Off the Grid (2 page)

She was using a bare foot to move the body of the one who’d held the knife at John’s throat. “Burial at sea.” One more push and the man rolled under the rail and splashed into the water. The second one was heavier, and she had to use her hands.

Charlie was sitting next to John now, shoving himself under a limp arm, and both of them were looking at her as if she were a stranger. “You can’t do that, Grace.”

She had a bucket over the side now, hauling up seawater, splashing the blood on the deck over the side. “You want to take these bodies back to report what happened? Then you might as well rent a billboard that says you’re still alive.” She untied the dinghy the men had arrived in from the rail and watched it bob away over the swells to become someone else’s mystery.

2

T
he girls huddled together in the back of the van like a litter of frightened kittens. Aimee was in the center, her long arms stretched to pull the others close, partly for warmth, partly for comfort.

They hadn’t moved them before, so this rushed, dead-of-night trip in the cold metal box terrified her. Where were they taking them, and what waited there? The others were too drugged to care, and for the first time, she thought maybe that was a good thing.

They’d been locked in a windowless, lightless room for a full week. You got used to the room, to the dark, to feeling your way along the filthy floor to the toilet that sometimes flushed and sometimes didn’t. After the first few days, the room started to feel safe for all its putrid smells and blinding darkness, because no man touched them there.

One had tried, stealing in alone and grabbing Little Mouse by the hair, and then there had been a brief light from a cracked door and others dragged him out, doing something to him that made him scream.

It took her a long time to calm down the other four girls that night, hugging them all, whispering meaningless words of comfort she didn’t believe, because at fifteen, she was the eldest and the others were her responsibility.

She’d stopped eating on the third day. They were given a bowl of some kind of gruel twice a day. They’d scrambled for the foul-tasting mush, shoved through a hinged panel in the bottom of the door, partly because they were starving, and perhaps partly because it pushed them into forgetful sleep where terror receded. Only Aimee suspected that it had been drugged to keep them quiet, but she couldn’t convince the others not to eat it. They were so young, so frightened. Better to live in the blurry oblivion of artificial sleep than to face their new reality.

Aimee knew why they had been taken. The tribe had warned them time and again about the smiling men who lured at-risk Native girls off the reservation with wonderful promises, only to sell them on the streets of Minneapolis or in the port city of Duluth. But no one had warned them, no one had ever suspected that they would come to the reservation and snatch little girls off the road as they walked home from school under a blue October sky. Elizabeth, twelve years old; Taka and Winnie, both eleven; and sweet Little Mouse, who had just turned ten.

Every moment of that day was burned into her memory. She could still hear the shrill screams of terror, she could still see Taka’s skinny legs and arms flailing as the man who held her pressed the cloth over her little nose and mouth, and she could still feel that burst of grim satisfaction when her own fingernails bit deep into the muscular arm of the man holding her, drawing blood. One of the men was Native; the others were something else, but she would remember all their faces for the rest of her life.

Aimee didn’t know if they were being taken to a final destination, or simply to another house to confound the police and whoever else was searching for them. The FBI, of course, and certainly all their parents, perhaps the whole tribe.

Oh God. Poor Mama. Poor Daddy.
She saw them in her mind all the time, imagining them half crazed with fear, hearts clenched with hurt.

She imagined them talking to the Tribal Police, to the FBI, maybe even on television, choking out tearful pleas that the kidnappers would probably never hear.

Aimee hated these people. She didn’t care who they were, what nationality they were, what their motives were—only that they were breaking the hearts of loving parents and terrorizing the tender children whose hands she held on the way to and from school. She hated them with a fire that burned inside her, obliterating the innocence of her fifteen years forever. She wanted to kill them.

It was hard to push that rage down, but she had to; she had to be clearheaded and ready, because this would be the best chance she had. Maybe the only chance. None of them were bound anymore, nor were their mouths duct-taped. The drugs had made that unnecessary. And the men didn’t know she had been flushing her gruel for the past four days. The van would stop eventually, and that would be her moment.

It came sooner than she had expected. The van made several sharp, fast turns, then backed up. Within seconds, the double back doors were opened. Two men with large knives dragged the drugged girls from the van, saying nothing but keeping the knives visible. They pushed the girls toward the back of a house and they shuffled in a mindless, obedient line, as compliant as the zombies they had become.

Aimee got out last, eyelids drooping, shuffling like the other girls. One of the men opened a gate in a chain-link fence, and Aimee knew if she passed through that gate, there was no hope for any of them.

Why couldn’t they hear her heart pounding? How could they not notice that every muscle in her body was tensed and ready? Two steps away from the gate, she spun and bolted out to the street.

Her legs were weak from inactivity and hunger, but she ran for an entire block before she heard the footsteps of the man chasing after her. She told herself she was younger, faster, and that sanctuary was surely just ahead. But the streets were empty and dark in an unfamiliar place where half the streetlights were out and there were no lights in the windows of the shadowed buildings around her.

She closed off the sound of the heavy footsteps pounding behind her because they were so terrifying. Instead, she concentrated on the strong slapping of her tennis shoes against the asphalt as she pumped her legs harder and harder.

Why is this happening to me? Is he still back there? Is he getting closer, and why isn’t he yelling at me?

And then she understood that he was silent because he didn’t want to call attention to the life-and-death race on the streets beneath the darkened windows. Maybe there were people up there. Maybe they were asleep.

And so she started screaming, running down the middle of the street, her arms held high as if she could take flight, her voice echoing against the mute brick walls of the buildings around her.

Aimee’s chest hurt. Every pull of good, clean air felt like fire in her lungs, as if she were being burned to death from the inside out. But then she saw her own shadow on the street ahead of her and knew it meant a car was behind her.

It’s the van,
she thought, actually feeling the headlights on her back. She risked one look over her shoulder just for a second and saw a yellow cab. And then, because she was finally saved, she started to sob, the tears streaming from her eyes and blurring her vision.

She couldn’t remember getting into the backseat of the cab, but she felt the forward thrust as the driver stepped on the accelerator. She didn’t have to say anything, which was a good thing, since her throat was sore from screaming and there was no air left in her lungs. But the driver knew she was in trouble, and he was taking her farther and farther away from the man who had been chasing her. She felt the soft cushion of vinyl seats and leaned her head back, eyes closed, smelling cigarette smoke and spicy sausage.

I did it, Mama. I did it, Daddy. I’m coming home.

Finally her heart and breathing slowed, and she found enough air to whisper desperately, “Police.”

“Yes,” the driver said, and her brown eyes opened. She looked forward into the rearview mirror and caught her breath as she saw the face of the man who had grabbed her on the reservation, who had pressed the acrid-smelling cloth over her face as she’d walked home from school under a blue October sky.

3

L
eo Magozzi stared out his living room window at the deep carpet of dried autumn leaves in his yard. They were pretty, he had to admit, all mixed together like a good fall stew—the deep reds and russets of oak, the pumpkin-orange sugar maple leaves, and a smattering of chromium yellow courtesy of a couple birches in his neighbor’s yard.

And that was the problem. None of these leaves were his, because he had no trees in his yard. They’d blown in on the winds of last night’s storm from the adjacent neighbors’ comparative urban forests. And he was bitter and angry about it, as a man who’d consciously chosen to live a life of tree celibacy, looking now at cleaning up other people’s messes. He did enough of that during his day job.

He had options, of course. The first was to pull his trump card and threaten all his neighbors with a leaf rake, his sidearm, and possibly their lives.
Minneapolis Homicide. Clean up my yard now or suffer horrible consequences.
But that probably wouldn’t look good in the psych evaluation that would quickly ensue.

The second option was to suck it up and waste a perfectly good day off raking, then spend the next five days with ice packs on his shoulders.

The third, and most rational, option was to ignore the leaves. The only problem was, he’d been watching too much cable TV lately; had been lulled to sleep by too many quiet, mindless home-and-garden shows. Shows that apparently all had the same insidious and evil agenda: be a good grass steward, rake your lawn in the fall, or else you will have absolutely no value as a human being and others will shun and despise you without relent.

Magozzi hated cable TV, mostly because it was something he’d never relied on, but couldn’t live without anymore, thanks to his not-girlfriend Grace MacBride. If she hadn’t been flitting around these past few months, tanning her toes somewhere in the Bahamas with a geriatric Fed-cum-sailor, he wouldn’t have had all this free time to melt his brain in front of the idiot box, developing completely irrelevant complexes.

Yes, his leaf anxiety and cable dependency were all Grace’s fault, he firmly decided, cleverly exonerating himself from all personal responsibility for his actions and well-being. Psychological contortion didn’t get much more brilliant and useful than that.

He turned away from the window and grabbed the nearest phone. Important decisions required sage counsel. “Gino.”

“Hey, buddy, happy Sunday! Man, am I glad to hear from you.”

Magozzi could tell by the tone of his partner’s voice that he was, in fact, very happy to hear from him. And then he registered a lot of female voices and the drone of general melee in the background. “Did I catch you at a bad time?”

“Not on your life. I hope you’re calling with a homicide, because we’re on Annual Garage Sale, Day Number Two. And let me tell you that garage sales aren’t about clearing out junk you don’t need, it’s about a bunch of neighborhood women getting together and giggling for eight hours straight. Plus, Angela sold my Wheaties box with the Twins on it from the ’87 World Series. I’m so distraught I could spit. So, you got a body for me?”

“No, but I have leaves. And questions about leaves.”

“Good enough for me. I’ll be right over.”

• • •

Magozzi was waiting
on the porch when Gino pulled up a half hour later, styling in their MPD loaner Cadillac—a seriously fast, supercharged, bells-and-whistles piece of automotive glory that they’d had the great pleasure of driving on the job ever since Narcotics had confiscated it in a drug bust earlier in the year. Gino had secured the somewhat unconventional loan of those sweet wheels for their use while they waited for their new, standard, unmarked piece of junk to be delivered to the car pool. And yet, for some reason, the standard unmarked was taking its sweet time in arriving. Magozzi suspected it had something to do with more behind-the-scenes negotiating on his partner’s part, because Gino loved that Caddie like it was his own flesh and blood. But who was he to question? He loved the car, too.

Gino hopped out, opened the trunk with the key fob, and pulled out a couple of rakes, a handful of black lawn bags, and a six-pack of beer, which he brandished with purpose. “The ladies have been sucking down mimosas since noon, so I figured we boys deserved some adult beverages to sustain us while we’re doing our manly raking chores.”

“You serve booze at your garage sales?”

“It’s a critical element. Sober people don’t buy your old, worthless crap. Buzzed people, on the other hand, will pick up that holey, sweat-stained
GETTING LUCKY IN KENTUCKY
T-shirt, think it’s kitschy and charming, and pay five bucks for it.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah. Angela’s a marketing genius.” Gino held out a rake. “Come on. Let’s get this over with.”

Magozzi ignored the rake, popped the caps off a couple beers, and regarded his yard with ambivalence. “Here’s the thing—why should I rake the leaves? I mean, Mother Nature’s been dropping leaves for a million years, and what’s wrong with that? Neanderthal Man did not rake his yard and the world did not end.”

Gino took a pull on his beer and settled into the creaky old glider opposite his partner. “No, but Neanderthal Man didn’t have a yard, either.”

“Neither do I. My yard is shit. My grass is shit. What do I care if it molds over the winter?”

“Obviously you don’t. So don’t rake. I’m totally okay with that. I came here ready to help you out, but I’m just as content to keep this pathetic excuse for outdoor seating warm while I nurse some of Milwaukee’s finest.”

“That’s exactly what I needed to hear. Screw raking.”

Gino made a sweeping gesture with his beer bottle. “Yeah. Screw raking. And I’ll tell you exactly what I told Angela last weekend—some dead leaves on the lawn over the winter might actually be good compost.”

Magozzi considered for a moment. “Did she buy it?”

“Hell, no. But it was worth a try.”

After a comfortable silence spent sipping beer and gazing victoriously at a yard full of defiantly unraked leaves, Gino took a deep, audible breath—the precursor for an awkward, compulsory inquiry about Grace, Magozzi was certain. Not that Gino ever pursued any deep conversation about it, he just didn’t avoid the subject. In his mind, as much as he’d grown to like Grace personally, he’d never considered her a viable pairing for his best friend and partner. He’d actually been relieved when he’d gotten the news of her sudden, unexpected flight.
“I’m here for you, buddy, but let me tell you something—this is a best-case scenario for the both of you. I don’t care how big your sword is, you ain’t never gonna be able to slay her dragons. Nobody can. That’s something she’s gotta figure out for herself.”

And as often as Gino was wrong about lots of things, he had a decent track record of being right, too, especially when it came to the fairer sex. He’d managed to stay happily married to one of the greatest women on the planet for almost two decades, so he obviously had some insight.

But Gino surprised him, never mentioning Grace.

“I’ve got some really bad news, Leo.”

Magozzi’s heart stuttered a little. No, it stuttered a lot. That was a really ominous preface to any conversation that instantly launched an inner litany of dreaded words like cancer, divorce, death, and teenage pregnancy.

Gino let out an anxiety-ridden sigh before delivering the ending. “The Caddie’s going up on the block at the MPD confiscated property auction next week.”

Magozzi was so relieved, he actually started laughing. “Buy it, Gino!”

“Are you kidding? Two more years, I’m looking at college tuition . . .”

“Shut up and buy it. Life is short. And in our business, life can be shorter. You work hard, you saved your money, you have a great pension, what’s to worry about?”

“Are you kidding me? I’m worried about my anatomy. If I bought that thing, Angela would be serving a whole different kind of meatballs for dinner.”

“Not necessarily. You’ve been driving the same crippled Volvo now for, what, ten years?”

“Longer.”

“So you need a new car. What if the Caddie ends up going for two grand on the block and you miss out?”

“I’d probably kill myself.” Gino’s gaze gave the Caddie a wistful, loving caress. “You
can
get deals at those auctions sometimes.”

“Yes you can. So get yourself an auction paddle. That’s free.”

As Gino considered a bright, new vehicular future sans a broken-down Volvo station wagon, Magozzi’s cell phone suddenly burped out a very specific call tone, completely ruining the magic moment.

“Oh, hell,” Gino groaned. “That’s your Dispatch ring, isn’t it?”

Magozzi nodded and flipped open his cell. “Magozzi here. Hang on, I have to get a pen.” He went to the kitchen and scrambled for a pen and paper. The best he could do was a nearly dry Sharpie and a supermarket sale flyer advertising two pints of raspberries for the price of one.

Gino followed him inside, then watched as he scribbled down an address and a few other things in hieroglyphics before clicking off with Dispatch. “So where are we going?”

“Barrington Industrial Park on the edge of Little Mogadishu. Female vic, found in the vacant lot in front of that deserted warehouse.”

“Needle city.” Gino sighed. “Another dead junkie.”

“Probably.”