Dead Run Read online

  "Not on it, but right next to it, down in the ditch, on our bellies again if we have to. And not back the way we came in. We know there are soldiers covering that end of town, so we'll try the other direction. Even if they're patrolling the road itself, they'll do it by jeep, and we can hear them coming." She looked at Sharon specifically. "How does that sound?"

  Sharon almost smiled. That Grace had asked the question at all was simply a courtesy, because ultimately, Grace MacBride would do what she wanted to do. "Actually, it sounds wrong. I've got a gun and two badges, and I'm supposed to be chasing bad guys, not running away from them."

  "Honey, not even Rambo would take on these kinds of odds," Annie said.

  "Yeah, I know," Sharon said, stretching her arm until the fingers of her right hand brushed the long, silky fur of the stuffed animal next to her on the bed. Suddenly she went still, frowning. The fur felt . . , sticky. She focused on the strands twined in her fingers, then raised her gaze slightly and stared straight into the glassy eyes of a very dead Yorkshire terrier. Some awful liquid had oozed from its open mouth to puddle and congeal beneath the fur of its chest-the very fur she had been stroking. "Oh, shit," she whispered, launching herself off the bed, holding her hand at arm's length. "That's a real goddamned dog." Then she raced into the bathroom.

  Grace and Annie moved to the bed and stared down at the pathetic pile of fur. From this angle, it still looked remarkably like a stuffed animal; they had to bend even closer to see the extent of the horror that had sent Sharon on her first solo flight of the day.

  Annie squeezed her eyes shut as Grace handled the dog, slipping her fingers into its long hair, searching. Finally she straightened.

  "There isn't a mark on that dog," she said quietly.

  Annie wrinkled her nose. Unlike Grace, she wasn't all that familiar with death. As a matter of fact, she'd seen only one dead person in her entire life, and since she'd inflicted the damage herself, the gross-ness of it hadn't really bothered her that much at the time. But this was disgusting. "It looks like it threw up. Poison?"

  Grace shrugged. "I suppose it could have been. Or any number of natural causes, for that matter. Death is seldom a pretty event." She looked down at her hands and hoped Sharon would finish in the bathroom soon so she could wash them.

  ROADRUNNER WAS PACING back and forth across the considerable length of the office, his shoes screeching on the polished wood with each pirouette and about-face. Harley hunkered down a little lower in front of his computer screen, trying to ignore him as he worked on a trace of the bank account that had financed Gino Rolseth's humiliation by dunk tank-a simple enough task if you didn't have a string bean in Lycra melting down in front of your eyes.

  "Goddamnit, Roadrunner," he finally snapped. "You're wrecking the floor."

  "I am not. I'm wearing sneakers."

  "Okay, how about this?You're driving me fucking crazy. I can't work with you clumping and screeching all over my quarter-sawn oak. And you're upsetting Charlie. Look at him. He's frowning."

  Harley nodded toward Grace's morose-looking wirehaired mongrel, who had assembled himself on a stool at a small bistro table in the corner.

  "He's frowning because you gave him too much ice cream. You know it gives him headaches."

  Charlie's head lifted and his little stump of a tail wiggled when he heard "ice cream."

  "Does that look like a dog who gets ice-cream headaches? I don't think so. Did you feed him his chicken stew yet?" Roadrunner stopped pacing."Chicken stew?" "Yeah, it was in that square plastic thing.. . . Oh, Jesus, don't tell me you ate the dog's food."

  Roadrunner turned a vibrant shade of crimson. "I thought Grace brought that over for us."

  Harley put his head in his hands. "One day I'm going to replace that little toy brain of yours with the brain of a human being."

  "How was I supposed to know? It didn't look like dog food. It didn'ttaste like dog food. .. ."

  "Lucky for you, it's not. That dog eats better than we do." He looked over at Charlie. "Well, buddy, looks like you and me are going to have to get some pizza. What do you think of that, boy?" Charlie lowered his head and whined. "No pizza? What kind of a slob are you?"

  "He's not hungry, he's worried, and you should be, too. It's already five o'clock. They were supposed to be in Green Bay by four."

  "I keep telling you-they're women. God knows how many times they had to stop to eat or put on lipstick or stretch their legs or whatever else it is women do that makes road trips so damn irritating. And on top of that, Annie's with them. Do you know how many vintage clothing stores there are between here and Green Bay?"

  Roadrunner folded his arms huffily across his hollow chest. "This isn't like them, and you know it. Grace promised to call, and she hasn't. And when Annie has an appointment, you can set a clock by her. Worse yet, none of them are answering their cell phones. Something's wrong."

  Harley raked his black beard, reluctant to admit that Roadrunner had a point, because to do so would be admitting that somethingwas wrong. "Maybe they're already there and they just haven't had time to call. This wasn't a pleasure cruise, you know. They have work to do."

  "Are you saying Grace and Annie just forgot to call?"

  Harley sighed. "Grace left a sheet with contact numbers on it, right?"

  Roadrunner nodded.

  "Okay, genius, why don't you call Green Bay and find out if they showed yet?"

  Roadrunner started pacing again, faster than before. "Yeah, but what if they're not there?"

  "Jesus. You run yourself ragged worrying about them, and now you're afraid to call and find out if you should be worrying at all?" He stretched out his hand and waved it impatiently. "Give me the damn number and go take a Valium or something."

  "NICE OF YOU to ferry me all over town like this, buddy."

  "No problem." Magozzi took a turn off Snelling and headed back into the residential checkerboard of one of St. Paul's older neighborhoods. "But as long as I'm over here, I should take a drive past Grace's house while she's gone. Just to keep an eye on things." Gino rolled his eyes. "Uh-huh."

  "Seriously. It's not the best neighborhood, you know." "Yeah, right. You can always spot a crime-ridden neighborhood by all the tricycles in the yards. And those kids in that plastic wading pool over there? Talk about your unsavory types. Look at 'em. They're probably planning a heist right this minute."

  "Oh, give me a break. It's just a few blocks out of the way."

  "Twenty-two, to be exact. And the point is, my friend, you got it bad."

  "Meaning what?" Magozzi pulled to the curb in front of Grace's little house and stared at the lifeless windows.

  "Meaning you're mooning over an empty house, buddy, just because your girlfriend lives there. Shit, I haven't done that kind of stuff since high school."

  "I am not mooning over an empty house. I am looking for burglars and arsonists."

  Gino snorted. "Special Forces couldn't break into Grace's house, and you know it. Damn thing's probably rigged to self-destruct if the paperboy steps on the front mat." He leaned across the front seat and looked out Magozzi's window. "Man, the only yard in the city sadder than yours is Grace's. Between the two of you, you've got the landscape sense of a fire ant. Nobody's trying to kill he anymore, so why doesn't she put some shrubs or something around that place? Looks like nuclear winter."

  Magozzi sighed and pulled away from the curb. "She likes it that way."

  "Why doesn't that surprise me?"

  Ten minutes later, they pulled into Harley's driveway and Gino wasted no time in pointing out the superior landscaping. "Now here's a yard. Living grass, mature trees, and nice, big shrubs with those puffy white things all over them."

  "Flowers. Why are you suddenly so obsessed with people's yards?"

  "I'm not. All I'm saying is that there's nothing wrong with a little pride in ownership."

  "Uh-huh. Angela finally made you dig out that flower bed she's been talking about for three years, didn't she?"

&
nbsp; "That's not the point."

  Magozzi smiled. "Right. Pride in ownership."

  "Exactly. By the way, I got all my plants at Uptown Nursery, and Lily Gilbert gave me twenty percent off, and if she knew what your yard looked like, she'd probably donate everything."

  "I'll think about it."

  He and Gino got out of the car and headed up the front walk, Gino lagging behind as usual. He'd always taken it slow on the way up to Harley's house, and Magozzi used to think it was because the grandeur of the place intimidated him. But now he was beginning to suspect that Gino had been examining the garden layout all along, making mental notes that he could use later to impress Angela.

  "You sure Harley said to just walk in?" Gino had finally caught up and was now standing at the mansion's massive front doors, staring at the huge iron demon face that served as a knocker.

  "Yeah. He said come in the front, look for the beer, and we'd know where to take it from there."

  "Great. A treasure hunt in Frankenstein's castle."

  The heavy oak doors swung open with surprising ease-just like they always did in old horror movies, Gino was thinking, as they let themselves into the vast foyer. All the dark wood and Titan-sized antiques inside added to the sense of foreboding that had started with the demon door knocker, but Gino was quick to home in on the one ray of sunshine amid all the gloom and doom: sitting on an elaborately carved, marble-topped table in the middle of the parquet floor was a champagne bucket filled with ice and bottled beer. A hastily scrawled note beside it read: "'Vator to 3rd fl, bring the beer."

  Gino brightened immediately. "I love this guy," he said, scooping up the ice bucket. "He moves his ten-million-year-old vase to make room for some Rolling Rocks. Talk about getting your priorities straight. Now where the hell's the elevator? This place gives me the creeps."

  Since neither of them had ever ventured much farther than the foyer without an escort before, it took them a while to negotiate the dizzying maze of rooms and doors, stairways and dead-ends, before finally ferreting out the understated mahogany panels that opened onto a high-tech elevator. By the time they were finally lifted up to the third-floor office, Harley was waiting for them at the doors, a huge grin plastered across his face. "Don't tell me the super-cops got lost down there."

  "Hell, no, we were just giving your Minotaur directions," Gino grumbled, handing over the beer bucket. "Next time you invite guests over for an unguided tour, you might want to think about laying down glow-in-the-dark footprints."

  Harley let out a belly laugh and gave them each an affectionate slug on the arm. "Come on in, grab a beverage, and make yourselves comfortable. I'm still working on your little project, Rolseth, but we'll get to the bottom of it."

  Gino was visibly grateful, which was no small feat for him. "Thanks, man. I really appreciate this."

  "No problem. And I gotta tell you, this whole plan was nothing short of pure, diabolical genius, and I mean that in the nicest possible way. Makes me jealous I didn't think of it myself."

  Roadrunner was waiting to greet them, too, but hanging back a little, as he always did. He gave them a goofy smile and an awkward wave. "Hey, Magozzi, hey, Gino."

  "Roadrunner! What the hell-you been working out or something?" Gino asked.

  Roadrunner examined his shoes while he turned a thousand shades of red. "Not really. Just biking a lot."

  "Yeah? Well, the Arizona sun was good to you."

  He looked up hopefully. "I did get a little color when I was down there, huh?"

  Harley rolled his eyes at Magozzi. "Yeah, right. He still looks like a lefse to me. Come on, buddy, let's you and I pull up some chairs and trade gossip while those two discuss sunscreen."

  They hadn't made it more than two steps into the main room when a furry rocket came barreling toward them and skidded to a halt in front of Magozzi. Charlie submitted to a few moments of chin-scratching, just to be polite, but it was pretty clear that this was not the dog's final destination. Trembling with excitement, he gave Magozzi's hand a quick, apologetic swipe with his tongue, then bounded toward Gino, who dropped down on all fours and started blubbering to the dog as if he were his only child. It was disgusting.

  Magozzi shook his head sadly. "Sometimes that dog makes me feel undervalued."

  "Tell me about it. I've been feeding him Ben & ferry's all day, and this is how I rate." Harley waved Magozzi over to a pair of chairs on the far side of the room, opened some beers, and spoke in a low, quiet voice, making sure he wouldn't be overheard. "Have you heard from Grace?"

  "No .. , why? What's wrong?"

  "Nothing, I don't think. It's just that Roadrunner was freaking out before you guys showed up, and I don't want to get him started again. If he gets any hotter, his suit is gonna melt into a puddle of Lycra, and I don't think any of us want to see him naked."

  "Uh .. . I'm not sure I understand."

  "Oh, yeah, sorry. Well, maybe you knew, maybe you didn't, but Grace, Annie, and Sharon were all supposed to be in Green Bay at four. So four comes and goes and by five, we still hadn't heard from them and we couldn't raise them on their cells. That's when Chicken Little here starts proclaiming the end of the world, because they should be somewhere near Green Bay by now, in which case their cells would work. I tried to calm him down-give them another hour, I told him, but you know how he gets. So I called the Green Bay detectives they're supposed to be meeting, and it's the same story there. Hadn't called, hadn't shown, hadn't checked in to their hotel, couldn't be reached on their cells. I tried very politely to convey my concern to those no-neck cheeseheads, but the bastard hung up on me, and now it's way past six, and even I'm starting to get a little worried. They always call. Theypromised to call. It's just not something they'd blow off unless something was wrong."

  Magozzi felt a little tickle of apprehension, then reminded himself whom they were talking about. "Come on, Harley. This is Grace and Annie. Even if anyone were stupid enough to try to give those two trouble, it's the perps you should be worrying about. Plus, they've got Sharon with them. Those three together could probably take down a small country if they had to. . . ."

  Harley was shaking his shaggy head. "Okay, this is the problem with homicide cops. Somebody mentions trouble, you automatically think bad guys. Roadrunner's been talking car wrecks."

  Magozzi actually felt his brain screech to a halt, and pictured little nerve impulses putting on their back-up lights and heading in a different direction. Harley was right about the way his mind worked, but it wasn't just because he was a cop. The notion of extraordinary Grace being vulnerable to something as ordinary as a car wreck had never occurred to him. "Shit," he mumbled, starting to rise from his chair. "I'll call Wisconsin Highway Patrol, have them check the accident reports. . . ."

  "Don't bother. Already did that, and the prick at WHP didn't have a very cooperative spirit, if you know what I mean, so we plugged into the statewides and looked for ourselves. Nothing. At least nothing that's been reported yet. We've got a tag alarm on the website if anything comes in, so we're covered there."

  Magozzi eased back down in his chair, took a careful look at Harley, and felt that trickle of apprehension swell and roll in his belly.

  Gino ambled across the room and stood over them, his hands in his pockets. "What are you two whispering about? You sound like a couple old ladies."

  Magozzi glanced at Harley, then slid his eyes over to where Road-runner was pacing again. "Roadrunner's a little worked up."

  Gino shrugged. "Of course he's worked up. The ladies are missing. He told me."

  "Not missing. Just late."

  "You gotta be kidding. Those three? Ten minutes over, they're late. This long? They're missing."

  IT WAS AFTER SIX when Halloran dialed Grace MacBride's cell number again and got the same canned voice telling him to leave a message. He'd already left three and decided a fourth would probably cross the line between urgent and rude-not a prudent thing to do when you were begging a favor.

  He'd
been telling himself that the urgency he felt was purely professional. He'd convinced himself that they needed Grace's facial-recognition software to help ID the bodies from the lime quarry. And if he was going to drive the morgue shots down to Green Bay tonight, he wanted to get on the road before dark. But there was another little voice inside that kept asking if maybe the urgency didn't have something to do with Sharon Mueller and the possibility of seeing her. Halloran dearly hated those little voices.

  Bonar strolled in just as he was hanging up the phone. "Just take a look at this," he said, holding his arms out and turning sideways.

  "What am I looking at?"

  "Please. Surely you can see that I'm becoming emaciated. Wasting away before your eyes."

  "Really? Then congratulations. You're pregnant."

  Bonar dropped his chin to look down at his stomach. "That's bloat from malnutrition. Plus, they're going to be out of the special at the diner if we don't get over there."

  "What's the special?"

  "Chicken-fried steak in milk gravy."

  Halloran sighed and pushed away from his desk. "God, I love that stuff."

  "Who doesn't?" Bonar picked up the phone and pushed a number he'd memorized about a million years ago. "Cheryl? This is Bonar. Put a couple of those specials on the back burner and guard them with your life, okay?" He hung up the phone and frowned. "Don't you think it's kind of funny that a woman that old is named Cheryl? Her name ought to be Emma or Violet or something."

  Halloran considered that while he slipped a clip in his weapon and snugged it down into his belt holster. "Never thought about it. How old do you suppose she is?"

  "She's seventy-three. Criminy, Mike, you've seen her almost every day of your life since you were a kid. How can you not know how old she is?"

  "Maybe because I was never rude enough to ask."

  "You hardly ever have to ask a woman anything straight-out. You just have to listen close. That's your problem, you know."

  Halloran grabbed his cigarettes out of the drawer and closed it just a little harder than necessary. "Who says I have a problem?"