Live Bait

32

It was almost two o’clock by the time Gino and Magozzi pulled to the curb in front of Grace MacBride’s house. The thermometer in the car – which ironically worked perfectly when the air conditioner wouldn’t at all – read eighty-seven degrees. The air was breathlessly still and thick, and Gino’s forehead was dripping as they walked from the car to the house.

‘Man, you almost gotta do the breaststroke to get through this stuff. I feel like Frosty the Snowman when he got locked in the greenhouse with all the poinsettias.’

Charlie was all over Gino when Grace opened the front door. He didn’t just jump up and lick his face; he whined while he was doing it, licking so hard that he nearly pushed Gino off the steps.

Magozzi folded his arms across his chest and watched the annoying display. Damn dog was making a fool of himself, the stub of his ravaged tail wagging so hard he couldn’t keep both hind feet on the ground at once.

‘Charlie, Charlie, my man.’ Gino was laughing, hugging the stupid dog as if he were a person.

Grace was standing in the open doorway, hair pulled back into a ponytail, wearing the ubiquitous black T-shirt and jeans. The derringer was snug in its ankle holster, and she wore a smudge of flour on a sour expression. ‘Charlie, get in here.’

Charlie wasn’t moving, so Gino picked him up and carried him inside.

‘That was pretty disgusting,’ Magozzi said.

‘Bite your tongue. That was pure, furry adoration. This dog loves me to death.’

‘That’s always bothered me,’ Grace said irritably, closing the door, resetting the security system.

‘You think it bothers you?’ Magozzi tried not to look wounded. ‘Took weeks before that dog came out from hiding to meet me at the door. First time Gino ever showed up here he damn near knocked him down.’

‘I got doggie pheromones,’ Gino said.

Charlie was pressing against Magozzi’s leg now, trying to apologize. ‘Slut,’ Magozzi grumbled down at him, managing to resist for almost a full second before dropping to one knee and settling happily for second best.

Grace was standing with her hands on her hips, shaking her head. ‘What is it with men and dogs?’

‘Similar morals?’ asked Gino, earning a very small smile before Grace reverted to business mode, holding out her hand to Magozzi.

‘Did you bring Arlen Fischer’s pictures?’

‘Right here.’ Magozzi got to his feet and handed her a thin file. ‘Crime-scene photo from the tracks and a morgue shot.’

Grace opened the folder and took a quick look. ‘These should work, but you realize it’s still a long shot. Even if Arlen Fischer was a Nazi, there might not be any photo-documentation on the Web. There aren’t a lot of photos of the low-level camp guards, for instance, because those weren’t the big guns the war crimes people were looking for. If he was an officer, we’ve got a chance.’

Magozzi handed her another file. ‘I brought the photos of the overseas victims that Interpol faxed over, but the quality sucks. They were photocopies in the first place, and you said you wanted originals.’

Grace glanced at them and wrinkled her nose. Magozzi thought it was about the cutest thing he’d ever seen happen to a human face. ‘We’ll start with Fischer then, and if we don’t get any hits, I can try the photocopies. It’s a slow program. I’ll get it started.’

They followed her up to the doorway of her office, but didn’t go in. Charlie and Magozzi had seen her roll her chair at high speed from one end to the other when she was working more than one computer, and knew better than to get underfoot. Gino avoided small rooms with computers as a matter of course, convinced they emitted some kind of radiation that might have a deleterious effect on cherished body parts.

Grace settled in front of a large computer Gino thought looked particularly dangerous, and proceeded to do confusing things with a mouse, which he could identify; and with another machine, which he couldn’t. ‘What is that? Looks like a teeny-weeny mangle.’

‘What on earth is a mangle?’ Grace asked without looking up.

‘You know. One of those ironing machines. You stick wrinkled clothes in one end and they come out the other all pressed and flat. Sheets and tablecloths and stuff. It’s kind of cool, actually.’

‘That’s a scanner, Gino,’ Magozzi informed him.

‘What’s a scanner?’

Grace snapped them a look. ‘You two want to know what I’m doing or not?’

‘Absolutely,’ Gino said.

‘I just scanned Arlen Fischer’s photograph into the new face-recognition program I’m working on.’

‘We’ve got one of those,’ Gino said, glancing at Magozzi. ‘Don’t we have one of those?’

‘I don’t think so.’

Grace rolled her eyes and kept typing. ‘If you had one, which you don’t, it would be the Flintstone version. Some of the facial-recognition programs out there draw on a single database – like the setups they’ve got at some of the airports. They’ve got one database with photos of known terrorists, criminals, and anybody else who’s red-flagged; the machine takes a digital photo of the guy walking through the security line, and checks it against all the photos in their database.’

Gino was pretty impressed. ‘I get it. The facial-recognition program is like a witness, and the database is like a mug book. It looks at all the pictures and picks out the bad guy.’

‘Exactly.’

‘Well that sounds simple enough.’

‘It would be, if there were a single database with a picture of every single Nazi in it, but there isn’t. What we’ve got is hundreds of individual Web sites with archive photos of some Nazis. So what we’re left with is entering each site one by one, pulling out each picture one by one, and entering those into the recognition software that runs comparisons with Arlen Fischer’s picture. You could spend your life on that kind of a search.’

Gino sighed. ‘I should have brought my pajamas.’

‘Not necessary, thank God,’ Grace said, her fingers busy. ‘Instead of pulling photo images off the Web and entering them individually into a recognition program, I put together a program that would go into the Web instead, and do the search that way. It’s still slow – I can only route it to about ten sites at a time – but it’s a hell of a lot faster than the old way. I’m going to run Fischer’s photo through the Nazi watch group sites first, because that’s our best chance to get an early hit – they’ve archived more photos of the period than any of the historical sites.’

Magozzi frowned. ‘Fischer would have been a lot younger then.’

‘Doesn’t matter. Skin sags, chins fall, people get fatter, thinner, have cosmetic surgery, whatever; but the bones remain essentially the same. The program focuses on thirty-five key structural points in the face. So even if you had your jaw and your cheekbones reconstructed, for instance, that still leaves twenty-some identifiers the program will jump on. It’s never wrong.’

‘Never?’

‘Not unless somebody put their head in a mangle and had the whole thing rebuilt.’

Gino smiled and elbowed Magozzi. ‘She’s quick.’

‘Like a bunny,’ Maggozi agreed.

‘It’s still pretty primitive,’ Grace conceded. ‘But eventually you’ll be able to slap a school photo of your fifth-grade sweetheart into a scanner, push a button, and if there’s a picture of her anywhere on the Web, the program will find it.’

Grace rolled down to another computer and held out her hand. ‘Give me the stats on the overseas victims. I’ll start the standard search program on them while we wait.’

Gino’s stomach made a noise that sounded like a large volcanic eruption. ‘I’ll give you my first-born son for a cracker.’

Grace raised an eyebrow. ‘The Accident?’

Gino frowned and thought a minute. ‘I’ll give you a picture of my first-born son for a cracker.’

Grace shooed them away with a wave. ‘Give me five minutes alone to work this, and I’ll get you a cracker. Go sit in the dining room.’

Gino, Magozzi, and Charlie took their seats at the dining room table while Grace finished up in the office.

Gino kept eyeing the dog in the chair at the head of the table. ‘Jeez, he really does sit in chairs like a person. That’s kinda creepy.’

Charlie turned his head to look at him.

‘Shit. Does that dog understand English?’

‘Hell, why not? McLaren understands French.’

Gino’s stomach let out another rumbling protest. He leaned sideways to peer through the archway to the kitchen. ‘Maybe I could just go in there and rummage around until I found a crust of bread of something.’

‘The cupboards are all booby-trapped.’

‘Oh.’

Magozzi rolled his eyes. ‘Kidding, Gino.’

‘Well, I believed it. She’s still got the house locked up tighter than a drum.’

‘A lot of people have home security.’

‘Most of them don’t run around in their own house with a gun strapped to their ankle.’

‘She’s getting better, Gino.’

‘You keep saying that, but personally, I don’t see it.’

‘She bought me a chair.’

Gino arched a brow. ‘You mean for here? Your very own chair?’ He looked over his shoulder into the living room. ‘Where is it?’

‘Outside.’

‘And that doesn’t tell you something?’

‘You don’t understand.’

Grace came from the hall into the kitchen then and started making little domestic noises. A minute later she walked into the dining room balancing four plates. Three held mounds of glistening greenery topped with large, snowy chunks of lobster. The fourth held kibble buried under some kind of chunky gravy that smelled like the greatest hotdish ever made.

Gino looked pointedly at that one. ‘Smells terrific,’ he said, saddened a little when she set it in front of Charlie. ‘But jeez, Grace, this is some cracker.’

‘I figured you hadn’t had a chance for lunch with all that was going on today. We might as well eat while we’re waiting for the program to kick out something.’

Gino looked down at the generous pile of lobster on his plate and almost wept. ‘This is the nicest goddamned thing…’ was all he managed to get out before his fork found his mouth. When he was finished, he patted the corners of his mouth with a napkin. ‘Grace MacBride, I will tell you this. Aside from Angela’s marinara, this is, without a doubt, the best food I have ever eaten in my life.’

‘Thank you, Gino.’

‘And I like the way you decorated the plates with all this green stuff, too.’

‘That’s not decoration. You’re supposed to eat that.’

‘No kidding.’ Gino prodded warily at the greenery. ‘So what are these little round things that look like worms?’

‘Eat one.’ Grace pointed with her fork. ‘Then I’ll tell you.’

Gino sorted through the meadow on his plate, finally stabbed one of the scary little green coils, and eased it carefully into his mouth. He chewed tentatively a couple of times, then scooped up another forkful. The real measure of Gino’s eating pleasure was taken by the number of times he chewed. Steak got three chews, pasta got two, dessert got one, but this time Magozzi could have sworn he swallowed it whole. ‘Man, this stuff rocks.’

Grace looked on in satisfaction; Magozzi looked almost alarmed. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen you eat anything green before. Am I going to find a pod in the car?’

Gino looked offended. ‘I eat green stuff sometimes.’

‘Like what?’

‘Lime popsicles.’ He grinned at Grace. ‘Okay. What is this stuff, ’cause I gotta get some.’

‘Fiddlehead ferns in a champagne vinaigrette with Comte cheese.’

Gino nodded. ‘That explains it. I’d eat Leo’s shoes if you poured champagne on them. There is no culinary road I won’t travel.’ He pushed away from the table and laced his hands over his protruding stomach, looking at Grace. ‘You are going to make some lucky man a wonderful wife someday.’

Grace stared at him for a second. ‘That is the most sexist thing I ever heard anyone say. You do know I’m armed, right?’

Gino grinned. ‘That was just my little attention-getting intro.’

‘Okay. You’ve got my attention. Intro to what?’

‘Well, I’ve just been wondering what your intentions are.’

Grace’s blue eyes widened a little, which made a startling change in a face so normally devoid of expression. ‘Excuse me?’

‘Toward my buddy here. I’d like to hear your intentions. And you see? I’m not sexist at all. Usually you ask the guy that question.’

Magozzi dropped his head in his hands. ‘Oh, for God’s sake.’

Grace’s eyes went back to their normal size. Gino had done the near-impossible by catching her off guard, but she recovered quickly. ‘And that would be your business because…?’

‘Because he’s my partner and my best friend, and partners and friends look out for each other, and because you two have been seeing each other for damn near half a year and I’m guessing neither one of you ever brought up the subject of where this thing is going, or whether you’ll ever get there.’

Magozzi looked up, embarrassed and angry. ‘Jesus, Gino, shut up.’

‘I’m doing you a favor here, Leo. You’d do the same for me.’

‘Not in million years.’

A faint chime sounded from the office. Grace was still staring at Gino with that flat, emotionless expression that had bothered him the first time he’d met her. He couldn’t read her at all, and it made him wary. When the chime sounded again, she got up from her chair. ‘I’m going to get that. There’s dessert and coffee in the kitchen, Magozzi. Bring it in, would you? Feel free to dump it on Gino’s head.’

A few minutes later Gino had forgotten the mysteries of Grace MacBride as he gazed happily at a layer cake with a gleaming shell of chocolate. ‘Jesus, Magozzi, cut the damn thing. I’m dying here.’

‘You’re lucky I didn’t dump it on your head. What the hell was that all about?’

‘That was about me, taking care of you.’

‘Well, stop it. Grace is right. It’s none of your business.’

‘Well, that’s about the dumbest thing you ever said.’

Now Magozzi was staring at him, and Gino didn’t have a bit of trouble reading his expression. He raised his hands in surrender. ‘All right, all right, maybe I went a little too far. I apologize. I want to make up. Let’s cut the cake and toast our reconciliation with chocolate.’

Grace walked in and tossed a printout on Gino’s cake plate, intentionally, he was sure. ‘We have a couple of hits, the first on one of the Interpol victims. Charles Swift, retired mason murdered in Paris during one of the trips your victims made together. His real name was Charles Franck.’ She pointed to a place halfway down the page. ‘Convicted at Nuremberg; served fifteen years for war crimes.’

Gino and Magozzi were silent as they read the pertinent paragraph a few times, letting it sink in.

‘Anything on the others?’ Magozzi finally asked.

Grace shook her head. ‘This one had been caught. He was in the system, so when he changed his name after he served his time, he had to do it legally, which made the records easy to find. If the others were Nazis, too, they were probably under pretty tight cover.’

Gino sucked in air through the side of his mouth. ‘I told Langer if the Feebs wanted this case they had something he didn’t. What do you bet it was the goods on this Swift character. Really nice work, Grace.’

‘Don’t try to make up with me, Gino.’ She placed another printout on the table, this one with an old black-and-white photograph of several men wearing the unmistakable garb of the S.S. Grace had circled one of the faces. ‘That’s Heinrich Verlag, bad boy at Auschwitz, a.k.a. Arlen Fischer, sixty years and a hundred and fifty pounds ago.’

Magozzi looked down at the picture. The pieces were finally coming together. ‘Morey Gilbert was at Auschwitz. So was Ben Schuler.’

It was the confirmation they had been hoping for and dreading, all at the same time, and Grace saw the conflict in their faces. ‘I will never understand cops,’ she complained. ‘You come here looking for information, I give you exactly what you ask for, and now you’re depressed. Your old people were Nazi killers. That’s what you thought, wasn’t it?’

Gino nodded, his face glum. ‘Yeah, that’s what we thought. But we were kind of hoping they didn’t kill anybody. That we had this nice, normal psycho serial killer bumping them off instead.’

Magozzi’s mouth turned down in unhappy resignation. ‘These were nice people, Grace. Ben Schuler was a lonely old man who passed out ten-dollar bills to inner-city kids on Halloween. You should hear his neighbors talk about him. Rose Kleber was this sweet little old grandmother who loved her family, a cat, and her garden. And Morey Gilbert did more good for other people in a day than I’ll ever do in a lifetime. We prove they were cold-blooded killers, and all that is gone.’

Grace’s sigh was irritated. ‘You know as well as I do that people are not always what they seem, Magozzi. Besides, they weren’t killing innocents. The Nazis were the bad guys.’

It startled him a little, the way she said that – flat-out, pragmatic, a casual justification for vigilantism. It threw a light on the great differences between them, and Magozzi could almost feel his heart squinting at the sight. ‘You know the worst thing about bad people, Grace? It’s what they make good people do.’

A little later, when they were leaving, Grace touched Gino’s arm at the door, holding him back as Magozzi started down the walk toward the car. ‘I’m trying, Gino,’ she said very quietly, following Magozzi with her eyes.

Gino wasn’t a hundred percent sure he knew what she meant, exactly, but when she looked up at him, he got a glimpse of what Magozzi saw – this haunted little excellent woman treading water as fast as she could, and it made him very sad.

Langer called Gino’s cell when they got in the car. ‘We’ve got something from the Schuler house.’