Nothing Stays Buried

by P. J. Tracy

  “You’d like mine. I dip the bread in melted vanilla ice cream before I fry it.”

  Grace smiled a little. “That’s actually pretty clever.”

  “Of course it’s clever.” He reached out and brushed a few strands of black hair from her face. “Good morning.”

  “Good morning.”

  And then Magozzi’s cell phone started ringing. He looked at the screen and sighed.

  “It’s Gino. Rain check on the French toast, okay?”

  “I’ll go make coffee.”

  After Magozzi had rushed out with a mug of coffee and a banana, Grace fed her dog, Charlie, his morning kibble, then went back upstairs to get dressed, which was getting more and more difficult to do these days. In another month, she’d be wearing a tent.

  She finally tossed her favorite belt holster into the purgatory bin of things that didn’t fit her anymore and retrieved her old shoulder holster from the top shelf of the bedroom closet. It didn’t fit much better, but her boobs were still smaller than her stomach, and there was no way she was going to go out into the world unarmed just because she was six months pregnant. In fact, being pregnant was double the reason to carry—she wasn’t just protecting her own life anymore.

  Charlie snuffled his approval from his perch on the bed.

  “You like?”

  The dog’s stump tail wagged back and forth, but he didn’t bother to lift his head. He’d been moody like this for a while, falling into a deep melancholy whenever they came back to the city. And who could blame him? At Magozzi’s lake house, he could run to his heart’s content, chase squirrels and butterflies, explore the woods, and on one regrettable occasion, he’d found a dead fish on shore to roll in. There, he could do the things a dog was born to do; here, he was confined to a tiny fenced-in yard which probably felt like a prison to him now.

  And in truth, Grace was beginning to feel the same way. Not long ago, her small house had been her inviolate sanctuary; a physical and emotional fortress jealously guarded by fear and paranoia and every security precaution imaginable that kept everything and everyone out. But recently, her very carefully planned and constructed security blanket was starting to feel suffocating. Whether Charlie’s discontent was mirroring her own or the other way around, she would never know. And in the end, it didn’t matter. As she had learned these past few years, things changed—life, people, animals—all without your permission, no matter how zealously you fought to maintain supreme control.

  She sat down on the bed and stroked Charlie’s head. “I know, buddy, I’m sorry. We won’t be here long. Just a couple days.”

  Charlie blinked at her and whined.

  “Somebody in this relationship has to work, you know. Your kibble doesn’t grow on trees.”

  The dog snorted, as if he knew all about the multiple zeroes at the end of her bank account balance. Grace sighed, stood up, and patted her thigh. “Come on, let’s go to Harley’s.”

  At the sound of Harley’s name, the dog’s malaise vanished and he scrambled off the bed, anticipating the banquet of people food that was always waiting for him at the Monkeewrench office. Charlie loved Harley, of course, and Annie and Roadrunner, but Grace had always suspected that food was the main attraction. There was such a striking resemblance between dogs and men.

  Grace followed Charlie into the kitchen and out the door, then felt a kick in her belly as she was locking up the house. Baby was already anxious to get out.

  “Stay inside as long as you can,” she murmured. “It’s not safe out here.”

  THREE

  When Harley Davidson was a kid, not one person had ever asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up. It was such a little thing, but it left a lonely hole in his heart when every other kid was asked the question a million times by a million people. Maybe nobody had ever inquired about his hopes and his dreams for the future because they didn’t think he had any—the odds were dismal in the foster-home system for a bitter, aggressive boy with a bad mouth and a worse attitude. Or maybe they just didn’t care.

  Put your hand there, Harley. Feel the kick. You’re the only one who hasn’t done that.

  I didn’t want to be . . .

  Harley. This is the newest member of our family. You need to introduce yourself.

  Harley’s hand moved to the swell in Grace’s belly and jerked back, startled, when he felt movement against his palm.

  Oh my God. There’s a person in there.

  Yes, there is.

  And then Grace did the strangest thing. She put her hands on his cheeks and pulled his head against her belly.

  I read a book that said babies in the womb respond to voices, remember them subliminally after birth. What do you want to say to the baby, Harley?

  He released the breath he’d been holding against Grace’s stomach and whispered, Baby, what do you want to be when you grow up?

  Whoever is in there will want to grow up to be just like you.

  This was what Harley was remembering as he perched on a ladder in one of the spare bedrooms in his Summit Avenue mansion, putting the final screws into the frame of an ornate, ceiling-mounted bed canopy. He could see Annie and Roadrunner in his peripheral vision, supervising from across the room. He thought Annie’s fulsome figure looked particularly fetching today in a lacy dress that had some kind of shiny beadwork on the neckline. “Your cleavage is damn near covered, Annie, what the hell is the matter with you?”

  She lifted her chin haughtily. “Sometimes the magic is in what you don’t see.”

  “What’s wrong with seeing stuff?”

  “Nobody’s ever accused you of being refined or a gentleman,” Annie sniffed.

  Harley smirked down at her. “Show me a woman who wants a gentleman, and I’ll show you a woman who is a liar.” Before Annie could retort, he made a broad, sweeping gesture toward the canopy. “What do you guys think?”

  “It looks centered,” Roadrunner commented blithely as he assessed the layout and dimensions of the room.

  “Jesus, of course it’s centered, you think I’d drill into a plaster ceiling without taking measurements? And I wasn’t asking what you thought about my carpentry skills, I was asking what you thought about the canopy. This sucker is hand-carved, gold-leafed mahogany, painstakingly crafted in Bavaria over three hundred years ago.”

  Annie clucked her tongue. “It’s beautiful, Harley, but you are one crazy fool. The child is not going to care about gold leaf or anything else.”

  “Maybe not right away, but in time, little Leo or little Grace will grow to appreciate all the finer things in life, including my wine cellar.”

  “Uh-huh. In a couple decades. Where are you going to hang the mobile?”

  “Mobile?”

  “The things you hang above a crib that have dangling animals and rainbows and whatnot. Babies love mobiles, it keeps them calm and puts them to sleep. Babies also have horrible eyesight, and this ceiling is eighteen feet high—no infant is going to be able to see a mobile hanging way up there.”

  Harley clomped down the ladder, his jackboots a couple of sizes too large to negotiate the rungs with any grace. “Not a problem. I’ll put in a chandelier lift for the mobile, job done.”

  Roadrunner politely cleared his throat, then his shoulders started shaking in suppressed laughter.

  Harley scowled at him. “What?”

  “No offense, but for a couple of geniuses, you’re really overcomplicating things. You don’t hang mobiles from the ceiling, you hang them from a doodad that attaches to the side of the crib, problem solved.”

  Annie tapped her lower lip thoughtfully. “Is that so?”

  Harley wagged his head adamantly. “Oh, hell no. Nothing’s getting attached to the side of this crib. You haven’t seen it yet, but it’s the pièce de résistance, and it just got delivered this morning. . . .”

  They all
looked toward the open bedroom window when they heard a happy bark and a car door slam.

  Harley started brushing the plaster dust from his hair and beard and off his shoulders. “Damn, Gracie’s here already. Annie, you and Roadrunner go downstairs and distract them while I clean up. I don’t want her to see the nursery until it’s finished. And feed Charlie—there’s poached chicken for him on the kitchen counter.”

  “What about the frittata?” Roadrunner asked.

  “Oh, shit, I forgot about it. Pull it, Roadrunner. I don’t want to burn another one.”

  FOUR

  Harley usually cooked one of two things when he made breakfast for the Monkeewrench crew: donuts and sausage, or canned chili and beer. That was surely why the rest of them couldn’t identify the aromas emanating from the kitchen while they waited at the round table in the breakfast room.

  Annie was drumming her manicured fingernails on the rosewood impatiently. “What on earth is he doing out there, and what’s that smell? Bacon? Ham?”

  Grace shrugged. “Maybe both. But there’s something else I don’t recognize. It almost smells like food.”

  Next to Grace, Roadrunner took a deep breath and flared his nostrils, sorting through the scents, expanding his chest until every rib was outlined against his white Lycra biking suit. “It’s a frittata. And it smells a lot better than it did when I rode over here at eight. This is the third time he’s tried to make it.”

  Harley’s movements were always accompanied by an orchestration of sounds composed by Hells Angels. There was the pounding of his heavy motorcycle boots as he approached, then the jangle of chains and grommets and the squeak of leathers, and then suddenly his muscular, tattooed bulk filled the room as if someone had just pushed a boulder into it.

  His left hand swung a champagne bucket by the handle, spilling ice on the parquet floor. In his right, he clutched a bouquet of crystal flutes. “Open this, Gracie, would you? Last time I put a cork through a window.” He plunked the bottle next to her, leaving a pool of water on the table.

  Annie gave him a stark look of disapproval. “You’re serving alcohol to a pregnant woman?”

  “Do you think I’m an idiot? This is sparkling grape juice. Come on, Roadrunner, give me a hand in the kitchen.”

  Once Harley and Roadrunner had left the room, Annie arched an eyebrow at Grace. “You do realize that Harley is going to be the most doting, meddling uncle on the planet, and he’ll spoil that sweet little bun of yours rotten unless you’re careful.”

  “This from a woman who’s already filled up an entire closet with baby clothes?”

  Annie averted her gaze demurely. “Well, you know how I love to shop, and baby clothes are just so precious.”

  “We don’t even know the sex.”

  “Of course we do. It’s a girl, mark my words.”

  Grace smiled. “I think so, too.”

  “You’re not tempted to find out for sure?”

  “I like surprises.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since about six months ago.”

  Annie let out a tinkling laugh. “So how is the daddy-to-be?”

  “He’s acting strange. He already childproofed all the cupboard doors at the lake house, and he’s turning the entire lower level into a playground.”

  Harley appeared with a monstrous frittata and proudly plunked it down on the sideboard. “Behold, my famous frittata.”

  Annie craned her neck to get a closer look, and Grace covered a smile with her hand. It was obvious Annie was very interested in the frittata, but she would rather fall on a sword than let Harley know it. “Since when did you have a famous anything?”

  Harley gave her a smug smile. “Oh yeah? You want to get busy with my phone book and start making some calls to a few of my lady friends?”

  “You’re disgusting.”

  “And you, my dear lady, have a lascivious mind, because I was talking about my secret culinary gifts.”

  “Yeah, right. Pig.”

  Oil and water, Grace thought, uncorking the grape juice. Annie and Harley had always seemed like a perfect match of opposites, and yet the fates had never seen fit to throw in an emulsifier to bring the two together, and she wondered why. Maybe destiny had a team of actuaries working full-time, doing risk assessment on relationships, and for whatever reasons, her two friends didn’t pass muster as a couple.

  It took Harley and Roadrunner three trips to haul the rest of the food to the breakfast room’s sideboard. Breakfast here was a little like going to eat at Paul Bunyan’s logging camp, even when the fare was canned chili. The amount of food he prepared was almost obscene, and this morning was no exception. Grace eyed the frittata, the bacon, the ham, the four kinds of sausage, the fried potatoes, and asked, “Do you have any fruit?”

  “You’re drinking it. Besides, you need something more substantial, being in the family way, and you’re looking a little pale lately. How the hell do you do that when it’s ninety degrees and sunny every day? I go out to get the mail and come back in looking like George Hamilton.”

  “Well, the frittata looks fabulous.” Grace took a very small slice, greatly fearing the crooked orange decorative border came from canned cheese food.

  “Harley,” Annie said, “this is an unexpected act of gentility, serving real food.”

  “Oh my God, was that an actual compliment?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Just wanted to double-check. Now eat up, all of you. I’ve got a proposition to make.”

  Annie talked around a mouthful of bacon. “Is this anything like when you wanted us all to buy that ostrich farm together?”

  “I wasn’t really serious about that. Well, I was, until I found out the damn things kick like mules. But this is different. An old sheriff buddy who works a county in southwestern Minnesota called me the other day for a favor.”

  Annie arched a brow at him. “Since when do you have an old sheriff buddy?”

  “Since he arrested me for doing ninety in a thirty a while back. He thought I looked like a troublemaker, so he threw me in the pokey. But of course I charmed him with my stunning intellect and charismatic personality, and we ended up drinking whiskey and playing Texas Hold’em all night.”

  “So what’s your proposition?” Roadrunner asked as he arranged his fried potatoes in a perfect ring around the rim of his plate, then began eating them one by one.

  “Jesus, Roadrunner, do you have to do your OCD thing . . .”

  “Spill it, Harley,” Annie said sharply.

  “Well, I was thinking—we totally killed all the corporate security jobs last year, made a ton of money, pinned down some bad guys for the cops, but never spent a second on what we used to love doing more than anything else—helping people. Sheriff’s got a friend—an old farmer named Walt. He lost his daughter a couple months ago. She just disappeared without a trace, and he wants to hire us to find her.”

  Grace shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “We have too many urgent requests from law enforcement all over the country, and we can’t divert our attention away from that right now. You’re talking about a missing persons case that’s two months old, and as much as I hate to say it, it’s probably a recovery mission. But the majority of the cops asking for our assistance are talking about murderers operating in their jurisdictions right now. We need to set priorities.”

  “I think this should be one of our priorities. There are four of us, no reason we can’t take this on as a side project and still get the other stuff done at the same time.”

  Grace folded her arms across her chest. “That’s not what’s going on here, is it? The real priority is to wrap me in cellophane for the next three months and keep me safe on a shelf.”

  Harley shrugged. “Now that you mention it, it wouldn’t hurt you to take it easy for a little while instead of chasing bad guys, but that’s not wh
y I’m laying this out. I want to do something closer to home, something a little more personal. Walt lost his wife a few years ago, and his son before that, and I’d like to help find out what happened to his daughter, give an old man some peace in his final years.”

  Grace leaned back in her chair. The upholstery was cushy and soft, and the chair seats were large enough to curl up your legs. She loved this room, and she loved each person in it, geeks and freaks every one of them. But that’s all they were. They weren’t cops, they weren’t detectives, they were just a motley collection of computer geniuses who’d developed crime-solving software that connected all the faded dots and made it easier for the cops to catch bad guys. “Where does this man live, Harley?”

  “Buttonwillow. Southwest of us, about a two-hour drive.”

  “So we’ll send our software to the cops down there.”

  Harley shook his big head. “Won’t help. It’s a one-horse department with an old computer that can barely spit out a mailing label. No chance they could load the software, let alone run it.”

  She raised her brows. “You’ve been there?”

  “Yeah, well, I took the Hog down to the guy’s farm yesterday, talked to him for a while, stopped at the sheriff’s office on my way home. Look, I’m not asking for a commitment from any of you, I’m just asking a straight-out favor that you all take a drive in the country with me and meet him before you make a decision, that’s all.”

  Roadrunner had finished eating his potato necklace. “I’ll take a ride with you, Harley.”

  Annie passed a sour face on to Grace. “The last time you took me on a country drive is not exactly my favorite memory.”

  “Hey.” Grace grinned at her. “You swam with dead cows, you connected with Mother Earth, you saved the world. And you were magnificent.”

  Annie grunted and looked off to the side. “Yes, I was.”

  FIVE

  Magozzi stepped out of his house in the city and into a steamy June morning that smelled like the lilac perfume his grandmother used to wear. It was just past dawn, but the air was already sodden, like somebody had thrown an invisible wet blanket over the city. Just as the radio weatherman had prognosticated on his way here from Grace’s, it was going to be a hot one—a classic Minnesota colloquialism that meant you would sweat your balls off before noon if you had to be outside in a suit for more than ten minutes, a reality that loomed in his immediate future. And that future was not going to smell like Grandma’s perfume, because it involved a homicide.