The red light on Malcherson’s desk phone started flashing.
‘Probably another reporter,’ Gino said. ‘Want me to take it?’
Malcherson almost smiled. ‘Excuse me for a moment, gentlemen. Don’t go anywhere.’
He picked up, listened for a few moments, then took a pristine legal tablet from his center desk drawer and laid it carefully on his leather blotter. He seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of these brand-new tablets – Magozzi had never seen him use one that looked even remotely used, and he often wondered if the chief had a closetful of tablets he’d discarded because they were missing the first sheet.
He and Gino watched with growing apprehension as Malcherson scribbled away with his Montblanc. Benign phone calls did not require copious note taking.
‘This is not good news,’ Malcherson said when he finally hung up. ‘Officer Viegs just called in, responding to an elderly woman found shot to death in her home this morning.’ He ripped off the sheet of paper and handed it to Magozzi.
‘Same neighborhood?’ Gino asked.
‘Good guess, Detective Rolseth.’ Malcherson looked down at his tablet – the second page was marred with pen impressions, sullied by the details of a murder. One more for the closet.
11
Magozzi and Gino pulled up in front of a tidy little rambler with gleaming white shutters and a cheery, robin’s- egg blue paint job that made Magozzi instantly sad. Houses like this weren’t supposed to have ugly yellow crime- scene tape clashing with the color scheme.
The yard did nothing to alleviate his melancholy. It was filled with meticulously prepared flower beds that would probably be weed choked and forgotten within the week, and the sort of kitschy lawn ornaments only a grandmother could get away with. There were birdbaths encrusted with playing marbles, resin frogs with foggy, rhinestone eyes, and smiling troll statues that wore brocade coats of colorful, broken glass. One of the trolls held a painted plaque that read GRANDMA’S GARDEN.
Gino stared at that troll for a long time, then finally turned away.
Officer Viegs was waiting in the sun near the front door, little droplets of sweat sparkling between his hair plugs.
‘Viegs, you show up at any more murder scenes, we’re going to have to put you on the suspect list,’ Magozzi said.
‘Detective, you get any more murders like this on my beat, I’m going to be taking some time off to move my mom someplace safe, like the Bronx. She lives in the senior condos just off Lake, and she and her neighbors were ready to pack up after the two yesterday. This one is going to send them over the edge, and I can’t say I blame them.’
‘I hear you. But for what it’s worth, nothing we’ve got so far pulls those two together.’
Viegs raised his brows, and all his hair plugs moved. ‘Except that now we’ve got three, they were all old, they all lived in this neighborhood, and they were all shot.’
‘Yeah. There is that. What do you have for us?’
Viegs sighed and pulled out his notebook. ‘Rose Kleber, with a
Gino followed his gaze to see the Channel Ten van pulling up to the curb. ‘A fuel tanker rolled on 494 about an hour ago. Every reporter in town was standing around with the cameras running, waiting for the damn thing to blow up. Guess it didn’t. Put up a wall and play dumb, will you, Viegs?’
‘Sure. You might want to go in the back door. Jimmy’s crew is working the front room.’
Just inside the back door, Magozzi and Gino ran into Jimmy Grimm, whose expression was as solemn as they’d ever seen it.
‘Hey, guys. Long time, no see.’
Magozzi clapped him on the back. ‘And we liked it that way.’
Gino brightened a little, grateful for the distraction. ‘Hey, Jimmy. I thought you were going to retire.’
‘Yeah, right. You obviously haven’t looked at your pension fund lately.’
Magozzi nodded toward the fistful of evidence bags he was clutching. ‘Got anything for us?’
His shoulders seemed to slump under the weight of a question with no good answer. ‘Not much. No brass. Some dirt, probably from the gardens here, plenty of cat hair, and one 9-mm slug we found drilled into the couch cushion. That was a through-and-through; the other one’s probably still inside the victim. Looks like she took it in the stomach first. But how the hell you could miss a kill shot at close range is beyond me.’
‘Maybe he planned it that way.’
Jimmy shook his head. ‘Then the bastard is a real sadist.’
‘Viegs said there was no forced entry, no robbery.’
Jimmy shook his head. ‘Doesn’t look like it. Her purse was out in plain view with a wad of cash in it, and we’ve got no jimmy marks anywhere. She either let him in, or the door was open and he let himself in.’
‘Or maybe he had a key, or knew where she kept a key,’ Gino added, making a note to check on repairmen, lawn service, anybody who might have had access.
Jimmy nodded. ‘Could be. By the way, the TV was on when we got here, but I turned it off after we dusted.’ He shrugged apologetically. ‘Jerry Springer was on, and there was something obscene about listening to him while we were working this scene. Anyhow, I just turned her over to Anant, if you want to take a look before he moves her. I think he’s waiting for you.’
‘Thanks, Jimmy. Be in touch.’
He tried for a smile, but it never quite made it to his lips.
As they walked through the kitchen, Magozzi noticed a plate of homemade cookies sitting on the counter, carefully wrapped in plastic, violated by a dusty layer of black fingerprint powder.
Dr Anantanand Rambachan was standing quietly, almost prayerfully, over Rose Kleber’s crumpled body. She was slumped facedown on the floor in a large circle of rusty brown, close to a blood-splattered telephone. Even Anant seemed utterly bewildered by what he saw, which made Magozzi’s heart sink, because if there was a person alive who could make sense of the nonsensical, it was Dr Rambachan. If he was having trouble with this, there wasn’t any hope for the rest of them.
He looked up and gave them a sad, gentle nod. ‘Detectives Magozzi and Rolseth. I am delighted to see you both again despite the circumstances.’
‘You’re always saying that, Doc,’ Gino said kindly. ‘I think we all need to go out for a beer sometime, break the cycle, you know?’
‘Indeed, Detective Rolseth, I do know.’
‘Good to see you too, Dr Rambachan,’ Magozzi said.
He reciprocated with a broad, white smile that did wonders to improve everyone’s mood. ‘Detective, you have obviously been practicing your Hindi, because I am hearing marked improvement in your accent since last we met.’
‘Yeah, well, those night classes really help.’
Dr Rambachan cocked a brow at him, then smiled again. ‘I think you are joking. Very good.’
And then he was all business, slipping on a pair of latex gloves and crouching next to the body. ‘I’m going to turn this dear lady over now, and I must warn you, it might be difficult to look at. She has been dead for some time, and I’m sure you know that blood pools where gravity takes it…’ – he searched their faces, and added – ‘and uncirculated blood eventually turns black.’
They knew it, and Anant
