Magozzi glanced over at the part of the yard he could see from the street. A heavily wooded hill rose up, blocking any view of the house, and Wayzata cops were crawling all over it. ‘Maybe we’re on the wrong track,’ he said.
‘Wouldn’t be the first time. We gotta make nice now, right?’
‘That’s the way it works.’
They caught up with Jack next to a place where cops were using their flashlights in the shadows under the big pines.
‘You’re limping, Jack,’ Gino said. ‘Did you hurt your leg, too?’
‘Kiss my ass.’
‘Hey, I’m trying.’
Jack smiled a little. ‘You suck at it.’
‘So is this where it happened?’ Magozzi asked.
‘No, up by the house, but who knows where the guy was shooting from?’
They moved on up the paving-stone driveway until they rounded a curve and got their first look at the sprawling house that Jack built, and the scene in front of the garage.
‘Jesus,’ Gino murmured. ‘What a mess.’
The driveway was littered with shards of bark and little branches. It looked like a tree had exploded. The Mercedes SUV parked close to the garage was pockmarked with what were surely bullet holes, with most of the windows blown out or damaged. The big one in the rear gate had cracked and crumbled to the ground, little patchwork pieces of safety glass glinting on the paving stones.
They stopped a few feet from the vehicle, respecting the crime-scene tape around it. One of the Wayzata officers was inside, tweezing something out of the dashboard and into a plastic bag.
‘That’s where I was,’ Jack said, pointing. ‘I was just about to open the rear gate when I heard the shot and felt something whiz by my ear. Scared me shitless, I don’t mind telling you, so I pulled the gun out of my pocket and started shooting back.’
Magozzi looked off through the trees to the right. A few twigs dangled from strips of bark. ‘The shot came from there?’
‘I’m pretty sure.’
‘Just one?’
‘Jesus, I don’t know. I was making a little noise myself by that time.’
Magozzi nodded. ‘Okay, that makes sense, but I was wondering about the bullet holes in the back gate if your shooter was off to the side like that.’
Jack frowned at the bullet holes. ‘I might have done that.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Maybe. I was kind of shooting all over the place. I mean, Jesus, I didn’t know where the guy was.’
‘Nice going,’ Gino said dryly. ‘You could have killed half the neighborhood.’
To his credit, Jack went pale.
‘You look a little wrung out, Jack. What do you say we go inside, sit down, relax, and have a little talk,’ Magozzi suggested, but Jack shook his head.
‘Can’t go inside. Slept in the pool house last night after Becky kicked me out, and she sure as hell isn’t going to let me back in after this. I don’t want to be in there anyway. I’m going to call a cab and go get my car at the nursery, maybe bunk at the club for a while.’
‘We’re headed back that way. You’re welcome to ride with us if you like.’
Jack eyed him suspiciously. ‘Am I under arrest?’
‘For getting shot at?’ Gino asked. ‘Jesus, Jack, we’re just offering you a lift. You want it or not?’
‘Yeah, I guess. I got a duffel down in the ambulance.’
‘We’d better grab it then, before they drive off with it.’ Gino caught Magozzi’s eye and tipped his head ever so slightly in the direction of the house.
Magozzi glanced behind him and saw a slender woman standing in the shadows of the open doorway, arms folded across her chest. ‘I’ll catch up with you in a few minutes.’
Becky Gilbert, like the neighborhood she lived in, was just a little too perfect to be entirely natural. Her pretty, bronzed face was smooth and oddly taut, like fabric stretched too tight in an embroidery hoop. She had the lithe, perfectly toned body of a serious fitness club member, and her tennis whites looked as if they’d been tailored to make the most of it. Diamonds flashed on her wrist – probably the only woman in the world who actually wore tennis bracelets while she played tennis, Magozzi thought.
Her arms were crossed angrily over her chest, and her eyes flashed when Magozzi approached. ‘Mrs Gilbert?’
‘Yes. Who are you?’
‘Detective Magozzi, Minneapolis PD. Homicide.’
She glared over his shoulder at Jack heading down the driveway. ‘He’s not dead yet.’
‘You sound disappointed.’
She let out a frustrated sigh and forced a tight smile. ‘I’m not disappointed, Detective. I’m just furious. The police were here half the night looking for Jack’s imaginary stalker, and now this.’
‘So you don’t actually believe someone is trying to kill him?’
‘Of course not. Jack’s burned some bridges in the past year, but nothing that would get him killed.’
‘Can you think of anything unusual that’s happened recently?’
‘Like what?’
‘Oh, I don’t know, strange cars hanging around, late night knocks at the door, hang-ups, threatening phone calls, that sort of thing.’
‘Nothing like that.’ Becky Gilbert tipped her head curiously. ‘Homicide. Is this about his father?’
‘Yes. We needed to ask Jack a few more questions.’
Becky Gilbert’s outright anger at her husband seemed to dissipate, like a teakettle steaming itself dry, but bitterness lingered in her eyes. ‘That was a terrible thing.’
‘Did Jack talk to you about his father’s murder?’ Magozzi asked.
She shook her head. ‘Jack never talked about his father, period. By the time we met, they weren’t on speaking terms. I thought it might be a painful subject, so I never brought it up.’
Magozzi looked at this woman who so clearly belonged in this suburb, who so clearly wanted to be here, and thought maybe she hadn’t really been all that considerate of her husband’s feelings; maybe she just had no use for an elderly Jewish couple who lived in Uptown.
‘Do you know what caused the rift between Jack and his father?’
‘I have no idea, Detective. He never chose to share that information with me.’
And you didn’t ask, Magozzi thought.
He ran into Chief Boyd’s genial smile halfway down the driveway.
‘Detective Magozzi. Did you learn anything that might connect to your Uptown cases?’
‘Not unless Ballistics comes up with something. We’d really appreciate a heads-up when you get some results, Chief.’
‘I can do better than that. We don’t send those folks at the lab much business, and I’m guessing you might have a little more pull than we do.’ He held up a large sealed pouch with a chain of custody log tucked into a plastic insert. ‘One Smith & Wesson 9-mm, eleven casings, and nine slugs. I was hoping you might put these in for us.’
Magozzi grinned at him. ‘And I was hoping you’d say that. Saved me the trouble of asking.’ He pulled out the evidence log sheet, braced it on his knee, and started to sign.
‘The elderly woman in Uptown was shot with a 9-mm, if I remember correctly,’ Chief Boyd said casually.
And so was Ben Schuler, Magozzi thought, but there was no reason to put that information on the table just yet. ‘That’s right.’
‘So you’ll probably be getting some answers on the gun in that pouch pretty soon.’
Magozzi straightened and looked at him. ‘There are a lot of 9-mm’s out there, Chief Boyd.’
‘I know that. And I’m really anxious to hear that the one we took from Mr Gilbert hasn’t killed anybody.’
‘I’ll call you myself, the minute I hear. We should have something today.’
They walked together down to the street, where Magozzi paused and looked over at the news satellite vans. When the reporters and cameramen scattered around the trucks saw Chief Boyd and Magozzi, they converged in a swarm, cameras running, microphones waving, reporters calling out questions. They all moved en masse toward the curb, then stopped as if the ridge of concrete were the Great Wall of China.