incidentally, Rolseth, before you repeat your sentiments beyond this hallway, you should know that a lot of the people I’ve been talking to don’t think it’s “stupid” to close the mall to save a life. Including some of the people on the task force.’
Gino rolled his eyes. ‘Damnit, it’s not that simple. They’re not thinking it through . . .’
Malcherson held up his hand to stop him. ‘I know that, and you know that, but we’re not going to convince anyone else by opening with the unequivocal statement that their idea is stupid.’
Gino sighed and nodded.
‘What’s the mall’s position?’ Magozzi asked.
There was no humor in Malcherson’s smile. ‘No one is going to touch this one. Not the mall management, not the mayor of Bloomington, or the governor, for that matter. It’s our decision.’
Gino gave a disgusted snort. ‘No one wants to take the heat for shutting it down, and no one wants to be left holding the bag if we don’t shut it down and someone gets hit out there.’
‘Exactly.’
‘So we get the backlash. It’s a no-win situation, and once again the cops get to be the bad guys. Well, this just sucks.’
Malcherson glanced at his watch. ‘We’ve got exactly one hour to decide. We keep it open, I’ve got commitments from the Highway Patrol and almost every sheriff’s department in the state to help out with extra officers.’
‘For how long?’ Magozzi asked.
‘As long as they can.’
‘Not long then.’
‘Probably not.’ He blew out a long exhale and looked down at the floor. ‘Plus I’ve got two suits in my office.’
‘Shit,’ Gino said.
‘Right now it’s an offer. Manpower if we need it, which we might, so we’d better think carefully before we decline; and profiling help.’
‘Profiling?’ Magozzi said. ‘That’s a crock. There is no profiling this guy. He’s not a sexual predator, not sticking to a victim type, hell, they’d be hard-pressed to prove serial with no forensics beyond the gun caliber. The FBI’s got nothing to offer here. They just want in.’
‘If it’s Internet-related, it’s Federal, and they
Magozzi bit down on the impulse to say that this case was about catching a killer, not about spreading blame, but in his position, the chief had to juggle both of those balls. ‘Can we hold off? See what shakes out in the meeting?’
Malcherson nodded. ‘That’s what I told them.’
Gino’s cell phone chirped from deep in his overcoat pocket. ‘Yeah, Rolseth here.’ He listened, brows elevated slightly. ‘Got it.’ He folded up the phone and tucked it back in his pocket. ‘The Monkeewrench partners just walked in the front door. All five of them together.’
Magozzi frowned. ‘You told them to come in at ten, right?’
‘That’s right. Eager beavers.’
Magozzi shrugged. ‘Let ’em wait.’
26
With most of the department in the task force meeting, Gloria had the homicide room to herself, unless you counted Roger Delaney, which she didn’t. He was a short, cocky son of a bitch with slicked-back hair, bad teeth, and a penchant for butt-slapping that had nearly gotten him killed the one and only time he’d laid a hand on her fine black ass. He was two-fingering a keyboard in a back corner while Gloria manned the front desk and the phones.
She’d already had over a dozen calls about the Monkeewrench murders. Would-be witnesses who saw the killer in a dream, or knew for a fact their brother-in-law or boss or pizza delivery boy had done it. She marked them all dutifully in a log, as if they had merit, because sometimes psychos kooky enough to kill were kooky enough to call the cops and talk about it.
Between phone calls it was so quiet she could hear the hesitant clicks of Roger’s keyboard and the sporadic trickle of water passing through a coffeemaker that hadn’t been cleaned in months.
Normally the homicide room was buzzing with activity, detectives busy with cold cases in the lulls between new ones, working narco or sex crimes or helping out the gang detail when people on the street had the good sense to stop killing each other for a time, and the silence made her irritable. So did the desk sergeant keeping all the media people corralled downstairs on a day when she’d dressed for television, wrapping her big beautiful black body in a combination kaftan/sari of browns and oranges that looked like Africa even if she’d bought it at Kmart. She’d wrapped her wild black hair in a matching scarf, bought ten new nails with half-moons twinkling gold in mahogany enamel, and knew the TV people would be all over her because the fools always jumped all over what they thought was ethnic, even though they didn’t have a clue. But they had to see her first.
She was drumming her long nails on the desktop, trying to think of an excuse to sashay down to the press room, when she heard voices in the hall and perked up a little. At this point she was so desperate for a diversion she didn’t care if it was a scruffy walk-in with a hot tip on the JFK assassination.
The first one through the door was white and slender and strung so tight she might have asked for a urine sample if the woman hadn’t looked at her straight on, then nodded with respect. ‘Good morning. I’m Grace MacBride. We’re here to see Detectives Magozzi and Rolseth.’
‘I’m sorry, the detectives are in a meeting right now . . .’ The words died in her throat as the rest of them filed in. Her sharp brown eyes brushed over a guy in one-piece bright yellow Lycra so tall and skinny you could use him as a pole for vaulting; a ponytailed, bearded linebacker of a man in black leather; a pale guy in a to-die-for suit who looked like he was CEO of something; and then a wonderfully, beautifully fat woman with flashing eyes who sashayed better than Gloria on her best days, head to toe in Gloria’s favorite color, orange. My oh my. A white woman with fashion flair.
‘We’re the owners of Monkeewrench.’ Grace MacBride recaptured Gloria’s attention. ‘We were asked to come in this morning.’
Gloria gave the circus troupe a hasty, skeptical once-over, wondering what on earth would bring such a diverse group together. ‘That’s right. I’ve got you down, but not until ten. You’re almost two hours early. You can have a seat over there –’
‘No. There’s no time.’ MacBride’s response was so fast and sharp it put Gloria off for a minute.
‘Excuse me?’
‘We need to see them right now. Please call them.’
Oh, now, this was intolerable. The words had been civil enough, but they’d been delivered like an order, and Gloria didn’t take orders very well, especially not from some skinny white broad with an attitude. She stood up and leaned stiff-armed on her desk, using her great size as intimidation.
‘Listen, honey, if you think I am going to walk into a meeting of armed men and women and tell them sorry, they have to break it up now because Ms Grace MacBride wants to see them, you’ve got another think coming. You may rule the little world in that Monkeewrench office of yours, but in this one, you operate at the pleasure of the detectives, not the other way around, so you might as well take a seat, because you’re going to have a very long wait.’
Grace MacBride just smiled at her.
There was a big tag board on wheels positioned in the center front of the task force room today, holding morgue photos of the three victims, crime-scene photos, and blowups of the staged photos from the game. The desk was angled off to the side.
Everyone was seated when Magozzi, Gino, and the chief walked in, and they were all looking at the pictures.
It was a funny thing, Magozzi thought. Most people looked at morgue photos and jerked their eyes away just
