him a doggy massage, and then realized that Grace hadn't said anything for a while. He looked up to see her staring at him. What?'
She reached for his glass and took a sip, which was frightening. Grace hated whiskey. 'Nothing, really. Probably just a coincidence. We pulled a staged drowning off one of the fetish sites this morning, with a victim in a wedding dress. But it wasn't real.'
'How do you know?'
We did some tinkering with the resolution. Turns out it wasn't a bride at all. Just some guy in a wedding dress and a wig'
Magozzi closed his eyes.
Gino had a belly full of Angela's lasagna, a glass of terrific Chianti at his side, the Twins game on the big screen, and the massage cushion on shiatsu mode. Maybe there was some guy in the world who had it better than he did at the moment, but he couldn't imagine who it would be.
'Daddy?'
Such a gentle whisper from the doorway, somehow attached to the corners of the mouth so he smiled every time he heard it. 'Hey, kiddo. Have a seat. Top of the ninth and a tie ball game.'
'Whoopee.' Helen sat in the chair next to him. She was almost sixteen, and scary beautiful. This year she'd go to her first prom with some sweaty-palmed, hormone-heavy scuzzball teenager who had pimples on his face and probably a condom in his wallet, and Gino was pretty sure he'd never survive the experience.
'Okay, Daddy. Why did you try to put a block on YouTube?'
Gino closed his eyes. 'Not just YouTube. I blocked MySpace, MyPage, a bunch of others. Took me hours.'
Yeah, I know. You kind of suck at it, though.'
'Excuse me?'
Your blocks were lame, Daddy. You want me to show you how to do it?'
What do you mean my blocks were lame? I followed the instructions to the letter.'
Helen actually patted his head. He loved it when she did that, and he hated it. It was affection and patronization, all at the same time. 'A toddler could have busted through those blocks. You have to work on your computer skills.'
Gino jabbed the mute button and wished he'd been born a hundred years before that jerk had gone into his garage and decided that personal computers were the future. Some fucking future. Sex and snuff films in every kid's bedroom. Christ. 'Computers are evil. Spawn of Satan. The downfall of civilization, and I don't want you online ever again.'
Helen giggled, which was humiliating.
'Seriously, Helen. There are things popping on those sites I blocked-'
'Tried to block.'
'Whatever. There are things on those sites I don't want you to see.'
'Okay.'
'Okay, what?'
'You don't have to block the sites, Daddy. Just tell me to stay off them and I will.'
'Really?'
She smiled and bent to kiss his forehead, which was what her mother did when she thought he was being endearingly stupid. 'Really. Nite-nite.'
The phone rang before her slippered feet hit the top step.
'Rolseth.'
'Film of our waterlogged boy bride was posted to the Web last night.'
'No way.'
'I'm looking at it on Grace's computer right now.'
Who is this?'
'We've got a homicide, Gino. This shows the guy being held underwater, struggling, and then the bubbles stop.'
'Oh, man.'
'And if Anant's time of death was even close, this film was posted either from the river, or real close. The scene is still hot enough to give us a chance, so pray the bad boy's on camera somewhere with his arm around our bride while you put on your dancing shoes. We'll start with the Tiara Club.'
Gino shifted longing eyes to his glass of Chianti. 'Thanks for the invite, Leo, but I've had a bit of wine. Can't drive. You take it.'
'I'll pick you up in twenty minutes.'
Gino hung up the phone and sighed. Lord. He hadn't been to the Tiara Club since he'd dogged dealers when he was still a beat cop. He hated drag queens. They always hit on him.
Chapter Eight
Gino was standing on the sidewalk with a glass of wine when Magozzi pulled up to the curb. 'There's a city ordinance against drinking on the streets, you know.'
Gino drained the glass and set it under a bush. 'I wasn't on the street. I was on my own front walk which I laid with my own two hands on my own property, drinking my own Chianti. Damn stuff cost thirty bucks a bottle, and I wasn't about to toss it down the sink.' He got into the car and took a breath. 'Maybe the film you saw wasn't our guy. Maybe we're jumping the gun here, because Tommy was showing us all that crap and it was in your head, so…'
Magozzi shoved a photo under Gino's nose and turned on the map light.
'Oh shit. That's our scene.'
'That's just a few frames from the film.'
'Jeez, Leo, what's going on here?'
Magozzi raised a brow. Gino never asked that question. He looked at a homicide and laid out the whole murder scenario within seconds. He was always wrong, of course, but at least he was sorting through the reasons that were always behind a killing. Except maybe this time there weren't any reasons that made sense.
Gino was quiet for a long spell, which was scary, and then he started talking a mile a minute. 'So we've got Cleveland, but that was a beating, and probably a hate crime. That leaves us with four other murders on the Web, and now Minneapolis. What did Grace say? A stabbing, two shootings, and a strangulation, right? And then our drowning here. I've got it. I know what's going on.'
Magozzi sighed. 'What?' he finally asked against his better judgment.
We've got ourselves a traveling serial killer. Like maybe a truck driver, crossing the country. Or a traveling salesman. He goes from city to city, does his thing, and takes pictures. He gets his jollies by posting his dirty deeds on the Web, leaves town, and that's it. Kind of like Willy Loman, except he kills people.'
'A Willy Loman serial killer.'
'Sure, why not? He'd be damn near impossible to track – he's moving, practically undocumented, and he doesn't stay in any one place for long, so he's opportunistic. The victims are all different, and so are the MOs, out of sheer necessity. Like the Railroad Killer back in '97, remember? Hopped the freights, offed any convenient victim at a stop, hopped on the next freight, and away he went.'
Magozzi sighed. 'That guy was an anomaly.'
'Or a maybe a forecast of things to come.'
'Serial killers aren't usually equal-opportunity types.'
'That one was. Killed men, women, young, old, doctors, college kids, whoever was there, using whatever weapon was handy.'
'The profilers said he was one in a million. The exception to the rule.'
'Profile-schmofile. The world is changing. Maybe the killers are, too. So maybe our guy's not your classic bed- wetting, fire-starting sociopath who kills prostitutes because he can't kill his mother, but that doesn't mean he's not
