by P. J. Tracy
“Jesus Christ,” Gino muttered, looking around the neat but cheaply furnished living room. New parents on a shoestring budget, putting all their spare dimes into their babies. Every flat surface was cluttered with the kind of photos new parents collected. Charlotte Wells in a hospital bed, one new baby cradled in each arm, tired dewy face oddly serene with the soothing enormity of what she had just accomplished; Dad with the babies, awkward and baffled, then all four of them on a bed a few months later, when fat toes kicked at the world and proud parents mugged for the camera.
“I know what that feels like, and pretty soon you will, too,” Gino said. “Tired as hell, but you can’t wipe that goofy grin off your face. He’s not our guy, Leo.”
Magozzi nodded. You got a feel for these things after a while. Not a certain knowledge, of course, but a sense of what people were made of and what reactions were real. But they still had to pick him apart like a crab and pry every last bit of information out of him they could. He wished he was still in Grace’s bed, before the day had shattered from sunlight to shadows.
Timothy Wells came out of the bathroom a few minutes later, his face gray, his gait unsteady. The tears hadn’t come yet. Grief visited everyone differently. “I have to get the girls,” he mumbled.
Gino stood up and followed him to the back of the house.
Once the twins were safely in their father’s arms, they calmed down. They were blond, perfectly chubby, and cherry-cheeked from crying. Tim stroked their foreheads as they both yawned in concert. When he looked up again, Magozzi saw raw fury in his eyes, but he kept his voice soft and soothing for the benefit of his babies. “I’ll tell you anything you need to know. Just find the monster who murdered my wife.”
EIGHT
Notifications always left human wreckage in their wake, and Gino and Magozzi always took a little of that away with them. They’d waited with Timothy Wells until his parents and in-laws arrived, then made a quiet exit so the forlorn could grieve in peace. It wasn’t always like that—sometimes the mourner was a prime suspect who had to be observed, but it wasn’t the case with Timothy Wells. He was a wrecked man with a wrecked life who deserved some privacy with his loved ones, and more than anything, he deserved justice as fast as they could deliver it. But speed wasn’t trending for them at the moment, and this wasn’t an average, cut-and-dried case with an obvious solution.
“Goddamnit,” a mostly silent Gino finally blurted out as they approached City Hall.
“Is that a general ‘goddamnit,’ or a specific one?”
“General. Specific. I don’t know, both. We just spent the past three hours frying our retinas watching surveillance footage, and interviewing every single person who ever had regular contact with Charlotte Wells. And what did we get? Nothing except enough tears to fill twenty swimming pools. No stalker lurking around the water cooler at work, no creep at the gym who hung around while she worked out, no guy with an I AM A SERIAL KILLER T-shirt hanging in front of the security cam across from the dog park.”
“So we’re going with a serial for sure?”
“I don’t know how we can’t, with the MO and the playing cards. But how the hell is he selecting his victims? He had to have some kind of contact with them, even if it was indirect.”
“The parks have to be the point of contact. Megan Lynn was a jogger, Charlotte Wells was a jogger. Joggers have routines, and routines make for good targets. And maybe there’s some connection between the two victims, like they used the same handyman or whatever.”
“A psycho handyman. That would be helpful.” Gino parked on the street, turned off the ignition, and flopped his wrists over the steering wheel. “So this guy has a year lag between murders here, and we’re missing the two and three of spades. Maybe he was operating somewhere else.”
“Just what I was thinking. We have a lot of specific crime-scene details to plug into ViCAP. If this guy was operating somewhere else, chances are good we’ll get some kind of a match.”
“If the cases ever got entered into the system.”
“Ritualistic stuff like this gets entered into the system, even if you’re running a one-man department in the Alaskan wilderness.”
Gino scratched his jaw pensively. “Then again, there might not be a two and three of spades. What if this guy has some weird, OCD numerological fixation and he does every fourth card? Or maybe he hates prime numbers.”
Magozzi rolled his head to look at Gino. “A psycho handyman who hates prime numbers. Now we’re getting somewhere.”
“I might be overthinking this. Oh, shit. That’s a Channel Ten news van over there. Get ready to no-comment your way to the office.”
Amanda White was waiting to ambush them at the front door of City Hall. She was Channel Ten’s new replacement for the obnoxious Kristin Keller, a journalist who had never let the facts interfere with her reporting or derail her career trajectory. She’d finally gone national last year, and was now spreading her misinformation to a larger audience, but this White character was even worse. She was young, starvation-hungry for any scoop, and so borderline unethical, she made Kristin Keller look like Gandhi.
She pushed her mini recorder in their faces, her hungry eyes burning brightly. “Detectives, can you tell me anything about the murder you’re currently investigating?”
Magozzi looked at her wearily. “You know the answer to that, Ms. White. We have no comment at this point.”
“Will there be a press conference?”
“Media will be notified.” Magozzi opened the door to City Hall and felt a wonderful wave of chilled air hit him as he left the heat and Amanda White behind.
Or not.
“Off the record?” she persisted, following him and Gino into the lobby. She made a great show of clicking off her recorder.
Gino turned around and stared her down. Most reporters knew enough to never, ever mess with Gino after a crime scene, a notification, or an autopsy, particularly when any two of that unholy trinity happened in one day; Amanda White had yet to learn that. “Off the record, give it up, leave us alone, and let us do our job.”
Magozzi watched the stare-down continue, admiring Gino’s restraint. Amanda White wasn’t backing down either, but she changed her tack and put on a new mask in a split second, giving Gino wide doe eyes and a sympathetic moue. It was actually kind of creepy.
“I know it’s early in the investigation, Detective Rolseth, I know you and Detective Magozzi are not going to talk to me at this juncture, but the reason I asked about a press conference is that I’m concerned for the welfare of the women of this city. If it’s not safe to jog alone in our parks right now, then it’s my job to give them a warning, even if you won’t.”
“Your point is?”
“I’m putting two and two together.”
“So you’re good at math?”
“Megan Lynn.”
Magozzi decided to step in before things escalated. “Megan Lynn?” He frowned a little, as if trying to recall the name.
“Nice puzzled look, Detective Magozzi, it’s just not very convincing.” She rolled her eyes, something she would never have done on camera, and Magozzi was surprised at how snotty and ugly it made her look. “Megan Lynn,” she continued. “The girl found in Powderhorn Park last year. Same MO as this one, right down to the knife cuts.”
The scary thing was, she didn’t even wait for a response, she just gave him a predatory smile with oversized, over-whitened teeth, turned on her heel, and walked away.
“God, I hate that woman,” Gino seethed after she’d left. “And those teeth—she looks like a shark without a face. This is what we get for not locking up all the witnesses that went running up to that nightmare scene to find their stupid, howling dogs, then spilled their guts about what they saw. You know what I hate about her more than her teeth?”
“Her hair?”
“No, I hate that she’
s actually got a point about warning the public. And if she does it before we do, then MPD is going to look bad.”
Magozzi tried to rub away the headache that was creeping in at his temples. “So you want to let the press dictate when we hold press conferences and what we say? Cart driving the horse. Besides, it’s not our call.”
“Thank God.”
NINE
Gino had always thought that walking into Chief Malcherson’s office was like walking into a model home somewhere, dusted and buffed and ready for company. Very rarely had he seen anything out of place, or some foolish piece of dust daring to linger on his mahogany desk.
It was a weird feeling, walking into a place so put together when he lived in a virtual booby trap of a house that cherished the evidence of family rather than the essence of tidiness.
Having a second child twelve years after the first had brought him happily back to the warm clutter of growing little people. He was forever moving a tricycle off the front walk or spilled crayons off his recliner, and minded not a bit. In his opinion, there was something sad about perfectly dressed people in a perfectly decorated environment, as if someone had taken a Mixmaster to their priorities.
Malcherson was pretty much a reflection of his office, or maybe it was the other way around. Buttoned down, pulled together, and basically impeccable. In stature and bearing, he looked like an Armani Viking. In manner and speech throughout his seven-year tenure as chief, he had always been the political voice of reason; a stellar representative for the MPD. Gino had always admired the wavering line he walked between the cop he had once been and the politician he became.
He looked up when they walked in, his full jowls hanging a little lower than usual. “Detectives, come in, sit down.”
“Thanks, Chief.” Gino and Magozzi settled into cushy upholstered chairs.
“Tell me how things are progressing.”
“We’ve been beating the bushes, sir,” Gino said in his best, Sunday-company voice. “No persons of interest yet.”
Malcherson’s face darkened. “Have you found anything to dispel our fear of a serial?”
Magozzi shook his head. “If anything, we’re more sure than we were before.”
The chief cleared his throat. “That’s unfortunate.”
“Yes, sir. But that’s not the worst news,” Gino said, always a ray of sunshine. “We ran into Amanda White on the way in. She’s fishing the serial killer angle, pulling together Charlotte Wells and Megan Lynn, and she basically told us if we didn’t warn the public, she would.”
Malcherson looked truly alarmed. “She doesn’t know about the playing cards, does she?”
“No way. She’s just looking for a scoop, never squander an opportunity for hysteria, right? If she knew about the cards, she would have already been yakking about it on TV.”
Magozzi watched the chief fold his hands and stare down at some of his paperwork for a moment, inevitably running multiple scenarios and risk assessments.
“I’m not certain an official statement intimating that the two murders may be connected would be productive at this point.”
Gino leaned forward and gave the chief a square-jawed look, which was kind of a miracle, because his extra chin had swallowed his square jaw a long time ago. “You know, Chief, I’ve been thinking.”
Malcherson sighed heavily. “Of course you have, Detective Rolseth.”
“Yeah, well, we pretty much knew that this was a serial the minute we saw the four of spades on Charlotte Wells, and we all decided to keep a cover on it until we could confirm one way or the other. But like I was telling Leo, the first call I made when I left the crime scene was to Angela, telling her and the kids to stay out of the parks. It doesn’t seem fair that I’m making sure my own family doesn’t get hurt while I leave the rest of the city to fend for themselves.”
Malcherson’s lips were pressed together in a thin line. “We’re still not a hundred percent certain we have a serial. And we don’t have all the evidence processed. Far from it, according to your most recent reports. Not only would it be irresponsible to prematurely start a citywide panic a few hours into an investigation, we also risk the possibility of sending our perpetrator underground.”
“Think of it as a tornado, Chief,” Gino persisted. “It’s a watch, not a warning. We don’t know if the tornado is on the ground yet, but there’s a possibility one may be forming. No cause for panic when it’s only a watch, just be prepared. So get the cows in the barn and the flashlight in the basement and don’t take any chances until the system passes.”
Malcherson rubbed his forehead. “I’ll make a statement.”
“Great,” Gino said after they’d left the chief’s office. “I can hear the script now. ‘Detectives Magozzi and Rolseth have yet to come up with a person of interest, so, ladies, be careful in the parks, because we’ve got a serial killer who likes to carve up his victims with a KA-BAR after he strangles them.’”
“I think he’ll be a little more subtle than that.”
TEN
Detective Johnny McLaren sat at his desk with his chin in his hand, grinning like an idiot across the aisle to where Gloria had commandeered Magozzi’s desk as if she owned it. Actually, she owned any space she occupied, always had, and everybody in Homicide was glad to have her back, manning the check-in desk and running the day-to-day show with military precision.
They were the only two in the office at the moment, and as far as McLaren was concerned, that constituted a date. “Don’t get me wrong, Gloria. I believe in marriage with all my heart, but if that doesn’t work for your misguided feminist views, I’m perfectly okay with just having sex and a few children.”
Gloria gave him a haughty look and wadded up the waxed paper that contained not a single remaining crumb of the massive sandwich she’d just put away. “You know, honey, they have medications that help with psychotic breaks with reality. You ought to look into it.”
McLaren’s grin got bigger. “I get it. You’re in denial. That’s probably why you took a year off to go to law school. I was becoming irresistible, and you were afraid you couldn’t trust yourself around me anymore. My theory is you quit school because you realized you couldn’t live without me. The ebony-and-ivory thing can work out, you know.”
Gloria stood up and stomped a few feet to tower over McLaren’s desk, her five-foot-seven frame augmented by three-inch heels the same blaze orange as her silk caftan. Her beaded cornrows danced as she bent over and got in his face. “Some theory. I quit because lawyers are all boring scumbags. And what would I do with a pasty little white pencil of a man like you, anyhow?”
“Anything you want.”
“Trust me, you wouldn’t survive the night, munchkin. And what the hell happened to your face? It’s redder than your hair.”
McLaren touched a flaming cheek and winced. “I went golfing with Willy Staples. The sunscreen didn’t work.”
Gloria cocked her head and narrowed her kohl-lined Cleopatra eyes. “The rich guy who owns all the shopping malls?”
“Yeah. He picked me up in his Bentley.”
Gloria put a hand on an impressively proportioned hip. “Well, my oh my, aren’t you all that, rubbing elbows with the swells. What business you got with him?”
“He’s working on a franchise deal in Russia, and I’m the only translator he trusts because I’m not Russian. Plus, I work cheap on the weekends, as long as there’s some poker or golf involved.”
Gloria regarded the little twerp with grudging admiration. Everybody in the department knew McLaren had one of those spooky photographic memories and a special aptitude for language, as unlikely as it seemed in such a wimpy, innocuous little vessel. “You speak Russian now?”
McLaren clucked his tongue. “See what you miss out on when you take a leave of absence? I aced it last year while you were figuring out that lawyers are all boring scumbags.”<
br />
She rolled her eyes to the ceiling. “What on God’s green earth possessed you to learn Russian?”
“Hey, we’re essentially still in a Cold War with them, figured it might come in handy someday. Plus, I was thinking Russian oligarch might be a great second career for me.”
They both looked up when Magozzi and Gino came plodding in with suit coats slung over their shoulders. Their button-downs were limp, and there wasn’t a tie in sight.
Gloria folded her arms across her bosom, clear disapproval in her face. “There is a dress code here, you know.”
Gino made a failed attempt at a smile. “It’s good to have you back, Gloria. I didn’t catch shit the whole time you were gone, and it made me feel empty inside.”
“Well, I guess I’ll give you a pass this time, with the heat and humidity and all.”
“Bad scene?” McLaren asked.
“Bad scene, worse notification,” Gino muttered.
McLaren’s rusty brows peaked on his sunburned forehead, blending in as he looked from Magozzi to Gino. “Oh yeah? What’s up?”
Magozzi sank into his desk chair. “We think we have another Megan Lynn.”
McLaren’s face froze and his thin shoulders collapsed, like somebody had just pulled a plug on him. “Jesus Christ, no.”
“Yeah.” He looked at Gloria, who could keep her mouth shut tighter than a bear trap when it was required. She wasn’t a cop, but she engendered more trust in Homicide than almost anybody else in the department and probably held a lot more secrets than all of them put together. She also knew when to make a graceful exit. Not that she wouldn’t nose around later and read every single piece of paper that came in, which was fine by Magozzi.
Gloria gave a stern look of determination in the general direction of her front-desk domain. “Well, I hate to leave this party early, but I’ve got a few slackers I need to beat up and set straight.” She sashayed away, throwing back an admonition to Gino and Magozzi to drink some water.
