Play To Kill

    He tapped his finger on the screen. 'Look. Every single name. All seven of the Web murder victims. This is completely off the chain.'

    They all looked over Harley's shoulder and read:

    Richard Groth, Duluth, Minnesota.

    Elmore Sweet, Cleveland, Ohio.

    Cy Robertson, Chicago, Illinois.

    Evan Eichinger, Seattle, Washington.

    Sean Pasternak, Los Angeles, California.

    Gregory Quandt, Austin, Texas.

    Alan Sommers, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

    'Where on God's green earth did you find this, Harley?' Annie asked.

    'Better you should ask how, because I was friggin' brilliant. Huttinger visited this creepy Ilovetokill.com website a lot, so I signed into the site - and this is the brilliant part - typed in a few of the vie names. This is the thread that popped up. AND… the date on the thread is December of last year, over a month and a half before the first murder.'

    'Shift back in the thread, Harley,' Annie told him. 'What comes before the list?'

    'Okay, I'm going to give you the Cliffs Notes, because the thread's about twenty miles long. Basically it's a bunch of freaks bragging about how many people they've killed, how they killed them, what they did to them before and after they killed them… it just goes on and on. But then one of the posters who calls himself 'Killer' - real creative, huh? - says, 'I've killed twenty so far this year, and I'm shooting for twenty more. I'll kill anybody anywhere just for fun.''

    Annie made a face. 'Sounds like some sick psycho blowing a lot of hot air.'

    Harley shrugged. 'Maybe, but then a new guy popped up, and get this: his handle on the website is Hole In One.'

    Roadrunner's mouth dropped open. 'Jesus. That was in the post of the first murder, the one up north.'

    'Bingo. Now look at the single line he posted before typing in all the names and locations.' He scrolled up to the top of the hit list, one line below Killer's post about killing anybody anywhere.

    Hole In One: Bullshit, Killer. Prove it.

  Start at the top.

    Roadrunner was shaking his head. 'I take it these guys are untraceable.'

    'Good guess, little buddy. We are never, ever going to be able to find these people.'

    'Not this way,' Roadrunner said.

    Annie looked at him. 'You know another way?'

    Roadrunner shrugged modestly. 'I had a thought.'

Chapter Thirty-eight

    Magozzi, Gino, and McLaren were back in front of the Homicide TV the next morning, watching none other than their very own Dr. Chelsea Thomas chewing up the scenery on one of the big morning news shows. Aside from her impressive intellect, which came through clearly and unpretentiously over the airwaves as she elucidated the dangers of suggestible, unsupervised youth, the viral nature of the Web, and other stirring and salient topics, she definitely had the 'it' factor. And probably along with the rest of America, the hosts were eating her up like a bonbon. Magozzi figured she'd have her own talk show by noon.

    McLaren was mesmerized, but Gino was fidgeting and fussing like he always did when ruminating over some dire injustice. Magozzi steeled himself for the rampage he knew was coming.

    'Holy shit,' McLaren chuckled in amazement. 'Did you guys just hear that? She's, like, descended from Hollywood royalty. No wonder she's so good on camera.'

    Gino narrowed his eyes. 'Yeah, I heard it. And what a crime that is. She's smarter than hell, she's making great points, and those hacks just have to march out the celebrity-frigging-angle. They're goddamned living examples of what she's warning them about. And, to her credit, she looks pissed off about it.'

    She did look pissed off. 'That's actually a good point, Gino,' Magozzi complimented him.

    'Thank you, Leo. And you know what else is really stupid about this? Everything we thought we were going to accomplish by sewing this thing up nice and fast and publicizing the hell out of it is circling the drain right now. Nobody's talking about anything else on the whole planet and those two little fuckers got the rock star moment they were looking for. They probably already have agents negotiating interview deals for them.'

    'They're going to prison, Gino,' Magozzi reminded him. 'Twenty-four hours ago they were dreaming about freshman keg parties at the U of M this fall, and now they're staring down hard time at a Federal pen. I don't think that's the rock star moment they were looking for.'

    'Oh yeah? Just you wait - they'll get all fluffed and buffed for the courtroom and their scumbag lawyers will throw down the bright-young-men, second-chance card, and some bleeding-heart jury's gonna go easy because it'll be stacked with parents who can envision their own feral offspring doing something just as stupid. It's a total washout as far as I'm concerned, it's gonna happen again somewhere else, and probably sometime soon, and meanwhile, nobody remembers that there are films of actual murders getting posted on the Web, and a few pesky maniacs out there playing games with human lives so they can brag to their little cyber- freak buddies about it online.' He took a deep breath. 'It's complete and utter bullshit, and I'm going back to my desk, because there are seven unsolveds that are riding shotgun right now, when they should be driving'

    McLaren stopped drooling over Chelsea Thomas for two seconds and regarded Gino with a candid eye. 'You're really negative this morning, Rolseth.'

    Yeah. I am.' The great thing about Gino was that once he got something off his chest, it was business as usual. 'By the way, how did your date go last night?'

    McLaren gave them a vague shrug, but didn't offer any more information, which both Magozzi and Gino took as a good sign. With a guy like McLaren, who ran off at the mouth about how every woman he'd never met wanted to be his love slave, silence was telling. Maybe the little leprechaun might have something going after all.

    John Smith was gazing out the Monkeewrench office window at the same tree that had recently inspired genocidal frog thoughts in him. As ambivalent as he'd always been towards any sort of flora, he realized he'd grown genuinely fond of this particular tree in the past few days, and he was going to be sorry to leave it.

    'What the hell, Smith?' Harley bellowed from the other side of the room, where he and the rest of Monkeewrench were still working. You hung up with Washington five minutes ago and you're still staring out the window. Did your boss in D.C. put you in a fugue state of boredom, or is there a naked centerfold out there I should know about?'

    Smith smiled a little, then put on his game face before he turned around. 'I've been called back to Washington. My flight is tomorrow afternoon.' Suddenly, he had four solemn pairs of eyes on him, and he had no idea how to respond to that.

    'Seriously?' Roadrunner finally asked.

    'Yes.'

    The room stayed silent for a few moments, until Harley put his jackboots up on the ledge of his desk and pushed away with a big grin. 'Well, then, my friend, tonight is the night for those belly dancers and cigars I promised you. We're gonna send you out in style.'

    Smith nodded graciously. 'I appreciate your generosity, but I do have things to attend to…'

    Yeah, yeah, yeah. You have to get back to your shit-bag motel and prepare for a debriefing, whatever. Do it hung- over on the plane tomorrow, dude. Tonight, you're ours.'

    Smith's mind quickly flashed through his time spent here with these strange and brilliant people, and every slippery- slope step he'd taken along the way; then he thought again about the tree and the frogs and the bad people he was fighting, hand in hand with good people who seemed to have their own definition of justice, and their own way of administering it.