Live Bait (19 page)

‘What’s going on?’ Magozzi asked. ‘What’s with the overseas calls?’

McLaren’s face fell. ‘You’re kidding me. You didn’t watch the six o’clock news? Oh, man . . .’ He threw up his hands. ‘The one time we give a really killer press conference, you miss it. Malcherson actually let us talk this time, and I was great, even if I do say so myself. Wasn’t I, Langer?’

Langer rolled his eyes up to Magozzi. ‘He wore the madras jacket.’

Magozzi winced.

‘They tried to trip us up, of course’ – McLaren’s waggled his eyebrows – ‘especially that dipshit new guy with the permed hair who does the late news. But we were rocks. Cool, tough, kind of your basic hero types. I got a tape . . .’

‘So what the hell happened?’ Gino asked, one arm diving deep into the chicken wing bag. ‘Something break on the train track guy?’

‘Oh yeah, did it ever,’ McLaren grinned. ‘Seems the .45 that damn near took off Arlen Fischer’s arm is one hot piece. Got a shitload of hits on that gun from Interpol. Let’s see, there was Johannesburg, London, Paris, Prague . . . and a couple of others.’

‘Milan and Geneva,’ Langer reminded him.

‘Right. Anyway, Channel Three has a source in the FBI who caught the Interpol connection, and the press went nuts. International intrigue in the heartland, that kind of stuff.’

‘So what are you thinking?’ Magozzi asked.

Langer shrugged. ‘Interpol’s always had them pegged as contract killings. They’ve got six murders spread out over fifteen years – seven, counting Arlen Fischer – and it looks like the same shooter using the same gun. In and out clean, no witnesses, no forensics, single shot to the head.’

‘Except Arlen Fischer wasn’t shot in the head,’ Magozzi reminded him.

‘That’s the best part. There’s always a chance the gun traveled without the shooter, of course – maybe he dumped it after the last hit and it ended up over here in someone else’s hands – but what Interpol’s hoping is that it’s the same killer, and that the Arlen Fischer hit was personal. Contract killers don’t usually torture strangers.’

Magozzi nodded. ‘So he knew Fischer.’

‘That’s the theory. That Fischer and his killer crossed paths at one point, and if we can find that connection, we might be able to put a name to this guy.’

‘Jeez, guys,’ Magozzi said with a bemused smile. ‘You’re going to nail an international hit man.’

‘Wouldn’t that just be roses?’ McLaren grinned. ‘But the bad part is that Interpol wants us to let the FBI in on it. They got a real hard-on for this guy. Chief Malcherson is keeping them at bay until we check out the six overseas victims, see if we can’t tie them to Fischer somehow. Speaking of which’ – McLaren handed Langer the message slip – ‘here’s Mr Consonant. I ain’t calling him, I told you.’

‘He probably speaks English, McLaren.’

‘That’s not going to do me a whole lot of good if I can’t get him on the phone because I can’t pronounce his friggin’ name.’

‘All right, all right.’ Langer took the slip and passed another one over. ‘You do Paris, then. I swear those people pretend they can’t speak English just to be irritating.’

Gino snorted. ‘Like McLaren can speak French.’

Langer smiled at him. ‘McLaren is fluent.’

‘No way.’

‘Just in the Romance languages,’ McLaren said. ‘I got them hammered down pretty well, but those Slavic dialects are a bitch.’

He trotted over to his desk and started punching in a long series of numbers. Gino and Magozzi gaped at him when he started babbling in a language neither could hope to understand.

‘Unbelievable,’ Gino murmured. ‘And all this time I thought McLaren was just another pretty face.’

‘So what are you guys doing here?’ Langer asked.

Gino and Magozzi traded gloomy expressions. They were tired, discouraged, and underneath it all, maybe a little scared, both feeling as if things were getting away from them. ‘We lost another senior,’ Magozzi said.

Langer’s face sagged. ‘You’ve got to be kidding.’

‘Wish I were,’ Magozzi said grimly. ‘Eighty-seven, shot in his own house, another tattoo.’

Langer blew out a pained breath and looked off to the side, shaking his head. ‘What the hell is going on out there?’

‘The TV talking heads are starting to ask the same thing,’ Gino grumbled. ‘You got the six o’clock edition; they gave us the ten. Pretty much chewed us up and spit us out.’

‘I’m going to make the calls,’ Magozzi told Gino as he headed for his own desk. Gino nodded, but lingered behind with Langer.

‘So who’s your victim?’ Langer asked.

‘Guy called Ben Schuler. Ever hear of him?’

Langer shook his head. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘Well, apparently he and Morey knew each other pretty well.’

Langer’s brows peaked. ‘You found your thread.’

‘The beginnings of one, maybe, but just between Schuler and Gilbert. Rose Kleber’s still the odd man out. We talked to her family yesterday, looking for a connection between her and Morey Gilbert, but there was nothing there. Now Leo’s checking with them to see if she knew Ben Schuler. Maybe we can tie them all together that way.’ He glanced over at Magozzi. The phone was still pressed to his ear, but he was shaking his head and held one thumb down. ‘Or maybe not.’

Magozzi hung up the phone and pulled a rolling chair close to Langer’s desk. He didn’t look nearly as depressed as Gino thought he should. ‘Rose Kleber’s family never heard of Ben Schuler.’

‘Yeah, I got that.’ Gino was an unhappy man.

‘But I’ve been thinking how weird it is, we’ve got a string of killings, and now it turns out the murder Langer and McLaren are working has a string behind it . . .’

‘Do not go there,’ Gino warned him. ‘We’re busting our balls trying to connect three murders and now you want to bring in another one? Come on, Leo, we looked at it, then we shit-canned that idea the first day. The murders were just too different, and so were the victims.’

‘They were all old, Gino, three of them lived in the same neighborhood if you count Arlen Fischer.’

Langer was regarding Magozzi, chin in his hand. ‘Guns don’t match. Victim profiles don’t match. Yours were Jews, camp survivors; ours was a Lutheran.’

Magozzi grimaced and scratched the back of his neck. ‘Yeah, I know. You look at this thing head-on, you see four old people, all executed within a few days and a few miles of each other; but then you look at the details, and they shoot it all to hell. But it’s still weird. They’re as much alike as they are different.’

Langer frowned at him. ‘No way we could justify running this as a tandem with all the holes.’

‘Yeah, I know that. Let’s just keep the lines of communication open, okay?’

Gino was looking frighteningly shrewd, tapping a plump forefinger against his lips. ‘You know, come to think of it, I could like this a lot. Jack Gilbert, kingpin of a gang of international assassins.’

Langer laughed out loud. ‘Jack Gilbert? You’ve got to be kidding.’

‘Ah, I don’t know. Something’s just not right with that guy. When he heard Ben Schuler was shot, the blood drained out of his face so fast I thought he was going to keel right over.’

‘Well, maybe he knew him.’

‘He said he did, but it was more than that. You should have seen him, Langer. Jack Gilbert was scared to death.’

Marty walked into his house and felt like a trespasser. He’d only been gone for two days, but already the kitchen looked strange and unfamiliar, like a place somebody else lived.

You should sell the house, Marty. Get a condo, maybe. Or come to live with Lily and me. We could use the help at the nursery, anyway.

I can’t, Morey. I belong here.

No. You and Hannah belonged here. The two of you. Now you have to find where you belong without her.

It isn’t over.

Of course it’s over. The case is closed. The animal who murdered my daughter is dead. This is as it should be. I thank God for this. I dance around his grave in my heart. And now we can live again.

That had been months and months ago. He’d never seen Morey alive again.

The .357 was still in the hamper, buried beneath the mildewed, shower-drenched clothes he’d thrown in there when Jeff Montgomery had come to tell him Morey was dead.

He went down to the basement and spent thirty minutes cleaning and oiling and checking out the gun before it was fit to carry and shoot. It wasn’t department issue. It didn’t fit in the smaller belt holster he’d worn on his hip for over half of his fifteen years on the force, so he stuffed it in his suit jacket pocket.

He’d never planned on carrying this gun around. He’d bought it for one reason, and one reason only, and holstering the thing after it had served that purpose wasn’t part of the package. Dead men didn’t need holsters.

But he couldn’t tag around after Lily all day with a .357 flopping in a jacket pocket. Not that he really believed he needed the gun, or that she needed his protection. He was half convinced that Jack had already taken a giant leap over that line between sanity and madness, and was seeing imaginary demons everywhere, but it wouldn’t hurt to humor him for a while, until he could figure out what was really going on.

He frowned as he put his cleaning tools and oil back into the kit, trying to figure out the logistics of making a trip to the gun store for a holster without leaving Lily alone, and without frightening her by lending credence to Jack’s paranoia. It seemed an insoluble dilemma, and he decided to deal with it in the morning.

He carried the hamper out to the curb for the garbage-men, ruined clothes and shoes inside, and then went to the big back bedroom to pack. He’d already worn almost everything he’d hastily tossed in a duffel on the morning of his aborted suicide. If he really intended to stay close to Lily for a while, he might as well take the job seriously, and that meant he wouldn’t want to leave her every day to run home for fresh clothes.

The closet smelled like Hannah. It was a light citrusy scent, and yet it nearly knocked him over when he opened the folding doors. He stood there with his big hands hanging helplessly at his sides, massive shoulders hunched forward as if he’d just taken a hard punch to the stomach, staring at whispery silks and soft cottons that moved in the breeze the opening door had created. Sad, empty shells of gentle colors that had once held his wife’s body. The man who had killed her, dead for seven months now, was still killing him. Over and over again.

She was wearing the long white gauzy dress that made it look like she was floating when she walked. He’d seen it in a store window that very day, hanging lifelessly on a mannequin, longing for Hannah’s slender curves to give it form. She was halfway into her old black suit when he carried it into the bedroom, draped over his muscular arms like some gossamer altar cloth. She cried when she put it on, which only made Marty smile. Hannah always cried when she was happy.

They were celebrating life that night. After seven years of trying, Hannah was pregnant.

‘Don’t call it that,’ she told him.

‘Why not?’

‘Because I don’t like the word. It has a hard
g.
Why would you use such an ugly-sounding word to describe such a wondrous thing? I’m not going to be pregnant, I’ve decided. I’m going to be with child.’

‘Very biblical.’

Her laugh was music in the nearly empty parking ramp. They’d lingered too long at the restaurant after dinner, and now shadows were everywhere. One of them jumped from behind a pillar and grabbed Hannah from behind, laying the evil gleam of a serrated knife against her white throat.

He’d been so smart, that desperate, lanky, wild-eyed kid with the greasy blond hair and the needle-marked arms. He’d taken Hannah first, knowing it would stop Marty cold.

But Marty was a cop. A narcotics detective, for God’s sake. He dealt with people like this every day of his life. He knew what they wanted. He knew how to handle them.

‘Take it easy, son. I’ve got almost fifty bucks in my wallet. It’s not much, but it’s all I’ve got, and it’s all yours. Just let her go.’

‘Money first. Toss it over here.’

‘No problem. I’m going into my inside pocket, okay? See? I’ll go really slow, I’ll throw down the money, then we’ll turn around and just walk away. Is that all right with you?’

The kid had blue eyes brightened by a hunger few would ever understand, and for an instant, just an instant, Marty thought he might be making a mistake. The kid’s eyes were too blue; too intense; too narrowly focused. Heroin didn’t do that; neither did crack. He began to think it might be something much worse, like one of the new lethal mixes that made nuclear explosions in burned-out brains.

He opened the lapel of his good jacket slowly, to show the pocket inside, the rectangular shape of a wallet against the silk. But he’d forgotten. Jesus Christ, he’d seen the knife against Hannah’s throat and he’d forgotten everything he knew. He’d forgotten to tell the kid about the gun he had to wear, on duty or off, and then he saw the shock and fear in the kid’s too-bright eyes, and then the flash and bite of the knife, and then the gush of Hannah’s life in a flood he wouldn’t have believed possible.

He held Hannah in his arms as her white dress turned red, frantically punching numbers into his cell phone, calling it in, then tossing the phone aside and rocking her gently. The gash across her throat was so deep it took her voice, but she managed to move her hand to her stomach and ask him with her eyes.

‘It’s all right, Hannah,’ he told her, one hand pressed as hard as he dared on her throat, trying to hold the life inside. ‘The baby’s all right. The baby’s all right.’

He kept telling her that, over and over, until her eyes went flat and her hand slipped lifelessly to the concrete.

The ambulance arrived within five minutes. It was only three minutes too late.

Marty had never even heard the smack of the kid’s footsteps as he ran away. But he remembered his face.

He stood very still in front of the closet for many moments, just breathing, coming back. The pictures of that night were always with him. To one degree or another, he visualized pieces of it every day. But never had the recollection been that complete, the images that cruel and vivid. He’d always known the complete memory would resurface eventually in all its horror, and he’d lived with the certainty that when it did, he would finally be able to pull the trigger.