‘Drunk out of his friggin’ mind?’ Gino suggested, and Chief Boyd smiled, almost apologetically.
‘Well, he had just come home from burying his father,’ he said, making Gino feel like a heartless son of a bitch. ‘And I think he’s been going through a really rough patch for a while now. We’ve had some problems; stopped him a few times on the road, saw to it that he got home safely.’
Gino looked at Magozzi. ‘I want to live here.’
‘Then this morning,’ the chief continued, ‘we received calls from just about everybody within earshot about gunfire at the Gilbert house. Jack Gilbert was close to hysterical and waving a gun when we got here, and the yard and his wife’s car were pretty shot up.’
‘Jesus,’ Gino murmured. ‘Someone really was trying to kill him.’
‘Well, we’re not so sure about that. There’s a lot of damage, and a lot of brass around, but so far it’s all 9-mm. Slugs, too. We dug a couple of those out of the garage siding and some tree trunks.’
‘Which means?’ Magozzi asked, and the chief lifted one shoulder in an awkward shrug.
‘The gun Mr Gilbert was holding was a Smith & Wesson 9-mm, still warm, and he told us outright he’d emptied the clip trying to hit whomever he thought was shooting at him. We’ll send everything to the lab, of course, just in case there were two men shooting two different 9-mm’s out here.’
Magozzi studied him for a moment. ‘You don’t think there was another shooter at all, do you?’
Chief Boyd looked down at the polished tar beneath his polished boots and sighed. ‘You know, Jack Gilbert’s lived here ten years – as long as I’ve been chief – and he’s always been a little… eccentric. But overall, a hell of a nice guy. Then about a year or so ago he just started to unravel. A lot of drinking, a lot of complaints from the neighbors, and as I said, we’ve had to pull him off the road more than once. One time I was driving down the main street in town on my way to lunch, and there’s Mr Gilbert strolling the sidewalk in front of the shops in his bathrobe and not much more. I put him in the car in record time, but when I asked him what the hell he thought he was doing parading around downtown in his robe, he looked down at himself and said, “Holy shit.” I swear to God, the man didn’t realize he wasn’t dressed. Almost locked him up right there, just so the Court would order a psych evaluation and get him some help.’
‘Might have been a kindness,’ Gino said.
Chief Boyd chuckled softly. ‘Unfortunately, the residents of this community do not think it’s a kindness when their police officers arrest them, no matter how good the intentions. I’ll tell you, this job is more political than I ever wanted to be.’
Magozzi nodded in understanding. ‘We run into the same thing in the city sometimes. If a patrol gets a judge blowing point-one-oh on the Breathalyzer, you know he’s gotta wonder if the arrest is going to come back to haunt him next time he’s got a case in front of the bench. Sad but true.’
The chief looked off into a patch of painfully pruned woods. ‘My officer tells me you wanted to question Gilbert. He’s pretty messed up. I hope you’re not going to tell me he’s a suspect in the Uptown killings.’
Magozzi smiled. ‘You like him, don’t you?’
‘I guess I do. I get a feeling from him, like he’s one of the good people that just got lost somewhere along the way.’
‘Well, for what it’s worth, we’re not looking at him as a suspect right now, but we think he might be holding something back that could help us out. We just want to talk to him.’
They found Jack Gilbert slumped in the back of the ambulance, dressed in shorts and a polo shirt, bare legs dangling over the edge. He looked like precisely what he was – a heavy drinker coming off a long-term toot. Bleary, pouched eyes, sallow complexion, and a looseness around the mouth that made it look like it was melting. There was a butterfly bandage on his forehead, and he was holding a cold pack on his cheek. He looked up as they approached and toasted them with a bottle of water.
‘Hey, guys. Welcome to the burbs. Little out of your jurisdiction, aren’t you?’
‘How are you doing, Mr Gilbert?’ Gino asked.
‘Doing fine. Little cut up here, little smackeroonie right here.’ He wiggled the cold pack. ‘Probably ran into a god-damned tree, can’t really remember, otherwise I’m just aces.’
Magozzi moved in a little closer until he and Gino had Gilbert flanked. ‘Are you going to the hospital?’
‘Nah. I just figured I paid about a grand to get this rig out here, might as well sit in it for a while.’
‘You want to tell us what happened?’
‘I saw you talking to the chief. He didn’t tell you?’
‘The chief wasn’t here; you were,’ said Gino.
Jack sighed, pulled away the cold pack and pointed his cheek toward them. ‘How’s it look?’
Gino leaned forward and squinted. ‘A little swollen. A little red, but not so bad. Where’d you get the Smith & Wesson, Jack?’
‘Whoa. No foreplay?’
‘Not today. The body count’s going up a little too fast for that sort of thing.’
Jack held Gino’s eyes for a minute while his brain tried to work, then finally shrugged. ‘Pop had it forever. Don’t know where he got it, but I knew where he kept it. I brought it home last night.’
‘After you heard Ben Schuler had been killed. That really scared the hell out of you, didn’t it, Jack?’
A defensive glint in the eyes now. ‘Yeah, you bet it did. In case you hadn’t noticed, they’re dropping Jews, Detective, and I happen to be one.’
Magozzi leaned his shoulder against the ambulance door and said reasonably, ‘One of several thousand in the Cities. What made you think you might be a target? You’re too young, for one thing, and so far all the killings have been in Uptown, and that’s a long way from Wayzata.’
‘Oh, come on. First Pop gets it, then one of his best friends? You don’t think that’s a little too close to home?’
Magozzi lifted a shoulder in concession. ‘Okay. I’ll give you that.’
‘Goddamn right you’ll give me that, because some asshole tried to shoot me in my own driveway this morning.’
‘You never did fax us that list, Jack,’ Gino said.
‘What list?’
‘First time we met you, you said you’d fax us a list of all the people who wanted you dead. About a hundred, I think you said.’
‘Oh, for chrissake, it was a joke.’
‘Was it?’
Jack lifted the cold pack back up to his cheek. ‘What are you getting at?’
Magozzi shrugged. ‘Well, in your line of work, you’re bound to run into a few shadowy characters every now and then. Maybe you stepped over the line, got involved in something where the people play hardball.’
Jack blew a raspberry. ‘And what? Started killing the people around me? Man, you’ve been watching too many DeNiro movies.’
‘Hey. It’s been known to happen.’
‘Your father was a real upstanding guy,’ Gino put in. ‘Bet he wouldn’t like his only son swimming below the scum line. Bet he’d turn his back on you quicker than a dog shakes off water, which would explain the estrangement.’
Jack was incredulous. ‘I don’t believe this. Is that why you came out here this morning? You think something I did is getting people killed? I’m a fucking personal injury attorney. My clients are people who slip in spilled pickle juice in grocery stores, not John Gotti types, for chrissake.’
Gino spread his hands. ‘You’re the wild card, Jack. You’re messed up in this somehow, and we’re going to look you up and down until we find out what the hell you did.’
Jack threw up his hands. ‘Be my guest. I’ve got nothing to hide.’ He eased down from the ambulance and limped off toward the driveway.