Play To Kill

    'Jesus, Gino, we're going to look at a body.'

    'It's three hours to lunch. We'll get over it by then.'

    The Mississippi moved like a lady through this part of downtown, taking in the city sights, lapping at the feet of the new Guthrie on one side and the aged bricks of the old flour mills on the other. Until this morning, it had always been Gino's favorite part of Minneapolis.

    'Why do the floaters always wash up in Minneapolis? Can't St. Paul get one for a change?'

    He and Magozzi were standing at the crest of a shallow, wooded embankment that led down to the river. The Parks Department took great care with the green areas down here, frequented primarily by good Minnesotans who took their families on picnics and probably ate grass; but there were a few spots where nature foiled their efforts at judicious pruning and brush clearing, and this was one of them. After dark, a different stratum of society sought out such places, well hidden from the eyes that admired the river views from their million-dollar condos.

    Both men moved slowly down the slope on a path a lot of feet had worn through the tangled trees and brush. Nobody hurried to a death scene. The officers stringing tape behind them said it was a woman, and, in their words, fresh. Yeah, it was totally sexist, but there was a different feeling when the body was female. Magozzi beat himself up more for those, trapped in the macho mind-set that men were supposed to protect women, and dead ones were a personal failure.

    You know what the worst thing is?' Gino grumbled on the way down. 'That there's probably no homicide here; no villain; just another stupid, useless accidental drowning that didn't have to happen.'

    'No homicide ever had to happen, either.'

    Yeah, I get that, but at least with homicide you get somebody you can blame, somebody you can hate. Accidental death? You get to blame the victim, or you get to blame God. That's it. You ask me, that isn't much of a choice.'

    Magozzi squeezed the bridge of his nose, trying to push back one of the headaches Gino always gave him at a crime scene. Twenty hours out of every twenty-four, the man thought of family and food, in that order. But show him a body and all of a sudden he started beating a philosophical drum that boomed in Magozzi's head like a pile driver.

    There was a uniform at the water's edge, standing watch, preserving the scene, trying not to look at the thing that didn't belong in the water.

    The body was face down in the shallows, wearing a white formal gown that moved gracefully in the current as if the body inside were dancing. The scene sent creepy-crawlies up Gino's spine as he tried to quell images of his wife, Angela, walking down a church aisle toward him all those years ago. 'Oh man,' he said quietly. 'Is that a wedding dress?'

    'That's what it looked like to me,' the uniform said, 'but you have to think someone would miss a bride.'

Not if the groom is somewhere else in this river, Magozzi thought. 'You found her?'

    Yes sir. Officer Tomlinson. The river walk is on my regular patrol.'

    The kid was doing a pretty good job of putting on the tough cop face, but that face was unlined and the troubled blue eyes didn't have the flat look of a seasoned patrol yet. Magozzi figured he was about three days out of the academy. 'You're a little off the walk here.'

    'The white caught my eye through the trees, so I came down. Thought maybe it was a heron, something like that…' He stopped and swallowed, then took a breath. 'Anyway, the ME's on his way; my sergeant took six other officers to start the canvass, but if this is where she went in, the cover's pretty dense.'

    Magozzi nodded. 'We could use some more tape up top, Tomlinson, and wider on both sides. The lunch walkers are going to be out soon. Can you handle that?'

    Yes sir, thank you, sir.' He made double-time up the slope.

    Gino shoved his hands in his pockets and tipped his head at Magozzi. 'That was uncommonly kind of you.'

    'He's just a kid. He's been here alone for a while.'

    The hand on Magozzi's shoulder was gentle. He felt himself take a deep, cleansing breath before he turned around and smiled at the medical examiner. It didn't surprise him that Dr. Anantanand Rambachan had simply appeared behind him without sound, without disruption of the environment. The man moved through the world like silk on water, disturbing nothing, taking his place like sunlight.

    'Good morning, Detectives,' he greeted them with a warm smile and handshakes. Anant still loved the Western handshake. Even after all his years in this country, the ritual never failed to tickle him. Touch is everything, Detective Magosgi, he'd said once. The Americans understand this, when many cultures do not. Touch is connection. You are both looking very well indeed. It's as if no time has passed since our last meeting.'

    'Same with you, Doc,' Gino said. 'You still playing hoops?'

    'Hoops?'

    'Basketball.'

    'Ah, yes, of course, basketball. I find I am enjoying the sport a great deal, especially now that my boys are old enough to join me. Perhaps I might have a second career after all.' His mouth didn't smile, but his dark eyes certainly did.

    'Well, you just let us know if you ever want to pick up a game with our department squad - we could use the height.'

    'That is a kind offer, and I thank you. And I am hoping that both of you and your loved ones are quite well?'

    And so it went for a few minutes - the small talk before attending to the unpleasant business at hand was a ritual Magozzi figured all doctors learned their first year of med school. Hello, Mr. Jones. How are you today? How's the family? You're looking good, have you been working out? Remember those tests we ran last week? Well, they didn't turn out so well.

    Finally, Dr. Rambachan stood on one leg while he removed a shoe and pulled on a rubber wading boot. Gino watched in amazement as he repeated the process with the second boot. 'Jeez, Doc, how the hell did you do that? You looked like a flamingo standing there, didn't even wobble. I gotta sit down to put on my socks or I keel over like a bowling pin.'

    'Balance in all things,' Anant smiled, then turned sad eyes to the body in the water. 'So this is our lady friend. I can see she has not traveled far to meet us here.' The man never saw corpses; he merely saw complete human beings that didn't exist any longer in this particular place and time. 'Has anyone touched her?'

    Gino made a face. 'No reason to start messing with a possible crime scene when the victim is obviously dead.'

    'But we must always confirm the obvious.' He went into the water without creating a ripple, then bent to his task. After a moment his hands went still in the water. 'Ah. Here we have a little surprise.'

    When Magozzi and Gino finally walked up from the river to the staging area, the sergeant who'd been running the canvass was back on site, leaning against his car and draining a can of Red Bull. Dark stains made Rorschach patterns on his uniform shirt, and his face was a particularly vivid shade of ripe tomato.

    'Hot one today, Detectives,' he said, giving them the customary weather-related Minnesota greeting as he raised his can in their direction. If it had been winter, the greeting would have been, 'Cold one today, Detectives.'

    'Are you gonna be okay?' Gino asked, mopping at his own brow. "You look like you're already in full meltdown.'

    The sergeant grunted. 'I grew up on the Iron Range. If the temp rises above sixty, I go into full meltdown. So what's the news on that poor gal? I'm telling you, never in my life have I seen such a sad and sorry sight.'