Want to Play?

by P. J. Tracy

  ‘Huh. I thought I’d heard them all. And you people think black folks have weird names. Come on in, fellas. Find yourselves an empty seat while I give Leo a call.’

  She buzzed them through the interior door as she picked up a phone, and a dozen pairs of eyes lifted from what they were doing and gave them the once-over. Halloran felt like a grade-school transfer standing in front of his new classmates. ‘Morning.’ He nodded to the one closest to them, a wasted-looking man with a prominent Adam’s apple, a scruffy beard, and a black woolen cap with a moth hole right in front.

  ‘Now why are you talking to that dirtbag?’ Gloria chided as she came up behind him.

  ‘Dirtbag? I figured he was undercover.’ Halloran turned to give her a sheepish smile, then quelled the impulse to reach for his sunglasses. Her dress was carmine red with bright orange pumpkin appliqués. It was a miracle, he decided, because somehow she made it work.

  ‘My, my, you boys are from the country, aren’t you? Looks like old Gloria’s going to have to take you under her wing.’

  Bonar rocked back on his heels, smiling. ‘Praise Jesus.’

  Brown eyes flashed at him, then softened almost immediately. Halloran saw it and shook his head. Didn’t matter what Bonar ever said to a woman, and half the time he had his foot so far in his mouth he nearly choked to death. It was something about his face – a gentleness, innocence, something – that made women forgive him damn near anything.

  ‘Leo’s on his way. You’ve got your slug, right?’

  Halloran patted his pocket and felt his heart have a flashback to when Sharon’s hand had done the same thing.

  ‘Well, I can have someone take you to the lab now, or if you want, you can just cool your heels till he arrives.’

  ‘How about if you just bring us up to date on this case while we wait for Detective Magozzi?’ Bonar asked.

  She arched a well-plucked brow. ‘You’re talking to a secretary, not a cop.’

  Bonar grinned at her and Halloran gave her ten seconds before she started spilling her guts.

  ‘Well . . .’

  So he was wrong. Five seconds.

  ‘You want to know what I’m supposed to know, or what I really know?’

  Bonar’s grin broadened. ‘What you really know. But mostly I want to know how you get your hair in all those tiny braids. I’ve always wanted to know that. They’re really small, like Cinderella’s mice did it or something.’

  Gloria rolled her eyes toward Halloran. ‘Has this man ever even seen a black woman before?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  39

  Magozzi didn’t think it mattered if you were a pauper or a millionaire. There were a few solid, basic human pleasures that followed you from childhood to old age, and one of them was waking up to the smell of good coffee that someone else had made.

  He opened his eyes and looked at the ceiling of Grace MacBride’s living room. The slats on one of the blackout blinds hadn’t closed all the way, and slices of weak sunlight painted the ceiling. For some reason that filled him with optimism.

  A new blanket covered him, a down comforter that hadn’t been there when he’d fallen asleep last night. He lifted the edge and peered beneath it to see the navy blue wool he remembered, and then sat up and looked through the archway to the empty kitchen. She’d covered him while he slept. She’d gotten up, made coffee, and at some point she’d put another blanket over him so he wouldn’t get cold. The knowledge of that made his chest hurt.

  He found them in the backyard, Charlie sitting in one Adirondack chair, Grace in the other. She was bundled in a white terry robe, her dark hair wet and curling over the collar, steam rising from a coffee mug in her left hand. Her right was tucked in her robe pocket, and even from a distance, he could see the lumpy outline of her gun beneath the fabric. A hose ran at the base of the magnolia tree, and the trickle of water put music in the stillness of morning. But, damn, it was cold.

  ‘It’s freezing out here,’ he said as he walked down the back steps, careful not to slosh the fresh coffee in his mug. He could see his breath, and frosty grass crackled under his shoes.

  Charlie turned his head and smiled at him. He could see his breath, too.

  ‘Put on your coat,’ Grace told him without turning around.

  ‘Already did.’ Magozzi crouched next to Charlie’s chair and scratched the wiry coat behind the dog’s ears. Charlie sighed audibly and leaned his head into Magozzi’s hand. ‘This is terrific coffee.’ He looked over at Grace and found her smiling at him. It was a smile he hadn’t seen before, and it made him feel like he’d done something right. He couldn’t remember the last time a woman’s expression had made him feel that way, and decided he’d better identify his good deed so he could repeat it in the future. ‘What?’

  ‘You didn’t kick Charlie out of his chair.’

  ‘Oh. Well. It’s his chair.’

  Grace smiled again.

  ‘And I would have kicked him out, but I was afraid he’d rip my arm off.’ He looked down at where the vicious beast was furiously licking his hand, and for a second he slipped into the Americana picture of a man and a woman and a dog and a house as if it were real, and as if he belonged there. ‘You shouldn’t be out here alone,’ he said suddenly, and Grace’s smile vanished.

  ‘This is my backyard. My place.’ She glared at him for a moment, erasing that one small thing he’d done right. He might as well have kicked the dog off the chair. Except he really liked the dog. Finally she sighed and looked back at the magnolia. ‘Besides, I had to water the tree.’

  Magozzi sipped his coffee and absorbed the lesson. Don’t ever suggest to Grace MacBride that she should alter her routine to avoid being slaughtered in her backyard. He concentrated on suppressing the protective instinct that had followed man out of the caves. It was a stupid instinct anyway, he thought, because it had failed to make the evolutionary adjustment that would accommodate women who carried big guns in their robe pockets. He stared at the water puddling around the trunk of the magnolia, and decided it was a safe conversational topic. ‘It’s kind of late in the year for that, isn’t it?’

  Grace shook her head and dark curls stiff with cold moved against the white robe. She shouldn’t be out here in the cold with wet hair, either, but Magozzi wasn’t about to tell her that. ‘Never too late to water your trees. Not until the ground freezes, anyway. Do you live in a house?’

  ‘Just like a normal person.’

  ‘I’m not the target. I never was.’

  God, she was hopping around the conversation like the Easter bunny. Magozzi was having trouble keeping up. Apparently that was painfully obvious.

  ‘That’s why I’m not afraid to be out here alone,’ she explained. ‘He doesn’t want to kill me. He just wants me to – stop.’

  ‘Stop what?’

  She gave a desultory shrug. ‘I’ve been trying to figure that out for years. The profiler the FBI brought in in Georgia theorized that the killer’s intent was “psychological emasculation,” whatever the hell that is. That he felt I had some kind of power over his life he was trying to eliminate, and that apparently killing me wouldn’t do it.’

  ‘Interesting.’

  ‘You think so? I always thought it was gobbledygook. Nobody has any power when they’re dead.’

  ‘Martyrs do.’

  ‘Oh.’ Her lips circled the word and stayed there for a second. ‘That’s true.’

  ‘Dead lovers.’

  ‘Dead lovers?’

  Magozzi nodded. ‘Sure. You take a couple – any couple – right at the beginning when everything’s hot and new, you know? And then say the guy dies, in a car wreck, a war, whatever, before he has a chance to get old or potbellied or inconsiderate, and what have you got? Dead lover. Most powerful people in the world. Can’t compete with them.’

  Grace turned to look at him, frowning and smiling at the same time. ‘Personal experience?’

  ‘Nope. As far as my ex was concerned, I couldn’t compe
te with the live ones.’

  She reached over to stroke Charlie’s neck. ‘I talked to the others this morning, told them what happened last night.’

  Magozzi winced, and she caught it.

  ‘Relax, Magozzi. I didn’t ask them about Brian Bradford, mostly because if I didn’t know him, they wouldn’t either. Anyway, they’re afraid for me. They want us all to disappear again.’

  ‘Is that what you want?’

  She thought about it for a while, then made a broad gesture that took in the fence, the security, ten years of fearful vigilance Magozzi couldn’t even imagine. ‘I want all this to be over. I want it to end.’

  They both jumped when his cell phone burped in his pocket.

  He stood up and flipped it open. ‘Magozzi.’

  ‘Good morning, Detective.’

  Magozzi took a beat, confused. Only cops called his cell, and he couldn’t remember any of them ever saying ‘good morning.’

  ‘This is Lieutenant Parker, Atlanta Police Department.’ The drawl came through on ‘lieutenant,’ which explained everything.

  ‘Yeah, Lieutenant. You find anything for us?’

  ‘Nothing that’s going to make your day, I’m afraid. According to Mrs Francher – she’s the admissions director, and she’s been working with me on this all night – a Brian Bradford was admitted to the university, but she can’t find any record that he ever actually registered.’

  ‘Oh.’ Magozzi packed a lot of disappointment into that single syllable. ‘Well, thanks for –’

  ‘Whoa. Slow down a minute, Detective. It seems this was a little peculiar. When an admitted student doesn’t register, that leaves the school with an empty slot they fill up with someone else. Otherwise you’ve got a bed going to waste in the freshman dorms, an empty chair in the classrooms . . .’

  ‘Okay. Right.’

  ‘But that didn’t happen in this case.’

  Magozzi frowned. ‘I don’t get it.’

  ‘Neither did Mrs Francher. So she checked the numbers – freshman admissions against freshman registrations – and they matched. Right on the money.’

  Magozzi closed his eyes and focused, waiting for his brain to kick in. Get rid of the woman, the dog, the morning coffee, the fleeting illusion of normalcy; go back to the cop. ‘So he was there. Just not as Brian Bradford.’

  Lieutenant Parker said, ‘That’s what we were thinking. Apparently if he changed his name legally between admission and registration, the name Brian Bradford would never show up in the school records, but the numbers would still match.’

  ‘He’d have to prove it, though, right? Show the documents before you’d let him register? Otherwise Joe Blow off the street could just come in and use Brian Bradford’s transcript and SAT scores . . .’

  ‘True enough. But that doesn’t mean the documents were legitimate, and Mrs Francher isn’t a hundred percent sure the university was double-checking such things back then. I checked the state records for you, just in case. No Brian Bradford ever applied for a name change in Georgia.’

  ‘Okay, okay, wait a minute . . .’ Magozzi frowned, thinking hard, then his brow cleared. ‘So what that leaves us is a name on that list of registered students that doesn’t belong. One name that isn’t on the admissions list. That’s our guy.’

  Lieutenant Parker sighed through the phone. ‘And that’s a problem. The freshman class that year was over five thousand, and nothing was computerized. What we’re looking at is hard copies. Two lists, five thousand-plus names each, and they aren’t even alphabetized. The names were entered when the clerks got around to it. The lists are going to have to be checked against each other by hand, name by name. Even after you eliminate the names that are obviously female . . .’

  ‘Can’t do that. It could be either.’

  There was a short silence. ‘You know, Detective, sometimes I just can’t understand why people think southerners are so eccentric. Hell, we’re down here pulling alligators off golf courses while you boys up north get all the really interesting cases.’

  Magozzi smiled. ‘He was born in Atlanta, if that makes you feel any better.’

  ‘Well, it does. The South’s reputation is intact. Are you going to call me when this is all over, Detective, give me the whole story so I have something to talk about on the eighteenth green?’

  ‘I’ll give you my word on that, if you fax me those lists this morning.’

  ‘There might be some privacy issues. I’ll have to check with legal.’

  Magozzi took a breath, tried to keep his voice steady. ‘He’s killed six people in under a week, Lieutenant.’

  A soft whistle came over the wire. ‘I’ll light some fires, Detective. Give me your fax number.’

  Magozzi gave him the number, then flipped the phone closed and looked over at Grace. She was sitting very still, watching him.

  ‘That’s why the name didn’t ring a bell,’ she said softly. ‘He could have been anybody.’

  Magozzi looked down into his mug, sadly empty now.

  ‘Those lists from the university – we could probably help you with those. We’ve got some comparative analysis software . . .’

  He was shaking his head, but he met her eyes. ‘I’ve got to go. I don’t want you to be alone today.’

  ‘We’ll be at the loft. All of us.’

  ‘Okay.’ He turned and started to leave, then turned and looked back at her. ‘Thanks for the extra blanket.’

  She almost smiled, then tipped her head a little sideways, like a child assessing an adult, and for the life of him, he couldn’t read her eyes. ‘Did you ever think it was me, Magozzi?’

  ‘Not for one second.’

  40

  Gloria looked Magozzi up and down when he got into the office. He rubbed his cheek and heard the rasp of twenty-four-hour whiskers.

  ‘This is my macho look.’

  ‘Hmph. You sleep in those clothes, Leo?’

  ‘As a matter of fact I did.’

  ‘Some macho. First sleepover with a woman since your divorce and you kept your clothes on.’

  Magozzi looked at her, exasperated. ‘Is there anything about my life you don’t know?’

  ‘Yes. I don’t know why you had your first sleepover with a woman since your divorce and kept your clothes on.’

  ‘It was not a sleepover. It was surveillance, protection, interrogation . . . Oh, the hell with it. Where’d you put Kingsford County?’

  ‘They’re in the task force room with Gino, who, I might add, managed to shower, shave, change clothes, and still get here before you did. You’ve got funny curly hairs on your jacket.’

  Magozzi peered down and brushed off his lapels. ‘She has a dog.’

  ‘Looks like you had more luck with the dog than the woman.’

  ‘Very funny. Listen, no one uses the fax today, okay? And I mean no one. I’m looking for a big one from Atlanta, and I don’t want them getting a busy signal when they try to start sending.’

  ‘How big?’

  ‘I don’t know. Big. Find me when it starts to come through.’ Magozzi left the Homicide office and took the stairs up to the task force room.

  He caught a glimpse of his reflection in the glass top of the door, thought he looked like a mobster, then shifted his focus into the room. Gino, Sheriff Halloran, and his deputy were all standing in front of the big board that held photos of the victims and crime scenes. They had their hands in their pockets and their expressions were sober.

  The sheriff was a surprise. Tall and dark and sharp-eyed; not even close to the fair-haired, paunchy good old country boy Magozzi had pictured, although from the size of his shoulders he did look like he threw hundred-pound hay bales around in his spare time. The deputy was shorter, closer to the stereotype with a Santa Claus belly that must be making Gino feel positively svelte.

  When he opened the door Gino looked over and said, ‘There he is. What did I tell you? Tall, dark, mean-looking guy.’ He gestured at Magozzi. ‘Short, blond, lovable guy.’ He s
tuck his thumb in his chest. ‘Just like you two. I’m telling you, it’s like we’re a couple sets of twins that got mixed up. Like that movie with Lily Tomlin and, who was it?’ He scratched his head.

  ‘Bette Midler,’ the deputy offered.

  ‘Yeah, her. Magozzi, meet Mike Halloran and Bonar Carlson. Jeez, guys, I’m sorry. He usually looks a little better than this.’

  Bonar Carlson grabbed his hand. ‘I think you look very pretty.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Sheriff Halloran jerked his head toward his deputy. ‘I didn’t want to bring him, but it was either him or a good-looking woman.’

  ‘No choice, then.’ Magozzi shook his hand.

  ‘None at all. I hear you spent the night with one of your suspects.’

  ‘I guess there are probably a couple people in Outer Mongolia that haven’t heard about that yet.’

  Gino said, ‘Anything’s possible. She got another e-mail, huh?’

  ‘Yeah. Tommy’s on it, or at least he was last night.’

  ‘He’s still here, hunched over his machines like a mad troll. I don’t think he’s been home since this thing started. His eyes are starting to move in different directions.’

  ‘Well, Sheriff, did Gino bring you up to date?’

  ‘Actually . . .’

  ‘Didn’t have to,’ Gino broke in. ‘Gloria told them everything before I got here, including your shorts size. We sent the slug over to the lab. David’s on his way in. He’ll run it first thing.’ He frowned at the board where he’d tacked up morgue and scene photos of the Mall of America victim. ‘There’s our girl from yesterday. Marian Siskel, forty-two years old, and you’re not going to believe this. She was mall security, monitored the closed-circuit cameras, just finished her shift and apparently decided to try on a few things at the Nordstrom sale before she headed home. Crime Scene got a ton of trace from the dressing room where she got hit. Said it’s gonna take them ten years to sort through it.’

  Magozzi looked over the new photos, comparing the actual crime-scene shot of the dead woman in the car with the staged photo from the game. The similarities were uncanny. His eyes moved to the next game photo – a woman in an artist’s smock slumped on the floor beneath a classroom chalkboard. Halloran followed his gaze.