The Guilty Dead

by P. J. Tracy

  “Thanks, Gino. I’ll get back to you soon.” Magozzi hung up, thinking it was damn strange that what had started out as the absolute worst day of his life had turned into the absolute best.

  Grace was barely awake when he walked back into the room. “Did somebody call?” she asked groggily.

  He walked over to her and took her hand. “Gino.”

  “A break in your case?”

  “A big one.”

  “You should be there.”

  “I know. But I don’t want to leave you or the baby. Ever.”

  She squeezed his hand. “We’re not going anywhere.” Then her eyelids fluttered and closed.

  Magozzi stopped to check in on Harley on his way out. Annie and Roadrunner were still in chairs at his bedside but he was semi-alert now, sitting up and enjoying his captive audience. He looked like crap in every way, with a bandaged head, two black eyes, and his leg in traction, but there was a funny smile on his face that carved a lopsided crescent in his black beard. “Leo!”

  “Hey, big guy, good to see you awake. Last time I was here you were zonked out and snoring like a lumberjack with adenoid problems.”

  Annie turned and gave him a long-suffering look. “That was when the morphine was fresh. Now he’s just as high as a giraffe’s backside, trying to grope me seven ways to Sunday.” Her voice sounded huffy, but the relief in her eyes told a different story.

  “What else is a red-blooded American male supposed to do in the presence of such an astounding Rubenesque beauty?” Harley reached out a hand, which she slapped away.

  “Hmm, let me think. Maybe pretend your gene pool didn’t stop evolving sometime during the Paleolithic age?”

  Magozzi smiled, comforted by the normalcy of Annie’s and Harley’s bickering. Things were going to be okay. “How’s the leg?”

  “Feels great,” he slurred. “I’ve never felt better in my life.”

  “Morphine will do that,” Roadrunner said archly.

  “And what do you know about morphine, Roadrunner? You don’t even eat animals or drink. At least until last night.”

  “Enough to know you should probably lay off the clicker for a while.” Roadrunner looked at Magozzi. “I told the doctor not to let him self-medicate.”

  Annie bobbed away from Harley’s wandering hand, like a boxer ducking a roundhouse. “I think anything that will render him unconscious again is a fine idea.”

  Harley’s mischievous, crooked smile became sentimental. “How are Gracie and the baby?”

  “They’re both gorgeous, both resting. The nurse tried to kick me out of the room earlier, but I charmed her into letting me stay.”

  “Sure you did. You’ve got a pretty face, Leo. And you’ve got a gun. How did you get a gun into ICU?”

  Magozzi showed him his shield. “A cheap piece of metal can open doors and soothe even the most savage nurse. Rest up, Harley, you have a leg that needs to mend. I hear you’ve got enough pins in you that you’ll never make it through airport security for the rest of your life without a shitload of paperwork.”

  Annie reached out and gave Magozzi’s arm a squeeze. “You look like you’re on your way somewhere, darling.”

  “Taking a quick run to go pound the sorry life out of Gus Riskin.”

  “Yeah!” Harley raised his arms, then winced. “Go get ’em, Tiger. Grrrr …” He started to giggle, then his head fell back on the pillow and he was snoring again.

  “Some company.” Annie rolled her eyes. “On his best day, Harley’s emotional age is somewhere around sixteen, but the morphine turned him into a five-year-old.”

  Roadrunner snickered. “Annie and I will keep an eye on Grace for you while you’re gone.”

  “Thanks, guys. See you soon.”

  CHAPTER

  67

  ROSALIE HADN’T SEEN Louise Zeller in three months, so the decline in her appearance was shocking. As always, she was perfectly dressed and made-up, but she looked ravaged and gaunt, with haunted dark eyes and skin so pale it seemed almost bloodless.

  There was a specific aura of hopelessness unique to the very depressed and Louise was wreathed in it. She always had been. There was also a glassy detachment in her eyes, probably a result of her medications. But she put on a brave face and hugged her hard. “I’m so sorry about your father, Rosalie. This is such an awful time and you’re in my thoughts and prayers the most.”

  Rosalie hugged her back and kissed her cheek. It was perfumed by cosmetics, her breath by wine, courtesy of the open magnum of Montrachet on the kitchen counter. If there was ever a time to get tipsy before noon, this was it. Uncle Robert didn’t look particularly happy about it, which suggested this was an ongoing point of contention, but she didn’t seem to notice. Or else she didn’t care.

  Louise finally broke away and greeted Betty with equal warmth, then caught her husband’s eyes. “God called you this morning, Robert. He saved your life.”

  Rosalie didn’t remember Louise being particularly devout, just religious in the way church-going Catholics were, but she’d certainly had her share of tribulations. Perhaps faith was sustaining her during a particularly difficult time as she stared at the likely prospect of becoming the First Lady of Minnesota.

  He gave her a light peck on the cheek. “Father Demestral and I prayed for Gregory and the souls lost today. Shall we all go down to the gazebo? I can’t think of a more grounding, peaceful place where we can mourn and reflect together.”

  “Please go ahead. I’ll join you all in a bit. I just want to make sure Betty’s and Rosalie’s luggage gets to their rooms and everything is in order. Andrew?”

  A young man in chef’s whites walked out of the catering kitchen. “Yes, ma’am?”

  “There’s been a change of venue. Would you lay out lunch at the gazebo, please? And, Conrad, please bring the Norwoods’ luggage up to the guest wing. I’ll show you which rooms.”

  “I’ll follow you,” Rosalie said. “I’d like to change and freshen up before lunch.”

  Louise looked pleased. “I’ve put you in your favorite room, dear.”

  Conrad trailing behind them, Rosalie and Louise went up a broad marble staircase and into a large bedroom filled with rich tapestries, intricate mosaic tile work, and Moroccan furniture. All the guestrooms had different themes, but this one was the most exotic and Rosalie had always liked it best. Conrad placed her bags carefully on an ornate antique camel saddle, the perfect luggage stand for the room, then excused himself.

  Louise called after him, as she fretted over a brass urn of lilies, “Put Mrs. Norwood’s bags in the Colonial Room, would you?”

  “Thank you, Conrad,” Rosalie added, as she watched Louise obsess over the apparently troublesome cluster of flowers that looked perfect to her. There was a controlled mania to her movements.

  “I was so terrified for you when Robert told me somebody tried to break into your house last night. Have the police found them?”

  “Not yet.”

  Louise gave her a grave look. “There are bad things happening, Rosalie,” she whispered. “I’ve seen evil in visions before, but now they’re happening. I know it means something, but I can’t make sense of it. Be careful.” Her eyes drifted to the spot on Rosalie’s dress. “Oh, my, would you like me to soak that for you? If you send it to the cleaners like that, they’ll ruin it.”

  “I’ll take care of it, but thanks.” She hesitated. “How are you, Louise?”

  She considered carefully. “Lonely. Robert is hardly home anymore. Of course, I’m not the best company these days.”

  She was alone, isolated, and not just because her husband was occupied with other things. Those closest to her still insisted on couching her struggles in maddening euphemisms, as if there was inherent weakness and shame attached to the truth, which was therefore something to be ignored. It was exactly how Trey had been treated. Real lives sacrificed for appearances.

  “But now isn’t the time to be melancholy over never having children,” she mused, with
bizarre levity. “I’ve got you and you’ve never been less than a daughter to me.”

  “Louise, I’m here for you if you ever want to talk. I understand. More than you know.”

  “Thank you, dear. Maybe we’ll have lunch sometime, just you and me.” She gave her another hug, then left the room, tossing a carefree little wave over her shoulder.

  As she walked away, Rosalie considered the grim possibility that Louise might have reached her breaking point and was beginning to deteriorate. It was a new sorrow to compound the old. Bad things were happening.

  She closed the door and locked it, then carried her purse into the bathroom and tipped it upside down on the vanity. There was a reddish-brown patch on the leather and when she wiped it with a damp tissue, it turned red, just like Mom’s wet wipe had.

  There was a perfectly plausible reason for there to be blood in the trunk of Uncle Robert’s Town Car: Conrad had cut himself. It was as simple as that. Nothing sinister about it. But blood anywhere outside a person’s body was disturbing. Blood in a car trunk was worse by half because of the steady diet of mob movies Hollywood fed the populace. When movie mobsters got whacked, they were thrown into trunks. “You’re being an idiot,” she chided herself.

  “Rosalie?” She heard her mother’s voice on the other side of the door. “Is everything all right?”

  “Uh … sure, I’m just changing, Mom.” Out of my bloodied dress. “Freshening up.”

  “There’s a lovely lunch down at the gazebo. Please join us.”

  “I will, Mom, in just a few minutes.” She stashed the bag and her soiled dress in a cupboard, slipped on a black linen shift, then checked herself in the mirror. She looked normal, except for the dark circles under her eyes that advertised a sleepless night and profound stress, which was apparently causing pathological paranoia. Or maybe Louise’s was contagious. And then she heard bells, which made her heart jump.

  They’re not bells, they’re wind chimes. You are losing your mind, seeing things, hearing things, imagining things, “out damned spot” …

  But they sounded just like Trey’s bells, which no rational person would take as a message from beyond, but she was not rational today, not by a long shot.

  Rosalie walked over to the French doors that led to a veranda overlooking the lake. Wind chimes hung from the railing, tinkling in a light breeze. No carousing evil spirits, no malevolent presence hulking in the shadows of the eaves, like a gargoyle, waiting to drain her life force.

  She could see her mother and Uncle Robert sitting in the gazebo at the bottom of the broad, gently sloping lawn, Conrad at attention a few yards away, flanked by the two giant mastiffs that helped guard the property. They were drinking wine and, by God, that was exactly what she needed right now.

  She went downstairs and poured herself a generous glass of white Burgundy from the open magnum on ice, inviting her to partake in its mind-numbing potential. Her mother’s purse was sitting on the kitchen counter next to it, the package of wet wipes protruding from the open top, reminding her of just how strange life had become in the past twenty-four hours.

  After a few fortifying sips, she wandered the vast main floor of the house, as familiar to her as her own or her parents’. She paused in the Great Room, a spectacular space with vaulted ceilings and a dramatic stone fireplace that had been sourced from the multi-colored rock on their Aspen property. She and Trey had spent hours playing there as kids and he’d always loved that fireplace—it reminded him of the stones in the Roaring Fork River, where his ashes should have been scattered yesterday. At some point, she and Mom would return to Aspen and release the ashes of father and son: they could take the journey downstream together.

  Eventually, she found herself in the front foyer. She peered out of the sidelights of the big double doors and saw the Town Car still sitting in the motor court. On a table by the door was a set of keys. A quick check of the trunk and she would realize the blood hadn’t come from there and she could bring her lunacy to an end once and for all.

  Keys were funny things, she thought, as she picked them up and held them in her palm. They were mostly generic in appearance. You could tell a car key from a house key, but beyond that, they all looked pretty much alike, unless you had a very particular kind of lock that required a very particular kind of blank, one that couldn’t be duplicated without the original paperwork and serial number.

  Like her house key, which was just like the one on this fob.

  Detective Magozzi’s voice sounded in her head.

  Does anybody else have a key to your house?

  No. Well, Mom does, of course.

  But these weren’t Mom’s keys, and somewhere deep inside her, she understood that something was very wrong. She just couldn’t grab hold of it.

  A home intrusion that wasn’t. No evidence of B and E. Maybe because it hadn’t been a break-in.

  She backed away, retreated to the kitchen, and began rifling through her mother’s purse. Her pulse was pounding in her ears and her hands shook as she felt the cool metal of keys and withdrew the ring. All accounted for. Except her house key.

  Her mind didn’t go beyond that, didn’t speculate or try to rationalize. She simply walked back to the foyer, pressed a button on the Town Car’s fob, and watched the shiny black trunk lid rise, completely unaware of Louise Zeller watching her from the veranda.

  CHAPTER

  68

  MAGOZZI AND GINO took seats around Dahl’s ad hoc desk in the temporary location the feds had set up after their former domicile had been blasted to smithereens. All three looked equally bad, but Dahl didn’t smell of smoke, which would give him a slight advantage if some sadist were to hold an impromptu beauty contest.

  “Gus Riskin is done.” He pushed two folders across the cluttered surface, displacing several others. “Jackets on what we’ve got so far. Based on hard evidence alone, he’ll never see the light of day again.”

  “Is he cooperating?” Magozzi asked, skimming through the pages.

  “Beyond our wildest dreams. He hasn’t lawyered up yet, he’s talking, and he doesn’t seem remotely concerned about the consequences. Of course, he is a psychopath, so the verity of his statements is questionable.”

  “Give us a short version of what you know.”

  “He claims a long-standing relationship with the Roseville suspects through unnamed associates in Orange County, California, which we’re looking into. He told me they were working together to attack seats of justice everywhere, including City Hall, ‘because the scales must be evened.’ But he won’t talk about the venue change to one-eleven Washington Avenue, and the Roseville suspects deny any knowledge of it. We assume the attack was aimed at our FBI office, and the construction on the building made it more convenient than City Hall.”

  Magozzi closed the folder. “We think he was trying to kill Robert Zeller.”

  Dahl lowered his head, squeezed his temples. “You two have a lot of explaining to do.”

  “We will, but give us Riskin first. We might be able to fill in more blanks after we’ve talked to him.”

  He looked Magozzi straight in the eye. “I have a request.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t kill him. Because if I were in your shoes right now, I’d be damn tempted.”

  “I’m not going to kill him. I want him to rot in prison.”

  Dahl nodded. “I thanked God a few hundred times when I heard Grace and Harley were going to be okay. Congratulations on the baby, Detective. That was the best news I’ve heard in a long time.”

  In spite of everything, Magozzi felt a smile form on his lips. “Thanks, Dahl.”

  “Go do your thing. I’ll be watching.”

  * * *

  If you passed August Riskin on the street, you wouldn’t give him a second glance. And if you weren’t used to dealing with psychopaths, you certainly wouldn’t know him for the hideous monster he was. But his eyes were a dead giveaway. If he’d ever had a soul, it was long gone.

  Ma
gozzi let Gino take the lead because he didn’t trust himself. All he could focus on was the fantasy image of his hands wrapping around Riskin’s throat and watching the life seep out of his blank eyes.

  Gino didn’t waste much time on preliminaries and got right to the point. “We know why you did it, Gus.”

  “Did what?”

  “Come on. You’re in such deep shit with the feds, you might as well tell us your personal story. It’s not going to hurt you, that’s for damn sure. You might think you’re sitting here with us, but you’re already on Death Row. Even if you hired the greatest lawyer on the planet, the best you’d do is skate into prison with about a thousand consecutive life sentences. And even that scenario’s iffy.”

  “I don’t have a story. I just did what I had to.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah, and nobody understands, the devil made you do it, right? So far you killed five people today in that building and injured dozens more.”

  “I’m not proud of that, but there was no other way.”

  Gino snorted. “Oh, you’re one prince of a guy, aren’t you? And how about the four you killed yesterday? Was that just a warm-up for the main event?”

  “I didn’t kill four people yesterday.”

  “Tell us your story, Gus. I’m in a real bad mood and my partner here has a serious personal beef with you. I’d hate to see what would happen to you if I decided to leave the room.”

  “I told you, I don’t have a story.”

  Gino paused and took a sip of coffee from the white Styrofoam mug Dahl had given him. “Tell us your sister’s story, then. That’s what this is all about, isn’t it?”

  Riskin’s face stilled.

  “We know about Clara, we know you were scamming Gregory Norwood, and we know you were trying to kill Robert Zeller. How about we start with why you killed Norwood?”

  Riskin’s eyes widened in genuine surprise. “I didn’t kill Gregory Norwood. Why would I? He’d been living in hell ever since his son died and he was paying me good money. I told him I knew who killed his son, which is pretty funny. Everybody knows Trey overdosed.”