Live Bait

41

Magozzi rose slowly out of his crouch in the doorway, gun still steady in his hands, pointed at the motionless body of Jeff Montgomery. His eyes darted around the room, taking snapshots: Montgomery off to his left, his chest a ruin; Marty Pullman straight ahead, flat on his back but his eyes still open, even as his shirt turned red; Jack Gilbert vaulting from the sofa to drop to his knees beside Marty. Desk, computer, chair, an empty bottle on its side, dribbling liquid onto the floor.

He allowed himself to breathe then, and let the wind push him into the little office that smelled like booze and cordite and blood. He toed Montgomery’s gun away from the boy’s curled hand, then felt the heavy comfort of Gino’s hand on his shoulder, easing him off to one side. ‘Let me by, buddy. Just let me by.’

Magozzi’s legs trembled beneath him as the adrenaline drained away. He watched Gino bend to press his fingers against Montgomery’s neck, and then rise again, saying, ‘He’s done.’

By the time they took the three steps over to where Marty lay, there were half a dozen cops outside in the rain, flanking the doorway, weapons drawn. ‘Clear?’ one of them hollered in.

‘Clear! We need a bus here right now!’ Gino answered.

‘On its way!’

Jack was ripping open Marty’s shirt, then peeling off his own to press it hard against the wound. Marty grunted and his eyes creased in pain.

‘Christ, Jack, are you trying to kill me?’

‘It doesn’t look so bad, Marty. You’re going to be okay. Just a little hole, we got it under control now, but you bled all over your shirt, you stupid asshole. Do you know how hard it is to get blood out of linen?’

Marty closed his eyes and smiled a little, but he looked bad.

‘Let me take that for you, Jack.’ Magozzi laid his hand over Jack’s, waited for him to pull his away, then put some weight on the polo shirt compress, but not too much. He knew damn well that Marty wasn’t bleeding much on the outside because he was bleeding on the inside, and that wasn’t good. He was breathing hard, lungs and heart fighting the pressure, and the blood that seeped into Jack’s polo shirt was bright red – arterial red.

‘Hey, Pullman,’ Gino was up by his head, kneeling in close. ‘Open your eyes, buddy. You think we’re going to write this report on our own, you’re out of your friggin’ mind.’

‘Gino,’ Marty whispered, but he didn’t open his eyes. ‘How bad?’

Gino swallowed hard, making sure his voice would come out light. ‘Are you kidding? You took a slug in the chest, you think that’s going to be a cakewalk? Way I figure, you’ll be flat on your back for about a month, pissing into a tin bowl. Why the hell did you let that asshole shoot you?’

‘He was shooting at me,’ Jack choked out, hands gripped so tightly together they were turning white, holding each other back so they wouldn’t touch Marty, wouldn’t hurt him. He was breathing fast, talking fast, blinking hard, trying to hold it together. ‘Goddamnit he was shooting at me and Marty jumped in the way. Stupid son of a bitch jumped right in front of a bullet and it’s my fault this is all my fault why the fuck did you do that Marty why do you always have to be the fucking hero…’

Marty’s hand shot out and grabbed Jack’s wrist and held on. He rolled his head, opened his eyes and looked at Jack. ‘I’m not a hero. I’m just like Morey, Jack. Remember that…’

‘That is such bullshit…’

Marty’s hand tightened on Jack’s wrist, and the effort cost him. It was getting harder for him to talk. ‘Just like Morey. Just like the rest of them. You gotta tell them. Tell Magozzi and Gino about Eddie Starr. Let them close it down.’ And then he smiled. ‘All this time, you were the only good guy, Jack. Better than any of us. You’re the hero.’

Jack laid his head down on Marty’s and started to cry.

Gino pushed himself up, scowling hard, then cleared his throat. ‘I’m going to check on that bus,’ he said, proud because his voice cracked only a little. When he turned to face the doorway, he saw a sea of blue uniforms standing a silent vigil just outside the door in the rain, faces hard, lips compressed, a few of them touching their eyes, pretending they weren’t. Lily Gilbert was pushing her way between them, a little old bulldozer with rain plastering her white hair against her head, running down her glasses, hammering her straight shoulders. The uniforms parted and let her pass. She walked over to where Marty lay and knelt beside Jack, giving not one glance to Jeff Montgomery’s body. Magozzi got up and backed away.

She had to get very close before Marty could see her. He was having trouble with his eyes, for some reason, and that seemed all wrong, since he’d been shot in the chest. ‘Is that you, Lily?’

‘Who else?’

‘I’m right here,’ she said, laying her old bony fingers on his forehead, feeling a deathly chill.

‘Jack has things to tell you,’ he whispered, his tongue moving to the side of his mouth, finding blood.

‘I know. I’ll listen. Be still now.’

‘A little late for that.’

Tears were streaming down Jack’s face, dripping from his chin to his bare chest, rolling down the swell of his silly little belly. ‘Shut up, Marty, goddamnit, shut up. You’re going to be okay. I swear to God you’re going to be okay…’

Marty’s eyes fell closed as he tried to speak, his chest lifting with the effort, then falling.

‘Jack,’ Lily said gently. ‘He’s not going to be okay. He’s dying. Let him say what he needs to.’

Marty’s smile was a sad grayish blue, but when he opened his eyes again, they were clear and focused and brimming. ‘God, I love you, Lily,’ he whispered. ‘I tried to make it right.’

She smiled down at him. ‘Always, you tried to make things right. That’s who you are. A good man. A good son, Martin,’ she whispered, and then watched his eyes close for the last time.

A few feet away, Magozzi turned his face to the wall, found a splinter of wood peeling up from the paneling, and stared at it hard. He could hear Jack sobbing, he could hear the sniffling of some of the officers near the door, he could hear Gino outside, screaming, ‘Where the fuck is that god-damned ambulance?,’ and over it all, he could hear the wind picking up again, the rain coming down harder, hammering the world.

Finally, he heard the sirens.

The med techs worked on Marty Pullman for a full ten minutes, doing all the horrible things they did to people they weren’t willing to lose, going through all the motions they knew were futile the minute they looked at him, because a cordon of officers and the family were standing around watching, and they all needed that. When they finally packed their gear, got up, and backed away, one of them wept, unashamed. He’d wrestled against Marty Pullman at the State tournament a million years ago, laughing when he lost, because trying to pin Marty’s monstrous shoulders had been like trying to hold down a gorilla.

Jack had moved far enough away to give the techs room to work, but no farther. The minute they left, he was back on his knees at Marty’s side, because he’d looked so sad, lying there all alone.

One by one, the officers at the door walked in and looked down at one of their own in silent homage, and then filed out and disappeared into the heavy rain. Without their bodies blocking the doorway, the rain blew in on Marty’s body, washing the blood from his chest.

Gino, Magozzi, and Lily were standing near the doorway, and somehow Lily’s hand had found its way into Magozzi’s. It felt tiny and fragile and sad. There would be a few moments of relative calm before the technicians bustled in to turn death into science. Too many moments for Jack Gilbert to sit over there all alone, Gino thought, trying to be grumpy because he didn’t like Jack Gilbert, nevertheless pushing himself away from the wall, walking over to stand next to him.

With the blood washed away, Gino saw the long, ragged scar on Marty’s quiet chest. ‘Jesus,’ he murmured. ‘How’d he get that scar?’

‘His father,’ Jack said, his voice as dead as the man next to him.

‘What?’

‘His father cut him when he was a kid.’

‘Christ.’ Gino closed his eyes briefly, thinking of all the history that makes up a man, that you never knew everything about anybody, and that there were monsters everywhere.

He turned his back when a particularly strong gust of wind blew a sheet of rain in through the doorway, making a sickly, smacking sound on Marty’s exposed skin. Gino’s thoughts shot back to the beginning of this awful case, to Lily Gilbert contaminating his precious crime scene by moving her dead husband’s body in out of the rain. When he glanced over at where she was standing next to Magozzi, she was looking at him through those thick glasses of hers, not crying, not saying anything, just looking.

Gino looked back down at the rain splatting against Marty’s face and understood a few things.

Magozzi raised an eyebrow when he saw Gino squat, slip his arms beneath Marty Pullman’s shoulders and knees, then lift the dead man and carry him gently over to the sofa, out of the rain.

When Gino turned around, Lily was still looking at him. She nodded once, then walked over to stand behind Jack. She placed her hands on his shuddering shoulders, bent to kiss the top of his head, and whispered, ‘Come, take care of your mother. Her heart is breaking.’

Chief Malcherson had shown up within half an hour of the shooting to take charge of the scene. He took statements from Magozzi and Gino, relieved Magozzi of his weapon, and initiated all the procedures required whenever an officer used deadly force. Technically, Magozzi was on admin leave until the board cleared the shooting of Jeff Montgomery – Gino would have to sign all the reports generated before the clearance – but Malcherson never once considered sending him home. For one thing, Magozzi would have defied him, which would have been messy and unacceptable – they would both have been forced into posturing positions that could only hurt the investigation; and for another, the Gilberts knew and trusted him, and if there was a key to closing this case, the Gilberts owned it. Sometimes you followed the rules to the letter, and sometimes you didn’t. He stayed on while Jimmy Grimm and his crew worked the scene, releasing Gino and Magozzi at ten o’clock so they could go talk to the Gilberts.

They followed the gravel path through the back planting beds to the house. Pieces of colorful quartz sparkled and winked in the beams of their flashlights, in spite of the heavy rain. At least the lightning had moved off to the east for the time being. There was another line of storms moving in from the west – according to Jimmy Grimm, the supercell that was dumping on Minnesota was going to keep them under the gun all night – but they had a lull before the next batch blew in.

Lily met them at the back door, wearing a dry pair of overalls and a short-sleeved shirt. Magozzi could see the wiry muscles in her skinny arms, and the tattoo down near her wrist. ‘Have you heard anything about Officer Becker?’ were the first words out of her mouth.

‘He’s going to make it,’ Gino said. ‘Montgomery didn’t shoot him. Just cracked him over the head.’

‘Where did they take him?’

‘Hennepin County, I think.’

‘He was a nice boy. I have to send flowers before you take us to jail.’

Gino and Magozzi exchanged a quick, puzzled glance. ‘We’re not here to take to you jail, Mrs Gilbert.’

‘Not yet, maybe. Come in. We’ve been waiting for you.’

She led them into the kitchen, where Jack was already at the table, dry and sober now, wearing an old-fashioned plaid robe that had to have been his father’s. The sleeves were rolled up several turns, reminding Magozzi that Morey Gilbert had been a very tall man. Jack’s eyes were red and his face was puffy. ‘How are you doing, Jack?’

‘Okay, I guess. Sit down, guys.’

‘This was a terrible night,’ Gino said. ‘We’re sorry about Marty. Really sorry. And we’re sorry we have to ask you these questions now.’

‘This is your job,’ Lily said, moving around the kitchen, getting dishes out of cupboards, filling glasses as if they were a couple of guests who’d dropped by for a snack. ‘Here. Eat this.’ She put a bowl of aromatic soup in front of each of them. ‘That’s chicken soup. It fixes a lot of things. Homemade, real schmaltz. The other stuff doesn’t work.’

Gino had no clue what schmaltz was, but it didn’t sound half as good as the soup smelled. He picked up his spoon, then hesitated. She thought they were going to take her to jail, and she was giving them soup. He wondered if eating it would constitute accepting a bribe.

‘Don’t fight it,’ Jack was watching him. ‘She knows why you’re here. We’ll tell you anything we can. But you still have to eat the soup.’

‘First,’ Lily added. ‘Then we talk.’

Magozzi ate his soup, but unlike Gino, he understood the offering for what it was. Lily Gilbert was finally letting them in.

When they’d finished, she cleared the dishes and sat down next to Jack. ‘Tell them about Brainerd.’

Magozzi got busy pulling out his notebook and pen, keeping his face averted in case the surprise showed. How the hell did Jack know about Brainerd? He knew the answer before he asked the question, and it sickened him. Jack had been up there at the fishing lodge with his father and the others. Jack had been in on it.

He felt the tension coming off Gino, knew he was thinking the same thing, but they both kept their silence, waiting to hear it out loud.

The real story was almost worse.

It took Jack a long time to tell them about Morey, Rose, and Ben shooting the old man in the fishing lodge, about the shadow he’d seen in the loft that day, and finally about his own refusal to participate.

Magozzi and Gino stopped writing and looked up at Jack simultaneously.

‘What?’ Jack asked.

‘Nothing, Jack. Go on.’

He told them about the ride home that day, the fight with his father, and everything that came after. ‘But I never connected Brainerd with Pop’s death at all,’ he finished. ‘Not until yesterday when Ben was killed and I saw Rose Kleber’s picture in the paper – I never knew her name until then. That’s when I realized what was happening, that whoever had been up in that loft saw what we did, and they were taking us out, one by one.’

‘What they did, Jack,’ Gino corrected him. ‘Not you.’

‘Whatever. I’ve got blood on my hands any way you look at it. If I’d told you sooner, maybe you could have figured it out in time to save Marty.’

Magozzi gave him the truth. ‘Maybe. But maybe not. Jeff covered himself pretty well.’

He’d thrown him a little bone, but it would never be enough, and Magozzi couldn’t offer any more. Half of him wanted to wring Jack’s neck, because he had to believe that with a little more lead time they might have been able to save Marty – but the other half of him bled for the guy. What would it be like to have a father who tried to turn you into a killer, then disowned you when you refused?

Jack got up and poured himself a cup of coffee. ‘There’s something else. Pop said they’d been doing this for years, that they’d killed a lot of Nazis. He said he kept a list on the computer, but I couldn’t find anything. He could have erased it.’

‘We’ll have someone come over and pick up the computer, take a look at it just in case,’ Magozzi said.

Jack shrugged. ‘It might not even be true.’

‘I’m afraid it is true,’ Magozzi said. ‘We just put that together this afternoon. Ben Schuler kept records of the ones they’d killed on the backs of some pictures he had in his house.’

Lily straightened slightly in her chair. ‘How many?’

‘Over sixty so far.’

She closed her eyes.

‘You had no idea what Morey was doing all those years?’

She took off her thick glasses, opened her eyes, and looked at him. It was the first time that Magozzi had seen her eyes without the barrier of the glasses. They were beautiful, he thought, and tragic.

‘This is what I knew. He started talking about this thing right after the war. Other people, little groups, were hunting these men down, killing them, and he thought this was just. A noble thing. I told him if he ever left our house to kill another human being, not to come back, and he never talked about it again.’

‘He took trips without you at least twice a year,’ Gino reminded her. ‘You didn’t think that was strange?’

‘You’re such a suspicious person, Detective Rolseth. Your wife goes away for the weekend with friends, do you think, aha, she’s out killing people? Morey and Ben went fishing every now and then. Was that so hard to believe? So anyway, that’s all I knew until the night Morey was shot. I thought he was in the greenhouse, like every night. But then he woke me up at about midnight and said he’d killed the Animal.’

‘An animal?’ Gino asked.

‘The Animal. It’s what we called him. He was S.S. at Auschwitz.’

‘Heinrich Verlag,’ Magozzi said. ‘Also known as Arlen Fischer.’

Jack’s jaw dropped open. ‘Fischer? The man who was tied to the railroad tracks? Are you telling me Pop did that? And then he told you about it?’

Lily nodded. ‘Verlag, I knew. Verlag, I had seen in action. Sixty years, I wished for that man’s death. So Morey wakes me up like a proud cat bringing home a dead mouse, maybe thinking I wouldn’t mind that he had killed this one. All those years, and he never knew me.’

‘You should have told me, Ma.’

‘You think I wanted my son to know his father was a murderer?’

‘But I already knew that.’

Lily gave him a sad little smile. ‘Now you tell me.’

Magozzi laid down his pen and rubbed his eyes. It was almost too much information to take in, and almost none of it looked good for either Jack or Lily.

‘We’re going to have to write all this up, turn it in,’ Gino said, echoing his thoughts.

Jack smiled a little. ‘Don’t look so glum, Detective. You’ve been trying to get me in a cell for two days, and now you’ve got your wish. I witnessed a murder, I didn’t report it, and I’ll sign a confession. It’s about time somebody in this family started taking responsibility for what they’ve done.’

Lily patted his hand.

‘Well don’t get your hopes up for any luxury accommodations at Stillwater just yet. Lots of extenuating circumstances here. We don’t know where the county attorney will go with any of this.’

‘One more question, Jack,’ Magozzi said. ‘Marty wanted you to tell us something that would close the Eddie Starr case.’ He glanced at Lily, saw that the name hit her hard. ‘He knew that Morey killed him, right?’

Jack just stared at him for a minute.

‘It doesn’t matter now, Jack. We already had that anyway – the gun Morey and the others used on a lot of the victims matched the gun that killed Eddie Starr…’

‘Morey killed the man who killed Hannah?’ Lily whispered.

‘No.’ Jack said quietly. ‘Marty did. That’s what was killing him. That’s what he couldn’t live with.’

Magozzi and Gino looked at each other, then leaned back in their chairs, as if the effort of sitting upright was suddenly too difficult.

Magozzi closed his eyes and saw hatred and vengeance everywhere. Morey killing, Marty killing… and only Lily and Jack standing apart, standing alone against the violence that had destroyed their lives. He wondered if they realized how very much alike they were, if anyone could sift through the confusion of all their mistakes to see their essential goodness.

And then he remembered Marty’s words as he lay dying.

All this time, you were the only good guy, Jack. Better than any of us. You’re the hero.