Nothing Stays Buried

by P. J. Tracy

  Gino finally stirred to life when his new phone groaned a faux foghorn from his pocket.

  “Seriously, Gino? A foghorn? That’s annoying.”

  “Wasn’t supposed to be a foghorn, it was supposed to be a steam whistle.”

  “How is that any less annoying?”

  Gino gave him a sour look, then passed the look down to his phone’s screen. “It’s McLaren. He sent a text . . . and a picture.”

  “Yeah? Of what?”

  Gino fiddled for a few moments, navigating his new interface with chubby fingers. “Two Siamese kittens in a basket full of yarn. Oh, man, and here’s the caption—‘SUPER CUTE!’ All caps, by the way. Exclamation point. ‘Snowball and Snowflake want U at HQ ASAP! NEWS!’” He snuffled and pocketed his phone. “Jesus, that guy is totally unhinged.”

  Magozzi turned onto Fifth and headed toward City Hall. “Never figured McLaren for a cat guy.”

  “Are you kidding me? The guy’s nuts for animals. He’d take in a Komodo dragon, then slap reindeer antlers on it and take a family portrait for his Christmas card. . . . Aw, shit. Look at that.”

  As they closed in on City Hall, they saw satellite vans gobbling up every spare parking spot within a three-block radius, which made sense. What didn’t make sense was that there were no reporters, no camera operators anywhere. Not outside, on the nearly empty front steps, and not inside, where the hallways echoed. If anything, they should have at least been ambushed by the guerrilla warfare specialist Amanda White.

  “Where the hell is everybody?” Gino asked. “I mean, I’m not complaining, but this is weird.”

  “Alien abduction, I hope.”

  As they trudged toward the office with the verve of a couple of three-toed sloths, McLaren caught up with them in the hallway and paced them to their desks. “Hey, guys, did you catch some sleep?”

  “Probably more than you,” Gino said, transfixed by the sight of McLaren’s paisley tie. It had swirls of lavender and green on a beige background, the kind of pattern that could trigger a seizure. “How did it go last night after we left?”

  “Pretty good, actually. The FBI forensics dudes were straight up, not arrogant pricks like some of their colleagues in suits.”

  “So nobody messed with you.”

  “Nobody messes with anybody partnered up with Eaton, he’s scary-looking as hell. Come on, get your butts in your chairs and let me tell you a little breaking news.”

  Gino rubbed his hands together and eagerly obeyed the command to sit down. “Anytime, McLaren.”

  “Okay. As of half an hour ago, the Feds and the DEA are crawling all over Global Foods, the media’s not even there yet. The owner got dragged out in cuffs, and the FBI is pulling out box after box of stuff. There are a couple other raids going on across the city, too. Drugs.”

  Gino looked truly alert for the first time in three days. “No wonder the Feds didn’t want us poking around at Global Foods and spooking anybody. They were on the eve of a bust.”

  “I called my inside guy, who told me the Feds think Global Foods was a storefront for one of the Mexican cartels—kind of a distribution center. Product came in on trucks carrying legitimate produce from south of the border. There have been undercover agents and surveillance in and around the place for the better part of a year. Our vic last night was an FBI agent, just like we figured, a plant inside the store. He thinks she got burned and somebody pulled the kill switch on her.”

  “If this lady was a target and not a pleasure kill, that would explain all the anomalies at the crime scene last night,” Gino said. “But it doesn’t explain why there was a card at the scene, unless our serial killer has a day job as a hit man.”

  Magozzi tried to ignore the exhaustion spots that were floating behind his eyes. “The first guy I’d look at is the owner of the store, and he happens to be in jail right now.”

  “Oh, man, wouldn’t that be something if our serial was already in the can?”

  Gino ran his hands through his blond buzz cut like he wanted to tear it out follicle by follicle. “The Feds probably have him in a meat grinder right now—they lost one of their own and they’re not going to show any mercy. But we never get that lucky. Besides, the owner of a big store like that, running drugs for the cartels on the side, he’s a busy guy. I don’t see him spending his nonexistent free time hanging out in parks all night, waiting for brunettes to jog by so he can kill them.”

  McLaren conceded with a nod. “Yeah, I don’t like it, either. And when you think about it, the card is the only thing that connects last night’s scene to our others, and that’s pretty thin without any other supporting evidence. I don’t know—maybe we should revisit the idea of the card detail getting leaked. Somebody tried to cover a hit by framing a serial killer.”

  Magozzi forlornly swirled his nearly empty coffee mug, regarding it as a barfly might regard his drained shot glass after last call. “Maybe the card did get leaked. It happens, especially with the media getting so damned nosy and aggressive. Speaking of the media, Gino and I saw all the news vans when we came in, but this place is like a crypt. Where the hell is everybody?”

  McLaren sucked in his cheeks and regarded his chewed-down fingernails. “Somebody very brilliant and good-looking corralled them into the press room to wait for a statement from Malcherson.”

  “Malcherson’s going to make a statement?” Magozzi asked.

  McLaren just shrugged. “I’m sure he will eventually. Tomorrow, maybe the next day.”

  Gino snorted. “Does that somebody know the air-conditioning ducts in the press room have been off-line for a week?”

  “No kidding? God, it must be hot in there.” Johnny looked up and waved when Eaton Freedman strolled into Homicide, carrying a manila folder and a sixteen-ounce bottle of Mountain Dew. He sank down into a metal folding chair next to Gino’s desk that was at least five times too small to accommodate his frame, loosened his tie, and mopped the sheen off his dark brow with a handkerchief. “This heat’s gotta break pretty soon.”

  “I sure as hell hope so.” Magozzi cocked a brow at the Mountain Dew. “There was a dark and medieval time not so long ago when you couldn’t buy one of those in New York City.”

  Freedman took a swig and wiped his mouth. “Sorrowful thing when a mayor thinks his people are too stupid to do the math and buy two eight-ounce bottles instead.”

  “What’s in the envelope?”

  Freedman patted it. “This very slim envelope contains what the FBI is releasing to us for now, but don’t get all excited. It’s mainly an inventory of trace found at the scene last night—the usual crap you’d expect to find in a city parking lot. I’ll start slogging through it, see if anything compares from our lists of trace. Idle hands are the devil’s workshop. You with me, partner?” he asked Johnny.

  “Give me ten. I’m going to needle my Fed connection and see if there’s any news on the real investigation going on behind our backs.”

  After Freedman and McLaren went back to their desks, Gino pulled out a thermos from his satchel and poured hot coffee into Magozzi’s mug, then topped off his own. “Smells weird, but it tastes good. Angela’s on these flavored coffees lately. I don’t know why people want to put shit like vanilla and hazelnuts into coffee, but who the hell cares if it’s got the same amount of caffeine?”

  “Right now, I don’t care. Thanks.” Magozzi started jotting down notes while he sipped the highly perfumed coffee. It wasn’t half-bad.

  “What are you writing?”

  “Some thoughts. This cartel thing at Global Foods is itching me.”

  “What about it?”

  “The missing persons case Monkeewrench is working on. Grace told me there was blood at the scene that CODIS matched to a gangbanger with a cartel association.”

  Gino shrugged. “Yeah? The cartels are everywhere, Global Foods is a perfect case in point. Beside
s, any given homicide or violent crime, there’s at least a fifty-fifty chance gangs and drugs are involved. Actually, it’s probably more like eighty-twenty.”

  “But we’re talking two different criminal cases where cartel involvement is front and center, and that’s unusual. They usually stay deep in the shadows with the other cockroaches and let local gangs do their dirty work for them. I don’t like it.”

  “You’ve got a point there. What do you know about Monkeewrench’s case?”

  “Not much. Just the basics.”

  “Well, it’s a place to go, and I’m all for following gut instinct. We’d never solve a case without it. Plus, it’s better than sitting here dieseling, which is what we’ve been doing for the past couple days.”

  “I’ll call Grace. Check in with Lon Cather, give him a heads-up on the Global Foods situation.”

  THIRTY-TWO

  Magozzi dialed Grace’s cell phone before he tried the satellite phone, just in case whatever rural place Monkeewrench was situated in had a cell tower nearby. Apparently it did, because she answered on the second ring.

  “Magozzi.”

  “Hi, Grace, how are you?”

  “Pregnant.”

  Magozzi’s mouth crooked in a smile. Grace had always possessed a light side, but it remained mostly obscured by the penumbra of her dark past. But pregnancy seemed to have lifted some of the shadow. “You’re kidding? How the hell did that happen?”

  He heard Grace snuffle, which was about as close as she ever got to a chuckle. “I don’t know, I didn’t pay attention in biology class. Listen, Magozzi, the Beast isn’t kicking out anything on your serial yet and we’re having the same bad luck with our missing persons case. Tell me you’re doing better.”

  “I wish I could, but we have another body. Six of spades.”

  Magozzi heard a soft sigh on the other end of the line before Grace whispered, “Oh, no. Tell me about it.”

  Magozzi took a breath, pausing a moment to think about how odd this conversation was. How many other lovers and prospective parents chatted about bodies and serial killers? Shouldn’t they be discussing plushy toys and whether or not the kid should be baptized? “First, give me some good news, tell me about your ever-expanding waistline and the current disposition of our child. Still kicking?”

  “Fighting all the time.”

  “Taking after you?”

  “Don’t diminish your fifty percent contribution to the gene pool. So tell me.”

  Magozzi was still smiling, which seemed absolutely inappropriate given the information he was about to deliver, but when had life ever been anything but a sketch in light and dark? Suffer the dark, go to the light whenever it’s there. “Our latest victim was a checkout clerk at Global Foods—or so we thought—but it turns out she was undercover FBI working with the DEA on a cartel drug sting.”

  “You’re kidding me,” Grace interrupted. “I shop there all the time.”

  “Not anymore. Apparently, Global Foods was a distribution center, so the place is shut down and the Feds mostly locked us out. We’re working tandem, but they’re only sending us bits and pieces at this point.”

  “Pass on whatever you have and we’ll add it to our search.”

  “I’ll have a package coming your way soon. But we’re not sure it’s our serial. There are a lot of discrepancies in the MO.”

  “Copycat?”

  “Maybe. You said you had some blood at your scene that CODIS traced to a gangbanger with a cartel association, right?”

  “Right. His name is Diego Sanchez. The last time he was on the radar anywhere before his blood turned up at our scene was three years ago, in Laredo, Texas. He was arrested on multiple drug charges and eventually got deported for the fourth time.”

  “He obviously made a fifth return trip to the States. Do you think he’s your perp?”

  “The locals don’t think so and neither do we. There was a lot of Sanchez’s blood at the immediate scene on the road where our missing person’s car was found—her name is Marla, by the way, Marla Gustafson—but dogs tracked Marla into the woods, and there was no blood trail. No blood at all.” She paused for a moment. “Are you trying to pull this all together?”

  “We’re just covering every angle.”

  “We can merge our searches if you want.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Link up your search with ours and route everything to the Beast. It might slow everything down a little, but if you think there might be a payoff, then it’s worth it.”

  “We’d appreciate it. Thank you.” Magozzi’s peripheral vision caught Gino’s flailing arms as he tried to get his attention. “Grace, I have to go, Gino wants to play charades.”

  “Good luck, Magozzi. We’ll be in touch.”

  Magozzi hung up. “Windmill.”

  Gino dropped his arms. “You can be one snide and annoying son of a bitch when you’re tired, you know that? I’ve got Jimmy Grimm on the line.” He put his phone on speaker. “JG, my man. Tell me you’ve got some love for us.”

  “I’ve got all kinds of love for you. Are the Feds playing nice?”

  “Oh, yeah. They shut us out of last night’s crime scene and they’re spoon-feeding us bullshit lists of trace like we’re colicky babies. Other than that, we’re working together really well.”

  Jimmy snorted. “Figured. They’re busting everybody’s rump. Listen, I just sent you some lab results on that blood from the thornbush at Charlotte Wells’s crime scene, pull it up. Turns out it matched some fresh blood we sampled from Katya Smirnova’s scene in Phalen Park. Still doesn’t mean the blood belongs to your doer, but I’d say the odds just got a hell of a lot better.”

  Magozzi let out a disappointed sigh. “But that blood didn’t get a hit on any database.”

  “Right. Whoever bled in the dog park and Phalen isn’t in the system. But his father is.”

  Gino was staring at his computer screen. “You’ve got to be shitting me. Jimmy, I’m looking at what you sent right now. It’s alphanumeric soup.”

  “DNA results. I called in a favor and bumped you to the front of the line to get a more detailed analysis, and bingo—they came up with a matching DNA sample from a knifing eighteen years ago. Long story short, the Y chromosome tests peg your blood from the dog park and Saint Paul’s from Phalen as belonging to that perp’s son.”

  Magozzi rubbed his forehead, his mind riding a manic Tilt-A-Whirl. “Are they sure?”

  “Genes don’t lie. If you can get a bead on the father and figure out who the son is, maybe you’ve got your man. Of course, there’s no telling how many sons this guy has, but at least it’s a starting point. Good luck. Call if you need anything else.”

  Gino hung up and jumped back on his computer. “This could be a break, Leo. We’ve got some flesh to gnaw on now.”

  Magozzi pulled his chair up next to Gino’s desk. “Do you have to use food-related metaphors when you talk about gruesome homicide cases?”

  “Everything in my life revolves around food, I can’t help it. Okay, here we go. Ernesto Cruz. That’s our bad daddy, and I’m running his case number right now. It’s going to be a couple minutes, so tell me what Grace said.”

  “She’s merging our search with theirs in case there’s some connection.”

  “What about the blood on the road?”

  “Belongs to a guy named Diego Sanchez. Career criminal with a rap sheet longer than the tax code. He got deported after a drug bust in Laredo three years ago.”

  Gino ruminated for a moment, slurping his vanilla almond coffee. “But he’s not our guy, otherwise CODIS would have lit up like Times Square on New Year’s Eve.”

  “Did you reach Cather?”

  “Yeah, I brought him up to speed and forwarded everything new we have. He’s still working the casino angle.”

  Magozzi tappe
d Gino’s computer screen. “Here we go, Ernesto Cruz’s case file is loaded. Let’s find out who this guy is.”

  THIRTY-THREE

  Sheriff Jacob Emmet was sitting on the bed where his father had spent most of his last year on this earth, eating canned fruit cocktail and Jell-O and little else while his mind and body slowly faded to black. He’d moved Pop down here to his own childhood bedroom, the only one on the main floor, once the stairs had become untenable for him. Six months later, when things had gotten really bad, he’d moved him into hospice care, where he died a week later.

  He smoothed the old coverlet, worn and frayed, then laid his head back on a pillow, remembering the many stages of youth here. There had once been posters of Michael Jordan and Brett Favre plastering the walls, along with a few supermodels whose names he’d already forgotten.

  He’d received some very harsh reprimands here from Sheriff Elijah Emmet back in the day, when he’d been a hormone-drunk, frisky high school football and basketball star, a little too fond of drinking cheap beer and wooing the girls in to see his room.

  Marla had been the one girl who’d never given in to his clumsy advances, hard as he’d tried to convince her otherwise. And Jacob had taken that as a good omen—she was a gem, a real keeper, and he’d always seen his future eventually coinciding with hers, up until the day he first investigated her disappearance two months ago.

  Good times and bad. In the same room. In the same house. He’d blown it with Marla in high school, he’d blown it with Marla later, when she was in college and he was at the police academy and their lives never seemed to sync in a way where a real relationship could form. But now he’d really blown it. She was dead, he felt it in his gut. The only thing he could do for Marla now was to find out what had happened to her, and he prayed that Monkeewrench could make that happen.

  He jumped when his phone rang, as if to remind him that indulging in self-pity was unbecoming of an officer and a gentleman. “Sheriff Emmet.”