Want To Play? (Monkeewrench)

22

Magozzi sped through side streets, turret light flashing, then picked up 94 East to St Paul. The freeway was nearly deserted at this hour – too late for the worker bees to be out, too early for the clubbers to head home – so he pushed the unmarked up toward ninety in the far left lane, wishing he had one of MPH’s new Grand Ams instead of the doggy two-year-old Ford sedan.

Then again, why was he in such a hurry? He knew damn well Grace MacBride was no killer, and even if she were, she certainly wouldn’t be wandering around her house drenched in blood carrying a smoking gun and looking guilty. The .22 registered in her name was the thinnest of coincidences – that particular gun was as common as potholes in this city – but it was an excuse to drop in on her, and he decided not to examine his reasons for wanting to do that too closely.

‘Alibi. The registration list.’ He said it aloud, as if giving voice to the feeble rationalization would make it more believable. His excessive speed was easier to justify. The broken car heater had mysteriously kicked in with a vengeance at eighty-five mph, and it was the first time he’d been warm since leaving City Hall.

He braked at the Cretin-Vandalia exit and turned off the turret light. By the time he drove the few blocks to Groveland Avenue, the temperature in the car had already dropped ten degrees and the plastic steering wheel started to feel like a circle of ice.

Even deep in the residential district, there were a few people out in spite of the cold. A group of preteens who should have been home in bed on a school night; a couple walking a long-haired dog so close to the ground it looked legless; a die-hard jogger who harbored the delusion that running past dark alleys and shadowy doorways was a healthy pastime. All of them wore gloves, even the kids, which made all of them smarter than he was.

He put one hand between his knees to warm his fingers and steered with the other, dreaming of his gloves at home on the closet shelf.

Grace MacBride’s house was as modest as any in this quiet, working-class neighborhood, which seemed a little strange in view of her net worth. What was a multimillionaire doing living in a tiny two-story stucco with a detached garage? Another contradiction to add to the collection.

He parked on the opposite side of the street and studied the house for a moment while he exhaled frost into the cold car. Opaque shades covered all the windows; the only source of light was a high-intensity flood that illuminated a tiny front yard bereft of landscaping. No frivolous flower beds, no shrubbery, no decorative, welcoming touches – just a plain cement walk that led to a heavy, windowless door.

He shut off the car and climbed out, tugging his collar up around his ears. The thin microfiber trench that had seemed like a good fashion decision in August was laughably ineffectual now. But like every good Minnesotan, except Gino, he’d wait until a near-death brush with hypothermia before he dragged out the down parka, as if wearing lighter clothing would somehow encourage the weather to adjust itself appropriately.

He crossed the deserted street and followed the arrow-straight walk up to a three-step cement stoop. He paused on the top step and studied the door.

The last time he’d seen a steel-clad door was on a homicide call at a suburban meth lab last spring. A pricey line of defense for drug dealers, mobsters, and the ultraparanoid. For an abused woman hiding out from a crazed ex-husband or boyfriend, it made good sense, as long as you had money, and it wasn’t the first time that particular scenario had danced through his brain.

He’d seen the fear in her eyes the first time he’d met her, and in that instant he’d thought, Abuse victim. That idea had crumbled to dust within minutes. The victim mentality part was the problem. She didn’t have a shred of it. Afraid, yes; incapacitated, no. She might put a steel door on her house and pack a Sig Sauer, but those were the actions of someone taking charge, preparing to meet danger, rather than hiding from it. Besides, the abused-woman scenario would only explain MacBride changing her identity – not all five of them.

He shook his head to clear it of thoughts going nowhere, noticed a gray plastic intercom box mounted on the door frame, and ironically, a rubber mat that said ‘Welcome.’ He wondered if that was Grace MacBride’s idea of humor.

As he stepped onto the mat, he distinctly heard an electronic whirring sound just above his head. He pinpointed the source quickly – a security camera, well camouflaged in the fascia of the eave, turning and focusing its ever-vigilant eye on him.

He knelt down and teased up a corner of the mat, exposing a pressure pad integrated into the concrete of the top step, obviously wired to the camera, and probably from there to an alarm somewhere in the house.

The pathology of paranoia kept rearing its ugly head, and on some level, it was incredibly disturbing. What justified this kind of security? If not an abusive ex, what then? Corporate espionage? He didn’t think so. As he’d learned from Espinoza just tonight, you never had to leave the comfort of your own home to lie, cheat, or steal in a world that was inextricably linked together by the World Wide Web.

He stabbed the intercom button and waited, his breath coming in frosty puffs. For more than a minute, there was dead silence, then three metallic thunks – three dead bolts being released.

The steel door swung open and Grace MacBride stood before him, her pale skin flushed and moist. She was wearing baggy gray sweatpants, an oversized T-shirt, and a ponytail. She would have looked almost vulnerable if it hadn’t been for the ankle holster and the derringer it held.

‘It’s eleven o’clock, Detective Magozzi.’ Her voice was flat, noncommittal. She didn’t seem particularly surprised that he’d shown up on her doorstep.

‘I apologize for the hour, Ms MacBride. Am I interrupting anything?’

‘My workout.’

He gestured toward the ankle holster. ‘You carry when you work out?’

‘I carry all the time, Detective, I told you that already. What do you want?’

A born hostess, Magozzi thought sarcastically. ‘I want to look at your .22.’

‘Do you have a warrant?’ Her voice remained impassive, her gaze steady. Chalk one up for MacBride – she was either innocent or sociopathic.

Magozzi sighed, suddenly feeling exhausted. ‘No, I don’t have a warrant, but I can get one. I’ll just stand here on this pressure pad and keep ringing your intruder alert or whatever the hell it is until Gino brings one over.’

‘Am I a suspect?’

‘Everyone’s a suspect. Any reason you don’t want me to see the gun?’

‘Because this isn’t a police state, Detective Magozzi.’

Goddamnit, she was snotty. No way she could have ever had a relationship with an abuser. With an attitude like hers, whoever it was would have killed her the first night.

‘Ms MacBride, there are people dying out there and you’re wasting time.’

The color of exertion on her cheeks turned the darker pink of fury. He’d hit a nerve. ‘You’re wasting time, investigating the people who reported the crime instead of looking for the killer!’

He refused to rise to the bait. He just stood there in the cold, hoping she couldn’t see him shiver beneath the thin coat, waiting for her to slam the door in his face. She surprised him.

‘Oh, the hell with it. Come in and shut the damn door. And stay right there. Don’t move a muscle.’

He stepped inside quickly, closed the door, and looked around. ‘No retina scan?’

She glared at him. ‘What are you talking about?’

Magozzi shrugged. ‘You’ve got a pretty serious security system here.’

‘I’m a pretty serious person,’ she snapped, turning and stalking down the long, dim hallway. When she disappeared behind a swinging oak door, he took a few steps in, looking for some indication that the place was actually inhabited, but the foyer and hall were as empty and anonymous as the outside of the house.

Stairway to the left, two closed doors – living room and what? Den? – to the right. In between there was nothing but a well-polished maple floor and eggshell walls. If Grace MacBride had a personality, which he was beginning to doubt, there were no insights here.

He heard angry footsteps and the swinging door burst open again. Grace glowered at him from the doorway. ‘I want this to be legit. If you want to see the gun, then you can look at it in the cabinet.’

‘Fine. Better yet.’

She watched in what Magozzi could only classify as deep disapproval as he walked toward her. If the look was designed to make him feel like a blundering interloper, it missed its mark. It just set him on edge.

‘Even you have to know this is ridiculous, Detective.’

He let the ‘even you’ part slide. Detective 101. Do not respond to the verbal abuse of civilians. ‘Why is that?’

‘You think I’d use a gun registered in my name to kill people? You think I wouldn’t have cleaned it if I’d used it to kill that poor girl yesterday?’

No mention of the riverboat killing, Magozzi noted. Either she didn’t know about it, or was pretending not to. ‘Of course you would have cleaned it. I would expect nothing less from you, Ms MacBride. But detective work is largely a tedious process of information gathering and report writing. My objective here is to note your ownership of the same caliber gun the killer used, and further note that I examined said gun with your permission and saw no evidence of recent firing.’

‘You’re covering your ass.’

‘Absolutely. The first time I don’t will be the time a killer leaves a gun dirty and covered with blood and wrapped in a sign that says “I Am the Murder Weapon.” ’

She swung the door open and gestured him into a stark, utilitarian kitchen with sparkling white tile and a stainless sink that looked like it had been spit-shined. Expensive pots and pans hung from a rack above a black granite countertop that was lined with the sort of appliances only a serious cook would have.

A covered pot simmered on low flame, filling the air with the savory aromas of garlic and wine. For some reason, he couldn’t imagine Grace MacBride doing anything remotely domestic, but she obviously had a softer side, a side she went to great lengths to hide.

He didn’t bother wondering why she was cooking at eleven o’clock at night, assuming almost everything she did would be a bit out of the norm. ‘You have a dog?’ he asked.

Grace frowned at him. ‘Ye-es. Oh. The water bowl. Crack detective work.’

Magozzi ignored the comment. ‘Where is he?’

‘He’s hiding. He’s afraid of strangers.’

‘Hmm. Is that something he picked up from you?’

She gave him an irritated look, then led him through an arched doorway into the living room, oddly placed at the rear of the house instead of the front. It was the polar opposite of the rest of the house – surprisingly warm, with overstuffed wing chairs and a big leather sofa that held an assortment of colorful down-filled pillows. A glass coffee table was stacked with computer magazines and ponderous-looking textbooks on computer programming languages. A willow basket of miniature pumpkins sat in the corner next to an urn filled with dried flowers and gourds. Another glimmer of her softer side.

He paid particular attention to the paintings, all originals, that covered the walls – an eclectic collection of stark black-and-white abstracts that had to be by the same artist as the painting in Mitch Cross’s office, and two soft watercolor landscapes.

She knelt down in front of a fine mahogany cabinet that sat in the far corner of the room and slipped in a key. The interior was lined with thick red velvet and held the very formidable MacBride arsenal. She pulled out a Ruger .22 and handed it to him by the barrel.

He examined the gun, pulled back the slide, checked the load. Empty. Nothing in the chamber. And it was spotless with a light sheen of oil, as spit-shined as the kitchen sink.

‘I don’t suppose you’d want to turn this over to me . . .’

She exhaled sharply.

‘I’ll take that as a no.’ He handed it back to her, then gestured toward the rest of her weapons. ‘Nice collection. A lot of firepower.’

She was silent.

‘Just what is it that you’re so afraid of?’

‘Taxes, cancer, the usual.’

‘Guns aren’t very effective against either of those things. Neither are steel doors.’

Still silent.

‘Neither is erasing your past.’

Her eyes flickered a little.

‘You want to tell me about that?’

‘About what?’

‘About what planet you and your friends lived on until you showed up here ten years ago.’

She looked off to the side, mouth clamped shut. Biting back temper, he decided.

‘And just how much time have you wasted traveling that particular path?’

He shrugged. ‘Not much. It was a real short path. I’ve got a computer wizard at the office tearing his hair out trying to get past your firewalls. Actually, he’s now your biggest fan. Thinks you all should hire out to Witness Protection.’ He watched for the slightest reaction, but she didn’t even twitch. ‘You know, if you were in the program, telling me would save us all a lot of trouble.’

She ignored him, put the Ruger away, locked the gun cabinet, then stood up and folded her arms across her chest. ‘Is that all? Because if it is, I’d like to get back to my workout.’

Magozzi turned his attention to one of the watercolors, a city scene busy with uniformly happy people, remarkably detailed for the medium. A young artist, he thought, mixing the styles of the masters while searching for his own. The sociable subject matter seemed strangely out of place in a house designed as a fortress, owned by a woman who had clearly been born without smile muscles. He wondered what had made her buy it. ‘Our people have been working the registration list you gave us.’

‘And?’

‘And it’s slow.’

‘Of course it’s slow. And stupid.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘That list isn’t going to do you a bit of good, and you know it. Even the dumbest killer wouldn’t leave a name and address and telephone number so your uniforms could come knocking, and this one is not dumb . . .’

He opened his mouth to reply, but he wasn’t fast enough.

‘ . . . and don’t give me that song and dance about following procedure. Following the almighty procedure is what always bogs cops down. It wastes time and resources and energy that you damn well better be spending laying a trap for this guy, because he is rolling, and if he hits again, the victim is on your head, because you had a chance to stop him if you hadn’t been so damn intent about crossing names off a list and checking out my .22 . . .’

‘We did lay a trap for this guy,’ Magozzi snapped bitterly, suddenly furious that this strange, secretive, paranoid woman with no past was lecturing him on how to do his job; furious that this case was spiraling out of control with bodies stacking up like cordwood; furious at her lack of respect and her refusal to co-operate; and especially furious that he felt like he was missing something obvious about the whole damn case. ‘Tammy Hammond’s wedding reception was on the Nicollet tonight. Not only did we have ten guys on site, but Argo Security had another twenty and the damn place was safer than the White House. And guess what? We were still too late.’ She just stared at him for a moment while his angry words registered, and then he saw all the righteous indignation drain from her eyes, leaving blue mirrors of devastation. Christ, that had to be real, he thought. No way you couldn’t fake a look like that.

‘Oh my God,’ she whispered, and he heard her real voice, and saw her real face, and for just an instant felt a brand-new kind of guilt, as if he’d let her down personally.

In the next instant the look of devastation was gone, replaced by a fury that exceeded his own and a hatred directed squarely at him. ‘You idiots.’ Her voice was low, quiet, and she let the words hang there for a minute, making sure he knew she meant them. ‘You were too late? We told you this was going to happen, we told you where, and now someone else died because you were too late?’

He felt his defenses kick in, knew they were wrong, but couldn’t stop them. ‘We were still scrambling around for permission to even be on that boat when this guy was murdered. Maybe you should have called us a little earlier to tell us one of your psycho players was using your game as a template for a killing spree. We weren’t too late. You were.’

Christ, he sounded like a grade-school kid, batting away blame, hoping it would land on someone else. That made him angrier yet.

‘Where were you between two and four?’

Her eyes seemed to harden and chill, blue water freezing. ‘At work. Alone. No witnesses, no alibi. Everybody else left at noon. You want to arrest me, Detective? Make yourself feel better about blowing it?’

This was all wrong. Cops and witnesses – if that’s all she was – weren’t supposed to be adversaries, but this woman had been down on cops long before he met her. He was just the current target.

He moved his shoulders inside his coat, trying to loosen the muscles that felt like coiled springs. ‘What I want is some cooperation. We need to pare down that registration list, get real names and addresses for all the bogus ones, and we don’t have time to –’

‘Do it legally?’

Magozzi didn’t say anything.

‘Let’s see if I’ve got this straight. You storm in here in the middle of the night violating all kinds of my civil rights, basically accusing me of murder, and now you’re asking me to help you out?’

Magozzi wisely kept his mouth shut.

‘You’re a real piece of work, Detective.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Get the hell out of my house.’

His cell phone chirped as he was passing through the kitchen. He tugged it out of his pocket, flipped it open, and snarled his name.

‘Something wrong, sweetheart?’ Gino said into his ear.

‘Yeah, the market’s down, India and Pakistan have nuclear weapons, and the heater in the car still isn’t working.’

‘Are you at MacBride’s?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, unless the phone’s been ringing off the hook she’s got the ringer off. Tell her about the interviews tomorrow. We got her friends coming in anyway, might as well do them all at once. Learn anything interesting over there?’

‘My own shortcomings.’

Gino laughed. ‘See you tomorrow, bud.’

Magozzi started to put the phone back in his pocket, then feeling a slight pang of guilt, wiped it surreptitiously on his coat and then laid it on the counter instead. He turned and looked at MacBride, standing under the archway into the living room, arms crossed over her chest in classic angry defense posture. ‘Your friends are all coming down to give formal statements tomorrow morning at ten. They couldn’t reach you.’

Her head moved almost imperceptibly. ‘I have the ringer off.’

‘That’s what they thought. Can you make it?’

‘Oh, sure, why not? Let’s waste some more time together, shall we? Give this guy a shot at some more innocent victims before you decide to shut him down. What are you doing about the Mall of America?’

‘I don’t discuss ongoing police investigations with civilians.’

‘Especially suspects.’

Magozzi looked at her for a long moment, then turned and strode down the hallway toward the front door. He jerked it open and gasped.

A black kid was standing on the stoop, his nowhere shoulders hunched inside a really good leather jacket. ‘I’d like to see the lady of the house,’ he said to Magozzi, weight shifting from one foot to the other, ready to run.

He never heard Grace moving up behind him, but he felt her.

‘Jackson. What’re you doing here?’

The kid’s face relaxed a little. ‘You okay?’

Grace nodded. ‘Sure I’m okay.’

‘Oh. Well, good. It’s just that I saw that piece-of-shit car pull up and this guy get out, and . . .’ Suspicious eyes climbed up Magozzi’s chest to his face. ‘He’s carrying, you know.’

‘It’s all right. He’s allowed. He’s a cop.’

‘Oh. Well, I was just checking, you know? Something about him didn’t look right.’

‘You’ve got a good eye, Jackson. Thanks for the thought.’

The kid took one more look at Magozzi, apparently decided he wasn’t a threat, then hopped off the stoop and disappeared down the walk.

‘What was that about? You hire local kids to watch the place?’

Grace eyed him steadily. ‘No, he’s my accomplice in all the murders.’

He heard the dead bolts slam home one by one while he was still on the walk, but he crossed the street, got into his car, started it up, then sat long enough to make it seem legitimate. Then he got out of the car, went back up to the door, and pressed the intercom button again.

She made him wait longer this time, intentionally, he was sure. At last the door swung open and she glared at him. ‘Just because I didn’t slam the door in your face the first time doesn’t mean I won’t do it now.’

‘You can’t.’

‘Oh really? And why is that?’

‘Because.’ He pointed at the mat he stood on. ‘It says “Welcome” right there.’

The sides of her mouth twitched a little in what might have been the beginnings of a smile. She controlled it admirably, he thought. ‘What do you want, Detective?’

‘I think I left my phone in the kitchen.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake.’ She thumped away down the hall, dark ponytail bobbing, then reappeared almost instantly, his cell phone held at arm’s length as if it were diseased.

‘Sorry about that. Thanks.’

The door slammed hard behind him but he didn’t care. He carried the phone by the antenna and, once inside the car, slipped it into a plastic evidence bag he took from a stack in the glove compartment.

Charlie was waiting for Grace on the other side of the swinging oak door, his tail stub twitching in a doggy question. ‘It’s okay, Charlie,’ she reassured him. ‘The big bad detective is gone.’

Charlie seemed satisfied with that and wandered back to his afghan nest on the sofa to resume the evening nap Magozzi had so rudely interrupted.

Grace stirred the pot of beef borguignonne that was simmering on the stove, put down the spoon, and clasped her hands to keep them from trembling. They felt cold.

She walked through the entire downstairs, turning on every light as she went, trying to chase away the darkness that was closing in on her again. The kid was going to be a problem. She shouldn’t have helped him out in the park. Now he was trying to return the favor, keeping an eye out for her, hanging around, watching, and she couldn’t have that. It was too damn dangerous.

A chiming sound stopped her when she passed the office door, the computer’s alert for incoming e-mail. Probably one of her partners, or all of them, she thought, wondering if she’d gotten a call from the cops, too.

She went into the office, jiggled her mouse to restore the monitor, and pulled up her mailbox. One new message. She clicked on it and brought up the memo line. It read: FROM THE KILLER. Sent from one of those megaservers that offered free e-mail to anybody who wanted it.

She stared at the screen for a long, long time, her finger poised to click on the ‘read new mail’ button.

She wasn’t sure if a minute or an hour had passed before she finally clicked open the message. Very slowly, familiar red pixels started to materialize on the screen with eerie slowness. It was the second screen of SKUD; the one that was supposed to say: ‘Want to Play a Game?’

Only this message was a little different. This message had never been programmed into SKUD.

YOU’RE NOT PLAYING.

Grace started to shiver, and then to shake so badly she could barely fumble her way through Harley’s phone number.