‘Not a chance. All the locals are keeping their people close to home, including the district HPs, trying to cover the schools.’
‘Even out-state?’ Magozzi asked. ‘That’s ridiculous. This guy hasn’t hit outside the city limits once.’
Malcherson shook his head. ‘Doesn’t matter. They’ve got constituencies to answer to, just like we do, and their people want their officers on their turf, not ours.’
‘Christ.’ Gino flung himself against the back of his chair, disgusted. ‘That’s stupid. If he hits at all, chances are he’s going to hit in a Minneapolis school, and how the fuck are we supposed to cover them?’
It was a measure of Malcherson’s weariness that he didn’t climb all over Gino for his language. He just rebuked him with a glance, shrugged into his topcoat, and started to button it. ‘I just got off the phone with the governor. He’s closing all the metro and suburban schools tomorrow. It’ll be on the ten-o’clock news.’
Gino shook his head. ‘I knew it. Here we go. We now have a psychopath running the whole damn city, just like I said, and it’s all downhill from here. Tomorrow we close the schools, next day we shut down the ambulances . . .’
‘What did you expect him to do?’ Malcherson almost raised his voice. ‘We’re losing a person a day, and there aren’t many people in this state who think the Minneapolis Police Department can do a damn thing about it, including the governor!’ He looked once at each of them, then dropped his eyes and released the breath that had been turning his face red. ‘Sorry. Not your fault. Not anybody’s fault. I’ve just been on the phone too long.’
‘They’ve been beating on you pretty hard, eh?’ Gino asked, and Malcherson barked a soft, humorless laugh.
‘That new council member – Wellburg, or whatever his name is – had the temerity to call and ask me why I wasn’t doing anything about the murders, and by that time I’d been through the wringer so many times I told him because I just didn’t want to. I imagine that will be on the ten-o’clock news, too.’
He sighed and looked off into a corner, no doubt wondering if he’d have a job after the regular city council meeting tomorrow. ‘Listen, all I can tell you is to work with what you’ve got. Take some of the uniforms off the registration list – sounds like that’s not going anywhere anyway – hell, lock all the Monkeewrench people in a room and you two can take turns standing guard at the door.’ He paused for a deep breath. ‘Or else let the FBI in. Give them a name for those prints and they’ll be tickled to death to run surveillance on anyone you want.’
Magozzi shifted uncomfortably in his chair. ‘I don’t want to do that, sir.’
Malcherson blinked, surprised. Magozzi never called him ‘sir.’ ‘If you get a match on that slug from Wisconsin, they’re going to be in this up to their eyebrows tomorrow anyway. It’ll be their case then.’
‘I know.’
‘You’ll have to turn over all your files. Every scrap of paper.’
Magozzi nodded carefully, and Malcherson’s eyes narrowed.
‘You didn’t write it down, did you? You’re not ever going to tell them whose prints they were. Or me, for that matter. Wait. Don’t answer that. I’d have to suspend you.’ He sighed again, straightened his lapels, and grabbed a briefcase from his desk. ‘Gentlemen, I’m going home. I’m going to walk the dog and have a drink with my wife, or maybe the other way around, depending on which one is talking to me. Gino, give my best to Angela.’
‘She’ll be pleased you thought of her, Chief.’
Malcherson stopped at the door, a little smile on his face. ‘You know, she probably will be. She’s that kind of person. God knows what you did to deserve her, Rolseth, but I assume it was in a former life.’ He closed the door quietly behind him.
After he left Gino turned and eyed Magozzi. ‘Are you ever going to tell the chief they’re MacBride’s prints?’
Magozzi shrugged.
‘You got any idea what kind of shitstorm is going to come down on you if she turns out to be the shooter?’
‘MacBride isn’t the shooter, Gino.’
Gino slid down in the chair until his butt was on the edge, leaned his head back, and closed his eyes. ‘Wish I was as positive about her as you are. So what do we do now, Kemosabi?’
‘What the chief said, I guess. We’ll have Freedman pull some uniforms out of his hat to put on them, starting with third watch.’
Gino lifted his wrist and opened his eyes a slit to peer at his watch. ‘Third doesn’t start for a few hours.’
‘Yeah. I thought we’d cover them till then.’
‘Excuse me, but we’re two and they’re five.’
‘They’re all going to be in the same place. They left their schedule with Gloria, remember? I checked it earlier.’
‘You gotta call Angela. She’s gonna scream like a banshee.’
Magozzi smiled. ‘Angela never raised her voice in her life.’
‘Yeah, you’re right. But she’ll whimper. I hate that.’ Gino pushed himself out of his chair and stretched. ‘So where are we headed?’
Magozzi grinned at him.
‘Oh, shit. It’s bad, isn’t it?’
35
Halloran had just hung up with Detective Magozzi and was rising from his chair when Sharon Mueller walked into his office. He froze there for a minute, half in and half out of the chair, then sank back down slowly, speechless.
Apparently his reaction pleased her, because she smiled at him. ‘Gee, thanks, Halloran.’
‘You’re wearing a dress,’ he told her, just in case she hadn’t noticed.
He’d never seen her in anything but her uniform. Straight brown pants, brown shirt and tie, clunky regulation shoes, and of course the ten pounds of hardware they all wore on their belts. Not to mention the gun. Which she wasn’t wearing. Probably thought it would clash with the clingy little red thing that rode low on the top and high on the bottom.
She hiked the skirt a little to show about four hundred feet of leg and he nearly passed out. ‘And high heels,’ she pointed out, which was a good thing since he hadn’t gotten down that far yet and probably never would.
He looked up at her face to be polite, and was startled to see a little makeup, which she never wore and didn’t need. A smoky color on her eyelids and a sleek shine on her lips that made them look like they were made of colored water. It just wasn’t fair, gilding the lily like that.
‘I’ve never seen you out of uniform before,’ he said.
‘This is a uniform. It’s my date uniform. We’re going out.’
‘Okay,’ he said without thinking, and then remembered. ‘Only I can’t.’
Her dark eyes narrowed a little. ‘Why not?’
‘I have to catch bad guys.’
She blew out a noisy sigh and her shoulders slumped a little, which made her breasts move under the red fabric, and he had to look down at his hands. They were just lying there on the desk, fingers slightly curled, lazy sons of bitches doing nothing, looking stupid, no help at all.
‘I know you’re not gay, Halloran . . .’
‘Oh dear. The secret’s out.’
‘ . . . so what’s the deal? Two years and you’ve never hit on me. Not once.’
He cleared his throat. ‘I’m not allowed to sexually harass officers under me. It says so right in the police manual.’
‘That’s not funny.’
‘I wasn’t trying to be funny. It really does say so in the police manual.’
She tightened her lips and he waited for all the colored water to run out, surprised when it didn’t. ‘Fine. Then I’ll harass you. Let’s get out of here so I can get started.’
He felt his mouth move into one of those Harrison Ford shit-eating-grin looks. Here he was in a nearly empty building with a woman in a red dress he’d wanted since she’d stood in front of him two years ago, shoving her application in his face, and
