Monkeewrench

by P. J. Tracy

  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.”

  Chapter 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 stuck 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.

  “That’s the next one?” he asked.

  Magozzi nodded. “Only it won’t happen. Not today, at least. Governor closed all the schools.”

  “And the crime scenes aren’t giving you anything?”

  “Nothing we can use. We’re not going to catch him that way.”

  The sheriff moved his big shoulders inside his jacket, as if he were trying to dislodge a weight, Magozzi thought. “We’ve got a funeral for our deputy Monday,” he said solemnly, and Magozzi understood immediately that the deputy’s death was the weight he was carrying, and that it was probably way too heavy. “I’d really like to tell Danny’s folks this thing got put to bed.”

  “We’ll work it hard,” Magozzi said.

  Deputy Bonar Carlson was looking at the right side of the board, at all the crime scenes to come. “This is real bad.”

  “It’s a lot better than it was before you called,” Magozzi said. “If the slug you took out of the Kleinfeldt woman matches the one we got from our victim yesterday, chances are pretty good that Brian Bradford is our man—or woman—and I think things could start to come together real fast.” He told them about the call from Atlanta.

  “Five thousand names?” Gino looked at him in disbelief.

  “Plus,” Magozzi corrected.

  “Great,” Gino said dispiritedly. “More lists. The troops are going to love that.”

  “The registration list was always a long shot. Not these. He’s on this one,” Magozzi said. “He’s got to be.”

  “There’s a lot riding on those slugs matching up,” Halloran said.

  “Just about everything,” Magozzi agreed.

  “I almost forgot.” Gino hefted two copy paper boxes from the desk. “Tommy finally cracked into the FBI file. All seven hundred pages.”

  “My goodness,” Magozzi said. “Are there Cliffs Notes?”

  “Not exactly. But I took a peek. There’s a ten-page index of witnesses they interviewed. Looks like half of Atlanta, but at least it’s alphabetized.”

  “God bless the anal-retentive FBI,” Magozzi said. “I don’t suppose there was a Brian Bradford on the list.”

  “Of course not.”

  On their way out of the building Magozzi saw another brown shirt walking toward them down the hall. He figured it was one of the new Hennepin County deputies he hadn’t met yet, certain that he wouldn’t have forgotten any officer that filled out a uniform in quite that way.

  “Good grief,” Deputy Carlson said, and he and Sheriff Halloran stopped dead and stared at the approaching woman. She had short dark hair and sharp brown eyes that were fixed on the sheriff, and not much else.

  “Morning, Sheriff, Bonar,” she said when she was close enough for Magozzi to see the Kingsford County insignia on her heavy jacket. “Did the slugs match?”

  Halloran blinked at her as if she were an apparition, opened his mouth to say something that was probably unprofessional, then changed his mind. “Detective Magozzi, Detective Rolseth, this is Deputy Sharon Mueller. She was the one who found the link to Saint Peter’s.”

  She gave them a brief nod. “What about the slugs?”

  Deputy Carlson sighed. “God, Sharon, were you raised by wolves? Say hello to the nice detectives. Shake their hands. Pretend you’re civilized.”

  She gave Bonar an exasperated look, then quickly shook Magozzi’s hand, then Gino’s. “Okay. Now will somebody tell me about the slugs?”

  “They just went down to the lab,” Magozzi said. “They’ll call when they’ve got something. We were just going to grab some breakfast.”

  “Good deal. I’m starving. What’s in the boxes?”

  Gino shifted the copy paper boxes to his right hip. “Open FBI file on a case the Monkeewrench partners were involved in years ago. Light reading over breakfast.”

  “God, I hate reading FBI files,” Sharon muttered and promptly started walking toward the exit, forcing the four men to hurry to keep up.

  Gino was grinning, always content to walk behind a good-looking woman, Magozzi and Bonar trailed behind, and at the end of the line Halloran was shaking his head, wondering when the hell Sharon had read FBI files and what the hell she was doing there.

  They were almost at the door when two men in suits hurried to intercept them. The taller one led the charge, long legs eating up the hall floor. Give him a big round shield, the man could be a Viking, Magozzi thought. He glanced at the younger, grim-faced man trotting to keep up, but careful to remain a deferential step behind. Silent, obedient attack dog. There, and not there.

  “Uh-oh,” Gino said under his breath. “They sent the big gun today.”

  “Magozzi! Rolseth!”

  Magozzi stopped reluctantly and waited, recognizing the taller man as Paul Shafer, special agent in charge of the Minneapolis FBI office. “Hey, Paul. I didn’t know you ever actually left the office. What’s up?”

  Shafer was FBI first, Norwegian second, and human being third. “This.” He waved a thin, official-looking folder. “You get the file, we get the name to go with those prints you ran.”

  Magozzi tensed for a minute, then forced his shoulders to slump. “Aw, shit.” He looked at the folder and sighed heavily. “Damn it, Paul, you sure you don’t want to give me that file in the spirit of agency cooperation or something?”

  Shafer looked stern. “We get the name, you get the file. That’s the deal.”

  “Well, that’s the problem. We don’t exactly have a name.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Magozzi looked embarrassed. “Yeah, I know how it sounds, but you’ve got to understand, we were running prints like crazy the night of the riverboat killing. There were hundreds of people there, you know? And the uniforms were tearing their hair trying to get prints before people left, and … Well, the guys were rushed and frazzled and some of them were green, and the thing is, when we went back to check the ones we ran,
we found a couple of cards that didn’t have names on them. Like the one you’re interested in.”

  “What?”

  Gino nodded grimly. “You think you’re pissed? We don’t even know which cop took the prints, which means we can’t nail his ass. Man, I hope this wasn’t a ten most wanted or something.”

  Shafer’s hard blue eyes were shooting fire. He looked from Magozzi to Gino, little creaky wheels slipping on the gears inside his head as he tried to decide if he was being had. “This is bullshit, Magozzi.” He wasn’t buying it retail, but Magozzi figured he liked the idea of MPD screwing up so much that maybe a part of him wanted to believe it.

  “I could make up a name,” Magozzi offered. “Would you give me the file then?”

  Shafer’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “If you don’t know who the prints belong to, the file wouldn’t interest you at all.”

  Magozzi nodded. “Yeah. You’re right. I got caught up in the contest.”

  Shafer glared at him for a moment, then shifted his suspicion to Halloran and his crew, who were all standing to one side with identical poker faces. “Something going on with Wisconsin I should know about?”

  Magozzi and Gino exchanged a quick, nervous glance. If Shafer found out they were looking at an interstate connection on the Monkeewrench case, the FBI would take over in a heartbeat, and all the subterfuge about the prints would be for nothing. Damn it, Halloran didn’t know any better. They should have thought to warn him to keep his mouth shut about what he was doing there, but who expected an ambush?

  Shit, shit, shit, Magozzi thought, holding his breath, waiting for Halloran to start yammering about the Kleinfeldts, the slug in the lab, the Saint Peter’s connection. He nearly jumped out of his skin when the sheriff took a quick step toward Shafer and held out his hand.

  “Sheriff Halloran, sir, and Deputies Carlson and Mueller, Kingsford County, Wisconsin.” He grabbed Shafer’s hand and nearly shook it off, wearing the best shit-kicker grin Magozzi had ever seen outside of a movie theater. “Real pleasure to meet you, sir. We don’t see many Federal officers in our neck of the woods. Just on TV. This is a real treat.”