Off the Grid (11 page)

21

A
woman who reminded Magozzi of Grace MacBride was sitting on his front porch when he pulled into his driveway Tuesday night. Then again, almost every woman reminded him of Grace, no matter how thin the resemblance.

This one had dark hair like Grace, but it was really, really short, and she was wearing sandals and a sundress. Tanned, bare legs, bare arms, no boots, nowhere to conceal a gun. Not Grace. Not that exposed. Besides, this woman was holding a purse. As far as he knew, Grace didn’t even own a purse, and this one was weird—cheap vinyl with fish appliqués all over it. Definitely not her style. But there was something about her rigid posture, something about her demeanor and the intensity that emanated from her, that made him think twice about her identity.

Move, feet. Maybe Grace, maybe not, but you’re never going to find out standing here in the driveway looking like a dork.

Halfway to the porch he could see her, he could
feel
her, and suddenly his legs felt funny, like those multijointed wooden puppets that bobble and collapse at the whim of whoever was pulling the strings. He reached for the railing to steady himself as he climbed the three wooden steps. “Grace.”

Magozzi hardly knew what to do with all the body parts and emotions fighting for prominence. Oddly, the hardest thing to deal with was her hair. The bare legs and arms and her tanned toes in sandals screamed change, but the short hair frightened him in some way his Italian genes may have understood but his logic missed. So he stood there on the porch, looking down at the crappy chaise, paralyzed.

And then a truly frightening thing happened. She stood up, hesitated for the smallest of seconds, then moved into him, wrapping her arms around his neck, burying her head with that short, scary hair into his shoulder.

“Hello, Magozzi.”

It hadn’t been an easy three months for Magozzi. He hadn’t been sorting through his feelings or anything stupid like that, just dealing with them when they showed up.

Feeling sorry for himself was useless, humiliating. That had lasted for about five seconds after Grace told him that night she needed to get away, from him, from everything.

I need a change, Magozzi. I have to change.

Why? You’re perfect.

No. I’m not. I’m scared all the time.

And you think getting away is going to change that?

Maybe.

To where?

John’s going to take me sailing for a few months.

Bingo. The rage had exploded in his stomach and climbed up to his face, making it red and hot. So he’d turned away from her and headed for the door, just like that.

Wait, Magozzi. Let me explain.

Yeah, right. Thanks very much but no thanks. When a woman says sayonara, I’m going to go off with another man for a few months, you didn’t hang around for explanations, looking weird and out of place. You just turned on your heel and split.

The rage had faded in a hurry. It was just plain unproductive. The only emotion that kept cropping up through the months was bitterness. He was hanging on to that like an old woman clutching her pocketbook.

But he was better. He’d dated a couple women whose company he really enjoyed, and a few more who’d bored him silly. So, step by step he was putting his life back together again. And just when he felt like he was making some progress, here comes Grace, popping back into his world without his permission, messing with his head.

He kept his hands at his sides so he wouldn’t touch her, but feeling her arms around his neck, her breath on his skin, felt like coming home. Shit. He took a quick step backward. The first words he said were utterly frivolous and completely important. “Where’s Charlie?”

“I dropped him off at Harley’s before I came here. Can we go inside? I’m freezing.”

Magozzi eyed her scanty wardrobe, wondering what in the hell she had been thinking. Hot fall days here were one thing, but the night temperatures always plummeted. “Of course you’re freezing. You’re dressed like you’re still in Florida.”

“I’ve been driving nonstop for two and a half days. I didn’t have time to change. I haven’t even been home yet. Let me in or kick me out, but do it soon, because I don’t have much left in me right now, and I know you’ve got a lot on your plate this week.”

Magozzi conceded the point by tipping his head.

“Harley brought me up to date on what’s been going on. The murders, the kidnapped girls . . .”

“Is this going somewhere, Grace?”

She took a breath. “I just want you to know I understand what you’re dealing with.”

Magozzi turned away from her and keyed open the door. Grace felt some fracture between them, as if she didn’t have the privilege of discussing his cases with him anymore. There was too much on the periphery, nibbling at the way they related. He was clearly exhausted, and so was she. But he was also tormented by her leaving, and probably by what kind of relationship she had with John, even though he wouldn’t ask her outright. It felt like an open hand against her chest, holding her at a distance.

“I need a favor, Magozzi. I know you’re busy. It’s a few phone calls, if you could see your way clear to doing that.”

Magozzi didn’t hesitate. It didn’t matter much, he thought, when people you cared about hurt you; when they asked for help, you had to be there. “What do you need?”

“Thank you,” she said. “Three nights ago, we were anchored ten miles off the Keys when two men boarded our boat and tried to kill John. By the time I got abovedecks, they were starting to slash his throat. I had to shoot them.”

It was so matter-of-fact, so out there, that Magozzi had trouble taking it in. He just stood there, his hands hanging from his wrists, looking stupefied. “You killed them?”

“I did.”

“Jesus, Grace.”

“They were killing him, Magozzi. I didn’t have a choice.”

Magozzi took a breath, rubbed his forefinger over his upper lip. He needed a shave. “Let’s go inside.”

Funny how doing familiar, automatic things could give you breathing space. Magozzi walked in, wiped his feet, and hung his holster on the coatrack under his jacket.
Grace killed two men.
He walked to the kitchen. He got wineglasses out of the cupboard and the remains of a cheap bottle of Chardonnay out of the refrigerator.
Grace killed two men.
Damnit, it didn’t matter how busy he kept his hands; that single, shocking phrase kept running a loop in his head. He filled the glasses and sat down at the table where he and Grace had shared so many meals.

She took a sip of the wine and wrinkled her nose. “Thanks.”

“It’s not Harley’s wine.”

“It’s fine.” She looked sad and scared all at the same time and Magozzi didn’t know how to make that look go away. What did you say to someone who’d just confessed to murder? He knew what he’d say on the job, but this wasn’t an interrogation room, and Grace wasn’t any suspect off the street. But it was murder and investigating homicides was what he did for a living.

“Magozzi?”

His eyes jerked back to her face. He’d been silent too long. “Sorry. You’ve had a few days to take this in. I’m just starting.”

“I know.”

Be the detective.
“You said you were ten miles out. So they had a boat.”

“A dinghy.”

“Pirates?”

“That’s what we thought at first, until we found a picture of John in one of their pockets.”

Magozzi leaned back in his chair, stunned. “Smith was a target?”

Grace nodded.

“I need to talk to him right now. Where is he?”

“I don’t know. He’s off the grid. We threw our computers and cells overboard, took the boat right back to the marina, and went our separate ways. He doesn’t want me anywhere near him until he finds out who ordered the hit.”

“Come on, Grace. John’s the only one with the answers. Pirates are one thing, but most people don’t have a price on their heads without some idea of who wants them dead. What did he tell you?”

Grace shook her head. “Nothing that makes sense. The men who tried to kill him were Saudis here on student visas, but he’s never worked counterterrorism for the Bureau, no old cases rearing their heads. He has been monitoring the jihadist websites just to keep his hand in, and when he finds something suspicious, he passes the word on to law enforcement.”

Magozzi shrugged. “There must be thousands of agents who do that every day.”

“Exactly. So why would John be singled out for death? That’s what we have to find out, because if they’re looking for John, eventually they’re going to look for people who knew him. That means me and Monkeewrench.” She looked directly at him. “Our association with John was all over the news when we worked together on the Internet killers. We’ll do what we can with computer searches—I made a copy of John’s hard drive, and Monkeewrench is running it through our software now. But we need a little pull with the local police and the Feds. They’re not going to share information with strangers over the phone, but you can use your badge to see if anyone’s been making inquiries about John in D.C. or Florida.”

Magozzi pulled his notebook from his pocket and started writing. “We can do that. What about the marina where John keeps his boat?”

Grace lifted her purse from the floor, pulled out her Sig from its new home, and then a list that had been tucked beneath it. She pushed the paper across the table. “Those are contacts and their numbers. Don Kardon is the marina owner. I told him you’d be calling. The rest are Florida and D.C. cops and the Feds he worked with.”

“I’ll get right on it. What did the Florida cops say?”

Grace blinked. “What do you mean?”

“About the two dead men, the crime scene on the boat?”

Grace’s gaze didn’t waver. “I pushed the bodies overboard. We didn’t report it.”

Magozzi couldn’t take his eyes off her. “Seriously?”

She exhaled sharply. “They came to kill John. If whoever was behind it heard on the news that he wasn’t dead, he wouldn’t have had time to disappear. Listen, you’re a cop. I know how that hits you. It’s all we could do. Think about it.”

“I will.”

She pushed a sheaf of papers across the table. “Those are copies of what we found in the killers’ wallets. Monkeewrench is checking their backgrounds now.”

Magozzi focused on the student visas, his brow troubled.

“Is something wrong?”

“I don’t know. I’ll check it out.”

“Thank you. I’ve got to get back to the office.”

“I’ll call you as soon as I get anything.”

She scribbled a number on a piece of paper. “I picked up a prepaid cell. Use this number if you want to reach me. Don’t call the Monkeewrench office, don’t call any number except this one. We don’t know who might be listening.”

“This doesn’t sound good, Grace.”

“It doesn’t feel good, either.” She hesitated at the front door, looking down at her hand on the knob. “John and I never slept together, Magozzi. If it matters.”

He took a breath. “It matters.”

He stood in the foyer for a long time after she’d left, not thinking, not feeling. He didn’t know where this was going. He didn’t know what he could do. But he didn’t believe in coincidence—no cop did—and the contents of those wallets were making the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He reached for the phone. “Gino? Come on over. Yeah, right now.”

22

A
fter Gino arrived, Magozzi talked for ten straight minutes. The transformation in Gino’s expression as he listened was fascinating to watch. It was like his face was ruffling a deck of emotions so fast, they all blurred together. “Is that it?” he asked when Magozzi stopped talking.

“That’s it.”

“I just want to make sure I’ve got this straight. Grace shot two guys in cold blood . . .”

“Defending John. Justifiable.”

“Yeah, whatever. Then she dumps the bodies overboard, cuts their dinghy loose, and never reports the crime. I see about twenty felonies here, Leo, and if we don’t report it, we’re accessories after the fact, am I right?”

Magozzi gave him a great poker face. “Technically, it’s hearsay. And personally, I don’t believe a word of it. Do you?”

Gino stuck his lips out. “No, I most certainly do not. Bullshit, is what it is.”

“That’s what I was thinking.”

“So all Grace wants us to do is use our spiffy cop creds to call around and see if any suspicious characters with big knives have been hanging around asking for John.”

“I think she wanted us to be a little more discreet than that.”

“Okay, I’ll pull out my own little book of bullshit, but before we hit the phones, I’m compelled to make an observation.”

“Shoot.”

“We got two homicide scenes right here in River City which involve terror types; another in Detroit, another in Los Angeles. At the same time, two Saudi nationals try to assassinate a retired Fed in Florida. I know I’m reaching here, but I don’t like the parallels.”

“I hear you.”

“Just so we’re on the same page, where do we start?”

Magozzi pushed a sheet of paper across the table. “Here are some phone numbers. D.C. and Key West PDs, FBI contacts at his home office, et cetera. I figured we could split up the list and get you home before bedtime.”

“What about the marina where John keeps his boat?”

“Grace talked to the owner this morning, but so far, no action down there. I’ll call him anyhow.”

Magozzi took his cell and his half of the list to the living room while Gino stayed in the kitchen to work. After an unproductive half hour, he called the marina.

“Coral Beach Marina,” a raspy voice answered.

“Is Don Kardon available?”

The voice on the other end hesitated for a moment. “Who wants to know?”

“Detective Leo Magozzi from . . .”

“Oh. Yeah. I talked to Grace again this morning and she said you might be calling. I’ve been watching the boat just like she asked, but nobody’s been snooping around. That’s about all I can tell you. Really pissed me off, though, that some yahoo would call John and threaten him. He’s a hell of a nice guy.”

Magozzi closed his eyes. So that’s what she’d told him.

“So nothing suspicious? No strangers hanging around the marina, asking around about him?”

For some reason, Don Kardon thought that was amusing. “A lot of people come down here to disappear, and when strangers start poking around, we get real paranoid. And trust me, I got a sharp bad-guy radar because I used to be one. Did ten at the San Quentin Hilton. If somebody sketchy comes around asking about Smith . . .” Kardon’s voice trailed off for a second. “You know, there was something that seemed a little off. I got a call earlier today from a guy who’s trying to buy Smith’s boat. Said he’d been in negotiations with him for a while, and suddenly he dropped off the face of the earth.”

Ex-felons were generally good at reading faces and voices, so Magozzi asked, “What did he sound like?”

“He sounded like a pissed-off beach bum who was hoping to set sail by Christmas.”

“Did he leave a phone number?”

Kardon grunted. “Come to think of it, no. And I didn’t ask.”

“Do you have the number on your caller ID?”

“I suppose, but I have to hang up to get it. Give me your number and I’ll call you back.”

While he waited, Gino strolled into the living room. “You get anything, Leo?”

“Maybe. Waiting for a callback. How about you?”

“I tried John’s condo manager in D.C., but no answer. I left a message. D.C. cops are going to send a courtesy patrol to pay Smith’s condo a visit when they can spare a guy, see if there’s any sign of monkey business. Same with Key West. They’re going to keep an eye on his boat. Won’t hear from any of them until tomorrow, probably.”

“How about the FBI?”

Gino got a troubled look on his face. “Weirdest thing. For all the years Smith worked there, nobody knew him.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, he worked alone, didn’t have any friends in the Bureau. Never went to a single Christmas party, for God’s sake. Nobody even knew he had a boat. The only thing I got out of it is that Smith never had a life. Kind of sad.”

Magozzi worked that through in his head. “He’s in trouble and he didn’t go back to the nest. Interesting.”

Gino shrugged. “If he went there for help, they wouldn’t tell us; they’d just slap him in some safe house and pretend they never heard from him.”

Magozzi’s phone rang. “Hang on, Gino, this is the marina . . . Hello?”

“Don Kardon, here. I got your number, Detective.” He read it off, and Magozzi thanked him.

Gino was looking at him curiously. “You got a number?”

“Some guy called the marina, said he’d been in negotiations with Smith to buy his boat.”

“So you think the price was a little too high and this guy sent out a hit squad, or what?”

Magozzi rolled his eyes. “You want to call the number and see who’s on the other end of the line or should I?”

“Oh, please, let me. I’m feeling a little shortchanged on the interrogation front lately.”

Magozzi handed him the sheet of paper where he’d scrawled down the number Don Kardon had given him. “Knock yourself out.”

As Gino was retreating back to his ad hoc office in the kitchen, Magozzi called Grace. “Where are you?”

“Just pulling into Harley’s.”

“Listen, I just got off the phone with Don Kardon. Some guy called him earlier today looking for Smith . . .”

“Did Don get a number?”

“Yeah, Gino’s checking it out now.”

“Give it to me.”

Magozzi read off the number. “So, this guy who called Kardon said he was in negotiations with Smith to buy his boat. Was it on the market?”

Grace responded instantly, and with certainty. “Absolutely not. John would never sell that boat. Ever.”

“So the bad guys are still looking for him.”

She didn’t respond for a while. “I guess they are.”

After Magozzi signed off, he tossed his cell phone on the table next to him and dragged his hands down his face, as if he could wipe away his frustration.

When Gino came back into the room, he found his partner with his head in his hands. He folded his arms across his chest and rocked back on his heels. “I’m guessing you’re not asleep, so what’s up?”

Magozzi shook his head and mentally dusted himself off. “I just talked to Grace, and she said there’s no way Smith would ever sell his boat. Somebody’s still looking for him.”

“Yeah, I figured that out myself. No answer, no outgoing message at the number you gave me, so I did a little legwork. The call to the marina came from a throwaway cell. It only made that one call, no activity since. I’ve got a red flag on the number, but my guess is it’s already in a trash can somewhere.”

Magozzi looked up, wondering if his eyes looked as bloodshot as they felt. “Dead end?”

Gino nodded. “Dead end.”