‘I’ll do that, sir. But we aren’t just waiting for something in the records to pop. Like we said in the report, we think Jack Gilbert knows something, and we’re going to hit him hard today.’
‘Then I wish you all the luck in the world. As far as the press and the public are concerned, it looks like this killer has a very specific demographic target group, and those people are starting to panic.’ He folded his hands together and looked down at his shiny gold watch. ‘Do you recall the dire predictions the press was making when the legislature passed the new conceal-and-carry law?’
Gino snorted. ‘Oh yeah. They were singing the dark song. Millions of Minnesotans packing, gunning each other down in the streets. And you know what? I didn’t hear a word on the news when the new applications fizzled down to near nothing.’
Malcherson’s eyes slid to Gino. ‘Yesterday alone there were three hundred seventy-three new applications to carry a concealed weapon. That was in Hennepin County. Our county, gentlemen. Three hundred of those applications were filed by people over the age of sixty-five.’
‘Holy shit… sir.’
Malcherson flinched at the vulgarity. ‘That was before Ben Schuler’s murder was reported. I expect the numbers could go even higher today, especially now that we’ve earned national attention. CNN headlined it last night; the other networks will have it by the evening news, and that, gentlemen, is really going to stir the pot.’
Gino threw up his hands. ‘What’s the matter with these people? If I was a national reporter sifting the wire reports I’d jump on the old guy who was tortured and tied to a train track.’
Malcherson sighed. ‘It was one murder. Sensational, yes, but there are dozens of sensationalistic murders every day in this country. You, on the other hand, are working three murders, and even if no one says “serial” aloud, they’re thinking it. That in itself is enough to garner national attention. Add to it the incomprehensible horror of someone murdering elderly survivors of the death camps, and the eyes of the country will be on you.’
Magozzi felt a tickle deep inside his head, as if little brain cells were standing up and waving their arms, trying to get his attention. He closed his eyes and frowned hard, concentrating.
‘What is it, Detective?’ Malcherson asked.
Magozzi opened his eyes and looked at the chief. ‘I don’t know. It’ll come to me.’
26
By the time Magozzi and Gino left Chief Malcherson at the diner, the sun had risen high into a hazy, almost-white sky. The air was soupy and oppressive, and the mercury was already courting the eighty-degree mark. When they turned west on 394, they could see the haze starting to gel on the horizon, stirring the sky.
‘There she comes,’ Gino remarked, looking up from his pointless fiddling with the buttons on the car’s useless air conditioner. ‘Canadian cold front is finally dropping, and when that baby gets here, we’re going to have the clash of the Titans.’
‘They said sometime tonight,’ Magozzi said. ‘The whole state’s under a tornado watch.’
‘How weird is that? Two weeks ago I was shoveling five inches of snow off the driveway; now we’re poaching in our own sweat watching the sky for funnel clouds.’
‘Welcome to Minnesota.’
Twenty minutes later Magozzi was guiding the unmarked along the scenic, curving streets of a wooded development that tried hard to look like Minnesota wilderness. It had all the elements – enormous stands of mature trees, the bubbling rush of creeks fed by snowmelt and spring rains – but nature had not groomed these places. This was what some community planner thought nature was supposed to look like.
There was no fallen brush between the trees, no canted branches to mark the passage of the last storm, and if one leaf had dared to fall on the unmarked tar last autumn, it had long since been swept away.
There were no lots in this part of Wayzata. Here, everyone had ‘acreage,’ and only occasionally could you catch a glimpse of the enormous homes set far back from the street, artfully concealed by strategic landscaping.
Gino was looking out the window with a deeply suspicious expression. ‘Okay, now this is just not right. There are no potholes in this road. It’s spring in Minnesota, for chrissake. You’re supposed to have potholes. And the damn tar looks polished. You get a load of that house we just passed on the hill back there?’
Magozzi shook his head, eyes on the road as he negotiated a hairpin turn that followed the natural course of what was clearly a very confused creek. ‘There has to be another way to Jack Gilbert’s house. No way he could drive this street drunk.’
‘I don’t know. Might help to be drunk. Man, this thing twists like an intestine.’
‘Really pretty imagery, Gino.’
‘Thank you. I kind of like all the curves, actually, and the only place you find them anymore is in some kind of hoity-toity development. Pisses me off how MnDOT straightens all the roads as if none of us had steering wheels. The whole damn state’s turning into one big ugly grid pattern… Uh-oh. What do we got here?’
Magozzi had seen the first of the flashing lights peeking around the curve ahead, and had already started to apply the brakes. The closer they got, the more vehicles they saw, all with light bars flashing. There were four Wayzata police cruisers, an ambulance, security rent-a-cop cars, the fire department’s first-responder truck, and worst of all, a couple of satellite vans from the local TV stations.
Magozzi came nose to door with a WPD car blocking the road. ‘What do you bet that’s Gilbert’s place up there?’
Gino’s voice was tense. ‘Goddamnit. We should have pinned him down last night. I’m going to hate myself if that drunken son of a bitch is dead.’
A tall, blond, buff patrolman who looked like a GQ model walked up to the driver’s side. Magozzi held up his badge. ‘Minneapolis Homicide. Detectives Magozzi and Rolseth. Is that the Gilbert house?’
‘Yes sir, it is. But we don’t have a homicide here.’
Gino and Magozzi sighed in a relieved duet.
‘Glad to hear it, Officer. So what happened? We were hoping to catch Jack Gilbert for a couple questions on a Minneapolis case we’re working. He’s not hurt, is he?’
The officer looked back toward the phalanx of vehicles. ‘I don’t think so. Nothing visible, anyway. The med techs are looking him over now, but he’s pretty shook-up. Says somebody tried to kill him.’
Gino and Magozzi exchanged a glance. ‘We need to get in there and talk to him, Officer. Any problem with that?’
‘I’m sure there isn’t, Detective, but you might want to talk to Chief Boyd first, get some background on what’s been happening here. Gilbert’s version is a little garbled. Hang on, I’ll get him for you.’
They barely had time to get out of the car before Wayzata’s police chief came over and introduced himself. If anything, he was better-looking than his patrolman, with just a little more age on him. Magozzi decided you had to be a pretty person to live in Wayzata.
‘It’s a real pleasure to meet you, Detectives.’ Chief Boyd flashed a spectacular set of pearly whites. ‘You did some amazing work on that Monkeewrench case last fall. You’re on the Uptown murders now, right? I read Gilbert’s dad was one of the victims.’
‘That’s right,’ Gino said. ‘We were on our way to talk to Jack Gilbert, clear up a few things, when we ran into your parade. You got a pretty heavy call-out here, Chief. What happened?’
‘Last night, or this morning?’
Gino raised his brows. ‘Last night?’
‘That’s when it started. About eleven P.M. Gilbert dialed nine-one-one in a panic. He said he thought he had an intruder on the grounds, so we sent out a couple of cars to take a look. They went over the property pretty thoroughly, but couldn’t find anything, and to tell you the truth, the boys shrugged it off as a false alarm. Mr Gilbert was…’ He paused diplomatically.