by PJ Tracy
‘I should have known this day was gonna suck the minute that asshole in the SUV gave me a shower. So what did she think about my traveling-serial-killer theory?’
Magozzi looked to the side with a pained expression. ‘That, believe it or not, would be the best-case scenario, just like you said. Unfortunately, she thinks it’s a disconnected group of killers talking to each other on the Web, playing some sick kind of one-upmanship game.’
‘Aw, man, Leo, that so sucks. Say it ain’t so.’ Gino cocked his head and listened. ‘On the bright side, do you hear AC/DC?’
Magozzi pulled his cell phone out of his breast pocket. ‘New ring tone.’
‘ “Highway to Hell.” How appropriate.’
‘Hang on, it’s Grace. Hey, Grace.’ He was quiet for a long time, his face growing darker the longer he listened. ‘Are you sure? Shit. Okay, read it to me and we’ll work it.’ He grabbed a pen and tablet and started scribbling furiously. ‘Got it. I’ll get back to you.’ He snapped his phone closed
Gino spun the tablet around and read what Magozzi had written. ‘Huh. Hello, of course that’s Minnesota. Big water, North Shore, hell, that’s Lake Superior, the Norwegian Riviera. Let me give old Ole Olssen a call. He’s been a Duluth cop for about a hundred years.’
Magozzi looked at him. ‘Tell me there’s not really an Ole Olssen in Duluth.’
‘Tons of them. Where’d you think the Ole-and-Lena jokes came from?’
‘And you know him because … ?’
‘He was down here for that BCA crime-scene deal last year, remember? I went to the stupid lectures and you went to the movies with Grace, thank you very much. Anyway, Ole and I bonded over krumkakke.’
‘I don’t know what that is.’
‘Those hollow cookie things the Swedes make, or maybe the Norwegians or the Dutch, damned if I know. Shit, they were good.’ He started punching numbers into the phone.
‘You know his number by heart?’
‘Yeah, we talk now and then.’ He raised his eyes and looked at Magozzi. ‘You said they found two more posts. What’s the other one?’
‘They’re working that one with the Feds. They don’t think it’s happened yet.’
Grace couldn’t explain it, not even to herself, and it was embarrassing. She missed her house. They all spent a lot of nights at Harley’s when they were working on a pressure deadline – it was a natural, comfortable thing. She had a guest room designated just for her, as they all did, with furniture, a stash of clothes, and everything in the world Harley thought would make her comfortable. But it wasn’t her house.
It was too big, for one thing; three nightmare stories of too many points of ingress and egress to watch; too many big open rooms that put you endless yards away from anyplace to hide. She could take a breath in her tiny house with its tiny rooms, steel doors, and barred windows, but here, she never felt really safe. Harley understood that, and occasionally reminded her that he had a gate across his driveway and enough weapons stashed to arm a small country. But he didn’t have enough security cameras; didn’t have a pressure pad on his front porch; didn’t even have a gun on his person at all times, or a wary eye and ear for anything out of order.
Harley couldn’t get over the silly idea that most people were basically good. He didn’t think the UPS guy was a terrorist, or that the mailman was a psychopath. None of them did. Only Grace.
‘Okay, okay,’ Harley filled the room with his voice in boom mode. ‘No liquor licenses in Portland with the name of Bert, which may not mean anything. Could be a grandfathered license that goes with the establishment instead of the current owner – Annie, can you check city of Portland ordinances, see how the licensing works?’
‘You got it.’ Annie clicked at her keyboard with fingers flat, so she didn’t chip her nails. They were still polished pearl to match the Gatsby outfit she’d worn yesterday instead of today’s maroon silk, a tragic measure of how quickly she’d been forced to make herself presentable when Roadrunner had wakened them in a panic. The jacket was feather-trimmed and cropped, the pants were wide and fluttery, and thank God she’d remembered the T-strap pumps or she would have looked totally undone. She focused on her task and blanked out Harley barking orders to the rest of them.
‘So Portland was the City of Roses – maybe too easy. Let’s do some free association. Forget the city’s nickname or moniker; what other cities bring roses to mind?’
‘Pasadena,’ Agent John Smith piped in. ‘The Rose Parade.’
‘Austin, surprisingly. They’ve got rose growers all over the place.’
‘Christ.’ Harley slapped his forehead. ‘Every rose I ordered for the back gardens came from Jackson and Perkins. Damn. Where the hell are they? Medford, Oregon. That’s it. Grace, can you check that out?’
‘I’m working another angle,’ Grace replied, never taking her eyes from her screen.
‘Okay, I’ll tackle that one …’
And so it went.
Ten minutes later Harley clapped his hands together and shouted, ‘Hallelujah! I got a Bert on a liquor license for Medford. Place is named Chesterfield’s.’
‘You have a number for Medford Police?’ John Smith had his cell phone flipped open, and started punching in numbers as Harley rattled them off.
Grace sighed and rolled her chair back from her desk, although she kept her eyes on the monitor. ‘Wait. You need to see this first.’
FBI Agent John Smith watched, mystified, as the others rose slowly from their stations and moved toward Grace’s desk. No questions, no uncertainty. If Grace MacBride said they needed to see something, they dropped what they were doing and moved. Grace’s screen was blacked out, her hand poised over the mouse. She looked up at them one by one. ‘Are you ready for this? It isn’t pretty.’
Smith said, ‘Go.’
The film was remarkably steady and clear; obviously not
‘Wait,’ Harley stabbed at the screen. ‘Does that say Chesterfield’s? Looks like a “C,” then an “H’ …’
‘We’ll check it later,’ Grace said. ‘Just watch.’
A woman came out of the door, closed and locked it behind her, then walked out into the lot. She paused once to look up at the sky and smile, then walked a few more steps forward and stopped dead.
‘She saw the camera,’ Annie whispered.
And then in the next split second, almost before they had time to process what they were seeing, a shadow moved into frame from the darkness at the side and the gleam of a knife appeared at the woman’s throat. They saw only a masculine arm wrapped around her shoulders, and the metal of the knife.
‘Jesus,’ Roadrunner whispered.
‘Don’t,’ the woman said, and the camera saw her eyes, and the tears welling. ‘Don’t hurt me.’ And then, bizarrely, ‘It’s my birthday.’
‘This is horrible,’ Harley said quietly, and then their eyes flickered as the action on the film stuttered forward. There was a struggle, a short scream, and at the end of the fevered action, the woman was on the asphalt with her knees folded sideways, a massive choke chain around her neck, a leash attached to it. She gagged as the leash was pulled and the collar tightened, then she was dragged out of frame.
Grace held up one finger as the film wobbled and then jerked wildly. ‘He’s repositioning the camera for the next scene.’
And now they saw the woman sitting in front of a small car, her knees tucked up to her chest, her arms spread in a cross, tied to the bumper. The leash was fastened to pull her head backwards, exposing her neck. The man’s back came into view as he approached her, the flash of the knife swishing back and forth, threatening her, coming closer and closer while the camera watched, and the woman, God bless her, made no sound. The tears streamed down her cheeks, reflecting in the light of the security lamp overhead, but she was in the moment, watching her assailant, ready to fight, and waiting for her time.
Annie closed her eyes.
‘Don’t, Annie,’ Grace said quietly. ‘You’ll miss who she
is.’
The woman sat curled on the pebbled surface of the parking lot, watching the knife swish back and forth, closer and closer to her neck, but by God she wasn’t going to give this bastard the satisfaction of seeing her terror, and when the moment came, her cowboy-booted foot kicked out and connected between her assailant’s legs, and with his squeal of pain a triumphant exhalation spilled out of her mouth.
‘God DAMN you stupid smelly BITCH!’
And now Grace closed her eyes, because she’d already seen what came next. She’d already seen the flash of the knife at the woman’s throat and the spill of blood that flooded her neck, and she didn’t want to see it again. Ever.
‘You got him,’ a gravelly voice replied. ‘Chief Frost here, and – mister, I’ve got my hands full this morning. Can I get back to you?’
‘I don’t think so, Chief Frost. I’ll fill you in on the back story later; for right now, I’m advising you of a homicide committed in your district last night at a place called Chesterfield’s.’
There was silence on the other end of the line for a long moment. ‘Who did you say you were?’
‘Special Agent Smith of the—’
‘I’m going to have to verify that with a callback to your office.’
Smith winced. ‘I’m not actually in my office at the moment …’
‘Uh-huh. Well, where are you now, Mr. Smith? Perhaps we could meet and have a little talk in person.’
Smith never lost his temper. You weren’t allowed to do that in the Bureau, but this yahoo was wasting precious time …
‘He thinks you’re a nutcase,’ Grace said.
‘Or the killer,’ Annie added.
Grace picked up the receiver on her phone. ‘Chief Frost?
‘Oh, hey. Yeah. It was delivered yesterday. Thanks for that. But I’m a little confused here. First I’m talking to some guy claiming to be a Fed, now somehow you’re on the line …’
‘He is a Fed, Chief. He’s in our office and we have you on speaker. We’re working with the Bureau on some homicides with a Web connection, and we just finished watching a film of a murder in the parking lot of Chesterfield’s.’
‘You just watched the film? You mean, like, a movie?’
‘It’s on the Internet.’
‘Okay, sorry, but this is a little hard to believe …’
Grace closed her eyes. ‘The woman was tied to the front bumper of a Ford Tempo and her throat was slashed.’
‘Jesus.’
‘Listen, Chief, we’ll e-mail you the details as soon as we hang up, but right now you need to get your men out there to contain the murder scene while it’s still fresh, and Agent Smith wants the local FBI in on the investigation.’
Chief Frost sighed and cleared his throat. ‘I got no problem with the Feds joining in, but there’s no murder. There was an attack, but the woman survived, at least so far. She’s in ICU, hanging on by a thread – and I want a copy of that film right now.’
The downpour had finally stopped and the sun was peeking out between the lingering shreds of storm clouds by the time Gino got his return call from Ole Olssen. They started out the conversation by continuing their recipe argument, which didn’t sound like it would end anytime soon, so Magozzi took the opportunity to get up and move his body.
He was almost to the front door of City Hall when Chelsea Thomas suddenly hurried in, carrying a laptop. She was wearing her hair down today, and there were streaks of platinum in it that he hadn’t noticed yesterday when it had been coiled up in a bun. She caught sight of him and gave him a slight smile, but her eyes were troubled. ‘Do you have a moment?’ she asked without preamble.
‘Of course.’
Her expression turned sheepish. ‘First of all, I’m really sorry about last night …’
‘I’m not.’
‘I’ve never been able to hold my liquor. It’s one of my many flaws.’
‘Some men might consider that an asset.’
The smile flashed, then disappeared again. She was FBI this morning. ‘Is there someplace private we could talk?’
‘Would an empty interrogation room work?’
Gino was still talking to Ole Olssen as the pair passed through Homicide, and his brows shot up curiously when he saw Chelsea. ‘The guy on the phone is my partner, Gino Rolseth.’
Chelsea gave him a little wave, and Gino beamed at her, the way he always did whenever he saw a pretty face. ‘He needs to be in on this.’
Magozzi raised his brows, then pointed at Gino and jerked his thumb toward the interrogation room. Gino held up one finger and nodded. As they settled into chairs and waited for Gino, Magozzi said, ‘I was actually going to call you. I assume you know that Monkeewrench found pre-posts on all five of your murders, plus our river bride and two more you don’t have bodies for yet.’
She folded her lips together and glanced at the doorway. ‘Things are changing fast, but I’d like to wait for your partner so we only have to do this once.’
Gino appeared in the doorway, approached Chelsea with his hand extended. ‘Gino Rolseth. And you’re FBI.’
Chelsea stood up and shook his hand, reminding Gino that he was older than she was, and that once there was a time when standing to greet an elder was a sign of respect. ‘How did you know?’
‘Gotta tell you, you don’t look like a Fed, but the suit’s a dead giveaway.’
She tipped her head and gave him a deadpan look. ‘I have a python miniskirt at home.’
Gino’s brows crept up a notch. ‘A Fed with a python miniskirt. That kind of gives me reason to live.’
Chelsea walked to the door and closed it, then started unpacking her laptop. ‘I understand both of you saw the Cleveland film.’
Gino slumped into a chair and grunted. ‘Yeah, and we’re still wishing we hadn’t.’
She nodded. ‘Agent Smith and I have agreed that you should see the rest of the films.’
‘Oh, yippee.’
‘We’d like a homicide detective’s perspective on the scenes. A fresh eye. Also, Agent Smith said you’d all agreed to share information.’
Gino raised his brows ‘Whoa. We thought he was kidding. Well, now that we’re all warm and fuzzy and playing nice, here’s something for you to take back to Smith. One of the pre-posts Monkeewrench found involved a possible homicide up north …’
‘City of Big Water. That was the old one from January, right?’
‘Right. I don’t know if anyone’s had a chance to look for posted film on that, but Grace asked us to check with the locals up there, see if we could match a body.’ He flipped open his notebook. ‘So I just got off the phone with my guy
Chelsea made a face. ‘Decapitation by barbed wire is “standard stuff ”?’
‘Happens all the time. I take it you didn’t grow up here.’
‘Southern California.’
‘There you go. Anyhow, nothing happened on any golf course, either, which we figured would fit with the “hole in one” message in the post. But here’s something interesting. On February 1st, about thirty miles north of Duluth, they found a snowshoer dead at the bottom of a cliff on the North Shore of Lake Superior.’
Magozzi said, ‘Sounds like another accident to me.’
‘That’s what I thought, but then Ole told me the guy was impaled on one of those ice spikes they get up there when the wind blows into shore.’
Magozzi grimaced. ‘Poor bastard.’
‘Actually, not really, according to Ole. The guy did time twice for child molestation. A real scumbag, and I hope he suffered. Anyhow, the cop Ole talked to said it looked like somebody had taken a big donut holer to him once they pulled him off the spike. Colorful language, huh?’
Magozzi’s face went still. ‘Hole in one.’
‘Exactly what I was thinking. Of course, there were never any suspects because it was ruled accidental, but given the guy’s past, there could actually be a lot of suspects. They’re going to beat the bushes for us and do interviews
Chelsea was sitting very quietly at the table, looking down at her lap as she listened to two homicide cops talk horror shop.
‘Are you okay?’
She glanced up to see Magozzi’s look of concern. ‘Fine.’ She flipped open her computer, then pulled up a list of the pre-posts and spun the screen to face Gino and Magozzi. ‘Look at these – exactly as they appeared on the message boards.’ She watched their expressions change as they read and reread the list. ‘Revealing, isn’t it?’
‘Hmph,’ Gino grunted, squinting at the screen. ‘Look at that. They all start with city of something, and they’ve all got typos in the same places. Like a signature, almost, which is pretty compelling support for my traveling-serial-killer theory.’
Chelsea gave Gino a look he couldn’t read, but it felt like he’d been slapped by a kitten. ‘You need to see all the films now. Watch them as if you were responding to the crime scene, investigating.’
After fifteen brutal minutes watching human beings kill other human beings, Magozzi felt like somebody had taken a donut-holer to him. ‘Jesus.’
Gino put his head down and rubbed his eyes, as if to wipe away the unpleasant visuals that were flashing behind them. ‘No way all those were done by the same killer.’
Chelsea nodded like a teacher who had heard the correct
Magozzi winced. ‘Oh, Christ. There’s a new one?’
‘There were two warning posts without a corresponding video showing up on line, remember?’
‘Yeah,’ Gino said. ‘Our North Shore Popsicle was one of them.’
Chelsea flinched a little at the phrasing. ‘Yes. The other was “City of Roses, Bert’s barmaid, near deer,” posted just last night, so Monkeewrench went after it full bore, thinking there might be a chance to save a potential victim. Unfortunately, they found the film on MySpace this morning.’
Gino rubbed at his eyes again, half-hoping he could blur his vision so he didn’t have to see too much. ‘So why does this film clinch the multiple-killer angle?’
