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?'
'You've got lots of problems. Women just happen to top the list. You can't even get Grace MacBride to call you back, and she doesn't even know you well enough to dislike you yet.'
Halloran ignored the dig. 'I'm thinking of just driving those morgue shots over to Green Bay so they'll be waiting for her.'
'Why don't you just fax them?'
'Magozzi says the program works better with the original photo, and I want the best shot we can get. I don't suppose Wausau has any news about the autopsies yet?'
'They do, and you're not going to like it. The ME called about a half hour ago. He took custody of our three bodies this afternoon and was prepping for the autopsies when the Feds charged in like the cavalry and rode off into the sunset with them.'
'They took ourbodies?'
Bonar nodded. 'Uh-huh.'
'They can't do that.'
'They can, and they did.'
'Just when did you plan on telling me all this?'
Bonar shrugged. 'After supper. Why ruin a good meal with something you can't do anything about anyway?'
Halloran snatched the phone and started pushing buttons. 'God-damnit, Bonar, you think I'm going to sit on this? I'm going to get some answers right now. . . .'
'I already called them.'
'Who?'
