Play To Kill

brainwashed him. The difference was, the hall of famer from the pantheon of idiots had figured that out before he had, obviously - because the chair was about the only thing of value he'd gotten out of that divorce. And if he'd been sober a single day during the five-year marriage, he would have realized this, and probably a lot of other things he'd missed in the black hole of dead brain cells.

Where the hell had that come from? he wondered to himself, and then, for the first time in a long while, the judge smiled a genuine smile. Little nuggets of self-reflection had always raised their ugly, unmanageable heads throughout his life, and they terrified him. Bourbon helped with the whack-a-mole game he played with his deeper thoughts when they inconvenienced him, but tonight, for some reason, things seemed just a little bit different. And as much as he wanted to believe he'd come to this pivotal moment on his own, he had to give Detective Magozzi credit for facing him squarely last night and calling him out. What happened to the respected judge?

    What happened, indeed! He'd never believed in second chances, not in life and not on the bench, but he was going to make an exception right here and now. It was time for him to stop being such a self-pitying, self- indulgent fuck and get back to the business of doling out justice. He made a mental note to send Magozzi a fruit basket or something.

    Feeling more sober than he had in several decades, and with a renewed sense of purpose, he fished his cell phone out of his pocket and dialed Ex-Wife Number Four. She wasn't on speed-dial, but the number lived on vividly, and unpleasantly, in his memory. Of course she didn't answer - she never did - but that didn't really matter.

    'Jennifer, this is Jim. No need to call back, I just wanted to let you know that the Corbusier and I have finally decided to amicably part, due to irreconcilable differences. And instead of consigning it with Christie's, as was my initial thought, I've decided that I want you to have it. I know you love it so much, and who wouldn't, being that it is so outrageously comfortable. I will arrange for a delivery within the next few days, I hope that suits you. That's all.'

    He hung up, pulled himself off the chair that had catalyzed his new beginning, and instead of going to the liquor cabinet or the pharmacy that was his bathroom medicine cabinet, he went straight to the gun safe and selected a Remington 870 Express. 'Here comes the judge.'

Chapter Fourteen

    The rising sun was just beginning to paint the sky and waken the city, but the Monkeewrench office lights were still burning, as they had been all night. Annie and Grace had finally crashed in guest rooms at five a.m., but Harley and Roadrunner kept working, fueled by a steady intake of overcaffeinated beverages and chocolate.

    Harley pushed back from his computer and rubbed his burning eyes. 'Roadrunner, dump the programming work and give me a hand here.'

    'What are you doing?'

    'Well, I was thinking that if our bride drowning was pre-advertised, maybe there were pre-posts for the other five murders.'

    'Not a bad idea, but I can't do it, Harley. We're way behind on programming'

    Harley rolled his chair over to Roadrunner's station and spun his friend around to face him. 'Listen, we can get the new program up and running within a week, and what's the prize for that? Verifying that what look like dead people are really dead people, instead of some asshole teenager's idea of a video prank. But if we find other posts forecasting the murders we know about, then maybe we find a pattern, maybe we find some new posts in time to save some lives.'

    Roadrunner tugged at the denim creases bunching around the backs of his knees. 'Well. No contest, then, is there?'

    Harley shook his big head. 'Not to my way of thinking.' He jerked a thumb over his shoulder at where Agent Smith was sleeping on a couch. 'Don't know how he's going to feel about it, though.'

    Smith rolled his supposedly sleeping head and opened his eyes. 'Go for the posts,' he said, then turned over.

    'It might delay the new software.'

    'Go for the posts,' Smith repeated.

    An hour later Roadrunner entered the last command with a single push of the enter button, and text started scrolling up his screen. 'Holy mackerel, Harley. They just popped up. Every one of them.'

    Harley's motorcycle boots pounding across the wooden floor startled Smith awake. What's going on?'

    Harley was staring at Roadrunner's monitor, rocking on his heels, slab arms folded across his chest, grinning. 'Holy shit. Holy rosy shit. I'll tell you what's going on. My little buddy here found forecast postings for the city murders. Every goddamned one of them. Even our river bride is on the list.' He gave Smith a hearty slap on the shoulder when he came over to read. 'How about that?'

    'How the hell did you find them?'

    'Oh, man, this was so cool. I kept trying these broad search programs on words and syllables and anything else I could dream up an algorithm for, and all the time I was so pissed at this idiot because he couldn't even type. Kept hitting the shift key in the wrong places, capping letters that shouldn't be capitalized, missing ones that should. And then

    I noticed that 'city of lakes' was the only part of the header with typos. Every other word was perfect, and that seemed weird. Take a look.' He enlarged the Minneapolis post on the screen.

    CiTy oF laKes. Bride in the water. Or would that be a groom? Near beer.

    'See? The first, third, sixth, and ninth characters are capped. So I did a search on that specific pattern of caps and lower-case and this one popped: 'CiTy oF anGels. No home. Near pier.'

    'That's the L.A. murder,' Smith said. 'The victim was a homeless man found under the Santa Monica Pier on June 4th.'

    Roadrunner looked up at him. 'This was posted June 2nd.'

    Smith pulled up a chair. 'Let me look at the rest of them.'

    'It's all right there.' Roadrunner rolled aside to make room for him while Harley hovered behind his shoulder.

    'City of Rock?' Smith read.

    'Gotta be Cleveland,' Harley said. 'The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is there. And look at that - City of Longhorns. That's Austin.'

    Smith nodded. 'And here's Chicago - City of Broad Shoulders. And City of Starbucks is obviously Seattle. My God. That's all of our five, plus the Minneapolis river murder.'

    'Jesus,' Harley muttered. 'What kind of a sick game is this guy playing?'

    'It gets worse. Take a look at this.' Roadrunner punched the page down key and Smith's face went a little gray 'Page two. This is an old post, from January. 'City of Big Water. Hole in one. North Shore.' Same typo pattern, same general format, but I don't know if it's a pre-post for a real murder. Any chance your guys in Cyber Crimes missed one?'

    Smith closed his eyes briefly. 'That's been a concern since we received the first video. Remember, the only reason we found five was because the sites sent us the murder films when they were posted.'

    Harley grumbled. 'If that's a real one, the vic's toast by now. What about the last one?'

    'City of Roses. Bert's barmaid. Near deer.'

    'When was it posted?'

    'Let me check.' Roadrunner fiddled on his keyboard for a few seconds and pulled up a new screen. 'Okay, here it is. Posted on… oh, Jesus.'

    'What is it?' Harley leaned closer to the monitor.

    'It was posted last night. This one may not have happened yet.'

Chapter Fifteen