‘Helen got her ears pierced?’
‘Over my dead body.’
They found Malcherson at a far back table. He had a tablet, two cell phones, and one of those nasty red homicide folders fanned out in front of him.
He looked up when they approached and nodded once. ‘Good morning, Detectives.’
‘Good morning, Chief,’ they replied in unison, sounding like schoolboys greeting a scary headmaster.
‘You’re late.’
‘Mother duck and her babies on the bridge,’ Gino explained, earning a rare smile from Malcherson. Anyone who’d lived a single spring in Minnesota knew about ducks crossing the road, freeway traffic coming to a halt, and frazzled motorists who probably wanted to shoot each other morphing instantly into a happy group bent on animal rescue.
‘I trust you were able to get them across safely?’
‘We did, sir.’
‘Good.’ He gestured for them to sit, and nudged a metal coffee carafe toward them. ‘There is no menu. There is no waitress. There is, however, a hulking brute in the kitchen who said he would bring out three breakfasts. I have no idea what that might consist of.’
‘It’ll be great,’ Gino said. ‘Viegs told me about this place. They cook everything in lamb oil.’
Malcherson sighed. ‘How… unusual.’
Gino poured himself a cup of coffee, took a noisy sip, then studied the chief’s suit with a slightly puzzled expression. He was wearing the double-breasted dove-gray this morning with a pale blue tie.
Don’t ask, Malcherson told himself, pretending not to notice, but finally he couldn’t stand it anymore. ‘All right, Rolseth, what’s the problem with my clothes?’
‘Well, that is truly one of my favorite suits, sir, but… it’s not one of your murder suits.’
‘I see. I have murder suits. Which ones would those be?’
‘You know. The aggressive ones. The black for sure, and the charcoal, even the pinstripe works when you’re really hot to trot after some lowlife. But this one is kind of upbeat. Hopeful. You usually only wear the dove-gray when we’re wrapping things up.’
Malcherson released a weary sigh. ‘I find it strange that a man who wears food on forty-dollar sport coats takes such an interest in analyzing the psychology of my wardrobe choices.’
‘Well, you’re kind of my fashion idol, Chief.’
Malcherson’s eyes were the same color as his suit. He turned them toward Magozzi. It was simply too early in the morning to even try to talk to Rolseth. ‘I’ve been getting calls since last night’s late newscast. I thought we were going to try to hold back the information on the tattoos.’
‘Yeah, well, that was a great idea, but Kristin Keller and her gang of henchmen were interviewing neighbors before we even zipped up Ben Schuler’s body bag,’ Gino said. ‘Besides, we knew from the get-go we weren’t going to keep that detail under wraps for long. Anyone who knew any of the victims knew they’d been in the camps. Hell, anyone who ever saw them in short sleeves would have seen the tattoos, and that’s the kind of thing that comes out when you get the media interviewing friends and neighbors.’
Malcherson assented with a slight tip of his head. ‘True enough. But now the pressure is on. As of last night, the entire city knows that we have three concentration camp survivors killed for no apparent reason, and every broadcast I listened to this morning – including CNN – was either implying hate crime, or suggesting it outright.’
Gino shook his head firmly. ‘We’ve been over that, sir. Hate crime doesn’t fit for a lot of reasons. Besides, two of these three people knew each other, and our feeling is that they were involved in something that got them killed.’
Malcherson smiled at Gino, which was pretty terrifying. ‘I can hardly wait. Tell me, Detective Rolseth, what sort of nefarious activities do you think these senior citizens were involved in that made them murder targets?’
‘Well… we don’t exactly have a handle on that yet…’
He was interrupted by the gunshot sound of the hulking brute’s boot hitting the swinging door from the kitchen. The closer he came to the table, the higher Magozzi had to lift his chin to see the guy’s craggy, scarred face. Seven feet minimum, he thought, with the coiled musculature of an ex-con who always got the weight bench in the exercise yard. He unloaded the huge tray he was carrying, setting a meat platter in front of each of them. Eggs, sausage, cottage fries, biscuits and gravy towered and steamed.
Gino licked his lips at the feast before him, then looked up at the man, apparently undaunted by his size. ‘Jesus, buddy, are those knife cuts all over your face?’
Malcherson and Magozzi both tensed. Gino was happily oblivious.
‘Yeah,’ the rumble came back. ‘Bunch of guys jumped me with shivs.’
‘Bummer. Inside?’
‘Yep. You?’
Gino stabbed an accordian of potato circles and stuffed them into his mouth. ‘Not yet. So far I’m on the other team… Omigod, these fries are amazing. Leo, try the fries, then ask this guy to marry you.’
The hulking brute beamed, and assuming that meant he wasn’t going to kill them all, Malcherson examined his fork, took a small bite of potato, then blinked. ‘Oh my. Fresh rosemary. Wonderful.’
‘Thanks. Nobody in this neighborhood ever notices the rosemary. You want ketchup?’
By tacit agreement, none of them spoke for a few moments while they ate. Magozzi and Malcherson had both managed to clear about a third of their plates, then pushed them away simultaneously.
‘You aren’t going to eat that?’ Gino asked, chasing the last skittering bit of sausage across his own barren platter. ‘Damn shame to waste it. Besides, I wouldn’t want to offend the guy.’
‘Good point.’ Malcherson nudged his plate in Gino’s direction, then glanced at his watch. ‘If you two really believe Morey Gilbert, Rose Kleber, and Ben Schuler were connected beyond their common experience as concentration camp survivors, I assume you’re examining their records, phone bills, bank statements, that sort of thing.’
Well, yes, they were, Magozzi thought; but not exactly through the proper channels. ‘We’re handling that, sir.’
‘Really. Handling it how? I haven’t seen a warrant cross my desk -’ He stopped abruptly and looked at Magozzi. ‘Never mind. Don’t answer that.’
Malcherson knew full well about Magozzi’s continuing relationship with Grace MacBride, who could hack her way into any supposedly secure database. He also knew that his best detective – a man who wouldn’t loosen his tie on the job because it violated department dress code – had developed a troubling impatience with privacy laws and civil rights and department procedure when he thought lives were at stake. Warrants took time. Checking records took time, and the temptation to take shortcuts was enormous for a cop who thought he was fighting the clock to find a killer. Malcherson understood the temptation as well as anyone, but also understood that once you started breaking the rules, it was hard to stop, and one of the most dangerous things in the world was an officer of the law who thought he was above it. ‘Detective Magozzi…’
‘We’re trying to move pretty fast on this, Chief,’ Magozzi interrupted. ‘We don’t know if there are other targets out there.’
‘I know that.’
‘Old, defenseless, terrified targets,’ Gino inserted around a mouthful of eggs. ‘Cookie-baking grandmas like Rose Kleber.’
‘Detective Magozzi,’ Malcherson repeated in a tone that quieted both his detectives. ‘If you intend to ask Grace MacBride and her associates to use the program that worked so well finding links on our cold cases, remind her to access only that information in the public domain.’