‘Minneapolis isn’t so safe anymore, that you can be out at all hours. Of course you probably have nothing to worry about with that gun in your pocket.’
Marty smiled a little. Lily didn’t miss a trick.
‘Then again, guns are dangerous. It could go off, you could shoot yourself accidentally.’
‘I’m not going to shoot myself, Lily.’
Lily cocked her head and stared at him for a moment. ‘That’s good to hear, Martin. Then all these months, I’ve been worrying for nothing.’
Marty looked into bright blue ageless eyes, and wondered what would happen if anyone in this family ever told the truth. ‘I thought about it,’ he said, testing the waters.
‘You must still be thinking about it if you’re carrying a gun.’
The truth thing seemed to be working out. Marty thought he’d try it again. ‘Jack asked me to go home and get it. He’s worried about the murders, and wants me to keep an eye on you.’
Lily sipped from her glass without looking at him. ‘He said that?’
‘He did.’
‘Hmph. So I have a bodyguard, now? You’re going to move in, stay here forever? That’s a very big suitcase you brought in.’
Marty gave her a tired half smile and looked down at the old tweed Samsonite he and Hannah had gotten for their honeymoon. ‘I’m going to stay until the cops find out who’s killing people.’
She set her glass down very carefully on the table, then pushed herself up out of the chair. ‘Then you might as well unpack that thing.’
Marty was hanging up his last pair of khakis in the bedroom closet when he heard a soft rap on the door. Without waiting for an answer, Lily entered with a stack of neatly folded clothes and set them down on the bed.
He looked uncertainly at the blazing white boxer shorts on the top of the pile. ‘Are those mine?’
‘All day I had to soak these in bleach. Have you heard of bleach?’
He walked over and held them up. There were razor-sharp creases in the front. ‘You ironed my underwear?’
She shrugged. ‘Are we animals? Of course I ironed them.’ She toddled over to the closet and examined the row of khakis he’d just hung up. ‘You can’t fold slacks like that,’ she said, pulling each pair off the hanger and refolding them along the crease.
When she’d finished, she turned to find Marty sitting on the bed, watching her with a sad smile.
‘What?’
‘Hannah used to do that.’
Lily folded her lips together, looked away, and nodded. ‘We all walk around with holes in our hearts.’ She looked back and met his eyes. ‘But we still walk around.’
‘Sometimes I’m not sure why we do that. Why we hang on when things get so bad.’ He glanced at the fading, bluish tattoo on her arm. ‘There had to have been times when you wondered if it was worth it.’
She squared her shoulders beneath the puffy purple robe and eyed him steadily. ‘Not once. Not for one single minute. Life is always worth it.’
Marty remained sitting on the bed for a long time after the door clicked shut behind her, a little shamed by this tiny old woman who was so much stronger than he was.
Finally he went to the old rolltop desk in the corner, pulled out the chair, and sat down. The top drawer was mostly empty, except for a legal tablet and a package of ballpoint pens. With great care, he centered the tablet on the desk, selected a pen, and then just sat there, waiting. Eventually his hand moved almost of its own accord, picking up the pen, drawing a circle with lines radiating from it, like a sun. In the middle of the sun, he wrote ‘JACK.’
An hour later, he leaned back and rubbed his burning eyes, and for the first time in a long time, he was craving coffee instead of scotch. He’d filled three pages with notes and questions, and still, jumbled thoughts ricocheted through his head, demanding transfer to paper.
This is what he used to do when he was working a particularly troublesome case, and the familiarity of it reminded him of many a late night when Hannah would creep into his office quietly, drape her arms over his shoulders, and chide him gently for leaving her alone in that big, cold bed. He could almost feel the weight of her soft arms, smell the lemony soap she used to wash her face, feel the tickle of her silky hair on the back of his neck.
An amazed smile formed slowly on his lips. For an entire year, his only memories of Hannah had been of her death. Now, for the first time, he was recalling a piece of her life.
I’m getting better, he thought, flipping over a new page.
25
The sun was just beginning to rise over the river bluffs when Magozzi and Gino crossed the Mississippi on the Lake Street Bridge. The streaks of pink and gold in the sky reflected on the dark surface of the water, rippling like shimmering ribbons of champagne.
‘Boy, would I love to be able to put that on canvas,’ Magozzi murmured. ‘Look at the water, Gino. It’s beautiful.’
Gino grunted. He had some serious bags under his eyes this morning, and his cropped blond hair looked angry. ‘Beautiful, my ass. You wouldn’t think so if you’d had my night. The Accident got into a box of that kids’ cereal with all the different-colored animals, and threw up rainbows for about three hours. Looked just like that water.’
‘The kid’s kind of young to be eating that stuff, isn’t he?’
‘The kid will never eat that cereal, if Angela has anything to say about it. It was my secret cache. You know those rubber-bandy things you kid-proof your cupboards with?’
‘Nope.’
‘Well, they don’t work, or else the Accident’s a genius.’
‘You have to quit calling him that. He’s going to get a complex.’
‘I would never call him that to his little, sweet, drooling face. Man, I’m starving. Would you please tell me why traffic is stopped dead in the middle of this bridge at six o’clock in the morning?’
The legendary body of water they were suspended over was the geographical division between Minneapolis and its twin city, and after Magozzi had seen a repeat of Kristen Keller’s report this morning, he’d understood why Malcherson had chosen a hole-in-the-wall diner in St Paul as the venue for this morning’s emergency briefing. Word was that the press had already set up a full ambush at City Hall in Minneapolis. St Paul was the last place they’d be looking for them.
‘Oh, man, would you look at this?’ Gino grumbled, getting out of the car. ‘There are people trotting around all over the road up there. Slap on the roof light, I’m going to go push my weight around.’ He stalked away up through the lines of motionless cars, and Magozzi said a silent prayer for all the motorists who had come between Gino and his breakfast.
He was back in under five minutes, sliding into the car, wearing a silly little smile. ‘That was pretty cool.’
Magozzi gave him a sidelong once-over. ‘You’ve got feathers on your shirt.’
‘Huh. How about that.’
‘You didn’t eat a bird or anything, did you?’
‘Nah. It was one of those suicidal mother ducks, leading her kids across the bridge like she owned the place. You got any idea how fast those little yellow buggers can run? We had a heck of a time catching them all. Some guy had an empty beer case in his truck, so we stuffed them all in there and he’s taking them to the other side. Traffic should start moving in a minute.’
Basil’s Broiler was a dimly lit greasy spoon that catered to all-night types, most of whom had already straggled home to bed if the empty stools and tables were any indication. The only person at the front counter was a spike-haired kid with an unbelievable amount of metal bristling from his ears, eyebrows, lips, and nose. He looked up briefly when Magozzi and Gino entered, then went back to staring into his coffee cup.
‘You see that kid?’ Gino whispered once they were out of earshot. ‘Get yourself a little red ball and you could play jacks with his face. I’m telling you, that’s what happens when you let your kid pierce her ears. They start out with a cute little gold button, then it’s a hoop, then it’s two hoops, and before you know it – jack-face.’