Nothing Stays Buried

by P. J. Tracy

  The deputy shook his head. “He shot up the outdoor cameras by the pumps, too. We’re trying to find out if the gas station routes surveillance footage to a backup server somewhere.”

  “Work fast, Al. Every minute we lose, this guy gains another mile at least.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  FORTY-THREE

  Gino and Magozzi were standing in front of a window that looked out onto the light rail track that fronted City Hall. The sun was just barely lifting from its nighttime sleep, painting the city a pale gold that would eventually crescendo about an hour from now, splashing vibrant color against the planes of the downtown buildings.

  The surrounding streets and sidewalks were jammed with satellite vans and reporters from all over the country, and international crews were heavily represented, too. They’d all been camped out around City Hall ever since the MPD sketch had aired last night, waiting for an ambush, an interview, a little piece of the serial killer furor, which could mean one more rung up the ladder of success. Magozzi wondered how many of them were truly cognizant of the fact that the rungs of the ladder they hoped to climb were made up of four dead women. And of those who did realize, how many of them cared?

  Cynical, cynical, cynical. Don’t burn out; not yet.

  Gino shoved his hands into his pants pockets and made a new set of hips, looking at his partner circumspectly. “You okay, Leo?”

  “Yeah, I’m just pissed. Angel fucking Cruz. We should have had this bastard in the can by now. The tip lines have been on fire all night, and we haven’t gotten shit.”

  “Lots of people think they saw him.”

  “Some of those same people saw Elvis last night, too.”

  Gino checked his watch. “Amanda White’s airing her piece in an hour. Maybe that’ll stir something up.”

  Magozzi took a sip of cold coffee from his flimsy cardboard cup and suddenly felt a pang of nostalgia for good old-fashioned Styrofoam, a vilified product now akin to Satan. Styrofoam was as unappealing to drink out of as cardboard, but at least it kept the coffee at a drinkable temperature for more than five minutes. “He probably already went to ground. Hell, he might even be back in Mexico by now.”

  Gloria was manning her station at the front desk, looking as frazzled as any of them had ever seen her. She was swathed in her mourning outfit—black headscarf, black caftan, black nail polish—because Gloria had a heart as big as the rest of her and always grieved for homicide victims.

  She was typing frantically as they approached, said into the phone, “Please hold for a moment,” then leaned back in her chair with a sour expression. “You’ve gotta get this guy. He’s never going to stop.”

  “We’re getting closer, Gloria.”

  “Then get closer faster. The tip line has been ringing nonstop since they started running that sketch on TV. Do you know how many nut jobs have called into the tip line since I got here this morning?”

  “As many as last night?” Gino asked smoothly.

  “Hmph. More. And what’s worse, the media is trying every single little trick in the book to get past me. They want a piece of all of you, so watch your backs. There’s only so much even I can do.”

  Gino cocked a brow at her. “You’re our iron curtain, Gloria. You’re setting yourself up for failure already? It’s not even seven.”

  Gloria pursed her bright red lips, then smiled a little. “Iron curtain. I like that. Now, back to business—your emails are loaded up with every message I’ve fielded so far. Some might be leads, some are pure trash. You decide. But you did get at least one legit call from law enforcement, some outstate sheriff who wants a call-back ASAP.” She tapped on her keyboard for a minute. “Jacob Emmet, down in Cottonwood County.”

  Gino looked at Magozzi and shrugged. “Maybe he’s got a new lead. Let’s go make a call.”

  Every desk in Homicide was filled with the entirety of the force’s detectives, all busy on the phones as they followed up on the tip line leads. The place wasn’t just humming—it was downright loud, with multiple conversations and buzzing phones reverberating through the room. Freedman was at his desk, phone glued to his ear, but he waved them over and put his call on hold.

  “Welcome to the jungle,” Gino greeted him. “Hell of a way to start your career in Homicide. You have something for us?”

  “I just finished looking at the traffic cam footage from outside your tattoo parlor on the night our perp was there. Saw the bastard walk in and walk out and he’s a dead match with the footage from Eagle Lake Casino. It’s our guy, and I think he just made his first big mistake. I saw him get into a late-model black Ford 150. There are probably a million of those on the road in Minnesota, but this one had a big dent in the driver-side door.”

  Gino rubbed his hands together. “Please tell me you got his tags.”

  “No such luck. But at least we have a vehicle description.”

  “Update the BOLO.”

  “Jeez, Rolseth, do you think I lost my frontal lobe overnight or what? It’s already done.”

  Magozzi looked around the office. “Where’s McLaren?”

  “He’s knocking on doors in the neighborhoods around the tattoo parlor. We can always hope somebody will look at the police sketch and say, ‘Oh, yeah, I see that guy every morning at nine a.m., sipping a macchiato at the Starbucks around the corner.’”

  “Wouldn’t that be a dream come true,” Gino lamented. “Why aren’t you with him on the canvass?”

  “He wanted me to stay here and keep plowing through all the trace evidence.”

  “Any luck with that?”

  “No. The only thing remotely interesting and totally irrelevant is lion hair at Charlotte Wells’s scene, if you can believe that. But I suppose zookeepers and circus trainers take walks in parks, too, just like everybody else. Anything hot cooking on your stove?”

  “We got a callback message from the Cottonwood County sheriff, but if he has anything to say, we’re not going to be able to hear it in here. Let’s go find a room, Leo.”

  They settled in an empty conference room and Gino started dialing. Magozzi’s eyes wandered up to the ceiling, where a spider lurked in a corner. It was big. And kind of fuzzy.

  “Sheriff Emmet.”

  “Sheriff, this is Detective Gino Rolseth and my partner, Detective Magozzi. We’ve got you on speaker.”

  “Thanks for the callback, Detectives. Did you get the files I sent you on the Cruz case?”

  “We did, and we thank you for that. Did you get something new?”

  Sheriff Emmet sighed audibly into the phone. “This is a courtesy call, mind you. I know how things go when you put out a sketch of a perp and open a tip line—suddenly everybody and their brother sees the bad guy next door, on the street, in a store, whatever, and I’m sure you’re sorting through a hundred of them right now. But I just wanted to let you know that we had a nine-one-one call early this morning from a gas station attendant who reported a sighting of your perp there, then the call cut off. I’m just finishing up at the crime scene now. . . .”

  “Crime scene?” Magozzi interjected.

  “Yes. Greg Trask, fine young man, sharp as a tack. Working his way through college. He was shot at least three times, according to the ME. He was dead by the time our first responder got here.”

  Magozzi lowered his head and pinched the bridge of his nose. “We’re very sorry to hear that.”

  “Thank you. It’s a tragic thing.”

  “Did you get any surveillance footage, a vehicle ID?” Gino asked, scribbling in his notebook.

  “Nothing. The gas station’s computer and all the cameras inside and out were shot up. We checked for data backup on an outside server, but the owner had a pretty remedial system, mostly all show and no go. Right now, I’ve only got boots on the ground, and they’re going to scour every single inch of this county with your sketch.”


  “We just got some footage of our suspect getting into a late-model black Ford 150 with a big dent in the driver’s door. No way to be sure he’s still driving the same vehicle . . .”

  “But it’s more than we had before you called. Thanks, Detective, I’ll let my men know right away. But my guess? He’s halfway to Missouri or Kansas or California by now. The gas station is close to the interstate, so he could be anywhere.”

  Magozzi heard the sadness and frustration in the sheriff’s voice, felt it himself. “Sheriff, any chance you found a playing card on the body?”

  “No, why? Is that a tell your killer leaves behind?”

  “Yeah. That’s one of the things we’ve been able to keep under wraps so far. But you might want to tell your men in the field that he has tattoos on his arms.”

  “Everybody has tattoos on their arms these days.”

  “These are playing cards.”

  Jacob was silent for a moment, making the connection. “Jesus. He’s keeping score.”

  “Maybe.”

  After they’d gotten some more details about the scene and finally hung up, Magozzi and Gino fussed with making notes as they both drifted down the murky river of the case and all the weird tributaries it was taking them on.

  Gino finally threw down his pen and looked up. “I don’t like the way Cottonwood County keeps creeping into our case.”

  “I don’t like it, either. Let’s take a ride. We’ve got all hands on deck here chasing the city leads, so let’s go follow a new one.”

  “Yeah, I’m with you. . . .” Gino’s eyes caught a sudden movement on the wall above his head. “Jesus! There’s a tarantula climbing down from the ceiling, Leo.”

  “I saw that earlier.”

  “And you didn’t say anything? You didn’t kill it?”

  “It’s not a tarantula. I think it’s a wolf spider.”

  “What the fuck is a wolf spider? Are they poisonous?”

  “I don’t know. Let’s ask McLaren. It’s probably one of his rescue animals.”

  “Fucking McLaren.”

  FORTY-FOUR

  Grace was sitting on Walt’s ramshackle dock, watching the sun creep above the eastern horizon and bedazzle his lake with flashing diamonds of light. If she squinted, it looked like a million tiny fires were burning on the water’s surface, flaring, then extinguishing, then reigniting over and over again.

  She leaned forward for a closer look as a massive gray bird suddenly lifted out of a marshy spot just to the west, flapping its enormous wings and rising into the sky as reluctantly as a 747, long legs dangling awkwardly behind. A heron, she remembered Magozzi telling her when she’d first seen one from his dock.

  Turtles poked their heads up randomly, fish jumped to snatch bugs, making the water shimmy. She could hear the chirping of birds, the rasp of insects, the low of cows; smell the rich sweetness of earth and grass.

  Before Magozzi had bought his lake house, it had never occurred to her that the country would hold any kind of appeal for her, but more and more every day she was considering what it would be like to wake up there every morning, not just a couple of mornings a week. To hear the melodious symphony of nature instead of the city’s cacophony of sirens, car alarms and horns, chattering humans, traffic.

  She looked over her shoulder and saw Charlie leaping up and down like a pup, chasing a butterfly. He was happy here, in the same way he was happy at Magozzi’s lake house. On one level, it was deeply disturbing to imagine a different way of life, but on another level, it was exhilarating.

  Nothing’s permanent, just remember that. One of her disengaged foster mother’s words of wisdom. What she’d really meant to say was, “You’re not worth the government check, so back to the orphanage you go.” That had instilled an unhealthy need for sameness and stability in her life, whether or not it was good.

  But maybe they actually had been words of wisdom, albeit delivered cruelly. You could make changes, and if they didn’t work, then go to plan B. Or C. Or D.

  She heard soft footsteps behind her, the rustle of tall grass, and turned to see Roadrunner awkwardly negotiating the alien terrain, his bony knees lifting high.

  “You fell asleep at the computer last night.”

  Roadrunner sank down next to her. “Yeah, I know. My back is killing me.”

  Charlie greeted Roadrunner, then ran off toward the woods.

  Grace stood and slapped her leg. “Come back here, Charlie.”

  “What’s the matter? He’s just exploring.”

  “No, he’s digging up the woods, looking for dead goats. I had to drag him back last night.”

  “Dead goats?”

  “Yeah. Walt says there’s a goat cemetery out there. Then again, Walt also said there’s an African lion living somewhere out here. I know it sounds crazy, but . . .” She stopped when she saw the expression on Roadrunner’s face. “What?”

  “I was just going through the list of trace evidence from Charlotte Wells’s scene at the dog park. The techs found lion hair. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t give that a lot of weight, but when you factor in all the connections to Cottonwood County that have turned up in Magozzi’s and Gino’s cases . . . I don’t know. It’s probably just a coincidence.”

  “But maybe it’s not. Come on, let’s go call them.”

  As they walked through the tall grass, Roadrunner chuckled.

  “What is it?”

  “I was just thinking that this is something the Beast never could have found, because the Beast can’t talk to people, it can only process information. And I thought the Beast was the be-all and end-all.”

  “The Beast is amazing, but there’s no substitute for good old-fashioned cop work, and that should make you happy—humans aren’t obsolete yet.”

  Harley and Annie were sitting at the dinette table in the Chariot, drinking coffee and sorting through computer printouts from the Beast. Occasionally, one of them would scrape a neon-green line with a highlighter through a paragraph as they looked for orphan bits of information the computer hadn’t pulled together.

  “Stop looking at me, Annie,” Harley mumbled, keeping his eyes on the page he was reading.

  “Don’t flatter yourself. I was looking at that tree outside the window, which happens to be right behind your big head.”

  Harley turned around. “It’s a tree. You hate trees.”

  “The leaves are curling and the wind’s picking up. A storm’s coming.”

  “Yeah, right. The sun’s shining and there’s not a cloud in the sky.”

  “Shows how much you know. If you want a real weather forecast, look at the trees. Just ask Walt, he’ll back me up.”

  They both looked up abruptly when Charlie suddenly bolted into the Chariot, Grace and Roadrunner following close behind.

  “I’m going to go call Magozzi and Gino,” Roadrunner said, retreating to the war room at the back of the rig, leaving Grace to tell the other two about Walt’s lion.

  FORTY-FIVE

  Gino and Magozzi hung up the phone after Roadrunner’s call and looked at each other.

  “Well, the lion hair tears it for me,” Gino said. “Cottonwood County is in this big-time. What if our guy isn’t on his way to California or Kansas, what if he’s shacking up down there?”

  Magozzi was gathering his notes and stuffing them into his laptop bag. “I’ll Call Sheriff Emmet and give him a heads-up that we’re on our way down. You pass the word on to McLaren and Freedman and we’ll meet at the car.”

  “Gotcha. See you in five.”

  Magozzi redialed the sheriff’s number and waited several rings before he finally answered.

  “Sheriff Emmet, this is Detective Magozzi again.”

  “What can I do for you, Detective?”

  “We’ve got a pile of weird coincidences stacking up too high. We jus
t got a call from a friend of ours working a missing persons case somewhere in your neck of the woods, for a Walt somebody, he’s missing a daughter . . .” Magozzi heard an intake of breath on the other end of the line.

  “Are you talking about Monkeewrench?” the sheriff finally asked.

  It was Magozzi’s turn to be surprised, and his hand tightened on the phone. “You know them?”

  “I’m the one who asked Monkeewrench for their help. What’s this about, Detective?”

  Magozzi closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair, wondering where to start. He finally decided the beginning would take too long, so he jumped right to the present. “This is going to sound like a weird question, but is there an African lion on the loose down there?”

  “There sure is. He escaped from a game preserve about four, five years ago.” The sheriff cleared his throat. “That is a weird question.”

  “It’ll make sense when we tell you more. What about that old apple orchard and migrant camp you told us about, where the stabbing took place in ’95—any chance it’s near Walt’s place?”

  “Sure. It’s right across the lake on his property.”

  Magozzi felt a sour sear of acid flooding his stomach as he jumped to his feet. He was amazed that he could move so fast on so little sleep, even more amazed that his galloping heart hadn’t crashed through his chest. “There’s no time to get into details right now, Sheriff, but can you get some men out there and do a search?”

  “You think your killer is here?”

  “I think we need to make sure he isn’t. My partner and I are on our way down.” Magozzi hung up abruptly and dialed Grace.

  —

  Annie was rinsing breakfast dishes in the Chariot’s sink, eavesdropping on Grace’s one-sided conversation with Magozzi. He was doing most of the talking—fast and panicked, she gleaned from the faint, muffled voice that was still loud enough to escape the phone. And when Grace did get a few words in, they were disturbing: “You think he’s here?” “Of course we’re all armed.” “Don’t worry, Magozzi.”