Play To Kill

    '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 is five o'clock. Past five, in fact, and there's a terrific Irish pub a few blocks over with some great stuff on tap. If you're up for it, it might be an environment a little more conducive to establishing a productive working relationship. What do you say?'

    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 waitress and ordered hamburgers and onion rings. This was bar food - bad food - and he was salivating like Pavlov's dog waiting for it. He tried to remember the last time he'd stopped at a bar on the way home for a couple of brews and some saturated fat, and couldn't. 'You and my partner think alike.'

    'Is that good or bad?'

    'Bad. You've just given validity to his theory that it's a traveling serial killer taking advantage of a world-wide audience.'

    Dr. Chelsea Thomas shrugged out of her blue suit jacket and showed a white blouse with little frilly ruffles around the collar that interested Magozzi not at all, because Grace wasn't wearing it. 'Let's hope so.'

    'Excuse me?'

    'Look at it this way. Take your average serial or thrill killer. All that bullshit- ' she stopped abruptly and blinked. 'Oh dear. Sorry about the language.' She pushed her beer mug away. 'Anyway, all that dogma about killers waiting to get caught, wanting to get caught, makes people think they're remorseful and need to expunge their guilt. Pure nonsense. They're looking for the celebrity. Heck, some of them repeat like they were going for the Guinness Book of Records title for most hits, or most horrible hits, whatever. Trouble with a career like that is you can't show off how good you are.'

    'So this killer is looking for attention.'

    'Not attention. Fame. There's a big difference. Attention invites scrutiny, and, like I said, these sickos don't want to be caught. From the conception to the crime, to the fear they create in the public and the frustration they cause the cops, this whole process is all about power. But we're a visual society now. Headlines don't cut it because nobody reads anymore, and cops never show the butchered victims on the nightly news. Enter the Internet. "See what I did? See what I can do to you?"

    Magozzi actually felt his face crinkling up, which, for some inexplicable reason, made her smile again.

    'So. If serial killers can show their work on the Net, the power surge intensifies. The film is the new trophy. They don't have to cut off body parts or snatch bloody panties to hide in their walls. They don't have to escalate to garner attention, which is how we've always caught them. They deliver visual evidence to the whole world of what they do like some Hollywood mogul premiering a new movie, and we are never going to catch these people again.'