Play To Kill

    '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 a psycho with serious bloodlust who found a great gig. We have to take a closer look at those other murders. Hell, we play our cards right, we could have this thing sewn up by noon tomorrow.'

    'Okay,' Magozzi humored his partner.

    'You're not buying my theory, are you?'

    'It's a fine theory.'

    Gino lifted his chin, out of pride or indignation, Magozzi wasn't sure. Yes, it is a fine theory. And it totally explains why the Feds are jumping this like hyenas on a crippled water buffalo. You've got interstate crime, cyber crime, and a serial killer all balled up into one.'

Crippled water buffalo? 'You've been watching the National Geographic Channel during Food Network commercial breaks, haven't you?'

    'Scoff if you will, but this time I've got it nailed down. Go ahead. Try to poke a hole in it.'

    'Some of the murder films were posted to different sites.'

    Gino blew a raspberry. 'So what? The guy's a brainiac. He knows damn well the more he posts to one site, the more vulnerable he'll be to tracking. He's crossing all the t's.'

    'Okay. Serial killers generally stick to the same MO because they get particular satisfaction from it. The method is important to them.'

    'Wasn't important to the Railroad Killer.' Gino smiled, basking in the glory of his breakthrough. It wasn't often that he could point to a precedent to support his silly theories. 'Damn, I should drink Chianti more often when I'm trying to work this stuff out. It's like liquid muse.'

    'There's a couple other possibilities.'

    'Oh yeah? Dazzle me.'

    'People post crap on the Web every day. Everybody wants their fifteen minutes. Why not murderers? Which means none of these killings are necessarily related.'

    'Goddamnit, Leo, you're raining on my parade, 'cause that kind of makes sense. The Paris Hiltons of homicide.'

    'On the other hand…'

    You like the serial theory better.'

    'No. I was thinking of something else. Remember the I-94 drownings? Forty-some, mostly college kids on a toot falling into whatever river was handy.'

    Gino squirmed in his seat. You think you gotta remind me of that nightmare? We got the only one that finally went off the accidental list.'

    'So you also remember the NYPD dicks spending their retirement investigating all those drownings…'

    'Don't even bring that shit up, Leo.'

    'Can't help it. Those cops, who probably know a lot of things the rest of us don't, made a pretty good case for a nationwide network of killers, instead of one.'

    Gino folded his hands and rubbed his thumbs together. His grandfather had done that with an almost obsessive regularity, whenever he sat idle in the rocking chair that squeaked while he looked around at the progeny who had come for the annual awkward visit. You don't want to go there, Leo. I don't want to go there.'

    'You're right about that. But we have to consider it. I asked Grace to take a look at the timeline on those murders the Feds pulled off the Web.'

    'Excellent move. Unless any of them happened on the same day, my theory is still golden.'

    'Then you better start praying your theory sucks. If this guy's a traveler, he's gone. If he's local, we've got a shot.'

    'Yeah. There is that,' Gino sighed, watching out the window as the shiny city on the prairie deteriorated block by block.

    The Tiara was in a crusty fringe neighborhood that clung to the hem of downtown's posh skirt, existing mostly below the radar, unless you were a hipster or a drag queen. For years, the city council had been trying to sanitize this river- adjacent chunk of turf with future revenue in mind, but for some reason the gentrification spitballs never quite stuck.

    'Look at this shit-box neighborhood, Leo. When I was a kid we used to walk this street on the way to the Saturday- night horror flicks at the Majestic. Worst thing you ever saw was winos drinking Mad Dog in doorways. Now look at it. You can practically spit to the Mississippi from here, and what do you have? Chop shops, heroin balloons, busted streetlights… If the city council had half a brain between the bunch of them, they'd steamroll this place and put up about fifty Starbucks.'