‘The way I hear it, you do not walk at all, Miss Annie. You sashay.’

Miss Annie. She liked that. Reminded her of Mississippi. Liked it especially because there was no flirtation behind it; just a friendly tease. ‘Wait till this town sees the other three. I’m the conservative one.’

Chief Savadra leaned back in his creaky wooden chair and watched her start packing files into her briefcase. ‘I thought you weren’t leaving until Friday.’

‘I’ve done about all I can do before the computers get here. Now that I’ve signed on the hacienda, I can head back a little early.’

‘You miss your people.’

Annie gave him a sidelong glance. ‘I didn’t expect to, at least not this much, but I do. Don’t tell them.’

The chief smiled. ‘I’ll take a run out to the place next week; make sure the a/c is turned on and the pool is filled before you get back.’

‘Thanks, but Joe Stellan has some people coming out to take care of that.’

‘I’ll still take a look, flash my badge in front of the help, put the fear of God into them.’

Annie smiled. ‘That’s nice of you.’

‘Are you kidding? No way in this world I’ll ever be able to repay you all for what you’re doing for me. What I don’t get is why you’re doing it. What prompts a group of people to travel halfway across the country to give away technology that’s probably worth a million bucks?’

‘That’s kind of a long story.’

‘I look forward to hearing it.’

28

Gino was quiet until they’d passed through Wayzata and were on the freeway, probably because he was afraid Jack Gilbert might jump out of the back if they started questioning him again at anything under seventy miles an hour. He actually leaned over to look at the speedometer before unsnapping his seat belt and turning around to face Jack.

‘Okay, Jack. I’m going to give you another chance to do the right thing. Who do you think is trying to kill you?’

Jack’s head lolled back against the seat. ‘I knew you guys were going to do this. “We’re just offering you a lift” my ass. You wanted to get me alone in this crappy piece of shit car with no air-conditioning and try to sweat something out of me.’

Gino managed a puzzled expression. ‘Gee whiz, Jack. I’m pretty confused here. Now if I thought somebody was hell-bent on putting me in the ground, I’d be tickled pink to have a couple of cops driving me around, keeping me safe. And you know what else? I’d be telling them everything I knew, helping them any way I could so they’d have a chance to nail the guy before he nailed me. But that’s not what you’re doing. You’re just sitting back there all quiet and hostile with your lip zipped, and I gotta tell you, Jack, I can only think of one reason for that kind of attitude, and that’s if you’re the shooter we’re looking for. Maybe you just staged that dog-and-pony show back there to throw us off.’

‘Oh, for chrissake, back off, Detective. I’m not some mouth-breathing, brainless dirtbag you picked up for lifting Twinkies at a 7-Eleven, and I don’t have to answer any of your stupid questions. Think whatever the hell you want. I could give a shit.’

Magozzi glanced quickly to his right, and was pleased to see that Gino’s gun was still in its holster. Still, it was time for him to jump in. ‘We’re trying to help you, Jack,’ he said reasonably. ‘Look at it from our side for a minute. We don’t want to believe you’re a suspect in your father’s shooting, but we are dead sure that you know something that explains why these people were killed, and why you think the murderer is after you.’

‘What makes you think it’s the same person?’ Jack scoffed.

‘Because you do.’

That shut Jack up for a minute. ‘All right,’ he finally sighed. ‘This is straight shit, Detectives. I have absolutely no idea, not the slightest clue, who killed my father, Ben, or that Rose woman, and I don’t know who was shooting at me this morning. You don’t think I’d tell you if I did, just to save my own ass?’

Gino shrugged. ‘Maybe you would, maybe you wouldn’t. Who knows? Maybe you’re trying to save someone else’s ass.’

Jack laughed out loud. ‘That’s good, Detective. Jack Gilbert, the hero. I should hire you to do my P.R. Crack a window, would you? It smells like barbeque back here.’

Magozzi drove a full half mile in stony silence before saying, ‘I didn’t suggest that you knew who the killer was, Jack. I said you knew something about why these people were killed. There’s a big difference.’

Jack met Magozzi’s eyes in the rearview mirror, but he didn’t respond.

They made a courtesy stop halfway back to the Cities. Jack said he had to use the can, but when they pulled up to a gas station, he got out of the car and veered left toward an adjacent liquor store.

Magozzi shook his head. ‘Oh, this looks good. Detectives run shuttle service to liquor store. I’m not putting this in the report.’

‘Goddamned son of a bitch beat us bloody,’ Gino grumbled.

‘He did that.’

‘I hate lawyers. Goddamned hate ’em. So what was the wife like? Did she give you anything?’

‘I don’t think that woman gives anybody anything anytime. She was really cold. Minnesota ice. She didn’t know anything about why Jack and his dad were fighting, and never cared enough to ask, as far as I could tell.’

Gino leaned his head back and closed his eyes for a minute. ‘Tell me we’ve got enough to throw him in jail for an obstruction of justice charge.’

‘We don’t.’

‘So where the hell do we go from here? He’s not going to tell us anything.’

‘Maybe Pullman can help us out.’

The front two rows of the nursery parking lot were full by the time they pulled in, and a surprising number of customers were moving through the outdoor display tables, pulling flat wooden wagons that sprouted flowers and greenery.

‘Looks like the flower business is booming,’ Magozzi said.

Jack was already sitting forward in the backseat, anxious to get out. ‘It’s eighty-two degrees. This time of year, you get an extra two cars in the lot for every degree the temperature rises over seventy.’

‘No kidding?’

‘No kidding. Stop this thing and let me out, will you?’

Magozzi glanced at him in the rearview mirror. Two seconds at his mother’s place and the cockiness was gone. ‘Hold your horses. I’m looking for a spot.’

Gino was scowling out the passenger window, still fuming over the abysmal failure of his efforts to get information from Jack. ‘Who are all these people? Why don’t they have jobs? And why can’t they park between the lines? Every one of these goddamned cars is taking up two spaces, at least.’

Magozzi pulled into a slot that faced the big greenhouse just as Marty and Lily came out the door, pulling loaded wagons toward a customer’s pickup. Marty spotted their car immediately and gave them a questioning look and a tentative wave. He looked even more puzzled when he saw Jack climb out of the unmarked and make a beeline toward his Mercedes convertible at the back of the lot.

‘Gee. He didn’t even say good-bye.’

‘Scummy bastard,’ Gino muttered.

They waited in the car, watching Marty load flats into the pickup while Lily supervised.

‘Pullman looks better today,’ Magozzi observed.

‘Hard labor and a female overseer. Builds character, according to my mother-in-law, or at least that’s the line she was feeding me last weekend when she had me up on a ladder cleaning out the gutters. She looks like a little kid in those overalls, doesn’t she?’

‘Who? Lily?’

‘Yeah. Let’s go in and rough her up a little. Maybe she’s an easier takedown than her kid.’

Magozzi snorted. ‘She’d eat you alive.’

‘I know. You take care of her, I’ll talk to Marty.’

They followed Marty and Lily into the greenhouse, then waited politely until a customer at the counter had checked out and left. There were other shoppers in the greenhouse, but all were out of earshot. Magozzi stepped up to the counter, but Jack barged in before he could say a word.