Live Bait

by PJ Tracy

  Anantanand Rambachan stood in the middle of Ben Schuler’s bedroom, his head bent, his palms pressed together just beneath his chin. He looked more like a mourner than a medical examiner, Magozzi thought, hesitating in the doorway, wondering if Anant were praying, and if it would be some unforgivable breach of Hindu etiquette to interrupt.

  Gino was a little less sensitive. ‘Hey, Anant. You in a trance, or what?’

  Anant smiled only a little as he turned toward them. No teeth; not tonight. ‘Good evening Detective Rolseth, Detective Magozzi. And to answer your question, Detective Rolseth, I was not in a trance. Had I been in such a state, I would have been unable to hear your question. I was merely . . .’ His slick, dark brows furrowed as he opened his hands, then closed them and brought them to his chest.

  ‘Taking it all in?’ Gino asked.

  ‘Yes. Yes, that is precisely the phrase that describes what I was doing. Thank you.’ He gestured them into the room. ‘Straight from the door to where I am standing, if you please. Do you see where the floor is a darker color?’

  Magozzi glanced down at a three-foot-wide strip in the hardwood where the gleam of old varnish lingered, unfaded by sun and wear. ‘There was a runner here?’

  ‘Yes. Mr Grimm removed it for examination before we came in, so we would have a path into this terrible story.’

  Magozzi and Gino stepped carefully, walking single file, directly in the center of the path the runner had left. Halfway into the room they stopped and looked around without saying anything, reading Anant’s terrible story with their eyes.

  The bedroom was a mess, and mercifully, smelled more like cheap aftershave than anything else. Whatever bottles had been on the dresser were now merely a litter of broken glass and spilled liquid on the floor. A nightstand next to the bed was overturned, with a broken lamp nearby, its green glass shade shattered. What was left of the smashed phone was over in a far corner, and a faded chenille bedspread had been dragged from the bed.

  The shoes were a standout in the midst of all this wreckage, somehow untouched by whatever violence had happened here. They were black, highly polished, and neatly placed in front of a hard-backed chair, waiting for feet.

  Gino blew out a long sigh. He was looking into the open closet, at a jumble of clothes on the floor that had been pulled from the hangers. ‘Where is he? In there?’

  Anant followed his gaze. ‘No. Not anymore. Mr Schuler is under the bed.’

  Magozzi closed his eyes briefly and envisioned a terrified old man dragging himself from one useless hiding place to another in a sick, human version of cat and mouse, trying futilely to save his own life up until the end. Or perhaps he’d already accepted his fate and had sought out the shelter of the bed instinctively, like an injured animal, so he could die out of view and in relative peace – if such a thing were possible when you were being pursued by a sadistic psycho with a gun. ‘I don’t see any blood. He was shot under the bed?’

  ‘I believe you are correct, Detective,’ Anant said, kneeling down and gesturing for them to do the same. He withdrew a mini-Maglite from his coat pocket and illuminated the hidden carnage under the bed. ‘Please, gentlemen, if you will.’

  Magozzi and Gino crouched down beside him and stared at what was left of Ben Schuler’s head. The top of his skull had been reduced to blood and pulp and bone fragments, but his face, ghastly white in the intense halo of the flashlight, was still horribly intact and frozen in a grotesquely twisted expression, as if someone had taken a blowtorch to a Picasso portrait.

  Gino turned away briefly. ‘Jesus . . . his face. Why does it look like that?’

  ‘That is the expression he died with, Detective, frozen in time for us to decipher. I believe you are seeing terror.’ Anant swept the light downward to focus on Ben Schuler’s clothing – a worn, woolen blazer, the blood-spattered shirt beneath it, and a partially knotted necktie. ‘It appears he was preparing to go somewhere.’

  ‘Morey Gilbert’s funeral,’ Magozzi said quietly. ‘He was going to his friend’s funeral.’

  Jimmy Grimm poked his head through the doorway. ‘We’ve got media outside, guys. All four stations and both papers. Things are heating up.’

  21

  The news of Ben Schuler’s murder had spread quickly through the crowd of mourners at the Gilbert house, quieting voices, sharpening senses, whispering an evil warning. The police might still be floundering, searching for the definitive thread that tied these murders together, but every man and woman in that house knew the truth. Someone was killing Jews.

  Not one of them spoke this terrible thought aloud, but they stayed longer than they might have otherwise, huddled together in small groups, seeking the comfort of safety in numbers. It was full dark by the time they started to leave, and even then, they lingered at the door with long last condolences.

  While the line of nice people made their way out the front door, Jack slipped out the back and disappeared into the shadows of the backyard.

  There were plenty of obstacles on the way to the equipment shed behind the greenhouse, like blades of grass and sundry little bumps in the lawn, but Jack finally reached his destination with only a few scrapes and grass stains. At least he hoped they were grass stains, and that he hadn’t fallen on a frog.

  He paused at the door and pressed his back against the rough wood, listening. It was very dark out here, and once you got past the raucous croaking of all the goddamned frogs in the yard, it was very quiet. The only things he could hear were the slamming of his heart against his chest and the scrape of splinters destroying the fine wool of his suit as he slid down to a crouch and put his head in his hands.

  Jesus, he had to get a grip, had to relax, had to get a plan, and then, he had to get another drink.

  He was unsteady on his feet when he finally stood and pushed the door open, cringing when the hinges squeaked. He stumbled into the center of the room and batted his hands around his head until he found the chain to the bare, overhead bulb.

  Illuminated, the shed was as tidy as it had always been. He looked around at all the things that had scared him as a kid: the shovels with their knifelike edges, the gleaming clipper blades, the pointed trowels and garden rakes whose tines glinted like teeth in the swinging light. All monsters when Jack had been six, coming into the shed for the very first time after dark.

  His father’s hand was big – fingers halfway down his tiny chest, thumb halfway down his back – but oddly weightless. Just warm and comforting.

  ‘Go on, Jackie. Go on in.’

  A firm head shake. Six-year-old stubborn.

  ‘No? Ah. It looks different at night, doesn’t it?’

  And then a little, jerky nod.

  ‘And all the tools, they look a little scary, am I right?’

  Another nod, a little braver now that the scary part was out in the open.

  ‘Ha! You think I would let something hurt my son, my golden boy?’

  And then there were strong arms scooping him up, lifting him high, holding him close against a scratchy wool shirt that smelled like sweat and soil and air. ‘Nothing here will hurt you. Nothing anywhere will ever hurt you. I won’t let it. You believe me, don’t you, Jackie?’

  Jack didn’t realize he was crying until he heard the horrible, wrenching sounds of his own sobs. He clamped his hand over his mouth to muffle the noise and stumbled, half blind from the potent cocktail of bourbon and tears, over to the corner where bags of sheep manure were stacked on a pallet. It took him ten minutes to unload the heavy bags off to the side so he could pull the wooden pallet away from the wall, and by then the tears had stopped.

  He found the crack in the cement floor right away, grabbed a trowel, and started to pry up the chunk of concrete, feeling beads of nervous sweat pearl up on his forehead.

  The plastic bag was dark with oil, the rags inside slick and sweet smelling. Evil wrapped in swaddling clothes.

  Jack stared down at the gun that felt so familiar in his hand, fascinated by the way the ov
erhead light glinted off the barrel. He popped open the chamber and counted the bullets, and was about to pocket it when he heard the door squeak open behind him. Without thinking, he gripped the gun and spun around in a shooter’s stance. He knew how to do that very well.

  One of the kids who worked at the nursery was standing in the doorway, his eyes the size of fried eggs and fixed on the gun. ‘Omigod omigod . . . Mr Gilbert? It’s me, Jeff Mongtomery? Please don’t shoot.’

  Jack collapsed onto his butt and closed his eyes, feeling the tremors as the adrenaline tried to find a place to go. Jesus Christ, he’d almost shot the kid. ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ he mumbled, adrenaline gone, alcohol back, slurring his words. ‘I’m not gonna shoot you. Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to sneak up on a guy with a gun?’

  ‘I . . . I . . . I didn’t know you had a gun? I just saw the light on and thought I’d better check it out?’

  Jack lurched to his feet on jellied legs and saw the kid still frozen in the doorway, his eyes darting back and forth, looking like a rabbit about to run. It occurred to him then how bad this probably looked.

  ‘Listen, kid. This isn’t what it looks like. I fucking hate guns, but there’s some crazy son of a bitch running around shooting up the neighborhood, so I need this, understand?’

  ‘Yessir, yessir, I sure do. Uh . . . I think I’ll go now?’

  ‘No, no, wait a minute.’ Jack gestured wildly with the gun and the kid shrank back against the door, terrified. Jack looked from the kid’s eyes to the gun in his hand. ‘Oh, Christ, I’m sorry.’ He shoved the gun in his pocket and held out his open hands. ‘Don’t be afraid, kid . . . Jeff, isn’t it?’

  The boy nodded cautiously.

  ‘Okay, Jeff, now listen. I’m really sorry I scared you, I’m just a little drunk, and pretty scared myself, and I’ve just got this gun to protect myself, see? But the thing is, it’s not exactly legal, you follow? So it wouldn’t be cool if anyone found out I had it. Especially Marty. For God’s sake don’t tell Marty, okay?’

  ‘Okay, sure, no problem, Mr Gilbert.’

  ‘Excellent. Just excellent.’ Jack clapped his hands together and the kid jumped. ‘So! Want to give me a hand stacking those bags back on the pallet?’

  ‘I sure do, Mr Gilbert.’

  Jack gave him a wonderful smile. ‘You’re a good kid, Jeff.’

  22

  After the last of the mourners had left Lily’s, Marty found Jack slumped behind the wheel of his Mercedes, staring into the dark beyond the windshield, an empty silver flask dripping its last precious drops of bourbon on the buttery leather seat. Marty bent down to the open window and nearly passed out.

  ‘God, Jack, what the hell is that smell?’

  Jack didn’t even look at him. ‘Sheep manure. You oughta air out the equipment shed, Marty. The place reeks.’ He sounded oddly sober for a man who had probably been drinking since sunrise.

  ‘What were you doing in the equipment shed?’

  ‘Just . . . taking a trip down memory lane, I guess. Pop used to take me out there when I was a kid. Let me hang out while he sharpened the tools. You know what? I think I’ve had a little too much to drink to actually start this thing, and I could really use a shower. Feel like driving me home, Marty?’

  ‘Not in that car.’

  Twenty minutes later they were in Marty’s ’66 Chevy Malibu, top down to disperse the smell, heading west on the freeway past downtown Minneapolis. The traffic was light, the night air had an almost sexual warmth, and Jack was uncharacteristically quiet in the passenger seat.

  Finally Marty said the words he’d thought would never come out of his mouth. ‘Okay, Jack. Start talking.’

  ‘No problem, buddy. Pick a subject.’

  ‘Let’s start with what you did to your mother.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Don’t give me that crap, Jack. You’ve got about as much interest in religion as a fern, and all of a sudden you’re filled with the spirit and decide to chuck the yarmulke and become a Christian? Bullshit. That stupid confirmation picture – and probably your marriage, too – was a direct shot at your folks.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So it was childish and spiteful and damn near unforgivable.’

  Jack sighed noisily. ‘You finished?’

  ‘No, goddamnit, I am not finished. So you had a fight with your dad. Lily didn’t even know what it was about, so why’d you shut her out?’

  ‘It’s complicated. And you don’t want to know.’

  ‘Yeah, I do want to know. I want to know what the hell Morey said that made you lash out like that.’

  Jack straightened a little in the seat and looked at Marty with something like amazement. ‘You know what, Marty? You’re the very first person who ever thought I might have had a reason for what I did, that I wasn’t just being an asshole.’ He faced front again and shook his head. ‘Man, you cannot imagine what that feels like.’

  ‘Great. Glad I made you happy. So what was the reason?’

  ‘I really love you for that, Marty.’

  ‘Oh, for chrissake, I can’t talk to you when you’re like this.’

  ‘Well that’s good, Marty, ’cause I didn’t want to talk about that shit anyway. Water under the bridge, spilt milk, bygones . . .’

  ‘Damnit, Jack, it isn’t any of those things, because it’s still hurting Lily. And you, for that matter. You gotta fix it.’

  Jack shook his head strongly. ‘Can’t.’

  ‘Well then, tell me what it is. Maybe I can fix it.’

  ‘God, you are such an arrogant prick, which is pretty funny, when you think about it. What the hell have you got to be arrogant about? You can’t even fix your own life, so just leave it alone. I’m not going to talk about it.’

  Marty’s fingers tightened on the wheel as he took the tight cloverleaf onto the freeway that led to Wayzata. ‘Fine. You don’t want to talk about that? Then let’s talk about Rose Kleber.’

  Jack folded his arms across his chest. ‘I didn’t know her.’

  ‘Don’t give me that shit, Jack. I saw your expression when you were looking at her picture in the paper.’

  Jack didn’t move for a minute, didn’t say anything, but Marty could feel him tense. ‘Okay, okay. So I met her once. So what? I meet a lot of people. Doesn’t mean I know them. I don’t think I ever even heard her last name. It was just a shock, that’s all. I mean, Jesus. Three old Jews get capped in three days, and it turns out I know all of them.’

  ‘How’d you meet her?’

  ‘Christ, I don’t know, what the hell is this? What’s with all the questions?’

  Marty knew better than to give him time to think. ‘Well, it’s like this, Jack. The cops are looking for a link between the victims, and it’s starting to look like you might be it.’

  ‘That’s bullshit. I’ll bet you could find at least a hundred people who knew all three of them.’

  ‘They were close, weren’t they? Morey, Ben, and Rose?’

  ‘How the fuck should I know?’

  ‘Because you DO, goddamnit. You were scared shitless when you heard about Ben Schuler getting shot, and Gino and Magozzi saw that. You think they aren’t going to wonder why? And they didn’t even see you freak out when you saw Rose Kleber’s picture. Jesus, Jack, you know something about these murders. Why aren’t you giving it up? People are dying.’

  Jack turned on him. ‘What the hell is this? Yesterday you couldn’t have cared less who killed your own father-in-law, and today you’re Mr Cop again. What’s that about?’

  ‘Oh yeah? Well you forgot something, Jack. Yesterday you were all over me for not trying to find out who killed Morey, and now that I’m asking a couple of questions, you’re the one who doesn’t want to talk about it. What’s that about?’

  Jack slammed his head back against the seat in frustration; read the big white-and-green freeway sign as they went under an overpass. ‘Goddamnit, Marty, that was Jonquil. You missed it. Take the next exit.’

&n
bsp; ‘You gotta talk to me, Jack. This isn’t going to go away.’

  Jack was silent for a moment, then bizarrely, just as they were slowing on the freeway exit and about to hit the safer surface streets, he buckled his lap belt. ‘Take a right. Three blocks up, the road forks at a creek, and that’s where you bear left.’

  Marty looked at his right hand curled around the steering wheel. It looked like a fist, and he wondered what it would feel like to slam that fist into Jack’s face. It took all his willpower to keep his voice calm and nonthreatening. ‘Listen to me, Jack. You’re not thinking straight. If you know something that might help the cops stop these murders, you have to tell them. Because if you don’t and somebody else dies, you might as well have pulled the trigger yourself.’

  Jack turned to him with a strange smile that seemed to flash on and off as they passed under streetlights. ‘That’s not going to happen, Marty. Don’t worry about it. You still got that .357 you used to have?’

  Marty looked at Jack in disbelief and almost clipped a parked car. ‘Goddamnit, Jack, you’re driving me crazy. I don’t even know who you are anymore.’

  ‘Yeah, me either. But what about the gun? Have you still got it?’

  Marty slammed on the brakes, flinging Jack forward, and the car screeched to a halt in the middle of the street. ‘Yes, I’ve got the goddamned gun! You want to borrow it? Put a bullet in your head and save me the trouble?’

  ‘Jesus, Marty, take it easy.’ Jack shook the hand he’d used to brace himself against the dashboard. ‘You nearly broke my wrist. Good thing I had my seat belt on. Did you know that ninety percent of car accidents happen on surface streets? Everybody thinks the freeways are the killing fields, but it just ain’t so.’

  Marty closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against the steering wheel.

  ‘Now, back to the gun. I want you to do me a favor. Go home, pick it up, keep it close, and stay with Ma for a few days. Can you do that?’

  Marty rolled his head to look at him with an expression of hopeless resignation. ‘Jack, you have to tell me what’s happening.’