by PJ Tracy
‘You want me to make nice with a Fed? Your onions fall off in the shower or what?’
‘This is a little Fed. A hapless soldier. He didn’t make the decision not to pull cops in earlier. Besides, I’m too weak to referee one of your pissing matches.’ He got out of the car and stretched, looking around. ‘Man, I keep forgetting to get the name of Harley’s gardener. Look at those peonies. They’re just about enough to break your heart. You know what I think of when I see peonies? Cheerleaders. Don’t ask me why.’
‘I will not. I promise.’
Gino veered to the right of the walk and tromped across Harley’s perfect lawn to the koi pond, his favorite feature of the house. He pulled a bag of miniature marshmallows out of his pocket and tossed a few in the water, then started humming the Jaws theme music while he waited for the feeding frenzy. After a few seconds he called over his shoulder. ‘Hey, Leo. These guys aren’t moving today.’
Magozzi sighed and joined him at the pond’s edge. ‘Of
‘Aw, shit. I loved those big guys. What do you suppose killed them?’
‘Marshmallows.’
‘Now that was just plain mean.’
As far as Gino was concerned, the really cool thing about coming to Harley’s mansion in the morning was that it always smelled like his grandmother’s house. Which meant that it smelled like animal fat. This was not permissible breakfast food in the home he loved so much, because Angela wanted him to live forever instead of letting him die young, fat, and happy. Bacon, sausage, the occasional flat steak, sometimes pork – these were the aromas that filled his memory, reminding him of Grandma’s oak table and tin sink and the cast-iron pan spitting grease on an old wood-burning stove. Every time he showed up here in the morning he half-expected Harley to show up in an apron with yellow sunflowers and crinkly gray hair pulled back into a bun.
Grace was waiting for them in the breakfast room, her eyes fixed on the cup of coffee that was cradled between her hands. Gino wanted desperately to hate this woman, because she messed with the mind of the best friend he would ever have in this life; but there was something about her that tugged at him.
‘You had food of the gods for breakfast,’ he said with a smile, and Grace nodded.
‘Harley cooked cholesterol. He knew you were coming. By the way, we checked the dates on the murders confirmed
‘Nope. We got an ID on the guy, a timeline that shows him leaving a club alone, and the last person who saw him alive is a pickled judge who can’t remember his own name half the time. How about you? Any luck tracing the film?’
She shook her head. ‘Nobody’s been able to trace it. We think that tactic is a dead end – whoever did this is too good to leave tracks.
‘Did you bring our films?’
Magozzi patted his sports-coat pocket. ‘Ten bodies, some fresh, some not so fresh, just like you asked. It was a pretty weird request, Grace.’
‘If Roadrunner’s idea works, these disks are going to teach our software program how to tell if a murder is real or staged. He can explain it better than I can. How long can we keep them?’
‘No real hurry, all the cases are cleared. But I signed for them, and they have to go back to the locker eventually, so don’t give them to your pet Fed.’
She gifted him with her rarest of expressions – a tiny, one-sided smile. ‘You’re going to like Agent Smith. He reminds me a lot of you. Now, can I have the disks? We need to get started. Food’s still warm in the kitchen if you want to load a plate to bring upstairs.’
Gino did a drill turn toward the kitchen, but Magozzi stopped him.
‘Maybe later. We’ll meet with Smith first.’
Charlie was waiting for them at the top of the stairs,
Grace grunted. ‘That dog assumes you always have food on your face.’
Roadrunner covered the fifty feet from his workstation to the doorway in about ten strides. ‘You got my films, guys?’
Magozzi and Gino just stared at him, speechless for a moment.
‘Jesus, Roadrunner,’ Gino finally managed to eke out. ‘You’re wearing jeans.’
The tall man’s Adam’s apple bobbed in embarrassment.
‘Leave him alone,’ Harley bellowed across the room. ‘I’ve been trying to get him in real clothes for years and I don’t want you messing it up. Damn Lycra’s so hot we had to keep the air on arctic for him to survive up here while the rest of us got frostbite.’
‘Oh.’ But Gino couldn’t stop staring.
‘You know what, Roadrunner?’ Magozzi said. ‘That’s a really good look for you. Kind of Gary Cooper. Long, tall cowboy.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah. Here are the films you asked for.’
‘Oh, gee, thanks, this is going to get things rolling.’ The long, tall cowboy hurried back to his desk, smiling.
Harley gave Magozzi a thumbs-up from across the room, then tipped his black beard toward the table in the far corner by the window. John Smith was sitting alone, tapping away
Smith stopped typing and stood up, and the three men took each other’s measure in an instant. Grace looked on in obvious bemusement. Men always measured themselves against each other, which wasn’t all that different from women, except that men did it so damn fast. There was an instant of locked eyes that apparently revealed everything they needed to know about each other. Women spent a lot longer with preliminary social chatter, while their real attention was focused on what Magozzi had told her was the superficial.
Women look at clothes and makeup and weight and all sorts of silly shit …
What women do that?
Women who aren’t you, Grace. They’re looking for flaws. But men look for weaknesses first. Kind of an enemy assessment.
Grace had smiled at him. They’re both kind of an enemy assessment, aren’t they?
‘Good morning, Detective Magozzi, Detective Rolseth. I’m Special Agent John Smith. I’m afraid we haven’t had much success tracing the posted film of your homicide …’
‘Grace told us.’
‘… and I understand from your Chief that MPD is also hitting a dead end on the local investigation.’
Gino pulled out a chair and sat down. ‘Great. Now we’ve established that we’re all big fat failures.’
‘I certainly didn’t mean to imply—’
‘Yeah, yeah, sorry. I’m operating on really low voltage this morning. But you gotta remember, our investigation
‘On the contrary. We’re counting on MPD. Toward that end, the Bureau would like to offer any assistance you might require. If you need help on the ground in evidence collection, canvassing, forensics, or suspect interviews, Special Agent in Charge Paul Shafer has committed to provide the manpower …’
‘Thanks, but we’ve got it covered,’ Magozzi interrupted, still standing, taking the high ground. ‘We put twenty more officers on site early this morning, blanketing the area between the club our vic left and where he ended up in the river. Any more would be overkill.’
‘Still, some extra eyes and hands might be helpful.’
Magozzi finally sat across from Smith and leaned forward, eye to eye. ‘Straight up, Smith. I don’t feel like dancing this morning. Washington wants the case, right?’
Smith looked right back at him. ‘That was the initial recommendation.’
‘You have absolutely no jurisdiction here.’ Magozzi always spoke very slowly, very softly just before he started to bellow. Gino closed his eyes and waited. ‘Wishful thinking is about the only thing you’ve got connecting our case to your five. There is no way our Chief will voluntarily sign off on passing the ball to the Feds.’
‘I’m sure you’re right, but—’
‘This is MPD’s case, and we don’t need a parade of suits stomping all over our scene or interviewing potential witnesses or suspects. We’ve been down that road before,
Smith leaned back in his chair. ‘Lord, no, he’s not the only one.’
Gino snickered.
‘And remember, I said
that was the initial recommendation. I talked them out of it, at least for now. Just keep me in the loop, and I’ll do the same from my end. That’s all I ask.’
Damn, Magozzi hated it when people did this to him. You get all prepped for battle and then the jerk you’re ready to stab through the heart lays down his sword. ‘Fair enough,’ he grumbled.
‘I got something here,’ Harley hollered from across the room, and everybody gathered around his computer. He pointed to some lines of text on a monitor bigger than Gino’s TV. ‘Check this out. It’s an encrypted post I hacked from one of your hot sites, Smith. It says, “City of Lakes. Bride in the water. Or would that be a groom? Near beer.” Whatever that means.’
‘The film showed the old Grain Belt sign across the river,’ Magozzi said.
‘Then that’s gotta be your case, guys.’
Magozzi shrugged. ‘Sure. But this thing is all over the news, which means it’s all over the Web.’
‘I know. But you said your guy drowned two nights ago, right?’
‘Right.’
‘Well, this thing was posted the day before the murder.’
The absence of sound in the room was profound, like a
‘Positive. This sick bastard was pre-advertising and then he posted his trophy film to prove he did it.’
Magozzi looked at the sign on the door that read CHELSEA THOMAS and his mouth turned down. Who named their kid Chelsea? And if you got saddled with a moniker like that, you ought to grow up to be an exotic dancer instead of an FBI profiler. This was going to suck, big time.
Ten minutes later he was in a private office that looked like every other FBI office he’d been in. Desk, chair, bookcase, Venetian blinds. Robot land.
And, oh Lord, was she ever a Fed, through and through. Came in from a side room in a shapeless blue suit and one of those pasted smiles that flashed on and off so fast you could never be sure you’d seen it at all. She had real blond hair pulled back in a bun, apologizing for its brightness, the fair skin and blue eyes that went with it.
‘Detective Magozzi.’ She held out her hand for a cursory shake, then sat behind her desk and opened a thin file folder centered on the blotter. ‘Thank you very much for agreeing to see me.’
‘Agent Smith asked nicely.’
‘I’m sure he did.’
‘But he wasn’t real specific about the reason.’
She nodded. ‘I’ve been working these murders since the Cleveland film, never expecting to have one land on my home turf. Talking directly to the detective in charge of the case might help with my profiling.’
‘Yes.’
‘Everything’s in there.’
‘There might be something else, something you didn’t think was significant that could come out in conversation.’
Magozzi tried not to roll his eyes. Man, she sounded like every shrink he’d ever talked to.
‘Sit down, Detective, please. Would you like coffee? Tea?’
‘It’s five o’clock. You have a beer?’
‘Sorry.’
‘Not as sorry as I am.’
She was already busily writing on her little pad.
‘You’re taking a lot of notes for a meeting that’s lasted less than a minute. You mind telling me what’s so interesting?’
She put down her pen – fountain, not ballpoint – and looked up at him. ‘I was just prefacing our talk with the observation that you do not trust the Bureau in general, or my specialty of profiling in particular. Correct?’
Magozzi exhaled noisily and fought off the Minnesota impulse to be polite at all costs. ‘I put profiling on about the same level as consulting psychics.’
‘It’s a little more scientific than that.’
‘Oh yeah? Well, the way I see it, you people go through the records cops made, see that a real high percentage of serial killers are male, white, between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-seven, blah, blah, blah, then predict that any serial killer is male, white, and between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-seven, and then when those same cops nab the guy, you say, “See, what did we tell you?” There was a fake
Dr. Chelsea Thomas put her elbow on the desk and her chin in her hand, and Magozzi tried to analyze the body language. God knew she was analyzing his, and the least he could do was return the favor. Man, he hated shrinks. He folded his arms across his chest and tipped back his head, looking down his nose at her. See that? Defensive arm posture; disdainful head position. Take cover.
Obviously he wasn’t having a whole lot of luck intimidating her, because she smiled at him. A really great smile. ‘It is five o’clock. Past five, in fact, and there’s a terrific Irish pub a few blocks over with some great stuff on tap. If you’re up for it, it might be an environment a little more conducive to establishing a productive working relationship. What do you say?’
Magozzi frowned at her, sensing a trap. ‘Are you asking me out on a date?’
She laughed quietly. It was a nice laugh, but humiliating, all the same. ‘Absolutely not. But this isn’t analysis, Detective, and it certainly isn’t mandatory. I was hoping that we might be able to help each other on this case, but clearly you’re uncomfortable here.’ She hesitated for a moment. ‘And obviously you’ve had a very bad day.’
That was one of the great come-ons with the mental health crowd. From priests to psychiatrists, the standard opening was something that was supposed to sound sympathetic, but was really a trick to get you to spill your guts. Magozzi ought to know. He’d used the same tactic in interrogation rooms often enough. ‘Killers are getting their
She looked down at the file in the center of her very tidy desk, then pushed her fingers back through her hair, making it stand up and look weird. This was body language Magozzi understood, because it was brutally honest. Women did not muss coiffed hair or rub mascaraed eyes voluntarily; this was impulsive, careless, and real. ‘I’ve read the file. And, yes, I’ve had a pretty bad day. And I could use a beer. Maybe two, because it looks like all the beasts are coming out to play.’
It was indeed a terrific pub, with a wild Irish band and the smell of hops and sweat and probably twenty criminals who looked a lot like Harley Davidson doing jigs in their motorcycle boots. Whatever the on-tap stuff was, it hit Magozzi’s system like great-grandmother’s practice quilt, fluttering down over your body and head, blocking the light, making a hidey hole.
‘I’ve never seen anything like this,’ Dr. Chelsea Thomas was saying, words running together just a little, because she was on her second beer, as promised, and she wasn’t used to it. ‘People use the Web to post documentation of their bad behavior all the time.’
‘Like those high school girls beating up their classmate.’
‘Exactly. But aside from the very rare snuff film that appears on an underground site, we’ve never seen film of a real murder posted, certainly not on sites like YouTube,
Magozzi stared at her. ‘Bragging to whom?’
‘The whole world. The point is, the FBI has confirmed five actual homicides with posted videos – six, counting your river killing – all of which have happened within the last four months. This is truly chilling.’
Well, yes, it was, but in spite of that fact, Magozzi had part of a beer inside and a warm environment outside and a pretty woman across from him, and he was starting to get a little too comfortable. He waved over a waitress and ordered hamburgers and onion rings. This was bar food – bad food – and he was salivating like Pavlov’s dog waiting for it. He tried to remember the last time he’d stopped at a bar on the way home for a couple of brews and some saturated fat, and couldn’t. ‘You and my partner think alike.’
‘Is that good or bad?’
‘Bad. You’ve just given validity to his theory that it’s a traveling serial killer taking advantage of a world-wide audience.’
Dr. Chelsea Thomas shrugged out of her blue suit jacket and showed a white blouse with little frilly ruffles around the collar that interested Magozzi not at all, because Grace wasn’t
wearing it. ‘Let’s hope so.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Look at it this way. Take your average serial or thrill killer. All that bullshit—’ she stopped abruptly and blinked. ‘Oh dear. Sorry about the language.’ She pushed her beer mug away. ‘Anyway, all that dogma about killers waiting to get Guinness Book of Records title for most hits, or most horrible hits, whatever. Trouble with a career like that is you can’t show off how good you are.’
‘So this killer is looking for attention.’
‘Not attention. Fame. There’s a big difference. Attention invites scrutiny, and, like I said, these sickos don’t want to be caught. From the conception to the crime, to the fear they create in the public and the frustration they cause the cops, this whole process is all about power. But we’re a visual society now. Headlines don’t cut it because nobody reads anymore, and cops never show the butchered victims on the nightly news. Enter the Internet. “See what I did? See what I can do to you?”
Magozzi actually felt his face crinkling up, which, for some inexplicable reason, made her smile again.
‘So. If serial killers can show their work on the Net, the power surge intensifies. The film is the new trophy. They don’t have to cut off body parts or snatch bloody panties to hide in their walls. They don’t have to escalate to garner attention, which is how we’ve always caught them. They deliver visual evidence to the whole world of what they do like some Hollywood mogul premiering a new movie, and we are never going to catch these people again.’
Magozzi blinked at her. ‘That’s really negative.’
She leaned back as the waitress slid a plate piled with poison food in front of her. ‘Well, that’s a shame, because
‘Wait just a minute. Put down that onion ring.’
Once she started giggling, she couldn’t seem to stop. ‘Oh Lord, cops really talk like that, don’t they? I feel like I’m in a movie. And I also think I may have had a bit too much to drink.’
‘You’ve had a beer and a half.’
‘I know. But I’ve never actually had a whole entire beer before. Ever.’