'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 vacuum had sucked the air out of it. 'Are you sure?' Magozzi finally asked.
'Positive. This sick bastard was pre-advertising and then he posted his trophy film to prove he did it.'
Chapter Twelve
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.'
Magozzi pointed at the file on her desk. 'You got our case summary, right?'
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 gypsy at my high school carnival that did a hell of a lot better than that.'
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
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 rocks off posting films of real murders on the Internet, and at least one of them advertised who they were going to kill ahead of time. If you're even close to human and you've read that file you've had a pretty goddamned bad day, too.'
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, and that's what frightens me. Whoever is posting these films is bragging'
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
