The Guilty Dead

by P. J. Tracy

  “What did you get?” Gino asked, when he hung up.

  “An appointment with an inconsolable woman.”

  “Huh. Inconsolable like a mistress capable of a crime of passion, or inconsolable like a loyal employee of twenty years-cum-family member?”

  “We won’t know until we meet her. What did Zeller have to say?”

  “Betty Norwood had it right—the entire residue of his estate after it gets gutted by the government is equal shares to her and Rosalie. That’s a hell of an inheritance.”

  “Don’t even go there, Gino.”

  “Hey, I’m just thinking out loud. It’s part of the process.”

  “Let’s go talk to Minerva and pull together what we’ve got before we start jumping off ledges.”

  Gino threw a twenty onto the table and stood up. “Looking at the possible career ramifications of this case, I think I’d rather go straight for the ledge.”

  * * *

  One thing became starkly evident once Gino and Magozzi were inside the Norwood office complex: his employees from bottom to top were all in a state of shock and despair, and if there wasn’t a warehouse of tissue boxes somewhere on the premises, all seven stories of the building would soon wash away in tears. Gregory Norwood had a lot of fans.

  They found Minerva Jones in her office, crying quietly. Gino’s suspicious mind and Betty Norwood’s obvious dislike for the woman had seeded an image with Magozzi of a lean, leggy, ruthless femme fatale. But in reality she was a plump, matronly woman pushing sixty, by his estimation, and judging by the dozens of family photos in her office ‒ most of them featuring young children ‒ she was a proud grandmother of many.

  She reiterated a common motif through her tears: Gregory Norwood was beloved by everyone, he would never have killed himself, neither would anybody have wanted to kill him, and he was the most compassionate, generous man who’d ever lived. Yes, she’d noticed his odd behavior over the past few months, but attributed that to stress over Trey’s death and the upcoming memorial.

  It was a difficult interview because she never stopped crying, not for a single minute. She obviously harbored love for and unquestioned devotion to Gregory Norwood, but there wasn’t anything carnal about either. She was an unlikely candidate for dalliances with the boss, and there didn’t seem to be a conniving bone in her body.

  After ten minutes, she finally managed to gather herself enough to carry on a dialogue unbroken by emotion. “I’m so sorry, Detectives, but I haven’t been able to get a hold of myself ever since I heard the news. I just can’t believe he’s gone. Things won’t ever be the same here. Not for me, not for anybody.”

  “Did Mr. Norwood have any business appointments this morning?” Gino asked.

  “No, absolutely not. Today was meant to be a family day. Mrs. Norwood made it very clear to me that he wasn’t to have any distractions on such an important day. It was the one time I agreed with her.” Her eyes widened and her hand fluttered to her mouth. “That came out wrong.”

  Gino gave her a commiserative nod. “It’s okay, Ms. Jones. I’m sure the dynamics could be pretty difficult sometimes. Your loyalty was to Mr. Norwood and the company, and I’ll bet that conflicted with the wishes of the family sometimes.”

  Her shoulders dropped in relief. “That’s exactly how it was. Rosalie was part of the business and understood the demands, but Mrs. Norwood could be … difficult sometimes.”

  “How so?”

  “Not to speak ill of her, she’s had such a horrible time, but frankly, I think she was jealous of the time he spent working. Mr. Norwood was always a workaholic, but it got to a fever pitch after Trey’s death. He was hardly ever home, at a time when she probably needed him most. As I was Mr. Norwood’s proxy, she often took her frustrations out on me.” Tears started running down her cheeks again. “I guess that was the way he dealt with his grief. We all do that differently, don’t we?”

  “We do,” Magozzi said softly. “Thank you for speaking with us, Ms. Jones. I know it was hard …”

  “No, it was good to talk about Mr. Norwood. And I know you’ll find out what happened and do what’s right.”

  * * *

  “Betty Norwood just got a little more interesting,” Gino mused, once they were on their way back to the office. “You see somebody as polished and poised and rich as her and you automatically assume everything in her world is just one big cream puff. But pull back the ten-thousand-dollar curtains and you’ve got an angry, frustrated, sad human being, just like anybody else who’s suffering.”

  “She has reason to be all of those things. But she’s not our killer.”

  Gino nodded. “Pretty hard to kill someone from a thousand miles away.”

  CHAPTER

  18

  SPECIAL AGENT DAHL had spent half an hour briefing Special Agent in Charge Paul Shafer on what Monkeewrench had just told him—entirely leaving out his early-morning visit to Harley ‒ and now he was enduring the discomfort of Shafer’s agitated cross-examination.

  The man was tall and thin, with an exaggerated jaw, a sharp hawk nose, and small eyes that were sometimes blue, sometimes gray, depending on the light. Right now, they were the color of wet stone. His temperament was normally as cold as his countenance, but he was hot that morning. Of course, having his greatest fear confirmed, that the city under his watch might indeed become an international story for all the wrong reasons, would try even the most imperturbable soul. More than anyone, his career hung in the balance and he was one bad decision away from involuntary retirement.

  He was drumming his fingers on the edge of his desk, seeming not to care that it broadcast his anxiety level. “This is very disturbing indeed, and I would be insincere if I didn’t credit Monkeewrench for giving us a more specific location to focus our attention. My concern is the accuracy of the information and how they obtained it in the first place. To be honest with you, Special Agent Dahl, I’ve had occasion to deal with Monkeewrench several times, long before you were posted here, and I have my suspicions about their methods. They may be able to operate on the margins of the law, but we don’t have that luxury.”

  “I can’t speak for them or to your experience with them, sir, but the times I’ve collaborated with them, I’ve found them to be beyond reproach. But, personal perceptions aside, I don’t think anyone could argue that they haven’t been strong, reliable partners.”

  Shafer snorted out a sharp breath, making Dahl wonder what Monkeewrench had done to him in the past that had alienated him. He’d have to ask them one day. Not that it was hard to alienate Shafer—he was a rigid ideologue, and a simple disagreement on policy could become grounds for a lifelong grudge.

  “Does Monkeewrench know this is accurate intelligence?”

  “They don’t, sir, and they were very upfront about that. They were simply running a beta test on some new law-enforcement integration software they’ve developed, using publicly available data on local terror suspects. Some have been under our surveillance in the past. Their program identified City Hall as an area of concern, which corroborates our own concerns for Minneapolis. Obviously, they felt it was their duty to inform us, even though the results were generated from a prototype.”

  “And how does this program work?”

  “I couldn’t tell you that, sir.”

  “Can it trace the source?”

  “I couldn’t tell you that either, sir. I imagine they would run into the same problems with encryption we’re having on that front, but I know they would do everything they could to assist us if we asked them for support.”

  Shafer’s fingers stilled briefly, then found new, ardent focus contorting a paperclip. “Special Agent, we are treading very delicate territory here.”

  Dahl straightened his spine as physical reinforcement. He couldn’t push this much further, but it was worth at least one Hail Mary play. “May I suggest we treat any additional information we might get from them as an anonymous tip? If someone called with the same information Monkeewren
ch might relay to us in the future, it would be our duty as law-enforcement agents to take it seriously and dedicate manpower to investigating a potential threat.” He cleared his throat. “I might add that Monkeewrench’s information would undoubtedly be as reliable, if not more so, than most anonymous tips the Bureau receives and acts upon.”

  Shafer gave him an arid smile. “Should I be concerned about a personal attachment to Monkeewrench? It seems you’ve become somewhat of an ambassador on their behalf. I’ll remind you that any sense of impropriety on your part would be extremely deleterious to the Bureau and our mission.”

  Dahl felt the blood rise to his face and his fists clench out of sight in his lap. “With all due respect, sir, a terror attack in Minneapolis would also be extremely deleterious to the Bureau and our mission, especially if we didn’t utilize any and all tools available to us. And I’d hate to think any partisanship or personal grievance might be grounds for us to abrogate our duty and jeopardize the safety of innocent civilians. Wouldn’t you?”

  Shafer abandoned his paperclip and all the toxic energy seemed to drain out of him, leaving his narrow, bony face as gray as his eyes. “Partisanship and personal grievance have nothing to do with this. Legality does. We are sworn officers of the law. We uphold it, we don’t break it. You would be wise to remember your oath.” His face pruned up, as if he’d just tasted something repugnant. “I want a meeting with them immediately. I want to know more about this software.”

  “I’m sure they’d be happy to oblige you.”

  He let out another ugly snort. “I doubt that. Task force meeting in an hour. Assemble your team and keep me posted on all developments. Especially those that have anything to do with Monkeewrench.”

  Dahl closed Shafer’s door quietly behind him and fingered the flash drive in his pocket, wondering what it would be like not to walk these halls every day. He might find out soon enough.

  Once he was safely locked in his office, he retrieved the burner phone from his desk drawer and punched in Harley’s number.

  He answered on the first ring. “Hey, Dahl, got anything for us?”

  “Mr. Davidson, I have a flash drive and thirty minutes. I can be there in ten.”

  “I’ll be waiting.”

  * * *

  As promised, Harley was there to greet him at the door. Even his considerable bulk seemed diminished by the size and grandeur of the foyer, but his presence usually compensated for that. Not now—his face was haggard and worried, and his eyes seemed to be searching for a focal point that didn’t exist in this space but in his mind.

  “Is there something wrong, Mr. Davidson?”

  “Our bad guys aren’t novices. They’re using onion routers, domain generation algorithms and BGP hijacking.”

  “In English, please?”

  “It means we’re having a hell of a time tracing them, too. But we’ll slice through the Gordian knot eventually. Come on in. You look worse than you did this morning, Dahl.”

  “You’re generous with your compliments. And I might say the same of you. I guess we’re all a little depleted.”

  “And we’re all in the same boat.”

  “Hopefully that boat doesn’t have bars on the windows.”

  Harley smiled, and with that smile, his presence returned to fill the vacancy in the foyer. “I’m telling you, Dahl, there’s a sense of humor in there somewhere.”

  “I’m flattered you think so.” He withdrew the flash drive from his pocket and placed it in Harley’s hand. “Get rid of this as soon as you load it. It’s all the intelligence we’ve mined on the local terror threat and everything is classified at the highest level. I hope it will help.”

  Harley thumbed the piece of plastic concealing an electronic chip, then tucked it into the front pocket of his leather biker’s jacket.

  “Shafer wants to meet with you to discuss the program as soon as possible. Of course he knows nothing about our visits, and certainly nothing about what I just gave you.”

  “We’ll get back to you on that. What’s happening on your end?”

  Dahl checked his watch. “We have a task force meeting at the top of the hour and we’ll be dispatching people to help cover City Hall and monitor every suspicious character that ever existed in Minnesota. I haven’t heard from the cyber division.”

  “Then we keep working. Whatever happens, you’re doing the right thing. We all are.”

  “Let’s hope it’s enough.”

  CHAPTER

  19

  DENNIS FRUETEL WAS weeding what was left of his vegetable garden after a malicious family of gophers had laid waste to half of it overnight. The little bastards had stripped the roots and pulled down four fully fruited tomato plants, plus some squash and peppers. They were an evil lot, always working underground, so you couldn’t shoot them, you couldn’t drown them out with a hose because they would just dig another warren of tunnels, and he wasn’t about to lay down poison and risk taking out the cats along with the gophers.

  But that was country living. An hour outside the city and things were very different. You had to deal with a lot of things your urban counterparts couldn’t even conceive of. And that was just fine with him. He’d grown up in the heart of the city, and the hardships and dangers there were a lot worse and more unpredictable than the wildlife he and Mary shared space with out here.

  “How bad is it, Den?”

  He turned around and saw Mary walking into the garden with a big wicker trug, still optimistic about bringing in some fresh produce for dinner, even though he’d warned her about the gophers.

  “Bad enough that you probably won’t need that basket to take what the gophers left us. You’ve got to get those lazy cats working.”

  “They already killed three.”

  “Gophers are like cockroaches. Where there are three, there are a hundred.”

  “Then we probably need more cats,” Mary teased, as she walked around and surveyed the damage with increasing distress. “They ate my habañeros, too?”

  “Might be some consolation, thinking about their evil little butts on fire right now.”

  His wife of twenty years, the sweetest soul on earth as far as Dennis was concerned—savior of feral cats and just about any other animal or human in need of food, care, or comfort—smiled a little wickedly and stomped her tiny foot on the ground. “How do you like my habañeros now?”

  They shared a laugh, then jerked their heads up when they heard a distant scream. “Oh, my God, Den …”

  Dennis gauged the distance and direction, then shrugged it off. It was coming from the state park adjoining their property, which was a wellspring of wildlife: not just gophers and assorted other rodents, but bear, coyote, fox, skunk, deer, and the occasional rattlesnake. He’d even heard about some recent bobcat sightings from Myron Nelson, who volunteered there on the weekends. “It’s coming from William O’Brien. Probably some weekend warrior looking to commune with nature and got a little more than they’d bargained for. It wouldn’t be the first time.”

  Mary shook her head forcefully. “No, Dennis. That wasn’t the scream of somebody who ran across a deer carcass or saw a bear or a rattler.”

  There was another scream, this one truly primeval and filled with horror, and Dennis had to agree with her for a change. “Call nine-one-one.” He grabbed his shotgun, which was at the ready in case a gopher dared pop its head above ground while he was weeding, and started jogging toward the park through their back field.

  * * *

  “You know what I like about this view?” Gino asked.

  Magozzi cracked open his window a little, letting in some heat and humidity to alleviate the meat locker Gino had created inside the sedan. “What view? We’re on Fifth Street by City Hall.”

  “Exactly. City Hall is still here. Minneapolis is still here.”

  “Probably because half the bodies you see on the street are undercover feds or our joint terrorism task force people.” Magozzi pointed up. “Those are two of our guys o
n the roof.”

  “Which probably makes City Hall the safest place in the state right now, but I’m never going to feel the same way about walking through those front doors again. It’s like my house just got burglarized, but a thousand times worse.”

  “That’s part of terrorism.”

  “This really sucks, Leo.”

  Magozzi’s phone rang and he shaded the display from the sun with his hand so he could read the caller ID.

  “Who is it?”

  “Says Washington County.”

  “Did you forget to pay your real-estate taxes?”

  “I wish. Detective Magozzi here.”

  Gino parked the car and started drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, trying to make sense of the conversation that was dominated by the person at the other end. Just like his earlier call with Grace, Magozzi wasn’t saying much, but it didn’t take long to figure out he was talking to another detective and there was a dead body involved.

  “Gerald Stenson,” Magozzi said morosely, signing off. “A hiker found him in William O’Brien state park on the bluffs by the river, broken up on the rocks. He had a camera around his neck, so the detectives on scene figured he took a nasty fall during a photo shoot. It happens there a couple times every year …”

  “Son of a bitch. A body dump. A smart one. Who’s going to notice a prior head wound when a guy is in pieces over some rocks?”

  “Have a little faith in our colleagues, Gino. One of the detectives pegged him as potentially being our BOLO and ran his prints. Stenson did a stint with the Peace Corps so he was on record.”

  “Did they take a look at the camera?”

  “Of course they did. It was digital. No chip in it.”

  “Shit. So, what’s the status of the investigation?”

  “Crime scene is almost finished and they’ll copy us on everything they have. The body is getting transported to the ME here, and the Washington County detectives are en route to notify Kris Stenson. They asked us for a little time before we go talk to her, but they’ll rough out some details and let her know we’ll be paying her a visit this afternoon.”