, and I think that’s real cute, but let’s not beat it to death. So you have no clue why he came here to dust you?’

  ‘I guess because I killed his friend.’

  ‘Not exactly, buddy. You killed his brother.’

  Magozzi’s brows shot up. ‘Tim Matson was Jeff Montgomery’s brother? The dead one?’

  ‘None other. I got him to tell me a few things out there in the squad.’

  Grace looked directly at Gino for the first time. ‘What’d you do to him?’

  ‘Nothing.’ Gino held up a hand. ‘I swear to God. Pulled the tape off his mouth pretty fast – hope the kid has no dreams for a mustache – but that was just for his own comfort. And so he could talk, of course. Seems the two brothers have been planning this for over a year – had their asses covered seven ways to Sunday – and faking his death was part of it. They figured if Montgomery got busted before he offed all the people who killed their dad, there’d be another brother nobody would think to look for to finish the job. Man, I’m telling you, talking to that kid is gonna give me
nightmares for years. Cold as ice. Dear old dad did a real job on indoctrinating those two, but I’m thinking this one had to be born a natural. Turns out he did Ben Schuler, got a real kick out of playing with the old guy before he killed him. When he heard you killed Jeff, you went right to the top of the hit list, but he was headed over to the nursery after he finished up here to take out Jack Gilbert.’

  ‘He just blurted all this out?’ Magozzi asked. ‘He didn’t ask for a lawyer?’

  Gino frowned and scratched the side of his head. ‘That’s the kicker. He’s just so friggin’ proud of himself it made me want to puke. Has it in his head that he’s some kind of a martyr. What do you bet we’re gonna see him on Dateline in about a week, then he’ll start writing books, they’ll give him a computer in his cell and a Web site. Shit, Leo, this is why I hate that Minnesota doesn’t have the death penalty. All we do with these guys is make them celebrities.’

  He glanced over at Grace. ‘You didn’t shoot the guy, Grace. I was really impressed.’

  ‘I didn’t have a gun.’

  Gino started to say ‘yeah, right,’ then noticed that she wasn’t wearing her shoulder holster, and wondered how he’d missed it. ‘Holy shit. You came over here without a gun?’

  She looked right at him, and for the first time Gino Rolseth saw Grace MacBride really smile. She even showed her teeth a little, and boy, did she have great teeth.

  His own face broke into a broad grin, and he gave her a thumbs-up. ‘Way to go, Gracie. Really.’

  After Gino left, Grace tried to throw away the Beef Wellington. Magozzi knew she was cleaning up, trying to erase herself from this house before she left.

  He took the pan from her hands, grabbed a fork, and started eating, clinging to the perfectly ridiculous notion that if he just held on to that pan, she wouldn’t leave. She’d have to wait until he finished, and he needed the time.

  ‘For God’s sake, Magozzi, don’t eat that. It’s been sitting in a warm oven for two hours. The pastry’s soggy. The meat’s ruined. You’ll probably die.’

  ‘It’s delicious.’ He wouldn’t look at her. He just sat down at the table and wrapped his arms around the pan and kept eating.

  ‘At least put it on a plate . . .’

  ‘No!’

  Grace sat down next to him, watched him eat, and waited.

  Magozzi kept looking down at the pan. ‘I was going to light a fire. We were going to sit it front of it and drink wine, and then later I was going to kiss you and blow your boots off.’

  ‘No kidding.’

  ‘That was the plan.’

  Grace reached over and lifted his hands from the ugly, dented aluminum pan and pulled it away. ‘I’m sorry, Magozzi. I think it’s a little too late for that.’

  He looked down at the stupid table for about two seconds, thinking, no, by God, it wasn’t too late for that – at least not the kissing part – and it was high time he stopped tiptoeing around and took control of the situation. He jumped out of his chair and turned to grab her, but she wasn’t there. Goddamnit, she was fast.

  He found her in the living room, one foot poised on the staircase that led up to the bedroom, and she was smiling at him. ‘Gee, Magozzi, what took you so long?’

  He stood there looking at her, feeling like he was trying to fly, but couldn’t quite catch the updraft. ‘Are you still going to Arizona tomorrow?’

  Grace sighed impatiently at him, the way she always did whenever he got hung up on rules or procedures or tried to look too far ahead.

  ‘Magozzi, that’s hours and hours from now.’