P. Tracy - Live Bait

‘And how the hell do we do that?’ McLaren asked.

‘Gino and I are heading over to Grace MacBride’s with the files. I gave her the Nazi scenario, and she thought she might be able to help us with that. In the meantime, we’ve got two open crime scenes – Rose Kleber’s and Ben Schuler’s.’

‘BCA hit them already.’

‘Yeah, but our bodies were just victims then, not potential killers. You’re going to be looking at their places with a whole different point of view. Split up, pull some floaters from the roster to help, then each of you take a team and turn those houses upside down. We want the.45 in a big way, but some kind of documentation would work, too.’

‘Oh, come on,’ McLaren scoffed. ‘No matter who they were killing, they’d never keep records that could come back and bite them.’

‘Not if they were pros,’ Langer interjected quietly, ‘but if they were killing Nazis, they just might. That would have been their legacy.’ He glanced up at Gino and Magozzi. ‘We should search the nursery, too,’ he said, regret in his voice.

Gino nodded. ‘Yeah, we talked to the county attorney about that when you were at lunch. Kleber and Schuler are still secured crime scenes, and we can crawl all over them, but the Gilbert place is something else. Technically, we never had much of a crime scene, and what we had – the greenhouse and the area around it – was released after the BCA boys covered it. That means we need a warrant, and no way he’s going to sign off on it with what we’ve got.’

‘We could ask Lily,’ McLaren suggested.

Gino snorted. ‘Right. Hey, Mrs Gilbert, we think your husband was a mass murderer. Mind if we look around?’

McLaren’s face screwed up in frustration. ‘So if our only proof is at the nursery, we’re screwed anyway.’

Magozzi sighed. ‘We try the other two places first, before we waste time trying to put together reasonable cause for a warrant. If we come up empty, we’ll go to Malcherson, see if he has any big strings he can pull.’

Gino jumped off the edge of the desk he’d been sitting on. ‘We gotta get moving here.’

Magozzi held up a finger. ‘There’s one more thing you should know. We’ve got something going with Jack Gilbert. Turns out someone really did take a shot at him in Wayzata this morning, and the gun they used was the same one that killed Rose Kleber and Ben Schuler.’

Langer blinked at that and came to attention. ‘Wait a minute. They’re trying to kill Jack Gilbert? That doesn’t even make sense… unless you think he was in on this thing.’

‘Family business?’ McLaren offered.

Gino shook his head. ‘Doesn’t feel right, even to me, and I hate the guy. But he sure as hell knows something he’s holding back – maybe even who the shooter is – which makes him a prime target. Marty’s making him stay at the nursery, and we’ve got a car covering them, just in case.’

McLaren’s brows made little red mountains. ‘Jesus. You set a trap for the guy, and Jack Gilbert’s the bait.’

‘Do not even say that out loud. We did no such thing. We’d have him in a cell in a second if we could make anything stick, just to save his worthless ass. As it is, we’ve got Marty as on-site protection, and a patrol hanging close. That’s the best we can do. If it turns out the guy does come for him, we’ll make the best of a bad situation.’

It was almost two o’clock by the time Gino and Magozzi pulled to the curb in front of Grace MacBride’s house. The thermometer in the car – which ironically worked perfectly when the air conditioner wouldn’t at all – read eighty-seven degrees. The air was breathlessly still and thick, and Gino’s forehead was dripping as they walked from the car to the house.

‘Man, you almost gotta do the breaststroke to get through this stuff. I feel like Frosty the Snowman when he got locked in the greenhouse with all the poinsettias.’

Charlie was all over Gino when Grace opened the front door. He didn’t just jump up and lick his face; he whined while he was doing it, licking so hard that he nearly pushed Gino off the steps.

Magozzi folded his arms across his chest and watched the annoying display. Damn dog was making a fool of himself, the stub of his ravaged tail wagging so hard he couldn’t keep both hind feet on the ground at once.

‘Charlie, Charlie, my man.’ Gino was laughing, hugging the stupid dog as if he were a person.

Grace was standing in the open doorway, hair pulled back into a ponytail, wearing the ubiquitous black T-shirt and jeans. The derringer was snug in its ankle holster, and she wore a smudge of flour on a sour expression. ‘Charlie, get in here.’

Charlie wasn’t moving, so Gino picked him up and carried him inside.

‘That was pretty disgusting,’ Magozzi said.

‘Bite your tongue. That was pure, furry adoration. This dog loves me to death.’

‘That’s always bothered me,’ Grace said irritably, closing the door, resetting the security system.

‘You think it bothers you?’ Magozzi tried not to look wounded. ‘Took weeks before that dog came out from hiding to meet me at the door. First time Gino ever showed up here he damn near knocked him down.’

‘I got doggie pheromones,’ Gino said.

Charlie was pressing against Magozzi’s leg now, trying to apologize. ‘Slut,’ Magozzi grumbled down at him, managing to resist for almost a full second before dropping to one knee and settling happily for second best.

Grace was standing with her hands on her hips, shaking her head. ‘What is it with men and dogs?’

‘Similar morals?’ asked Gino, earning a very small smile before Grace reverted to business mode, holding out her hand to Magozzi.

‘Did you bring Arlen Fischer’s pictures?’

‘Right here.’ Magozzi got to his feet and handed her a thin file. ‘Crime-scene photo from the tracks and a morgue shot.’

Grace opened the folder and took a quick look. ‘These should work, but you realize it’s still a long shot. Even if Arlen Fischer was a Nazi, there might not be any photo-documentation on the Web. There aren’t a lot of photos of the low-level camp guards, for instance, because those weren’t the big guns the war crimes people were looking for. If he was an officer, we’ve got a chance.’

Magozzi handed her another file. ‘I brought the photos of the overseas victims that Interpol faxed over, but the quality sucks. They were photocopies in the first place, and you said you wanted originals.’

Grace glanced at them and wrinkled her nose. Magozzi thought it was about the cutest thing he’d ever seen happen to a human face. ‘We’ll start with Fischer then, and if we don’t get any hits, I can try the photocopies. It’s a slow program. I’ll get it started.’

They followed her up to the doorway of her office, but didn’t go in. Charlie and Magozzi had seen her roll her chair at high speed from one end to the other when she was working more than one computer, and knew better than to get underfoot. Gino avoided small rooms with computers as a matter of course, convinced they emitted some kind of radiation that might have a deleterious effect on cherished body parts.

Grace settled in front of a large computer Gino thought looked particularly dangerous, and proceeded to do confusing things with a mouse, which he could identify; and with another machine, which he couldn’t. ‘What is that? Looks like a teeny-weeny mangle.’

‘What on earth is a mangle?’ Grace asked without looking up.

‘You know. One of those ironing machines. You stick wrinkled clothes in one end and they come out the other all pressed and flat. Sheets and tablecloths and stuff. It’s kind of cool, actually.’