Want To Play? (Monkeewrench)

3

Grace MacBride lived in the MerriamPark neighborhood of St Paul, on a block of tall, narrow houses that remembered the Roaring Twenties. Her backyard was very small, and the solid wood fence around it was very high. Mitch said it was like being in a shoebox with the lid off, but then Mitch had always had a problem with the small closed spaces that were Grace’s salvation.

The tree was the real reason she’d bought the place. It wasn’t much of a tree, by Mitch’s suburban standards, with a fat squat trunk and gnarled limbs that grew sideways instead of up, as if the sky were weighing them down. But it was a magnolia, by God, and that was a rare thing in Minnesota. A precious thing.

Mitch had been quick to point out the cramped lot, the nearby fire station, the hard-pack rectangle of earth the realtor had dubbed a backyard; but he’d been trying to talk her out of buying the house then, trying to lure her to the Minneapolis suburb where he and Diane lived in a neighborhood of sprawling lawns so perfectly trimmed and edged they looked like they were screaming.

‘You could surround yourself with space there,’ he’d told her; ‘a couple of empty acres where you could see someone coming in plenty of time.’

But Grace had only smiled and said, ‘This place has a magnolia.’

‘Not for long,’ he’d replied. ‘If it is a magnolia, it’ll be dead in a year.’

That had been five years ago, and Grace had never once believed the tree would die, even though it appeared to attempt suicide on an annual basis. Every fall it dropped crisping leaves in a single, noisy shower, as if it just didn’t have the strength to hang on to them any longer. But every spring the bud clusters swelled and burst and tiny green fingers waved at new blue sky in a silly fit of optimism. The tree was a survivor, just like she was.

This morning it was drooping in the dry air of autumn, threatening to drop its leaves in the next heartbeat, and she had the hose running at the base of its trunk.

She and Charlie sat on the two Adirondack chairs facing the tree, listening to the trickle of water, watching morning happen. Grace was mummified in a long terry robe; Charlie was naked.

‘You’ve got to stop pissing on it. It’s too much ammonia.’ Her voice was layered with the faint trace of a southern accent corrupted by the cold, brittle cadence of the north.

Charlie turned his head and watched with rapt attention as Grace sipped from her cup.

‘Forget it. It’s caffeinated.’

Charlie sighed and looked away. He was a mess of a dog, a concoction slapped together by a blind Frankenstein. The size and bulk of a shepherd, the wiry coat of a terrier, the long, floppy ears of a hound, and a totally hairless stump of a tail that something had chewed off long before she’d met him. Charlie was a survivor, too.

Grace moved in the chair, felt the gun slide to one side of the robe’s oversized pocket, and grabbed it before it could clunk against the wood chair.

The holster is not a fashion accessory. It is a safety necessity. Keep your firearm in its holster whenever you’re carrying, and never, ever carry a gun in your pocket, are you hearing me, class?

Well, yes, Grace had certainly heard him, but you had to take some small chances every now and then; otherwise caution became paranoia and it ruled your life. Sitting in her own backyard in her bathrobe was one of those things that seemed worth the risk. Not that she would have tried it unarmed – she wasn’t that stupid.

‘Well, this has been nice, but I’ve got to get to work.’

Charlie whined once and shifted his haunches in the chair like an old man in a hair coat.

‘Please don’t get up. I’ll see myself out.’

It took her five minutes to dress. Jeans, T-shirt, a black canvas duster that took all kinds of weather down to zero, and of course, the English riding boots. Those who knew she’d never been on a horse in her life thought it was a fashion affectation. Only five people in the world knew differently.

Well, maybe six.

On the drive to work, she passed a cluster of police cars nosed up to the curb on the river parkway.

Dead jogger by the river, she thought automatically.

It was one of those exceptional years when the autumn colors along the Mississippi River almost stopped your heart. The low foliage of sumac flamed red, the maples glowed in ethereal shades of rose and orange, and the fragile leaves of quaking aspens shimmered like gold lamé on a drag queen.

Detective Leo Magozzi had been walking a beat the last time the colors had been this intense, so full of himself he’d barely noticed anything around him – which explained a lot about the mess he’d made of his life – but for some reason, he had noticed the leaves that fall.

Watercolors wouldn’t do it, he thought as he drove along West River Boulevard. You had to have oils for something like this.

Ahead he saw the flashing turret lights of at least eight patrol cars and the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension Crime Scene Unit van. No news vans yet, thank God, but he’d bet his pension they’d be here within the sweep of his second hand.

A young, baby-faced cop was directing traffic while keeping a wary eye on a small knot of gawkers that stood shivering in the morning chill, hoping to catch a glimpse of someone else’s misfortune. Magozzi was surprised there weren’t more of them – murder in Minneapolis was always big news, but in this neighborhood, it was really big news.

He eased the car up to the curb, got out, and showed his badge to Baby Cop, who actually moved his lips trying to sound out the name.

‘Good morning, Detective . . . Mago-zee?’

‘Ma-go-tsee. Tsee. Like in tsetse fly.’

‘Oh. Like a what?’

‘Never mind. Is Detective Rolseth here?’

‘Rolseth . . . shorter guy, light hair?’

‘Sounds about right.’ Magozzi had to give Baby Cop diplomacy points for leaving out some of the more colorful terms he’d heard used to describe his partner, like ‘paunch’ and ‘receding hairline.’ The kid maybe wasn’t the brightest bulb on the tree, but he might have a future as chief of police.

Baby Cop jabbed a finger toward the row of huge, expensive old houses perched high above the street on sloping, manicured lawns. ‘He took some of the guys to do a door-to-door before people started leaving for work.’

Magozzi nodded, then stepped over the yellow crime-scene tape and crunched through the litter of fallen leaves, shoving his bare hands deeper into the pockets of his trench coat against the chill of the river wind.

BCA techs were fanning out over the strip of grass between the boulevard and the riverbank, marking the perimeter, walking the grid. He nodded greetings to the few he knew as he passed, then headed toward the edge of the river embankment where a tall, lanky man in an olive green coat was crouched over a body. Although his back was toward Magozzi, the black hair gave away the man’s identity as surely as the sloped shoulders that seemed to apologize for excessive stature.

‘Anantanand Rambachan.’ Magozzi loved wrapping his tongue around this guy’s name. It was like eating a cream puff.

Dr Rambachan turned his head and welcomed Magozzi to the crime scene with a toothy, white smile. ‘Detective! Your Hindi accent is excellent this morning!’ His dark, hooded eyes crinkled with mischief. ‘And look at this! You are so pretty! You must be on the hunt.’

‘Huh?’

‘You have lost weight, your muscles are more toned . . . which means you have finally grown weary of the solitary life and are now seeking the companionship of the fairer sex.’

‘Department physical’s coming up next month.’

‘Or it could be that.’

Magozzi crouched down to take a quick visual inventory of the body. The victim was young, barely twenties, wearing nylon jogging pants and a faded sweatshirt. His still, waxen face was expressionless and his open eyes were filmy with the cataracts of death.

‘See here?’ Rambachan pointed to a small, dark hole just above the left brow. ‘Tiny hole.’ He stated the obvious. He always did. ‘Very clean. And either excellent marksmanship or a lucky mistake for our shooter. Very unlucky for our friend.’

‘Twenty-two?’

‘Oh yes, very likely.’

Magozzi sighed and looked out over the river. The sunlight had broken through the low veil of clouds, creating sparkling prisms in the icy mist that rose from the water. ‘Cold this morning.’

‘Oh. Oh! I have recently learned from a book my wife gave me that the proper response to that statement is: “Could be worse.” ’

Magozzi picked up an evidence bag and peered at the driver’s license inside. ‘Oh yeah? What book is that?’

Rambachan’s brow wrinkled. ‘It is a linguistics book. I believe the title is How to Talk Minnesotan. You have heard of it?’

Magozzi almost smiled. ‘Any more personal effects?’

‘Just the license and the twenty-dollar bill. But there is something else, something very strange. I have never seen such a thing. Take a look at this.’ Rambachan slipped gloved fingers between the corpse’s lips and pried open the jaw.

Magozzi squinted and leaned forward, close enough to smell it, then sat back on his haunches. ‘Son of a bitch.’