Shoot to Thrill by P.J. Tracy Page B

scribbling furiously. ‘Got it. I’ll get back to you.’ He snapped his phone closed
    Gino spun the tablet around and read what Magozzi had written. ‘Huh. Hello, of course that’s Minnesota. Big water, North Shore, hell, that’s Lake Superior, the Norwegian Riviera. Let me give old Ole Olssen a call. He’s been a Duluth cop for about a hundred years.’
    Magozzi looked at him. ‘Tell me there’s not really an Ole Olssen in Duluth.’
    ‘Tons of them. Where’d you think the Ole-and-Lena jokes came from?’
    ‘And you know him because … ?’
    ‘He was down here for that BCA crime-scene deal last year, remember? I went to the stupid lectures and you went to the movies with Grace, thank you very much. Anyway, Ole and I bonded over krumkakke.’
    ‘I don’t know what that is.’
    ‘Those hollow cookie things the Swedes make, or maybe the Norwegians or the Dutch, damned if I know. Shit, they were good.’ He started punching numbers into the phone.
    ‘You know his number by heart?’
    ‘Yeah, we talk now and then.’ He raised his eyes and looked at Magozzi. ‘You said they found two more posts. What’s the other one?’
    ‘They’re working that one with the Feds. They don’t think it’s happened yet.’

Grace couldn’t explain it, not even to herself, and it was embarrassing. She missed her house. They all spent a lot of nights at Harley’s when they were working on a pressure deadline – it was a natural, comfortable thing. She had a guest room designated just for her, as they all did, with furniture, a stash of clothes, and everything in the world Harley thought would make her comfortable. But it wasn’t her house.
    It was too big, for one thing; three nightmare stories of too many points of ingress and egress to watch; too many big open rooms that put you endless yards away from anyplace to hide. She could take a breath in her tiny house with its tiny rooms, steel doors, and barred windows, but here, she never felt really safe. Harley understood that, and occasionally reminded her that he had a gate across his driveway and enough weapons stashed to arm a small country. But he didn’t have enough security cameras; didn’t have a pressure pad on his front porch; didn’t even have a gun on his person at all times, or a wary eye and ear for anything out of order.
    Harley couldn’t get over the silly idea that most people were basically good. He didn’t think the UPS guy was a terrorist, or that the mailman was a psychopath. None of them did. Only Grace.

    ‘Okay, okay,’ Harley filled the room with his voice in boom mode. ‘No liquor licenses in Portland with the name of Bert, which may not mean anything. Could be a grandfathered license that goes with the establishment instead of the current owner – Annie, can you check city of Portland ordinances, see how the licensing works?’
    ‘You got it.’ Annie clicked at her keyboard with fingers flat, so she didn’t chip her nails. They were still polished pearl to match the Gatsby outfit she’d worn yesterday instead of today’s maroon silk, a tragic measure of how quickly she’d been forced to make herself presentable when Roadrunner had wakened them in a panic. The jacket was feather-trimmed and cropped, the pants were wide and fluttery, and thank God she’d remembered the T-strap pumps or she would have looked totally undone. She focused on her task and blanked out Harley barking orders to the rest of them.
    ‘So Portland was the City of Roses – maybe too easy. Let’s do some free association. Forget the city’s nickname or moniker; what other cities bring roses to mind?’
    ‘Pasadena,’ Agent John Smith piped in. ‘The Rose Parade.’

    ‘Austin, surprisingly. They’ve got rose growers all over the place.’
    ‘Christ.’ Harley slapped his forehead. ‘Every rose I ordered for the back gardens came from Jackson and Perkins. Damn. Where the hell are they? Medford, Oregon. That’s it. Grace, can you check that