"Amen to that," he said.
"Let's get out of here," I said. "I had a long, painful talk with Lacey last night. I wanna tell you what she–"
McGuire must have noticed that I'd come in, because he went to his office door and waved me over.
"Great," I said to Karl. "Well, let's go."
"Not sure I was included in the invitation."
"You are now," I said. "Come on – maybe you can intimidate Thorwald with your fangs."
"I've got something else I could intimidate her with," he said, getting to his feet. "But the boss probably wouldn't appreciate my whipping it out in his office."
"You mean your pistol."
"'Course I do," he said. "What else?"
McGuire's office wasn't built to accommodate five people comfortably, but then sometimes comfort's overrated.
I guess Thorwald didn't think so. "It's kind of cramped in here, so perhaps Detective Renfer could excuse us?"
"No, he couldn't," I said. "We work as a team, just like you and your partner."
"If it gets bad, I could always turn into mist and float above everybody," Karl said.
"You can really do that – create mist?" Greer asked him.
"Sure," Karl said. "Every time I fart."
"Let's cut the crap," McGuire said. "Agents Thorwald and Greer have been working on identifying the victims in the snuff videos," he said. I guessed the issue of Karl's presence was settled.
I looked at Thorwald. "Any luck?"
"At the Bureau, we don't believe in luck," she said. "But intelligence and hard work did pay some dividends, yes."
Looks like Greer wasn't the only one to complete the "How to Be a Federal Asshole" course.
I kept my mouth shut. Next to me, Karl muttered a word in my ear that sounded like "hunt", but probably wasn't.
Seeing that I wasn't going to rise to the bait, Thorwald said, "We have been able to identify three of the victims. None of them are from Scranton, which is why they didn't appear on your department's missing persons list. But only one of the three even had an MP report filed – by his mother, who lives in Arizona and became alarmed when her son never answered his phone or returned her calls. These are solitary men, which probably explains why they were marked for abduction by the snuff film makers."
She reached into her big leather bag and pulled out three manila folders. She put them, one at a time, on McGuire's desk.
"Albert Becht, 41, of Old Forge. Daniel Cossick, 29, of West Pittston. And Gregory Ryfa, 38, of Wilkes-Barre."
I noticed that the files didn't look very thick. But at least they were files, and they did have victims' names on them.
Thorwald pulled a notebook from the bag, opened it, and flipped some pages. "Becht was in video number 2 as the torture victim. Cossick and Ryfa both appeared in video number 3 – Cossick the possessed torturer, Ryfa the victim."
"Did they know each other?" Karl asked.
"We're working to determine that," she said. "Thus far, I'm inclined to say no. As I said, they tended to keep to themselves."
"Didn't they have jobs?" I asked her.
"No, they didn't. Cossick and Ryfa were both on public assistance, while Becht was living off a trust fund."
"Welfare and a trust fund," I said. "Can't get much more different than that."
"Naturally, we obtained warrants to search their residences," Thorwald said. "They each owned a personal computer, which isn't surprising. The hard drives have been removed and sent to Washington for analysis."
"So now you're looking for common factors," I said.
She nodded approvingly, as if the special needs kid had actually answered a question correctly in class. "Exactly. A cursory study of their homes doesn't tell us much. They shared the usual male interests – sports, beer, and pornography, but the last reflected nothing as extreme as the snuff films. Just the usual tits, ass, and gash."
I wondered if she'd used that last word to prove that she was really one of the guys, or to show her contempt for us.
"Oh, and they all seemed to have an interest in vampires," she added.
If I didn't know better, I'd have said it was chance that she happened to be looking at Karl when she said that last part.
"Lots of people do, from what I hear," Karl said evenly. He wasn't letting himself be provoked, either. "How'd you establish that as a common factor?"
"Different things that we found," Greer said. I guess he felt he was supposed to contribute something. "Books, DVDs, magazines, posters – stuff like that."
Karl nodded. "Makes sense to me. I assume you also checked the contents of their furniture – bureaus, and like that."
"Of course." Thorwald sounded mildly offended.
"Did all three of these guys, by any chance, have… a sock drawer?"
Thorwald gave McGuire a "See? Told you we should've kicked him out" look and said, "Is there some point that you're attempting to make, Detective?"
Karl shrugged. "Since they all have socks in common, I was just wondering if maybe we were dealing with a bunch of foot fetishists."
I tried to keep the smile from growing on my face, I really did. Greer appeared puzzled, and McGuire apparently felt the need to cough.
It's a pity that nobody took a photo of Thorwald's face right then. It would have been a perfect illustration in some dictionary, next to the definition of "Rage (barely suppressed)".
Before Thorwald could grab a pencil from the nearby desk and try to drive it through Karl's heart, McGuire said, a little louder than necessary, "Is there anything else we have to talk about here?"
"Well, there's one thing," I said. McGuire shot me a look that said, "This better not be something smart-ass." I went on, "I think I have an ID on the female victim in the latest snuff video."
Thorwald had her notebook out again before I'd even finished speaking. Fast hands. I hoped I'd never have to outdraw her – or try to.