Dead Run (10 page)
Authors: P. J. Tracy
Tags: #Fiction, #Mystery & Detective, #Police Procedural, #General
"Oh, Lord," Annie whispered, staring into the mirror as if she were seeing something that wasn't her reflection. "That's not the only thing they're going to find. We left our purses in the cafe."
Sharon closed her eyes. "Oh, Jesus."
Grace blew out a long sigh and glanced out the window. "What time does it get dark?"
"Seven-thirty, eight," Annie said immediately, but Sharon shook her head.
"That's Minneapolis. It's a half hour earlier this far east, earlier still in woods like these."
Grace was weighing the risks of trying to escape in daylight against waiting another hour until dark. It was one of those decisions that could either save your life or get you killed, and it never occurred to her to let someone else make it. "We'll wait for dark," she decided. "If it seems safe, we can pick up the purses on our way."
"And just how are we supposed to get out?" Sharon asked. "Those guys are too hard to see in the woods, and we sure as hell can't just stroll down the road. . . ."
"Not on it, but right next to it, down in the ditch, on our bellies again if we have to. And not back the way we came in. We know there are soldiers covering that end of town, so we'll try the other direction. Even if they're patrolling the road itself, they'll do it by jeep, and we can hear them coming." She looked at Sharon specifically. "How does that sound?"
Sharon almost smiled. That Grace had asked the question at all was simply a courtesy, because ultimately, Grace MacBride would do what she wanted to do. "Actually, it sounds wrong. I've got a gun and two badges, and I'm supposed to be chasing bad guys, not running away from them."
"Honey, not even Rambo would take on these kinds of odds," Annie said.
"Yeah, I know," Sharon said, stretching her arm until the fingers of her right hand brushed the long, silky fur of the stuffed animal next to her on the bed. Suddenly she went still, frowning. The fur felt . . , sticky. She focused on the strands twined in her fingers, then raised her gaze slightly and stared straight into the glassy eyes of a very dead Yorkshire terrier. Some awful liquid had oozed from its open mouth to puddle and congeal beneath the fur of its chest-the very fur she had been stroking. "Oh, shit," she whispered, launching herself off the bed, holding her hand at arm's length. "That's a real goddamned dog." Then she raced into the bathroom.
Grace and Annie moved to the bed and stared down at the pathetic pile of fur. From this angle, it still looked remarkably like a stuffed animal; they had to bend even closer to see the extent of the horror that had sent Sharon on her first solo flight of the day.
Annie squeezed her eyes shut as Grace handled the dog, slipping her fingers into its long hair, searching. Finally she straightened.
"There isn't a mark on that dog," she said quietly.
Annie wrinkled her nose. Unlike Grace, she wasn't all that familiar with death. As a matter of fact, she'd seen only one dead person in her entire life, and since she'd inflicted the damage herself, the gross-ness of it hadn't really bothered her that much at the time. But this was disgusting. "It looks like it threw up. Poison?"
Grace shrugged. "I suppose it could have been. Or any number of natural causes, for that matter. Death is seldom a pretty event." She looked down at her hands and hoped Sharon would finish in the bathroom soon so she could wash them.
ROADRUNNER WAS PACING back and forth across the considerable length of the office, his shoes screeching on the polished wood with each pirouette and about-face. Harley hunkered down a little lower in front of his computer screen, trying to ignore him as he worked on a trace of the bank account that had financed Gino Rolseth's humiliation by dunk tank-a simple enough task if you didn't have a string bean in Lycra melting down in front of your eyes.
"Goddamnit, Roadrunner," he finally snapped. "You're wrecking the floor."
"I am not. I'm wearing sneakers."
"Okay, how about this?You're driving me fucking crazy. I can't work with you clumping and screeching all over my quarter-sawn oak. And you're upsetting Charlie. Look at him. He's frowning."
Harley nodded toward Grace's morose-looking wirehaired mongrel, who had assembled himself on a stool at a small bistro table in the corner.
"He's frowning because you gave him too much ice cream. You know it gives him headaches."
Charlie's head lifted and his little stump of a tail wiggled when he heard "ice cream."
"Does that look like a dog who gets ice-cream headaches? I don't think so. Did you feed him his chicken stew yet?" Roadrunner stopped pacing."Chicken stew?" "Yeah, it was in that square plastic thing.. . . Oh, Jesus, don't tell me you ate the dog's food."
Roadrunner turned a vibrant shade of crimson. "I thought Grace brought that over for us."
Harley put his head in his hands. "One day I'm going to replace that little toy brain of yours with the brain of a human being."
"How was I supposed to know? It didn't look like dog food. It didn'ttaste like dog food. .. ."
"Lucky for you, it's not. That dog eats better than we do." He looked over at Charlie. "Well, buddy, looks like you and me are going to have to get some pizza. What do you think of that, boy?" Charlie lowered his head and whined. "No pizza? What kind of a slob are you?"
"He's not hungry, he's worried, and you should be, too. It's already five o'clock. They were supposed to be in Green Bay by four."
"I keep telling you-they're women. God knows how many times they had to stop to eat or put on lipstick or stretch their legs or whatever else it is women do that makes road trips so damn irritating. And on top of that, Annie's with them. Do you know how many vintage clothing stores there are between here and Green Bay?"
Roadrunner folded his arms huffily across his hollow chest. "This isn't like them, and you know it. Grace promised to call, and she hasn't. And when Annie has an appointment, you can set a clock by her. Worse yet, none of them are answering their cell phones. Something's wrong."
Harley raked his black beard, reluctant to admit that Roadrunner had a point, because to do so would be admitting that somethingwas wrong. "Maybe they're already there and they just haven't had time to call. This wasn't a pleasure cruise, you know. They have work to do."
"Are you saying Grace and Annie just forgot to call?"
Harley sighed. "Grace left a sheet with contact numbers on it, right?"
Roadrunner nodded.
"Okay, genius, why don't you call Green Bay and find out if they showed yet?"
Roadrunner started pacing again, faster than before. "Yeah, but what if they're not there?"
"Jesus. You run yourself ragged worrying about them, and now you're afraid to call and find out if you should be worrying at all?" He stretched out his hand and waved it impatiently. "Give me the damn number and go take a Valium or something."
"NICE OF YOU to ferry me all over town like this, buddy."
"No problem." Magozzi took a turn off Snelling and headed back into the residential checkerboard of one of St. Paul's older neighborhoods. "But as long as I'm over here, I should take a drive past Grace's house while she's gone. Just to keep an eye on things." Gino rolled his eyes. "Uh-huh."
"Seriously. It's not the best neighborhood, you know." "Yeah, right. You can always spot a crime-ridden neighborhood by all the tricycles in the yards. And those kids in that plastic wading pool over there? Talk about your unsavory types. Look at 'em. They're probably planning a heist right this minute."
"Oh, give me a break. It's just a few blocks out of the way."
"Twenty-two, to be exact. And the point is, my friend, you got it bad."
"Meaning what?" Magozzi pulled to the curb in front of Grace's little house and stared at the lifeless windows.
"Meaning you're mooning over an empty house, buddy, just because your girlfriend lives there. Shit, I haven't done that kind of stuff since high school."
"I am not mooning over an empty house. I am looking for burglars and arsonists."
Gino snorted. "Special Forces couldn't break into Grace's house, and you know it. Damn thing's probably rigged to self-destruct if the paperboy steps on the front mat." He leaned across the front seat and looked out Magozzi's window. "Man, the only yard in the city sadder than yours is Grace's. Between the two of you, you've got the landscape sense of a fire ant. Nobody's trying to kill he anymore, so why doesn't she put some shrubs or something around that place? Looks like nuclear winter."
Magozzi sighed and pulled away from the curb. "She likes it that way."
"Why doesn't that surprise me?"
Ten minutes later, they pulled into Harley's driveway and Gino wasted no time in pointing out the superior landscaping. "Now here's a yard. Living grass, mature trees, and nice, big shrubs with those puffy white things all over them."
"Flowers. Why are you suddenly so obsessed with people's yards?"
"I'm not. All I'm saying is that there's nothing wrong with a little pride in ownership."
"Uh-huh. Angela finally made you dig out that flower bed she's been talking about for three years, didn't she?"
"That's not the point."
Magozzi smiled. "Right. Pride in ownership."
"Exactly. By the way, I got all my plants at Uptown Nursery, and Lily Gilbert gave me twenty percent off, and if she knew what your yard looked like, she'd probably donate everything."
"I'll think about it."
He and Gino got out of the car and headed up the front walk, Gino lagging behind as usual. He'd always taken it slow on the way up to Harley's house, and Magozzi used to think it was because the grandeur of the place intimidated him. But now he was beginning to suspect that Gino had been examining the garden layout all along, making mental notes that he could use later to impress Angela.
"You sure Harley said to just walk in?" Gino had finally caught up and was now standing at the mansion's massive front doors, staring at the huge iron demon face that served as a knocker.
"Yeah. He said come in the front, look for the beer, and we'd know where to take it from there."
"Great. A treasure hunt in Frankenstein's castle."
The heavy oak doors swung open with surprising ease-just like they always did in old horror movies, Gino was thinking, as they let themselves into the vast foyer. All the dark wood and Titan-sized antiques inside added to the sense of foreboding that had started with the demon door knocker, but Gino was quick to home in on the one ray of sunshine amid all the gloom and doom: sitting on an elaborately carved, marble-topped table in the middle of the parquet floor was a champagne bucket filled with ice and bottled beer. A hastily scrawled note beside it read: "'Vator to 3rd fl, bring the beer."
Gino brightened immediately. "I love this guy," he said, scooping up the ice bucket. "He moves his ten-million-year-old vase to make room for some Rolling Rocks. Talk about getting your priorities straight. Now where the hell's the elevator? This place gives me the creeps."
Since neither of them had ever ventured much farther than the foyer without an escort before, it took them a while to negotiate the dizzying maze of rooms and doors, stairways and dead-ends, before finally ferreting out the understated mahogany panels that opened onto a high-tech elevator. By the time they were finally lifted up to the third-floor office, Harley was waiting for them at the doors, a huge grin plastered across his face. "Don't tell me the super-cops got lost down there."
"Hell, no, we were just giving your Minotaur directions," Gino grumbled, handing over the beer bucket. "Next time you invite guests over for an unguided tour, you might want to think about laying down glow-in-the-dark footprints."
Harley let out a belly laugh and gave them each an affectionate slug on the arm. "Come on in, grab a beverage, and make yourselves comfortable. I'm still working on your little project, Rolseth, but we'll get to the bottom of it."
Gino was visibly grateful, which was no small feat for him. "Thanks, man. I really appreciate this."
"No problem. And I gotta tell you, this whole plan was nothing short of pure, diabolical genius, and I mean that in the nicest possible way. Makes me jealous I didn't think of it myself."
Roadrunner was waiting to greet them, too, but hanging back a little, as he always did. He gave them a goofy smile and an awkward wave. "Hey, Magozzi, hey, Gino."
"Roadrunner! What the hell-you been working out or something?" Gino asked.
Roadrunner examined his shoes while he turned a thousand shades of red. "Not really. Just biking a lot."
"Yeah? Well, the Arizona sun was good to you."
He looked up hopefully. "I did get a little color when I was down there, huh?"
Harley rolled his eyes at Magozzi. "Yeah, right. He still looks like a lefse to me. Come on, buddy, let's you and I pull up some chairs and trade gossip while those two discuss sunscreen."
They hadn't made it more than two steps into the main room when a furry rocket came barreling toward them and skidded to a halt in front of Magozzi. Charlie submitted to a few moments of chin-scratching, just to be polite, but it was pretty clear that this was not the dog's final destination. Trembling with excitement, he gave Magozzi's hand a quick, apologetic swipe with his tongue, then bounded toward Gino, who dropped down on all fours and started blubbering to the dog as if he were his only child. It was disgusting.
Magozzi shook his head sadly. "Sometimes that dog makes me feel undervalued."
"Tell me about it. I've been feeding him Ben & ferry's all day, and this is how I rate." Harley waved Magozzi over to a pair of chairs on the far side of the room, opened some beers, and spoke in a low, quiet voice, making sure he wouldn't be overheard. "Have you heard from Grace?"
"No .. , why? What's wrong?"
"Nothing, I don't think. It's just that Roadrunner was freaking out before you guys showed up, and I don't want to get him started again. If he gets any hotter, his suit is gonna melt into a puddle of Lycra, and I don't think any of us want to see him naked."