Play To Kill

by P. J. Tracy

  Out of the corner of his eye, Magozzi caught the blinking red light on his phone. 'Gino, I wish you hadn't said that.'

  * * *

  Chapter Four

  Gino was running the electric seat buttons in time to the bass throb of the sound system in the car next to them, and it was driving Magozzi nuts.

  'Do you have to do that?'

  Gino was looking down at his belly. 'I do. This lumbar support thing is amazing. You know it actually pushes your stomach out?'

  'How can you tell?'

  'Gee, thanks, Leo.'

  Magozzi braked at the fourth red light he'd hit on Washington and glared past Gino at the do-ragged dumbo in the car next door. 'Sorry. I don't like river calls. And that kid's radio is driving me nuts.'

  Gino took a look at the jacked car bouncing to the beat next to them, opened his window and waved his badge. 'Sound ordinance, buddy. You're way over. Shut it down now.'

  Magozzi took a breath when the throbbing stopped. 'Thanks.'

  'Not a problem. The little bastard looked like a skinny Eminem, and I hate Eminem. I caught Helen listening to one of his piece-of-shit songs when she was eleven - you ever hear that guy's lyrics?'

  'Not on purpose. They got him out of the hood, though.'

  'Bullshit. He brought the hood out with him, and now the rest of us have to worry about our kids listening to it. Man, when I was growing up all my mom had to do was worry about me running in front of a car. Now you gotta screen the radio, check out every album, every game, every TV show, and this morning I find out we got snuff films on the computer. Christ. Makes you want to uninvent electricity.'

  The light finally changed. Within minutes they were in sight of the Hennepin Avenue suspension bridge. Gino still took Angela and the kids down here three or four times a year to watch the fireworks from the bridge; Magozzi hadn't liked bridges much since the night he'd gone into the Mississippi after two babies whose mother had just tossed them over the rail. The babies had drowned, but not before Magozzi had heard the noises they made. The mother took a dive in a halfhearted suicide attempt, but came through the swim golden, which was more of a miracle than anyone knew, considering that every man in the river that night wanted to push her under and hold her there instead of dragging her out. Sometimes Magozzi still dreamed about killing her, and woke up in a sweat, wondering if he was the only one that close to the edge.

  'Light's green.' Gino rapped a knuckle on the dashboard. 'You know what we ought to do? Drag this out until noon and do a little lunch at St. Anthony on Main. There's a place here that deep-fries cauliflower so even I can eat it.'

  'Jesus, Gino, we're going to look at a body.'

  'It's three hours to lunch. We'll get over it by then.'

  The Mississippi moved like a lady through this part of downtown, taking in the city sights, lapping at the feet of the new Guthrie on one side and the aged bricks of the old flour mills on the other. Until this morning, it had always been Gino's favorite part of Minneapolis.

  'Why do the floaters always wash up in Minneapolis? Can't St. Paul get one for a change?'

  He and Magozzi were standing at the crest of a shallow, wooded embankment that led down to the river. The Parks Department took great care with the green areas down here, frequented primarily by good Minnesotans who took their families on picnics and probably ate grass; but there were a few spots where nature foiled their efforts at judicious pruning and brush clearing, and this was one of them. After dark, a different stratum of society sought out such places, well hidden from the eyes that admired the river views from their million-dollar condos.

  Both men moved slowly down the slope on a path a lot of feet had worn through the tangled trees and brush. Nobody hurried to a death scene. The officers stringing tape behind them said it was a woman, and, in their words, fresh. Yeah, it was totally sexist, but there was a different feeling when the body was female. Magozzi beat himself up more for those, trapped in the macho mind-set that men were supposed to protect women, and dead ones were a personal failure.

  You know what the worst thing is?' Gino grumbled on the way down. 'That there's probably no homicide here; no villain; just another stupid, useless accidental drowning that didn't have to happen.'

  'No homicide ever had to happen, either.'

  Yeah, I get that, but at least with homicide you get somebody you can blame, somebody you can hate. Accidental death? You get to blame the victim, or you get to blame God. That's it. You ask me, that isn't much of a choice.'

  Magozzi squeezed the bridge of his nose, trying to push back one of the headaches Gino always gave him at a crime scene. Twenty hours out of every twenty-four, the man thought of family and food, in that order. But show him a body and all of a sudden he started beating a philosophical drum that boomed in Magozzi's head like a pile driver.

  There was a uniform at the water's edge, standing watch, preserving the scene, trying not to look at the thing that didn't belong in the water.

  The body was face down in the shallows, wearing a white formal gown that moved gracefully in the current as if the body inside were dancing. The scene sent creepy-crawlies up Gino's spine as he tried to quell images of his wife, Angela, walking down a church aisle toward him all those years ago. 'Oh man,' he said quietly. 'Is that a wedding dress?'

  'That's what it looked like to me,' the uniform said, 'but you have to think someone would miss a bride.'

  Not if the groom is somewhere else in this river, Magozzi thought. 'You found her?'

  Yes sir. Officer Tomlinson. The river walk is on my regular patrol.'

  The kid was doing a pretty good job of putting on the tough cop face, but that face was unlined and the troubled blue eyes didn't have the flat look of a seasoned patrol yet. Magozzi figured he was about three days out of the academy. 'You're a little off the walk here.'

  'The white caught my eye through the trees, so I came down. Thought maybe it was a heron, something like that…' He stopped and swallowed, then took a breath. 'Anyway, the ME's on his way; my sergeant took six other officers to start the canvass, but if this is where she went in, the cover's pretty dense.'

  Magozzi nodded. 'We could use some more tape up top, Tomlinson, and wider on both sides. The lunch walkers are going to be out soon. Can you handle that?'

  Yes sir, thank you, sir.' He made double-time up the slope.

  Gino shoved his hands in his pockets and tipped his head at Magozzi. 'That was uncommonly kind of you.'

  'He's just a kid. He's been here alone for a while.'

  The hand on Magozzi's shoulder was gentle. He felt himself take a deep, cleansing breath before he turned around and smiled at the medical examiner. It didn't surprise him that Dr. Anantanand Rambachan had simply appeared behind him without sound, without disruption of the environment. The man moved through the world like silk on water, disturbing nothing, taking his place like sunlight.

  'Good morning, Detectives,' he greeted them with a warm smile and handshakes. Anant still loved the Western handshake. Even after all his years in this country, the ritual never failed to tickle him. Touch is everything, Detective Magosgi, he'd said once. The Americans understand this, when many cultures do not. Touch is connection. You are both looking very well indeed. It's as if no time has passed since our last meeting.'

  'Same with you, Doc,' Gino said. 'You still playing hoops?'

  'Hoops?'

  'Basketball.'

  'Ah, yes, of course, basketball. I find I am enjoying the sport a great deal, especially now that my boys are old enough to join me. Perhaps I might have a second career after all.' His mouth didn't smile, but his dark eyes certainly did.

  'Well, you just let us know if you ever want to pick up a game with our department squad - we could use the height.'

  'That is a kind offer, and I thank you. And I am hoping that both of you and your loved ones are quite well?'

  And so it went for a few minutes - the small talk before attending to the unpleasant business at hand was a ritual Ma
gozzi figured all doctors learned their first year of med school. Hello, Mr. Jones. How are you today? How's the family? You're looking good, have you been working out? Remember those tests we ran last week? Well, they didn't turn out so well.

  Finally, Dr. Rambachan stood on one leg while he removed a shoe and pulled on a rubber wading boot. Gino watched in amazement as he repeated the process with the second boot. 'Jeez, Doc, how the hell did you do that? You looked like a flamingo standing there, didn't even wobble. I gotta sit down to put on my socks or I keel over like a bowling pin.'

  'Balance in all things,' Anant smiled, then turned sad eyes to the body in the water. 'So this is our lady friend. I can see she has not traveled far to meet us here.' The man never saw corpses; he merely saw complete human beings that didn't exist any longer in this particular place and time. 'Has anyone touched her?'

  Gino made a face. 'No reason to start messing with a possible crime scene when the victim is obviously dead.'

  'But we must always confirm the obvious.' He went into the water without creating a ripple, then bent to his task. After a moment his hands went still in the water. 'Ah. Here we have a little surprise.'

  When Magozzi and Gino finally walked up from the river to the staging area, the sergeant who'd been running the canvass was back on site, leaning against his car and draining a can of Red Bull. Dark stains made Rorschach patterns on his uniform shirt, and his face was a particularly vivid shade of ripe tomato.

  'Hot one today, Detectives,' he said, giving them the customary weather-related Minnesota greeting as he raised his can in their direction. If it had been winter, the greeting would have been, 'Cold one today, Detectives.'

  'Are you gonna be okay?' Gino asked, mopping at his own brow. "You look like you're already in full meltdown.'

  The sergeant grunted. 'I grew up on the Iron Range. If the temp rises above sixty, I go into full meltdown. So what's the news on that poor gal? I'm telling you, never in my life have I seen such a sad and sorry sight.'

  'Well, we got a newsflash for you - our bride down there? She's sporting a package.'

  'What kind of package?'

  'The kind of package you can only get with a Y chromosome.'

  The sergeant's brows jumped up his forehead. 'No way.'

  Yes, way.'

  The sarge thought about that for a minute while he chucked his empty can into the car. 'I guess there's no surprise there, come to think of it. We get all kinds down here after hours, especially the creative dressers - the Tiara's just a few blocks up, you know, and they've got that big drag show that runs every night.'

  Magozzi nodded. 'We know.'

  'Any idea whether it's a homicide or an accident?'

  'No real signs of foul play that the ME could see. And Crime Scene didn't have a whole lot of luck with trace. If there is any, most of it's probably on the way to the Gulf of Mexico by now.'

  'Probably an accident.'

  'Probably. But we're going to have to wait for the autopsy before we know for sure.'

  'Well, I can tell you from experience that there's a lot of booze and a lot of drugs down here. I'm surprised we don't get more tooted-up riffraff falling into the drink.'

  'How did the canvass go?' Magozzi asked, trying to find a patch of shade in the one spot along the river that didn't have much tree coverage.

  'All the respectable citizens we talked to didn't see a damn thing. But then we stumbled across Wild Jim, drunk as a skunk, taking a nap under some bushes.'

  Who's Wild Jim?'

  The sergeant gave them a wry smile. 'Oh, you guys have been off the street way too long. Wild Jim is a regular down here, and a frequent flyer at the station.'

  Magozzi got interested. 'For what?'

  'Public drunkenness, disturbing the peace. Every now and then he brings one of his guns down by the river and fires off a clip and wakes the neighbors, but mostly he's harmless; just a real pain in the butt. We've pulled his guns a half a dozen times, but he just gets clean and another judge gives them back. Some of those bastards really stick together. Anyhow, he was ranting about some "crazy faggot" raising hell down here last night, but who knows? He hasn't been able to see straight since he got kicked off the bench, and I'm guessing his blood alcohol is around point-three right now.'

  Magozzi and Gino shared a look. 'You're not talking about Judge Bukowski.'

  'Oh, yeah, the very same.'

  If you were in law enforcement, you knew who Judge James Bukowski was, even if you didn't know him as Wild Jim. He'd always been a little left of the dial, but after six DUIs and a narc charge, he'd decided to take his Wild West show elsewhere three years ago; obviously down by the river. 'Does he live around here?'

  'Sure. In one of those seven-figure lofts by the Mill City Museum. But he likes camping better, I guess.'

  'I'll be damned,' Gino said, shaking his head.

  'Like I told you, we get all kinds down here. We've got him in the tank if you want to talk to him later.'

  * * *

  Chapter Five

  It had been a year since someone had tried to kill Grace MacBride. In the span of her thirty-some years, this was quite an impressive hiatus, but it hadn't been long enough. She still carried the Sig and the derringer every time she left her house; she still wore the knee-high riding boots that would make it difficult for someone to slash the arteries in her legs; and she was still constantly, painfully aware of every detail of her surroundings. Every time she abandoned one of these defenses in a pathetic shot at normalcy, something bad happened. This particular pair of boots was getting worn; a little soft at the ankle, a little run down at the heel. She would have to replace them soon.

  Get over it, Grace. She said that to herself every morning when she woke up, because, truthfully, she was living such a wonderfully ordinary life now. Get up, dress, feed the dog, eat breakfast, go to work. This was the routine of hundreds of thousands who lived in this city, and even if some of them were carrying, she'd never seen one other in a pair of riding boots they were afraid to take off.

  'I'm pathetic, Charlie, you know that?'

  The dog at her side wagged his whole body at the sound of her voice. Apparently the stub that was left of his tail wasn't expressive enough.

  Whatever had taken Charlie's tail and his courage had done so long before Grace had rescued him from an alley, and if anything, his paranoia exceeded hers. No matter how urgent the need or how intense the excitement, he usually went out of any door slowly, cautiously, sniffing the air for imaginary danger. The woman and the dog were incredibly alike. The single exception was the back door of Grace's house, which opened onto a small rectangle of yard enclosed by an eight-foot fence of solid wood. This was a secure place, populated by a single magnolia tree that Grace babied with a hose, and Charlie babied with a hose of his own.

  In the mornings, they went out the front door, over to the garage, into the Range Rover, then off to the Monkeewrench offices on the third floor of Harley Davidson's Summit Avenue mansion, the dog's favorite place in the world.

  It was only the third week in June, barely the first kiss of summer in an average year, and already Minnesota had racked up a record number of blistering dry days that had lowered the rivers and left burgeoning crops wilting in dusty fields. Every farmer in the state knew that the cycle of drought and flood was a problematic yet normal course of events that those who lived off the land had learned to expect over the centuries; but the media lived in the cities, and such extremes spelled ratings, turning every anchor desk into a doomsayer machine. Suburbanites were quick to jump on the bandwagon when watering restrictions turned their Kentucky bluegrass brown, and no-wake zones on the lakes and rivers kept them from the thrill of high- throttle boating.

  Normally there was no weather condition that kept Minnesotans inside. They stood in the streets, videoing tornadoes that bore down on their houses; they broke the ice to swim in frozen lakes; they stripped to the furthest point that Lutheran decency would allow and jogged around the cit
y lakes in summer. But not this year. This year the jogging and biking trails were almost always empty, there had been no tornadoes, no violent summer shows of thunder and lightning, and the city hummed with the constant undercurrent of air conditioners like a giant monster breathing.

  Charlie started whining in the backseat of Grace Mac- Bride's Range Rover when she made the turn onto Summit Avenue.

  'Soon,' she told him, going a little faster than the speed limit, the Gothic turrets of Harley Davidson's red stone manse already visible, two blocks away. By the time she pulled through the gate and under the portico, the black Town Car had already deposited the precious cargo of Annie Belinsky at the enormous wooden doors.

  Annie always traveled by Town Car, particularly in the summer, when the drivers tended to be muscular, tanned college boys. She could have seduced them all, but didn't. She just liked to look at them.

  This morning Annie was an overly voluptuous Fitzgerald heroine in ankle-length linen and lace. A wide-brimmed sunhat, balanced on her dark bob, and T-strap pumps clicked nicely on the slate walk.

  If anyone had ever doubted that Charlie was a brilliant dog, all they had to do was watch the great restraint he always exercised when greeting Annie. His emotions wiggled all over him as he went within two inches of her and then stopped, eyes on her raised finger. 'Respect the outfit,' she reminded him, then bent and willingly offered her cheek to the big sloppy tongue. No one had ever told him to respect the face.

  Grace smiled at her. 'Very Gatsby. I like it.'

  'You know me, Fat Annie was just born for croquet and champagne, although you're not about to get me out on a lawn in this heat. Come on, let's get ourselves inside before I start to render.'

  Annie had always thought Gothic to be a particularly uncivilized and slightly distasteful architecture, which therefore suited Harley perfectly. The baroque furnishings he favored were as massive as his frame and his personality, but as far as she was concerned, they were just plain Frankenstein.